On the Fringes of Wilderness

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Shots from one corner of the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area, near the Colins Road trailhead for the Hobsons Lake Trail. These look like shots from the deep woods but are really no more than a minute from a suburban cul de sac in Bedford NS. The Wilderness Area extends quite a ways from here; these are just the fringes.

Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area
Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area
Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area

Near the trailhead, a dog poop bag dispenser that says “Poop happens” in English, and “The needs, they are normal” in French.

Poop happens

A nearby chair reminds us that this is native land.

You are on native land

More on the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area. I want to explore the trails around here more in the future.

Birches Park

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Some peaceful shots from around Birches Park in Portland Estates, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on the other side of Morris Lake from the Kiwanis Park in Cole Harbour:

Calm waters of Morris Lake, lined by evergreen trees under a clear sunny sky.
Path through grassy park with a bench, gazebo and lake in distance

Plus maps of the park and connecting Portland Lakes Greenway trail system:

Birches Park map
Portland Lakes Trails Map

Bonus dragonfly!

Dragonfly with gossamer wings rests on warm sunlit concrete path

Was a decent park with nice views, and for the kid, multiple playgrounds all a short walk from each other, including dual playgrounds at the nearby school.

Canadian Thanksgiving 2023

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Another Canadian October Thanksgiving at home, with this “naturally inspired” Butterball turkey for roasting. (As usual, just a small roaster kit-type turkey breast, as it’s just us and a full turkey would be too much.)

Naturally inspired boneless seasoned turkey breast

Serve with some Stove Top stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, peas, corn, beans, and a little croissant, and there’s Thanksgiving dinner for you.

Thanksgiving Dinner 1 (Canada October)

Follow up with some freshly picked apples.

Apple with leaves

Happy [Canadian] Thanksgiving.

More Apple Picking at Noggins

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Returned to Noggins Corner for more apple picking. (Previously.)

How an Apple Grows

But first, the much-anticipated children’s play area, and a walk around the corn maze (same as last year, we just did the kiddie mini-maze off in the corner, as the main corn maze was a huge all-day affair)

Noggins Corner Farm Corn Maze

For actual apple picking, this time around we favoured the Cox Orange variety, a small, sweet-and-slightly-tangy, firm and crisp apple, great for dessert or snacking by itself. (Though I find after too many the mouthfeel starts to get a bit mealy, so all in moderation.)

Cox Orange Apple Sign
Apples in a tree
Rows of apple trees

A little nose note: there was poop smell in the area as the wind was just right to carry over odours from the dairy farm — pretty standard for any farm, of course — but we found that our CA99 masks for respiratory protection doubled as effective odour filters, perfectly blocking the fragrance of cow poop, so those were good to have.

More photos in the photoset, Apple Picking at Noggins Corner (Sep 2023).

Cats Sharing Chairs and Sunbeams

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Smoky and Amelia being nice and cuddling together on the IKEA POANG armchair:

Smoky #kitten and Amelia #cat
Smoky #kitten and Amelia #cat

And from a few days back, sharing an afternoon sunbeam:

Smoky #kitten and Amelia #cat

And a couple golden-hour closeups of Smoky:

Smoky #kitten Smoky #kitten

Hey Blue Jay

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Blue Jay perched on swing set bar Same Blue Jay but looking in another direction

Look at this inquisitive blue jay that landed on the swing set in the backyard and watched me for a bit while I was working outside. (They know I give the local crows peanuts sometimes and as fellow corvids will occasionally swoop in to steal some.)

Clued Down

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Joined some friends in Halifax for a “CluedUpp” game, kind of a PokemonGo-like fairytale-themed augmented reality app scavenger hunt around the city. Amusingly the game producers appear to not have taken into account that the main quest giver’s virtual location on the Grand Parade was the site of a real life military ceremony the same day, making one of the waypoints inaccessible for a bit. (Note the homeless encampments.)

Halifax Grand Parade

En route to other waypoints I paused a bit to appreciate this message on a traffic light pole.

Trans People Belong Everywhere

After we’d finished* with the game we walked along the waterfront a bit, where souvenir shirts were on sale.

Halifax waterfront souvenir shirts

* We didn’t actually finish the game. The theme of this one was “Beauty and the Beast,” with a bunch of other fairytale crossovers, and it got a bit tiring with lots of tedious text-heavy storyline between the AR waypoints. At some point we lost interest and just went to get food and go for a walk. Seems other CluedUpp players were disappointed too, though others went all out and even dressed up in costumes.