how now brownpau
Turns out you can totally get dog toys for an especially rowdy kitten to play with. Here’s Smoky with a DogIt Baby Giraffe Rope Toy
…and a Fat Cat Classic Incredible Strapping Yankers Trout:
Even Amelia got interested in the trout:
(Sadly I have been unable to find a Rowdy Trout.)
Hi from the beach.
And later that day, hi from the fair.
And I guess that’s why Nova Scotia is “Canada’s Ocean Playground.”
Neighbour’s kids found these dark-eyed junco chicks in a nest on the ground under a toy in their backyard:
The bird mom hovered nearby, chirping aggressively. Wondering if she’s the same junco that was hanging around our backyard a lot last year.
Another day of picking strawberries on a U-Pick farm up in the Annapolis Valley.
We also walked along the beach at Blomidon Provincial Park on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, and went up to Blomidon Lookoff for ice cream and a scenic valley view.
As I mentioned when we got her, Smoky was advertised as being a Maine Coon mix, of which I’m somewhat doubtful: it’s a fairly well-controlled breed, she doesn’t have the size or weight, and her ears lack long end tufts. But sometimes she will turn her head just so and her face and eyes take on this extremely feral look, and the large, strong snout and whiskers become prominent, and I think, hmm, maybe there is more than a bit of Maine Coon in there.
This guy is now seven. Seven!
Peeking out from the deck at the neighbours.
Smoky is very flexible and is able to bend through non-Euclidean space.
She got in my pants.
She’s kicking and biting my hand. (Note the older wound, also from her.)
Cuddling up to Amelia on an IKEA POANG armchair.
Second vet visit went well.
I continue to collect more photos of Smoky’s first year here.
We were at a small get-together in a neighbour’s backyard when I noticed the sunlight had gone dark orange, and we looked up in the sky and saw the smoke over Halifax.
Conrad’s Beach is a bit east of us along the Eastern Shore of NS, though not as far as Lawrencetown Beach. It’s a bit tucked away at the end of a rural road with not much parking, so we haven’t been there yet, but I wanted to give it a look.
Weirdly the sign says “Conrod’s Beach” with an o, but our maps apps and every site I’ve checked calls it “Conrad’s” and it’s at the end of Conrad Road. (There’s a Conrod’s Beach farther east in Lower East Chezzetcook, so maybe the sign printers just got confused.)
It’s a very nice, sandy beach, might be worth a visit one of these summers if we can luck into a parking spot.
After dropping off some stuff at Value Village I noticed some kind of ship with a huge crane docked just off Woodside. Apparently this was the Offshore Installation Vessel Orion, loading up parts for an offshore wind farm.
