Maggie Fleming is a member of the Rideau Lakes Horticultural Society and the daughter of one of its Founding Fathers. Her photos are beautiful, her captions are inspiring, and her knowledge of flora and fauna instructs on the natural world of the Rideau Lakes and now, Nova Scotia.
Welcome, friend, and enjoy!
We dream of idyllic summers and we remember them. This is such a summer. The days slip by from perfection to perfection. Bright skies when I need them most and rain when the earth most needs it. To choose between a woodland trail beside a lake or a rocky trail by the sea is a choice I really did not know I would have at this time of my life. The bogs and wetlands at Porters Lake Park are full of life and mystery. The sphagnum so deep I wondered fleetingly if it was quick sand in drag.
At Clam Harbour the sea side trail leads across majestic rocks and between rocks I can find crabs but in the soft warm sand I found a flying fish struggling to get back to the sea. A razor clam swiftly retrieved from my pocket provided it carriage back to deep water and provided me with a dandy soaker.
This third perfect day in a row began its unfolding like the second day of the three. The weather had not changed but my activity had. The first day of this sequence I drove to the city and got my Nova Scotia Drivers Licence and license plates. I had been putting that off since I moved here. One day was too fog ridden for me to drive into the city, the next too glorious to leave this place that daily enriches me, and offers up curiosities commanding exploration.
Yesterday I rolled over in bed to see the sun rising in what would become an azure sky. I explained to Molly that it was high time for me to get out in my kayak on Bell Lake and so I left her for a couple of hours as I paddled the seamless water and watched Osprey, Kingbirds, Ducks and Loons. It is a rare privilege to be on a motor free lake and I savoured it with every dip of my paddle and slip of my kayak. After returning home Molly and I headed out to Martinique. There I beheld something I have never seen before nor have the locals with whom I spoke. There were dozens and dozens and dozens of Quahogs beached. I followed the lead of the locals (of which I am now one in a manner of speaking) and filled a grocery bag with the poor Quahogs rationalizing that they would die anyway. I watched a gull fly high and drop its quarry to the hardened sand below. After it was through with the beleaguered creature, Sanderlings finished cleaning the fractured shell.
Once home I cooked the Quahogs, cleaned them and made stuffed Quahog treats for myself.
The unfolding of this day was the same as yesterday: a perfect dawn, a 2 hour paddle, home to Molly and out to Martinique to find once again droves of Quahogs. Here my day took a different turn. Grocery bag in hand I loaded it up four times with the unfortunate Quahogs, walked as far out into the warm surf as my shorts would allow and threw them as far back into the water as I could. A passerby commented. “I have just finished doing the same thing. I threw until my arm was tired. My husband says that there is a sand ridge out in front of the beach that surf must have changed and so the Quahogs got flushed to shore.” I thanked her for that information but knew of course that had nothing to do with it. The Quahog gods were warring and their minions now lay at our feet.
Bell Lake taken a week or so ago
My dear old Kayak that took me on many journeys while living on the St.Lawrence now on its rack a foot-fall from the house I am building
