Late Fall, Oddly Warm

 

Bedroom window, foggy fall morning

What a difference a couple of weeks makes. While the weather has remained unseasonably warm, fall leaf drop moves ahead. We've also had a good bit of morning fog lately.

I came home to harvest the last two Very Small eggplant (for soup, I think!), and the herbs, except for the basil, are still hanging in there. Leaves need to be raked, but most of the other fall chores are now done. Gutters cleared (ready for snow and ice!), the new garage drain cleared and ready, and leaves waiting to be blown and raked.

Color and form. Flavor needs work?

I know a lot of folks have little regard for eggplant. While I am no fan of eggplant fried, or even in parmigiana, I do love Ratatouille. And Caponata. Baba Ghanouj. All take a little more work than the average vegetable, but I find them worth it. Or maybe I just want to be able to look at their purple voluptuousness. They are a truly lovely form.

F's birthday sweater. 5 years old

Transitioning backward to finish up my thoughts and images on our Canadian vacation, I finished this sweater for F's birthday while we were gone. I don't know what possessed me to buy this color of yarn, given that pink is definitely not a favorite of mine, but "Dark Pink" is F's favorite now. Working on it also gave me an excuse to check out yarn shops in many Maritime towns to find the buttons. I had originally intended to make enameled flower buttons, but after doing the calculation, realized that I would be out of time to do so. So, I supported the local yarn stores instead.

Mt. Dessert Island; one of many bays

Once on Mt. Dessert Island, one of our first stops was to check out one of the southern bays. I forget which one. It was clearly a working fishing area, though, and we seemed to be the only tourists there. Bass Harbor, perhaps? John and I are good at nosing our way around, but I'm a lousy note taker these days.

Beach at Rose Bay

After 2 days of hiking around Acadia, Bar Harbor and Mt. Dessert Island, we headed on to Canada. The Maritime Provinces. 

 

Hockey-ready!

As mentioned yesterday, we found Rockwood Park in St. George. It would take more time than we had to thoroughly explore it. . .there were at least a dozen lakes, some wide dog-on-leash trails, and a ton of dog-off-leash trails that wound through forests. At one lake, we stumbled on these. . .a set of hockey skates and a goal. The Canadians are Ready!

St. George, the city, is a place brimming with potential. There is a lot of construction downtown right now, and I expect there was a lot of destruction from Fiona, who had made her way through just a few weeks before we got there. But there is also some absolutely wonderful and old architecture. Churches, especially, but also row houses and shops that are reminiscent of old Philadelphia, though older and more varied.

 

Urban tunnel sculpture

The city center has a complex set of tunnels underneath (testament to hard winters, I expect) that are full of shops and end at a convention center.

This was one of the sculptures in the tunnel, second shot is with John participating. Pretty cool.

Urban tunnel sculpture plus one

After that, it was on to Halifax, and to celebrate John's birthday. We went to The Black Sheep Restaurant downtown, and had an epic dinner. Jasper has to wait for us in the car when we do this sort of thing, but he had had a long walk prior to, and we had a long walk afterwards around the harbor area. It was lively and fun. Dogs seem to be welcome everywhere, which is a lovely change. Of course, Jasper can always charm, but some are harder to charm than others, and this was an easy crowd. 

The view at The Black Sheep

 

 

Well, Friends. I find myself tiring of the travelog. It was really a wonderful trip and we'll visit again. There were more hikes, a great hat shop where John was able to find his summer hat, and I can't tell you how many yarn shops. 

 

Last course, The Black Sheep

And I didn't mention the pewter, did I? Pewter is a big deal in Nova Scotia, and has been something I've loved, both for it's work-ability and its appearance for a couple of decades. I'll leave you with a couple more images and a video of the Birthday Waterfall hike.