Our ritual is to have the weblog also include a note about how our summer in New Brunswick went, and we’re nothing if not consistent.
Last summer, it was so wet that we had little beach between the shore growth and the water. This summer, the weather was dry and the beach was as big as we have ever seen it.
We spent most of our time close to home, with friends and family visiting, Friday night barbecues, a few organized beer tastings, some sailing and some special happy hours with our closest neighbours.
We got out only our usual few times on the Hobie 21. The problem is that we no longer trapeze, and Dawn does not like much in the way of wind and waves. Still it is fun, and a few times we had excellent company. Typically we tack upwind for a couple of hours then enjoy a beverage as we come back downwind to home. I also got in a few sails on a boat during racing out of Douglas Harbour, most often with my brother Mike. The boat is a Hunter 35 owned and captained by Mike Legere. It is quite enjoyable to be out on a good boat with a captain and crew who will be competitive but enjoy the sail regardless of success.
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| Mike in the cockpit, waiting for a beer delivery |
Our beer tastings are at a neighbour’s, and the gent is a craft beer lover, new to Atlantic Canada. With a reasonable bunch of neighbours with similar tastes, we take the job seriously – Well, we also get it done with a lot of fun.
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| Aligning craft beers in proper order at Mark and Thuyi’s place |
Our Friday nights are for the most part with smaller crowds than in past years. Not only have two couples moved away, but the remainders just seem to have busy lives that take them away on some Fridays. Still, the food and conversations are great.
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| Dawn and a great group of friends playing pickleball |
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| Halloween Pickleball on the new outdoor courts in Minto. |
The times we’ve left the Cove were few but memorable. We visited with former cruising friends Brian and Paula at their cottage on the Bay of Fundy and included a bike trip from their cottage to Grand Manan. This came with the opportunity of a fine lunch with my brother Mike and Anne at their St. Andrews cottage. We visited Bill and Lynn at their cottage on Prince Edward Island, and took in some fine old rock and roll covers at a supper theatre. A drive up the valleys to Mount Carleton Park allowed us to camp two nights with Debbi Linton and climb the mountain. We also dropped in on Liz Bliss on the way.
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| Laurie, Lynn and Bill on a PEI beach |
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| Laurie, Paula and Brian - Bay of Fundy |
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| Paula’s family cottage |
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| Laurie and Debbi at the end of the hike |
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| Debbi can’t find the mouse that she knows is in her car. Took a day, but it was finally released! |
Our guests included brother Paul and Alida of Calgary for a week, as well as ten days with half-sister Lolly’s siblings renting the Airbnb beside us. All very fun and interesting.
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| Raki, Lolly’s brother in law, and Dawn and Laurie sailing out of the cove |
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| Raki trying on the Flying Spaghetti Monster hat that Lolly made years ago. |
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| Lolly (sitting) and her sisters Elaine, and Barb and her brother Rick while renting the spot close by. |
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| Raki enjoying a kayak in the cove |
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| Relatives out to see us when Lolly’s family arrived. |
One other item took a bit of our time, especially mine. I worked over the summer and fall in an attempt to get a history book published. The work required hours of editing and work on images, and I contracted out for formatting for Amazon publishing. I completed the task on October 17th. The book: “Fire, Disease, and the Pump House”, is a soft-cover, 282 pages, with 65 images and around 300 footnotes; and explains what had to happen before Fredericton could have running water. A page-turner to the right reader ;-).
Here’s the link if you want to see it: https://a.co/d/4JLqKx5
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| Leo, with the help from the cove neighbours putting on a book launch party! Well done guys! |
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| Jane and Leo presenting Laurie with an award! |
We are writing this from Prickly Bay, and finishing just as this fine old wooden ketch goes by our transom. How we got in the water will be our next weblog.
