Ocean Jewels of Winter

The Atlantic is, as many a sailor over as many centuries will attest, an unforgiving mistress. A tempestuous and roiling body of water, rarely at rest and even then her waves crest and roll. When the Atlantic howls with a furied storm, the waves crash resoundingly onto the shoreline, frothing and rolling, tossing flotsam and driftwood about like leaves falling in the autumn winds.

As the ocean settles from a tempest and the seas fall away and ease off again, one notices a beautiful sight. For despite her anger and tantrum, the oceans swells leave what I have come to call the Jewels of Winter...rocks covered in thick ice. Sometimes sparkling, at other times a dull pearl awaiting the hand to polish.

These jewels are fleeting for the most part. Delicate lights, fragile, yet hopeful. They drape over the rocks or rest like a blanket of pearls...soon to be taken back by the ocean, claimed as if such jewels were a taunt of the mistress of the seas. But as they stand in the bright light of day winking and sparkling, one cannot help but catch a breath and take a picture.

The Symphonic Sounds of Winter

Winter. A word that sends shivers down the spine and the eyes to burning embers at the thought of shoveling. Perhaps so. As opposed to the other seasons it represents challenges of getting to work, driving accidents in storms, sudden freezes and thaws with black ice.

Yet there is one aspect to winters here (and most parts of Canada I'll admit) that I treasure every year as it is the equivalent of a basso note popping in a symphony - snapping sap. Should you stand outside in the quiet of the night when the temperatures crash to the chilling wee hours of the night, listen to the trees. A slight breeze will bring them on...snap! pop! thunk!

As the temperature falls, so the moisture, usually sap, freezes under the bark. as the tree moves gently to the breeze or the moisture burst under pressure of the bark, the tree snaps! In a small wood or the forest that surrounds you, as the moon rides high and the stars glitter like an audience in heaven, the snapping trees add a light hearted pop to the cool, deep nights.

It is one of natures many symphonies that draws me to Nova Scotia.