The Unveiling Canvas of Autumn in Nova Scotia

I felt the crisp, fresh breeze of autumn drift up from the harbour yesterday evening. It seemed as if Mother Nature was gently lifting the first corner of her fall canvass, giving us just a hint of the brilliant hues that would soon dress trees and bushes.

A breath of that cool, invigorating air and floods of memories stirred in my mind and sliver of contentment traveled up my spine. Autumn stirs this province from the lazy late summer heat and sets the pace for the winter to come. Steaming mugs of hot cocoa after a crisp evening walk in the park. The delirious mess of the kitchen from pumpkin carving and the scent of roasting pumpkin seeds.

Soon the Annapolis Valley will hear the laughter of children dashing about the Corn Maze. The local farms bustle with people out to pick their very own pumpkins straight from the field. Kentville and Wolfville homes and places decorate their lawns with fancily dressed pumpkin people. For a warm evening barbeque there's always the Pumpkin Beer of Propeller Brewery, yet another unique flavour of Nova Scotia.

The long anticipation of the Thanksgiving turkey dinner. The kitchen filled with family and friends preparing the meal while the house overflows with the melodious scents of cooking turkey. Plates filled with turkey, butternut squash, potatoes, carrots and turnip, heaps of stuffing and ladles overflowing with gravy. A crisp Gaspereau Valley or Jost wine to wash it down.

Sweaters become warm companions, while jackets are shaken from their summer slumber in the closet. Shorts and t-shirts are laid away for their hibernation. Lawn chairs and umbrella's are tucked and rose bushes wrapped. Leaves carpet the lawns and the sound of raking fills the Sunday afternoons.

Perhaps most pleasant of all is the daily, changing canvas of Mother Natures trees. Some brilliant yellows, startling reds or the occasional mottled brown of the oak. This is autumn in Nova Scotia, where memories of laughter and pleasant evenings warm a heart on a chilly winters day.

(Photo Credit: laszlofromhalifax on Flickr)

High Summer Days of August

A heady miasma of heat with the drone of summer, settles across the province these mid-August days. It's high summer in Nova Scotia. It's these days we hold close to our memories on the bitter, damp days of late January when the spell of Christmas has long since drifted away.

Cicada's buzz in the trees, the cat's are listless alternating between sun and puddles of shade that offer but only an illusion of coolness. The white sandy beaches crowd, though the people move in a thick soup across the scorching sand to the waiting and ever cool Atlantic ocean.

The air is almost still and the humidity pours through you and out again in rivulets of sweat. These torpid days are golden, just as the setting sun turns the surrounding green a soft yellowish hue. These are high summer days in Nova Scotia and we realize how special summer is, despite the heat we are not used to. The flowers in their fine full plumage, the grass tinged with brown. The ice cream shops will be bursting with giggling and laughing children vying for the most exotic of flavours and the biggest scoop possible please. Then darting their tongues as fast as they can to lap up the quickly melting treat!

Ovens remain shuttered in kitchens while BBQ's surge into life and steaks, hotdogs, hamburgers and chicken sizzle over their grills. Beer bottles pop and soda's for the kids are guzzled down in quenching gulps. A cool, fresh salad full of crisp vegetables from the Annapolis Valley farms or perhaps a chilled muscat chardonnay from Gaspereau Valley Winery to calm the palette?

Perhaps we enjoy these heady, hazy high summer days so much for they are so precious to us in January.

(Photo Credit: laszlofromhalifax)

The Clouds of Nova Scotia

Clouds. Yes, we get our share of them in Nova Scotia, but as we say around here "if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes..." it's close enough to true. Part of the distinct advantage of living on the coast of one of the most dynamic oceans in the world.

As I looked at the clouds in the setting sun yesterday evening, I realized why so many artists have been inspired in this province hanging by a thread off the eastern edge of Canada. The warm haziness and soft yellow of the sun dappling the backyard. If clouds could smile, they must have been, with the sun tickling their bellies in the fading day.

The clouds in Nova Scotia seem to set a tone everyday. Large and bulging with the threat of rain, scattered and loose like escaped cottonballs or stretched and thin with neither promise nor mirth. One minute you'll feel the drama set by the clouds and the next they are wistful.

Inspiring either way. Just one of those small things in this little place off the Atlantic...

(Image: Courtesy, "Dave the Haligonian" on Flickr)

Of Airports and People

As I wearily rolled my luggage out the front door of the airport in Halifax heading for the Park n fly pick-up, I breathed in the tang of fresh air with a hint of ocean. You don't get that at SFO or O'Hare or even Toronto or Montreal. It's that gentle scent of Nova Scotia that reminds me I'm home.

What really struck me though, was the older couple standing on the sidewalk, well, the fellow was in a wheel chair. They were talking animatedly. As I walked past the woman looks up at me with a big smile on her face and says "dear, how many loonies in a roll? Is it twenty?" I nodded and replied I think so, I wasn't sure.

She had no idea who I was or even if I was Canadian, let alone spoke English. But she asked. Just like that. I was drawn into a conversation, asked in that way to take part. There are precious few places in the world today where that happens. Certainly not in a major city in the U.S. or Canada. But then, Halifax is a major city on the Atlantic coast. Sure, less than a million people, but still not a small town.

It's just one of those things. People here will share something with you, a way of quickly connecting. And it seems that more often than talking about the weather, we like to share a little joke or amusing quip or settle a friendly debate. Human connections. That's Nova Scotia, that's Atlantic Canada.

Spring Carpets of Blossoming Green

Nova Scotia in spring, like all seasons, there is always something special. Living off the Atlantic coast, we get to see dramatic and swiftly shifting skies, raging tempests and a new patchwork of nature's art every day. Spring is no exception.

While the winter harbours many novel sites and the gentle fall of snow can be comforting, nothing renders an uptick to the heart like the blossoms of spring on the trees, bushes and lawns of the city and countryside. The ancient and heavy oaks of the city's south end drape across the street, seem to burst with glee as they open their leaves.

The Queen Anne's Lace and Lilac trees seemingly chuckle as their leaves unfurl and the blossoms push up. Tulips wink from flower beds and the willows on the bend sway as if singing the coming of summer. Standing on a hilltop looking down Halifax harbour or driving across the bridge, one sees the multitude shades of green around the basin. The alders and saplings blush red with the warming of their veins.

Yes, spring in Nova Scotia, it's a heady mix.

Halifax is Like Shuffle on your iPod

One of the reasons I like using shuffle on my iPod or iTunes is that you can set a bunch of music to the mood you're in, and let's face it, different weather invokes different moods. And different moods are a great break up in what would otherwise be a monotonous life.

Halifax is like having shuffle for weather. It changes often, and so you can shape your music to the mood that suits the weather. And isn't there some kind of pleasure in that? A rainy day might inspire some kind of cooler or chilled music, while a sunny day may inspire a good rock n roll tune. No matter your taste, I suspect we all associate different kinds of weather with different music.

Just one of those little things that makes Nova Scotia an interesting and inspiring place to live. A place where moods, weather and life can be as exciting and unsuspecting as hitting shuffle on your iPod.

Do you change your music with the weather?

The Sweet Treat of Spring

In the deep dark of February I'm like many Nova Scotians - take me down south for some green and beach time. And who doesn't deserve a little break from winter? Yet living in such tropical climates would mean sacrificing perhaps one of the best things about Nova Scotia - the ever changing seasons. Even perhaps, how you can have little morsels of other seasons in the middle of a season.

Like a day in mid-January when there is no snow and the sun shines warm and the day hints at the coming of spring. Our hearts leap a little and we bask in the warmth for a day or two. Or in high summer when a day cools down with an ocean breeze and you reach for a light sweater and suddenly your looking a little forward to autumn. To drives down to the Annapolis Valley along the Bay of Fundy as it blazes in colour.

As spring eases in we witness the splendour of new growth, flowers bursting with the little hiccups of crocus' winking of the summer to come. Tulips tease with their green tendrils before exploding in colour on front lawns as you whisk by houses in the city. Even for a brief week or two we smile at the dandelions - before we have to pluck them from our lawns.

But this is just another part of what makes Nova Scotia so special; the swiftly changing seasons, the atmospheric days and climatic synergies that roil across the year.

(Photo Credit: Baroing on Flickr)