The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

Oh you darling buds of May, how we welcome each one of you! Cheerful crocuses and daffodils, do not leave us so soon! Oh well, at least you’re here now and we’re going to love every minute of your presence. Spring is always a miracle. Life returning to these shores, sun ascending, red soil gleaming, fish jumping, children and puppies rolling in the warm
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

We take an evening walk along the shore, on the ice, still bright out, one week left till the Spring Equinox. The ice cracks below our feet: should we be walking here? “It’s low tide. We’ll only fall a few feet.” Ahead there is an open area where springs have melted the ice. We’ll give that a wide berth.

A large flock of geese flies overhead, the largest
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

It is a clear calm evening with a full moon, and the first Monday of the month. Some of us decide to walk to the Women’s Institute meeting at Alice’s house, two kilometres down the road. Alice has a large living room that can accommodate all of us, since our usual meeting place—the one-roomed school—is closed for the winter.

We are the first to arrive. Boots
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

On this frozen winter morning with the north wind urging me to stay indoors, I decide to step out and visit some elder residents of the Cove, Charles and Myrtle MacNevin.

Charles MacNevin was born here, in the house where he has lived out his 84 years. I meet him coming out the door on his way to fetch firewood. “That’s okay, I can do it later,” he
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

The landscape is brown and gold with a few welcome crimson highlights of rosehips, Nova Scotia hollyberries and wild apples. Chrismas lights disappear too quickly, leaving the night landscape bleak and introspective. How long ago summer seems.

A sharp-shinned hawk sits on the phone line contemplating breakfast possibilities. Canada geese, reluctant to leave,
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

What are these curious alpacas doing in the Cove? They’re standing in for camels in our first ever Living Nativity in the Cove.

A Living Nativity is a leap of imagination, a star above a lowly stable, the warm smell of farm animals, it is sheep and cows and yes, alpacas peering over the gate. It is a baby in the manger wrapped in swaddling clothes, Mary,
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Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

With our gardens put to bed for the winter, we turn to grocery store shelves for fresh fruit and vegetables. Where do those beautifully packaged strawberries come from?

California.

Your trusty correspondent had the good fortune to be in California recently, in Watsonville, south of Santa Cruz. This city is a tiny dot on the map, yet (unlike the dots on a PEI map)
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

The autumnal equinox has come and gone and we head into calm reflective October. There is plenty to keep us occupied, but the frantic busy-ness of summer is already a distant memory. Potato farmers, of course, are anything but calm and reflective as they work night and day to get in the year’s crop.

Hurricane Irene blew away the mugginess of late summer,
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

Let us brush the fuzzy green mould off the leather sandals that fell behind the shelf in the porch—the good ones we have been hunting for since June—and sing praises to our glorious but damp summer. Wise minds have come up with suggestions for seasons such as this:

—A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition. (William Ward)
—Things turn out best for the
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

Here we are at the very peak of summer. Even with straw hats and liberal slatherings of sunscreen we are all brown and rosy. Winter clothes are finally put away—for a few months. Let’s go to the beach.

Beach-going is a fine art practiced by thousands of Islanders every single fine summer day. Here’s how it’s done.

1. Wake up in the morning, put on the coffee
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

Those clear calm evenings of July are upon us, when not a ripple is out of place. Voices carry across the water, across the landscape, the whole world shares in the conversations and laughter of summer happiness. This is the best place to be, right here, right now. Even the mosquitoes have taken a holiday. Or maybe we’re just getting immune.

During the day,
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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson

June, so full of promise, your days still lengthening, before the crowds at the shore, before the jellyfish… oh June, please stay forever. High school proms, weddings, showers, new lives, new growth, winter clothes put away, it’s all happening at this very moment.

Already come and gone: crocuses, daffodils, horsetails, pulmonaria, pussywillows, forsythia,
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