DAY
FOUR
“The
Lord is your keeper…” Psalm 121:5a
We have driven over 3500 miles on
this trip so far and have had no major mishaps or disorders. We had a near mishap yesterday while
exploring Brier Island. The island has
two lighthouses, one that is on a smaller island near the south end which
cannot be reached by a car since there is a small inlet that separates it from
the main island. The other lighthouse,
Northern Light, can be reached via a gravel road so we set out for it once we
left the ferry landing and drove to where the lighthouse sits on the edge of
the island looking out over the Bay of Fundy.
There is the small lighthouse, a building used by the Canadian Parks
Departments, and a trail that leads to an overlook covered with rocks and
bushes. One trail departs to go near the
water so that when high tide happens it is covered by water. The main trail leads through brushy country
with wild rose bushes that are massive in size that one must go around to reach
the point where sea lions are seen now and then in the distance.
We chose the brush covered trail and
began to walk it, with me leading the way and Doris following with Bo in her
arms. We soon discovered that there are
rocks along the way hidden by the brush.
One has to be very careful as one walks in that path with rocks obscured
by the brush or one may have a mishap along the way. We had walked the trail a ways and I
discovered the rock and stumped by shoe on it and we decided to return to the
car after seeing that there were more people in the distance than we cared to
encounter.
As we returned to the car and were
emerging from the brushy trail, but still where there was plenty of grass,
Doris hooked her foot on a rock and began to tumble. She had Bo held in her arms and as she went
down she and Bo began to meet the earth and Bo let out a pitiful sounding
whimper. Doris luckily landed on a
grassy area and was not hurt and, although we worried about Bo for a bit, he
seemed to emerge unscathed also. He was
soon up and walking about and playing after we got back to the cottage.
Hazards are constantly in our paths
as we negotiate life. Some are very
evident but some are unseen, as the rocks along this trail were. Some were not noticed until you had hit them
with your foot as you hiked along.
Sometimes we were so busy looking at the beautiful scenery around us or
smelling the wild roses that we failed to see the rocks in the way of our feet
as we walked.
Life’s hazards will always be there
but as we walk along in life we can depend on God’s grace and mercy to be with
us and God’s care to guide us along. We
cannot always avoid the hazards but we can know that if we fall, God will be
there to catch us and help us to be lifted up again to walk another day.
Today we drove up the coast to
Wolfeville passing through mostly small towns and villages, driving slowly
enough to really look at them, noticing how much alike and different they are
than our hometown. Most are very neat
and clean with little litter anywhere.
Nicely kept homes line the streets.
The people we talked with were very friendly and courteous and very
interested in us, in why we were visiting Nova Scotia and in what we do back
home.
We stopped at a farmer’s market in
Kentville. It is located right in the
downtown area on a parking lot reserved for stores normally. There were several rows of stalls with
merchants selling vegetable and fruits from their farms, homemade breads and
pastries, and products they had made to sell.
We bought two pints of blueberries, some hand cream scented with
peppermint, a loaf of homemade whole wheat bread, and a colorful dress that
Doris found interesting. We also bought
some Indian food being sold by a nice lady at a booth. We asked where a picnic area may be and were
directed out of town to an agricultural research center where there is also a
picnic area.
Finding the picnic area just as we
were directed, we enjoyed our Indian lunch out in nature, enjoying the cool air
and beautiful scenery around us.
Returning to our cottage, we drove
into the fog once again as we went over Parker’s Mountain and descended into
the Cove. The fog surrounded us and
enveloped all so that we could not see beyond our porch. This is not what I planned on when we envisioned
our time here. I saw the sun shining
brightly as we sat on the porch drinking coffee and watching nature on display
before us. The fog limits what we can
see in the cove before us. So, we still
drank coffee and had a pastry to go with it and sat and talked about the fog
and the lack of seagulls on the rock barrier in the cove. Then, continued with life and our enjoyment
of where we are and what we are doing.
Fog is part of the way of life of
being Nova Scotian. When you live on a
piece of land mostly surrounding by water, you adapt and adjust to what is
here.
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