Snippets of the past

I’m not very good at New Year’s resolutions but I’ve quit beating myself up about it and plan to keep strolling through 2026 in the same old way. 

Also I’m only so interested in recaps of the past year. That being said, I bought some handsome black art folios from Bookmark and am proceeding to put my Cove Journal columns, clipped from every Buzz 2010 to the present, into these albums. While reading these it occurs to me that I should share a few highlights with you.

November 2012: I write about the re-routing of the Trans-Canada Highway through an old grove forest (Plan B) and the community activism that ensues. 

November 2016: Hurricane Matthew comes and goes.

April 2017: I give a shout-out to my neighbours for their summer-long canoe odyssey from the Cove to Montreal.

November 2018: A dead porpoise washes up at our shore. 

October 2019: Hurricane Dorian puts power out for two days. 

January 2021: No Cove Journal clipping. Did I mislay it? Nothing on my computer…  Oh now I remember: Covid has arrived. No one is holding concerts or art shows, no one is advertising, and there’s no Buzz. 

Everything changes, but in the thick of Covid we find joy where we can. Bird watching, for example. A rare Eastern Towhee, black and white with a splash of red, entertains us with its vigorous footwork during the winter of 2021. 

January 2022: Again no Buzz. I write to the editors: “Don’t give up! We need you!” And they don’t give up. There’s been a Buzz in the lobby of our local grocery store every month since then. Thank you, beautiful Buzz staff, from the bottom of all of our hearts.

Autumn 2022: Hurricane Fiona throws our lives into turmoil. (With three hurricanes three years apart we almost expected one in 2025, but hallelujah! as my mother would say, that didn’t happen.) Since then, life continues rather humdrum. Don’t you just love humdrum? 

February 2024: A gorgeous amber–hued female cardinal winters in a hollow tree near our feeder. A scarlet red male cardinal is spotted in the neighbourhood but keeps his distance from our yard.

January 2026:  Exotic guests! Five Evening Grosbeaks arrive in a whirl under our feeder. The males are yellow, black and white, and the females are olive-grey with a tinge of gold. Their strong stubby beaks excel at seed-cracking—woops!—they swoop away in one breath and might or might not ever return. Well, that was exciting.

Flipping through my columns I see that I’ve drawn pictures of eagles, herons, mushrooms, grasses, eroded cliffs, coffee with friends. I note that some years are rainy, some dry, summer forest fires are always on the horizon, and life has a satisfying rhythm.

Before the Evening Grosbeaks flew in and out I had planned to write about who-knows-what down at the Cove, or about baking potatoes in the wood stove’s hot coals, or about the joys of digging into the winter larder and using our own frozen rhubarb, dried tomatoes, bean pickles and strawberry jam. 

But I’ll save these for another day when I’ve finished my clipping and snipping.