Welcome to Our Web Page
When this web page began more than twenty years ago, it described most of the activities of our whole family. Now that most of our children have flown the coop, it is mostly about what Ann and I (Dave) have been up to. I update it most weekends. We save all the messages over the past year in an Archive along with links to what we were doing ten and twenty years ago.
You can click on the pictures above to get a bit more information about each of us.
Sunday June 22
A farm on the Noel Shore yesterday
I'm happy to report that recent weather has been much more conducive to biking than earlier in the spring. We were out to Lawrencetown Beach with the Railers the last two Mondays and also from Laurie Park to Monte Vista with the Roadents a week ago Wednesday. Last Saturday, we drove to Hantsport to join the Ramblers for a ride to the Bent Ridge Winery. We had a coffee at the Essentially English Bakery before we started and then a very nice lunch at the winery. On the way home, we went in search of Eldridge Falls, a waterfall in the vicinity that I thought might make an interesting diversion on the ride next year. Unfortunately the road into the falls is very poor so it would not be suitable for one of our rides.
Yesterday we drove to Maitland for another Rambler ride along the Noel Shore — the south shore of Cobequid Bay which is at the eastern end of the Bay of Fundy — to Burntcoat Head Park. It was another lovely day but there was a strong wind from the west that made the ride out quite challenging. I was on my regular bike; had I realized how strong the wind was going to be I probably would have taken my e-bike. Of course, the ride back was much easier. Afterwards most of us gathered at Frieze & Roy, a general store in Maitland, for ice cream. On the way home, Ann and I stopped in at the Fundy Tidal Interpretive Centre. The tidal bore was not due until later in the day but I was on another reconnaissance mission for a possible ride next summer.
A couple of weekends ago, we received urgent messages from our city councillor and from the Halifax Bicycling Coalition to inform us that the mayor had put forth a motion to suspend construction of all bicycle lanes in the city. The vote was to take place the following Tuesday, so a rally was organized for 8am that morning so that we could express our displeasure and try to sway the votes of councillors that may not have made up their minds. Ann and I both sent e-mails to the mayor and all the councillors, and got up early on Tuesday and rode over to the rally to lend our support. We're happy to report that the motion was defeated 12–5. I've since read some analysis that suggested that the mayor never expected the motion to pass but was trying to ingratiate himself with his supporters and his provincial overlords. We don't like him very much.
I don't watch much hockey these days but I did tune in to the Stanley Cup Finals between Edmonton and Florida. Most of the games were pretty exciting but, of course, the end result was not much to our liking.
I have a new project in the back garden. When the red maple was still standing, nothing much would grow directly beneath it, so we covered a large semi-circular area with gravel. Now that the tree is gone, I'm converting it back so that things can be grown there again. That means removing the gravel, which will go to a new path between the patio and the fire pit circle, digging out a lot of the smaller roots and sifting the larger stones from the soil. So far about half of it has been dug up, but the most time-consuming part is washing the dirt out of the gravel so that weeds don't immediately appear in the new path.
Ann has been spending a lot of time at the Cottage Café recently. We usually stop there after the ride to Lawrencetown Beach on Mondays to build up our strength for the ascent of the last hill up to our place. She also been meeting Cindy, Vicki and Cathy there on Fridays.
Nancy's daughter Lauren arrived today for a quick stay prior to going to Eskasoni, one of the First Nations reserves in Cape Breton, to finish work on her Masters thesis in International Relations. Ann went to the airport to pick her up after church and, a bit later, took her to our local Enterprise office to pick up a rental car.