What's It All About, eh?

Cape Breton evokes deep memories and strong emotions for me as well as a deep appreciation for the beauty of my adopted island. My hopes are that you too might find the photos evocative - maybe a view you've not enjoyed before, or an 'Oh I've been there', or if from away that you may be encouraged to visit this fair isle so that you might come to love and breathe Cape Breton as I do. One word about place names that I use - some are completely local usage while others are from maps of Cape Breton that I've purchased over the years. I frequently post travel and other photos that are of interest to me - and hopefully you.

On the right hand side bar find my take on Single Malt whiskey - from how to best enjoy this noble drink to reviews (in a most non-professional manner) of ones that I have tried and liked - or not. Also musings, mine and others, on life in general.

Photographs are roughly 98%+ my own and copy-righted. For the occasional photo that is borrowed, credit is given where possible - recently I have started posting unusual net photographs that seem unique. Feel free to borrow any of my photos for non-commercial use, otherwise contact me. Starting late in 2013 I have tried to be consistent in identifying my photographs using ©smck on all out of camera photos I personally captured - (I often do minor computer changes such as 'crop' or 'shadow' etc but usually nothing major), and using
©norvellhimself on all photos that I have played around with in case it might not be obvious. Lately I have dropped the ©smck and have watermarked them with the blog name.

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Laughing Time - a memory of yester year

 

Laughing time

 

Muse about the laughing time when

dresses came all undone – while life force

welled in glows around us.

Dream about the laughing time when

Caresses flame two as one – as life force

swelled in throes consumed us.

69

with any fairness at all we’ve all been there

© stephen n mckinney

Branch and Shadow


 

Grey - with a bit of red and blue


 

Crows and Snow

 

Crows and Snow

The bay is packed in ice with snow from shore to shore

where the great moon tide comes in all creaking,

inexorably lifting that ponderous protesting mass.

Across the white reach the far shore stretches unbroken and virgin,

not one cabin, one dwelling, to send its’ light across to me

and the only bird here in this bitter cold of winter’s wind

Is the crow – flying solitaire with flapping scrutiny of the intruder.

But now that I have come often enough to the field and the tide

they have come to fly in pairs – slow steady beats of their wings

and we accept one another.

The bay packed with snow and ice from shore to shore

heaved randomly into giant statuesque stroboplosions of ice sculpture

as in some slow motioned dream of crows and snow

by the living tide, venting itself against the unseen living rock

– yet I know the Smelts come soon and so too the Tom Cod.

Is it this visibly frozen cold that is their dream

or is it the spring to come?

69

the most magical bay in my first venture into the past of my youth in 1970 -

West Bay, an arm of Gouldsboro Bay in Maine.

© stephen n mckinney

- And Underfoot


 

Calum Climbing His Favorite Kind of Tree


 https://www.arborday.org/trees/treeGuide/TreeDetail.cfm?ItemID=917 

Sassafras albidum

also commonly known as Sassafras

A captivating, native North American tree known for its brilliant display of autumn foliage and aromatic smell. Leaves are 3"–7" long, bright to medium green in summer changing to enchanting colors of yellow, deep orange, scarlet and purple in the fall. They have a unique mitten (right- and left-handed) or three-lobe shape. The 1/2" dark blue fruit is loved by birds in the fall. Plant in full sun or partial shade in moist, acidic, well-drained soil. Be sure to remove any shoots that develop for a single-trunk tree. Grows at a medium to fast pace to 30'–60' tall with a 25'–40' spread. (zones 4–9) 

 

Pines Like This All Through The Wood


 

One Early Home Still Has Ruins Standing - on the way to the Fire Tower - 2 photos



 

Calum and I walked about two hours in the Fire Tower wood


 Calum and I walked up the old horse trails, now almost overgrown, to the fire tower and here on the far side we are looking for the old four wheeler trails that cut through here toward 272 and on all of which I used to run pushing him in one of those three-wheeler baby joggers and after a mile or two he would be sound asleep breathing the deep clean air of off road running - now the trails have overgrown and we cannot even find them though he still loves this wood land