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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Trail

03 November 2013    Black Hill Tower Trail

Samhain (pronounced /ˈsɑːwɪn/)

I love this tree - a Persimmon - and it's writhing branches - this is shot with my FZ200 and a little bit of tweaking (to get that blue/grey bark) - I see goblins and druids - love it smck                   

More Beauty

05 November 2013        ©smck

Army Days


@1958 or so

Once a year we had to re-qualify at the rifle range which was strange because all we had back at Bushy Park were 45s and Tommy Guns (and every time I cleaned one of them I felt like Dillinger).  This meant a jaunt to some English army base where I could hear the instructors giving the grunts the same wild commands that we had received in basic except these guys were louder and scarier.  I constantly was amazed at how as a draftee that I had fallen into such a strange and cushy 'sleep-in-a-bed' and spend nights at the Pub kind of job in the army - and no 'white-walls' required, mustache optional.

Be It Ever So Humble






This is the home that I lived in from the fifth grade until I graduated from high school.  My father, mother, brother and I lived in this little (about half the size of my kitchen now) travel size trailer. There was no electricity or running water and at the back of the lot there was an old outhouse - which my father keep extremely clean but still an outhouse.  I took what showers I could at the high school 'Boy's Room', otherwise it was a PTA bath out of a basin when no one was around.  Luckily I was given a free ride to college where I took at least two showers a day luxuriating in the decadence of a prince.

The second photo shows me in my boy scout attire (only the shirt and the neckerchief were official as these were all I could afford from my paper route).  Long live the Crow Patrol!  I made the flag for our Patrol - a comic strip type crow smoking a cigar that I crayoned in in black with the words CROW PATROL above onto a pennant shaped piece of white cloth.  After the drawing and words were complete I used a hot iron (the old time heat on a stove type that I now have on my wood stove as a souvenir of my past) to meld this permanently into the pennant.  Our scout leaders at the time were really nice men that gave a lot of young boys like myself the right to express ourselves a little out of the strait-laced mode of the conservative late 40s and early 50s.  Thanks.