My Thoughts About Living On Prince Edward Island Living on the island can be challenging at times. Yes, the winter here can be dreadfully long and the spring; even longer. When you think the shoveling is over, ...it's not, and when it finally is, ...the mud season begins. Let me tell you, the lane gets even longer when you're standing there in your rubber boots with 6 bags of groceries.   But for about  three weeks when the weather is warming up, the lane is drying out, and the bugs haven't arrived yet, that's when everything gets done. I call it the Islander's time. That's when everyone comes out of their house after a long winter...... and they start diggin'.  The whole island is buzzing with the sound of getting ready for summer. Gardens and fields have to be tilled, flowers and crops have to be planted, shrubs pruned, fences mended, painting, cleaning, airing out, ...you name it. Every yard is busy and Canadian Tire is bulging at the seams with the do-it-yourselfers in a shopping frenzy.    Then the summer finally arrives and I can't imagine a better place to be. The soil is red, the land is green, all those flowers that we were so busy planting are in bloom, and the sand dunes are lush with marram grass.  Over three hundred varieties of birds are flitting about making nests and the fox and other fauna are busy with their young.     The clay roads are as red as they get in those first days of summer.  I love to walk down the ones where the tree canopy from both sides of the road meet over-head. It's like walking through a tunnel of foliage. And I like to stop here and there and just listen, ...or examine the flora, ...or just take in my surroundings.       The shore. There's plenty of that here. What ever suits you. If you like a sandy beach, a rocky bank, marshland, pond, or a river bank, it's all here. The water always draws my eye to it. I'm not keen on being in it, unless I'm in my canoe, but I love to stop and look at it.  The water is so powerful and unforgiving.  Sad that most of the shore is being bought up though. I'd love to have a piece of it myself but that will never happen so I settle for taking pictures of it.   There's a great variety of birds here on the Island. Birds of prey, shore birds and inland birds can be easily found by bird watchers and photographers. The Great Blue Herons nest here and are in great abundance.  You see them everywhere. Skittish big things though, and clumsy. You'll see one standing motionless in a pond, looking majestic and as elegant as an orchid. Then as soon as your intention turns to walking toward it the silence is broken by a noisy flutter of flopping wings and an amateurish lift off maneuver that makes Baby Huey look graceful.  Makes me laugh every time.   Summer brings the weeds too. I think we have the prettiest weeds in the world. There's no question that the lupines create a lush garden in every ditch and field from Souris to Tignish, but the flox, vetch, golden rodd, daisies and black eyed susan have their time to shine too.  And if you're really looking at the flora you'll notice these wonderful bouquets of wild flowers that grow next to fence posts, or out of mossy tree stumps or right in the dunes. Even in the fall when everything has died off there are these wonderful dried flower arrangements growing everywhere. Seaweed is something that most people would take little pass of but it has a variety of uses. I use it in my garden to fertilize the veggies with those hard-to-get micro nutrients. Irish moss is collected from the shore in the summer and used in many of the processed foods we eat. Seaweed is also collected by some in the fall to bank their house and keep it warm for the winter. Personally, I find it very interesting to watch as it sways back and forth in the water.     There's plenty of ghost stories around here too. Every old house seems to have its "story". I hadn't thought much about the stories until the day I paid a visit to the oldest brick lighthouse on the Island at Point Prim. It was early in the spring when everyone else was diggn'.  The road was still muddy so I parked my car and walked down the lane to the lighthouse. I took plenty of photos and was there for about an hour and in that time I never saw another person around. When I got home and was looking at the photos I had taken, it was quite unsettling  to see that I hadn't been alone.     Houses here are subject to some harsh conditions and if they get the least bit neglected they fade away. First the paint starts to peel leaving them a colourless shadow of what they used to be.  Then it's only a matter of time before the winters, winds and rains wear them down to the ground. There's always something about an abandoned house that's intriguing. They stand helpless to the elements while hopelessly guarding all their stories inside.    My favorite places are the capes where the banks are high and rocky and the power of the earth continually percolates with the movement of water and birds. The capes put me in my place; standing small against the power of nature itself they remind me that my needs and desires come only at the mercy of what the earth will provide. I sometimes visit the capes in the early morning and ponder that mercy. What will happen if our host, earth, begins to crumble from our thankless devouring of her generosity. Perhaps a big wave will sweep over the land in a gesture that proclaims, "That's enough".  Or maybe she will just stop providing and let us fight over what meager remains are left. Perhaps she already stopped providing.  When I go to the capes I think deep like that. This year I took up a new hobby and a new way of seeing the Island. I got myself a canoe and have enjoyed paddling my way to new places and seeing the island from a new perspective.  There are so many interesting ponds and rivers to explore and I intend to paddle as many of them as I can. I've also taken an interest in photographing birds and the canoe has let me get pretty close to some species that I would otherwise have to use a blind for.   It's a bit of a risk taking my camera equipment in the canoe with me but I feel that sometimes you just have to take chances to get what you want. Luckily I haven't had any "accidents" yet.  When I spot a bird in its natural habitat, away from any human activity it really gives me a rush to see if I can capture it in my lens without intruding on it. I admit that I have managed to flush a few away but on many occasions I've taken my shot and then left with just a little "thanks".  Most of the time they seem to be as curious about me as I am about them.   And birds aren't the only thing that I come across when I'm out in the canoe. I've seen many a muskrat, beaver, mink, rabbits, and a lot of fish swimming around under me. Maybe next year I'll take up fishing.