This morning, a Merlin, whistling through the branches of the trees, keeking out his characteristic note, chasing songbirds. As I walked Marlee Marie through the neighbourhood, this powerful little predator zipped by several times, an amazing sight.

Too bad I didn't have my camera handy. I rarely take it when I'm walking the dog.

I finished The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's first four books yesterday, finally. I think of the four novels as being part of a single whole simply because I have a hard-cover edition from the mid-1980s, which includes all the books that had been written to that point: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe and Everything; and finally So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.

The first of them is also the best of them. I felt that the third book was extremely weak and the only reason I enjoyed the fourth book as much as I did was because it is actually something of a love story, an unusual one to be sure, but a love story nonetheless. It has no real plot but to see Arthur Dent in love with a woman who matches him so well is quite enjoyable for me.

Now I've started the fifth novel in the trilogy, Mostly Harmless, written in 1992. I'm kind of wishing I hadn't. Though it seems to recapture much of the wonderful silliness of the first novel it also tends to pick up some of the irritating writing habits Adams developed in the middle books. Habits like hinting at where the book is going, then spending annoying series of pages avoiding getting there. It's cleverness that's kind of lost itself in itself. In other words, Adams indulges his own cleverness to no good effect.

Oh well. I'm already a third of the way through so it won't take long to finish. And I've got the anticipation of getting back to Harry Potter to push me along.

Tags: Merlin, New Brunswick, birding, Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

Autumn has descended in all its glory on Nota Bene. Even our backyard has joined the party, with fabulous leaves sparkling in the sunshine and any number of amazing birds paying visits on their way through.

Even though Norway Maples are not indigenous to NB and even though, on the advice of many people, I'm patiently cutting most of them out of our backyard property, you have to admit that they are pretty glorious when they turn colour. The first photo in this entry is of the leaves at the top of one such tree, bathed in the early morning sun, a splendid salad of reds and oranges and yellows. A beautiful sight!

And then, as I was admiring that sight, what do I hear but the raspy call of some kind of woodpecker. I waited, listened, then saw a fantastically huge Pileated Woodpecker swoop into the yard and land in one of the Aspens that grow tall and slim back there.

I was stunned by his sudden appearance and, for several long minutes, watched entranced as he made his way up and down the trunk of the tree. Then, carefully, I made my way into the house to get my camera, hoping, praying he'd stick around long enough for me to get a picture or two.

Thankfully, he didn't disappoint. In fact, he made himself available to my lens with better profiles than I could have dreamed. What a beautiful bird. I love the colour of his crown. I've added two photos of him to this page and a third on my "Feathers In Fredericton" page. So please do enjoy them all.

Later in the morning, a surprisingly blue nuthatch (a white-breast) appeared at our feeder but, unlike the woodpecker, he came and went so fast I couldn't get the camera in time. Still, a pretty great day for mid-October. Even more to be thankful for on Thanksgiving!

Tags: Fall, New Brunswick, Pileated, Woodpecker, birding

It's now 6:30 p.m. and outside we've got bright blue skies, sunshine and strong winds. It looks like we've taken the worst ol' Earl could dish out (at least to us, I think Nova Scotia is getting it a lot worse) and survived.

Nasty moments, though. At 3:43, we heard a bang that sounded like a bomb went off somewhere nearby and all the power died. I stepped out onto the street to find neighbours looking at each other, at the hydro poles and wondering. Fortunately, the rain had tapered off by then so, instead of bemoaning the loss of TV tennis coverage, we decided to take advantage of the dry spell to take Marlee for an extended walk.

Got back just in time for the winds to kick it up a notch and the rains to return, so we had a cold snack and sat in the living room chatting. A nice way to spend the late afternoon, to be honest.

Two NB Power trucks rolled up to the hydro pole across the street from our house at about 6 p.m. and, by 6:10, the power came back on and we were back in business. It might have taken them 135 minutes to get here but they fixed the problem in just 10 more minutes so I'm not complaining.

I just checked the weather radar on the Environment Canada website and it looks like we're through the rain for good. So now we have cooler temps, less humidity and bright blue skies. I guess I should simply say, "Thanks, Earl, for dropping by and taking care of the heat and humidity. We're glad to have had a chance to meet you!"

Tags: Hurricane, Earl, Fredericton, New Brunswick

2:45 p.m. and Earl is with us. A kinder, gentler Earl than we expected. Lots of rain, a little bit of wind. Nothing major.

Since our dog doesn't like to go out when it's raining, I had to cajole her into the back yard to get her to do her business and stop bothering me. So I threw on a light pair of shorts, a quick-dry tee-shirt and my flip flops and braved the torrent. Actually, it turned out to be quite fun. I wish our bathroom shower had that kind of force. And, after all the recent heat, it was fantastic to be drenched with cool water. I spent an hour out there and finally got Marlee Marie to play fetch with me for a while. And, thankfully, to do other things as well.

I had thought I'd try to take some photos of the storm to post here but it's not all that dramatic. Any pictures I'd take would look, well, like my yard on any other rainy day.

Oh well. I guess we'll stay inside for the rest of the day and wait it out. Or, maybe, I'll go for another romp in the rain.

Tags: Hurricane, Earl, Fredericton, New Brunswick

It's 8:31 a.m. here in Freddie. I'm sitting in a slowly cooling house, listening to the wind in the aspens in our backyard, waiting for Earl.

Hurricane Earl.

Environment Canada says I should expect him to arrive at around 9 a.m., now just 28 minutes away. They also tell me he's less scary than expected and has veered a little east, meaning we won't see quite as high winds but more rain.

The possibility is for up to 70 millimetres of rain to fall in the Fredericton area in the next 24 hours.

We're ready. We're excited to know the temperature and humidex will finally fall off after a sweltering week. We've packed up everything in the backyard (stacked the patio chairs, flipped the table so that it won't blow, tucked them into the car port, things like that) and we've got the right windows open and the right windows closed.

We have no plans for the day. So blow, Earl, blow.

I'm happy to watch the rain, listen to the wind and read my books. Can't expect the satellite signal to reach our TV, though, so watching the US Open or the golf may be out of the question.

Oh well. Okay, it's now 24 minutes to Earl and the birds outside are raising a bit of a ruckus. Lots of chirping and "picking". I guess Earl's really coming.

Tags: Hurricane, Earl, Weather, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Writing has taken a back seat to work in the garden and showing family around this amazing province.

On Saturday, a whole slew of us made the trip to see the Hopewell Rocks, located on the Bay of Fundy just south of Moncton. What an amazing place. With tides of up to 15 metres, you can actually walk on the ocean floor (at low tide, of course) and see what the eroding action of the waves can do to the land over the course of the centuries. We met up with my brother-in-law's aunt and cousin (who live in Moncton) while we were there so it was a really great visit. In the photos below, you can see the difference between the low tide and the water levels just an hour later as the water starts to move back in: in the first photo, people are walking around the rock; in the second, no people, just water.

On the way back to Fredericton, we stopped in at Alma, NB (Patti and I have been there before and there's a video of Marlee at Alma available on the "Video" page of this site) so that my brother-in-law could have a fresh seafood dinner before flying back to Ontario the following day. Alma is a lovely little town just outside Fundy National Park, with a thriving fishing and lobster industry to boot.

Since we had Marlee Marie with us, Patti and I got take out while the rest of the family went in for a sit down meal. They said their dinner was great and we had a really nice time too. Oren and Deborah, their three kids and some friends of their's stopped to talk as we ate our meal on park benches near the wharf. It turns out they are breeders of golden doodles and were interested in Marlee. I have yet to check out their website (www.risingstardoodles.com) but I'm anxious to see what they do. Their doodles are 3/4 poodle to take advantage of the many benefits of the breed so I'm interested to see the differences.

After eating, Patti and I wandered with Marlee down to the wharf and were amazed to find a small crowd staring down at a small beluga whale that had taken up residence in the harbour. We were pleased that the beluga stayed around long enough for the rest of the family to emerge and get a glimpse. And to think we paid $50 each to go on a whale watching expedition: who would have thought the whales would come to us!

On the home front, I've jumped headfirst into the tree-clearing operation. After our friend Rob and I battled the front-lawn cedars into submission, my nieces and nephew have joined me in the war against the trees in the back yard. With Alex climbing and cutting, Katie clipping away and Matthew showing off his muscle on the big trees, we're gotten most of the clearing done.

The most challenging were a pair of mostly dead hawthorn trees, buried behind a stand of other stuff. Their branches had intertwined with every other tree in the area and their sharp little thorns like to grip and scratch anything that comes near. I'm covered from head to toe with scratches and I'm not yet finished with them. I did, however, get about a third of the cedar branches cleaned and bagged, so that's a real plus.

Writing? Hmm. Well, Alex did do some more work on The Final Curtain. That's good.

Tags: New Brunswick, Hopewell, Fundy, Alma, Rising Star Doodles, Beluga

It's 2:30 in the morning and I can't sleep. My body aches all over and I think I'm a little bit heat-stroked (if that's a word).

You see, we have our friends Nicola and Rob visiting for a couple of days and it's been really fun. But Rob, who is knowledgeable about all things natural, has also introduced me to a nifty new tool: a set of Fiskars loppers that can cut two-inch-thick branches off trees effortlessly. These things are magnificent. I wish I had them last summer when I started trying to get our tree problem under control. What took me days then would probably take only hours with these new loppers.

Rob also loves to prune trees (it's part of his job back in Ontario) and he and I decided yesterday to tackle the massive cedar trees that dominate our front yard. Our goal: to raise the skirts of these out-of-control trees to six feet off the ground and to clean up what's underneath.

With the loppers, the remains of a Fiskars pruning saw (we managed to break two of the wretched little things in the course of two hours) and Rob's expertise, we managed to get the job done in a single afternoon. It's really quite amazing. And it's stunning how much wood we ended up with lying around the front lawn (okay, piled up around the front lawn).

Unfortunately for me, we decided to do this in 30-degree weather with the sun beating down on us. Unfortunately as well, Rob is in much better shape to do this kind of work than I am. So now I'm paying for it, too sore and queasy to sleep.

But the cedars look great. And I'm looking forward to using those amazing loppers to dice up into firewood the branches we cut off (in the photo, the pile of branches is at right and extends at least twice the length of our carport). We've got enough to feed our fireplace for at least a year or two, once the wood has dried properly.

I just have to make sure I take it easy and don't push myself too hard. It's great to make progress but it won't help anything if the work kills me.

Tags: Garden, Cedar, Fiskars, Pruning, lopping, New Brunswick

Fall has certainly arrived in New Brunswick and, with it, some of the most spectacular colours I've ever seen. This morning, I took my usual drive down Highway 7 between Fredericton and Saint John and found myself driving through an amazing landscape, almost other worldly in its vivid hues.

Highway 7 rolls over hills and through valleys as it heads south and offers some pretty impressive vistas. Sometimes, it's a hillside in the distance, awash in reds, oranges, yellows and golds, all mixed with a spectrum of greens. At other times, the forest comes right to the side of the road and the individuals trees leap out at you as you flash by, on fire with colour.

My mom would have loved this, the most impressive autumn I've ever witnessed. She would have wanted to drive and drive and drive, ohhing and ahhhing at the trees. She would have loved the trip Patti, Marlee and I took after work tonight, first along Highway 7 to the valley town of Welsford, about 40 km from Saint John, then for a bite to eat at Georgette's Diner, and finally the return trip home, along the back roads through Fredericton Junction. Almost every foot of the trip offered something amazing to see (including a flock of deer in a roadside field, which sent my heart into my throat!).

We videotaped the drive down Highway 7, then took some still photos in Welsford itself, including several of that magnificent tree you see in the photo at right. If you want to see the video (or at least some highlights of it), wait a couple of days, then check it out on Youtube by searching "markwwnb". It'll be there soon, along with numerous videos of Marlee Marie frolicking at some of New Brunswick's neatest spots.

Ahh, Fall. Nobody does it better than New Brunswick!

Tags: New Brunswick, Fall, Trees