One of natures constants ….

On the morning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I was in need of some serious reset and therefore went for a nice wander on the beach.

It is a rare thing to live through a moment of huge historical consequence and understand in real time that it is what it is. From an early age, one of my keen and deep interests has been 20th century history. I have a large collection of videos, DVDs’ and books on the subject, with many that I have viewed or read more than once or twice. As a result, I would say, my knowledge is good and my ability to compare is reasonable. As I look out onto the world, I would say our fragile planet is possibly under more threat today than at any time in the past 120 years.

We currently have a situation of sharing our world with far too many foreign dictators and terror groups, all with inflated feelings of pride and  superiority, which is dangerously combined with an agenda of destruction and human suffering. While in other parts, we are being guided by increasingly poor leadership, whose actions and resulting failures continually add to our vulnerability, in the form of heightening levels of climate change, out of control national debt, increasing political divisiveness, questionable levels of govenrnment sponsored political correctness, troubling weakness and much more.

In 1968,  Jim Lovell the Command Module Pilot of Apollo 8 said in reference to planet earth ~ "When I put my thumb up to the window (of the command module) I could completely hide it, and then I realized that behind my thumb I was hiding this earth where there are about 6 billion people that are all striving to live there."

When I stand back and look at all that is going on in the world, I wonder what the hell it is all about. We are a tiny dot in this gigantic universe, perhaps like a single grain of sand on the beach. Our planet is a fragile gift, but unfortunately one that we continually mismanage, randomly abuse and fight over.

This morning while perhaps dwelling too much upon all the worldly chaos, I got tremendous solace from watching the tide coming in ~ one of nature's constants that we (hopefully) cannot change.

Storm Clouds …

According to The Weather Network, this evening and overnight we are in for more snow.

As mentioned in a previous blog from January, this winter has been the worst we have experienced since coming to Nova Scotia in 2016. I have figured out this winters weather cycle ~ it seems that we get lots of snow which is then quickly followed too many days of low temperatures. Then to fool us into believing that spring is just around the corner, we typically have two or three days of higher temperatures with bright sunshine and rapid snow melting ~ and then is all starts again …..!!

The clouds shown in todays pics from Rissers Beach are carrying the leading edge of the overnight snow. In addition to the clouds, today I was somewhat entertained by the lone and rather brave surfer ….

Bright, cold and an extremely low tide …

Due to involvement with other activities, it has almost been a month since my last beach wander. Today’s return was perfect, very cold, bright and absolutely perfect in the few sun traps I have found for myself.

Also, of note was the extremely low tide, I had never seen it so low. I checked the charts and found that it occurred when I was out and about at 2.49pm, with a level of 0.00m (zero).

Some random pics from today’s adventure ~

Same view different season …..

This winter marks our sixth here in the South Shore and it is proving to be the coldest and possibly the snowiest. Generally, we have found our past winters in this little corner of Nova Scotia to be much milder than those experienced in Southern Ontario, but this one is getting up there. By comparison to last year, I think it was late February to early March before the snowblower first saw the light of day ~ that’s OK, I am not complaining it could be worse ~ I could be back in Southern Ontario …..

Below are some pics taken today after yesterday’s snow clear up. The first lot are taken just down the road at the frozen LaHave River. As a comparison, I have included two  photos taken at the same view point during October 2019 from the blog ~ “At end of our road this morning ..."  ~

https://southshoretidewatch.blogspot.com/2019/10/at-end-of-our-road-this-morning.html

First beach wander of 2022 ...

With a colder than normal wind from the south, an extremely high tide and an overcast grey sky, I had my first enjoyable beach wander for the year 2022.

I knew before I went out this morning, that today’s photos would be in black and white. I have no idea why it was going to be that way; it has happened before. Perhaps it was due to the overcast and grey conditions and the desire to complement and embellish the photos, with the texture and detail density that black and white photos can occasionally provide.

Did it work, perhaps yes or perhaps not, but it was fun trying ….

Buddies sharing breakfast …

With an extremely low tide, bright sunshine but cool wind, I was out this morning for a beach wander at Rissers. With absolutely no other person on the beach, I was kept amused for a short time with a crow, seagull and clamshell.

Like I have observed many times before, I watched the seagull firmly grip the unopened clamshell in his beak. Then with the crow watching in what I suppose was an excited level of anticipation, the seagull took flight. From a great height the gull then dropped the clamshell onto the hard wet sand, breaking open to reveal what was to be their shared breakfast.

The beach all to myself 

A pleasant morning wander …

Mainly due to the weather and keeping busy with some winter projects, it has been almost two weeks since I last had a beach wander ~ but it was worth the wait. This morning was perfect with a warm wind from the south west and a few seagulls for company ~ it is always great to walk beside the sea.

Hello December ….

Incredibly today we find ourselves in the month of December of the year 2021 ~ how did happen so fast, did I miss a few decades …?

When I was a young lad in Scotland, I recall it took four years for the Olympics or the Soccer World Cup to come round, but now with the frantic pace that time pulls us along, it seems those events are an annual occurrence. On the same subject, in the past each successive Christmas Day felt like it had 12 full months between them, but not now …!!!

On my beach wander this morning, I had a few thoughts about time and its ever-accelerating tempo. After dwelling upon it for far too long, I could not come up with any positive ideas on how to slow it down ~ so I decided to thoroughly enjoy the beautiful bright sun, the blue skies and just embrace the now …