Fun at Blomidon

The waterfalls are always a favorite place to play, there are 4 or 5 of them. We visit the three easterly ones every time we go.

We found a mermaid's purse! Its an egg case for a shark or a ray!

Sprout ate periwinkles and rocks when no one was fast enough grabbing them away from him. It is agreed that when we have to return to a hunter gatherer life that he has a leg up on all of us!

Then we did some hunting and gathered delicious blackberries. They've just started up here at Blomidon, almost all of them are still green. We'll be picking into October! Rock Hound has a gift with rock finding and found this awesome rock bowl. Everyone used it to drink from the waterfall too.

After we left the Museum We Almost Visited Oak Island

We had dinner at a friend's house who lives 300 metres from the causeway that goes over to the REAL PIRATE TREASURE ISLAND - OAK ISLAND. After dinner Nature Girl and her friend Anaximander got into a history computer game called Empire: Total War and we went for a walk with Wild Thing and Sprout, over to look at Oak Island.

Real cannons! This is not a touristy place. The entire island is owned by treasure seekers - rivalries exist! One group of owners built the causeway (which was supposed to be dismantled afterwards) to get heavy machinery onto the island. They still make all the other owners take barges and boats across!

We think a skull and crossbones would have been more appropriate on the sign.

Maybe next time we'll sail out to Tancook Island - sparkling in the distance.

Yesterday we went to the Fisheries Museum

Lots of fish to meet (these are brook trout - we saw cod, and eels, and lump fish, and well, about 16 different types plus various shellfish too)

They pretended they were lobsters...

The sea monster exhibit was a big hit.

We loved this guy...

Typical morning

cowboys and girls

Queen of the Frog Islands and her sidekick

Reading together, over homemade bread, jam, and cream cheese lunch..

Cake and a Tummy Ache

Papa Pan mused that he wanted some cake...so Nature Girl rolled up the sleeves on her medieval tunic and made him a lemon blueberry cake..with lemon cream cheese glaze and extra blueberries.

Wild Thing hugged the warm stove because he was cold ...a sure sign he was coming down with something. He was sick all night. Poor baby.

Papa Pan and Sprout

There's something about being on the sea that strips a decade from Papa Pan. I think we need to move closer to it.

Wild Thing and Nature Girl Discover Surfing

We took the kids to Laurencetown Beach - surfing mecca. We discussed surfing with them and both of them were over the moon with the idea. The talk turned to surfer movies they might like. Wild Thing explained how there needed to be a movie about pirate surfers. Not ordinary pirate surfers - skeleton pirate surfer KNIGHTS. I made the mistake of saying I thought finding a movie about skeleton pirate surfer knights might be impossible. He set out to prove me wrong.

Which brought us to Dude's Food

Close to heaven for this little dude!


But still, it isn't quite what he was looking for....


and then he saw it....

A REAL skeleton pitate surfer knight!

Toys From Nature: Seaweed

Who needs fancy silk ribbon streamers?

As we left the beach Wild Thing declared "He's coming home with us!"

Anthromorphized kelp really really stinks when forgotten in the car for 2 days!

Advice on Living in the Maritimes with Kids

Invest in good raingear.

Do not expect them to stay dry in raingear.

Do not expect them to wear raingear.

Accept that WET is much more fun.

I bring you: Lumsden Dam!

My favorite place to learn to swim

Where we always meet friends no matter what day we show up or when we show up.

This "pond" is easy 5 times the size of Oma's Lake and no power boats.

Everyone stops by for a dip on a hot day because it's 5 to 10 minutes from everyone's house!

Sprout's favorite game at the moment