Last week, we held a board meeting of the Ernest Buckler Literary Event Society (EBLES) at Lunn’s Mill beer company in Lawrencetown. The society supports biennial events in celebration of local writers. Afterwards, the topic of the Morse Estate in Paradise came up, and whether it was the model for the ‘secluded country guesthouse’ described in Buckler’s book The Cruelest Month.
This set me on a quest. 
The Morse Estate has been renamed Burnbrae Farm and Paradise Inn. Consequently, I dropped in, to meet the owners: Erik and Simone Wasiliew. They run it as a Bed and Breakfast. Recently, they have also purchased the adjacent Camp Hillis, a residential facility from the provincial government, and plan to integrate it back into the estate.
From my visit, I learned some of the histories of the Morse Estate, as well as an appreciation of the vision of the new owners.
In the book, one of the characters is Morse Halliday (perhaps a clue). The guesthouse is called ‘Endlaw’, an anagram of Thoreau’s Walden.
Clearly, Paradise is changing. Across the Annapolis River, we find the new Paradise Cafe. Jack Pearle, who farms on Paradise Lane, has a new produce stand on the Highway #201.
To learn more about the history of the houses in Paradise, stop at the Community Hall. For each house, there is a short history, photograph and ownership information. This year also sees the establishment of the Paradise Historical Society. Every August, the Hankinsons at Ellenhurst, stage the Moonlight concert.
My link to the village of Paradise is through Raymond Hunter. Raymond and Rona lived on the corner of Paradise Lane, opposite Jack Pearle. Later, they moved east along Highway #201 towards Lawrencetown, where Raymond planted an organic orchard. That is where we enter the story. We are picking the orchard and maintaining its organic status
It is awesome to imagine an event at Burnbrae Farm and Paradise Inn that looks at Buckler’s book The Cruelest Month in its modern context. Ideally, in April, which Buckler defined as the cruelest month. Now, its time to re-read the book.
Acknowledgements
Anne Crossman and Jane Borecky, both Board members of EBLES, for their conversation and support. To Erik and Simone Wasiliew, Burnbrae Farm for their hospitality. Sandra Barry for sending me the link to the Elizabeth Bishop poem, The Map. https://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/elizabeth-bishop/the-map/. And Edward Wedler for his illustration.
References
Ernest Buckler. 1963. The Cruelest Month. McClelland and Stewart Ltd.
Burnbrae Farm/Paradise Inn. go to http://www.burnbraeparadise.ca
Footnote
Through the Annapolis Valley Regional Library Interlibrary loan service, I have received a copy of Elizabeth Bishop’s book Geography III. It includes ten of her poems, published in 1976. The frontispiece makes reference to ‘First Lessons in Geography’. Monteith’s Geographical Series. Published by A.S. Barnes & Co. 1884. Lesson VI: What is Geography ? Lesson X: What is a Map ? Bishop was familiar with this book in her childhood.
Answers. A description of the Earth’s surface. A picture of the whole or part of the Earth’s surface. Check the link above, to read Elizabeth Bishop’s poem The Map.
After a week in the orchard picking apples with ladder, picking bag and hook, I can appreciate the pleasure gained from low hanging fruit. However, it should be recognized that the best apples are found in the top branches of the tree. The low hanging fruit tends to be found on the side branches; smaller apples, more of them, but easily available for hand picking. There is no need for the combination of technology: ladder, picking bag and hook.
At the end of the week, we were able to celebrate ten bins shipped to Brian Boates for juice that will be a component of 
For the last few years, every Summer, we have provided a holiday camp for two retired Inuit sled dogs: Uke and Siq Siq. They were part of a litter born in Pond Inlet, Nunavut about twelve years ago, under the watchful eye of my son, Andrew. Later, they went to Prince George, where they provided Patrick, my eldest son, with the pulling power for ski-joring. They arrive in Paradise, in May and usually return home by early September.
In the Valley, a late frost in early June impacted many of the apple growers in the region. Fortunately, for us, Raymond Hunter planted his trees in a tree protected area. This has allowed us to ship the early drops to Brian Boates in Woodville. Now we have started picking directly from the trees. The first cycle will be the Nova Mac variety, to be followed later, by the Mac Free. All of these organic apples will be juiced at Boates cider mill and then transported to Ironworks Distillery, Lunenburg as a key ingredient in their apple brandy. If we have a spell without too much rain, we should be able to pick a couple of bins per day. (note: one bin can hold between 18-20 bushel boxes).
In the latest issue of Saltscapes, two articles caught my attention. Jodi DeLong reviewed Sandra Phinney’s book ‘Waking up in my own backyard. Explorations in Southwest Nova Scotia. Or as DeLong titled her article ‘ Celebrating our own spaces’
There, I discovered:
Stepping back, I recognized that, consciously or not, we are thinking at multiple scales. Within a geographic framework, this can mean:
At the end of last week, we decided to take a trip along the Parrsboro shore, primarily to check out the Fundy Geological Museum. On our way home, we stopped at 
At the church, I picked up a copy of the brochure Elizabeth Bishop’s Paris. This small brochure describes two visits to Paris in the mid-1930’s. Interestingly, it includes a map of central Paris, identifying locations visited by Bishop and Louise Crane. The map also shows the location of the first conference on Elizabeth Bishop in France. Elizabeth Bishop in Paris: Spaces of Translation and Translations of Space. 6-8 June 2018. The text was written by Jonathan Ellis, Sheffield University.
This blog was inspired by Arundhati Roy’s book Capitalism. A Ghost Story. It is a collection of short stories about life in India. Indeed, it is a VERY scary book [
On the economic development front, The Centre for Local Prosperity is promoting 
I had noted that Chris Turner at BlueJack Consulting had developed a web GIS application for the Eastern Shore. Likely my best resource would be Eric Melanson at Esri Canada in Halifax. Eric was a COGS graduate from the ’80’s.
At the end of my thread, I listened to a podcast by Geoffrey West. He had written a book, called Scale. In particular, West talks about scale in terms of large cities and companies. Of course, my interest was at the opposite end of the spectrum. What happens in rural Canada? These areas lack the diversity of our urban areas and thus are extremely vulnerable to the effects of change.
And further:
My interest was two-fold. I wanted to challenge myself and find out what would be the process if I decided to return to work ( I retired in 2011). Secondly, I wanted to understand the nature of the employment hub in Middleton 
Another connection, that appeared in my email box that day, was from 
In our working world, we become used to responding to a variety of tasks and deadlines. What happens in our retirement? We are still geared to tasks and specific timelines. Imagine a situation where two individuals who have structured their lives according to tasks, and deadlines. Suddenly, in retirement, we need to change our behaviour and recognize that living in a rural society, the timelines are driven more by natural cycles. The green beans and the gooseberries need to be picked. The beans have to be blanched, before freezing. The gooseberries turned into jam.
In the teaching environment, we understand semesters, final examinations, Summer vacation. In the research environment, there is fieldwork, analysis, writing reports and going to conferences. There is also the structure of the research grant: proposals, the research and the deliverables.
Along with retirement comes the role of ‘elder’. What have we learned from our career? Can we mentor the next generation to address environmental issues? Or the relationship between ‘Man and Nature’? What processes exist so that this knowledge can be applied to current issues in society? How can we change our educational institutions? How can we change our governing institutions?