Another summer gone! This summer was far too short and so that has pushed us to decide to return to Canada and Nova Scotia permanently.

While we were only in Nova Scotia for a few scant weeks, we still lived every minute to the fullest! Check out the full gallery.

On our very first day, I was reminded of some of the amazing things that we literally have in our backyards, or at least in my brother-in-law’s backyard. This is a lady’s slipper orchid, which I thought was the official flower of Nova Scotia, but is in fact that of Prince Edward Island.

A few days later, while enjoying the Port Mouton Bay waterfront …

… I came across a white lady slipper, a flower I have never seen before.

However, when I returned with Annette only a day later to show her the flower, those pesky deer had eaten the blossom.

Given our short time in Nova Scotia, we did not go too far. We did however, have a few visitors to the point. Big brother and Anneke paid a visit …

… as did an intrepid bird watcher.

We also had a lovely visit from our Tuscany trip team …

We made a good effort to visit a few areas of natural beauty also almost in our backyard. One of our favourite hiking spots in the Kejimkujik Seaside Adjunct.

Canada Parks has placed giant red adirondack chairs in many parks across Canada. An exciting challenge is to go and find those chairs. Another exciting challenge is to look for the many different wildflowers. I have made other posts about these flowers and so will not go on here, but there really is an amazing variety…

… of flora including the popular and prolific Pitcher plant. You can see our gallery of Nova Scotia Flora here.

The flower of Newfoundland.

While I am on the topic of flowers, I will point out that Queen’s County and southern Nova Scotia is a Growing zone 6 or higher and so supports the beautiful Cornus Cusa plant, AKA the Dogwood tree. This particular speciman is at our neighbour’s house  …

… where she also has quite a garden full of flowering trees.

I also discovered for the first time just exactly what a north american mistletoe looked like. I did not realize that Mistletoe, at least in North America, is a parasitic plant type, that is quite common in Nova Scotia.

We took a day to invite some family and neighbours to go on a short lobster boat tour of Port Mouton Bay. I have posted pictures of such tours before, so I will share one highlight from that trip.

The Spectacle Island Lighthouse, also called the Port Mouton Lighthouse is directly offshore from our property and so over the years we have grown to love the view of the lighthouse and to enjoy the nightly lightshow – Flashing white every 12 seconds.

As we are planning to move to Port Mouton permanently in January, 2026, we started to look carefully at our humble cottage and get ideas for renovations.

We will also be looking carefully at the …

… in order to determine what we can do to make it usable year-round. Inside the bunkie is more or less done except for a bit of trim and of course the ceiling.  The biggest decision is what to do with the Dubai Bar…. ???