Apsey Brook

The Other Currant

Description : White Currant Auteur : Jastrow | 兔 (2004)

A friend/relative (Waves at Meghan) mentioned today that she had been given some black currant jelly.  This reminded me of “the other currant”.  Back home, in the garden of the home that Meghan is actually restoring, Aunt May had some black currant and red currant bushes, and they’d always be absolutely loaded with berries.

Lesser known though was out across the garden a little, near the path from running to Uncle Hay’s there was a white currant bush.  While I know some people love black and red currants, I could never take to them, at least not raw, they do make good jelly;  I have recipes here using red currant jelly for glazes and the like.

But I’ve rarely heard of many talking about white currants, and noone seemed to actually pick them, well except me.  They were sort of transparent, as you can see in the picture, full of seeds, and looked somewhat like a small gooseberry.  But god were they delicious!

The bush was smaller than the red and black currant bushes, and the berries themselves were smaller, but sooooo good.  I wonder what the jam or jelly from these would be like?

Meghan, start cooking some later in summer!

February 20, 2013 by Uncategorized 2

When fish were big and boys were small

One of the staple things we had growing up was fresh, frozen and salted cod.  Here in Nova Scotia haddock reigns supreme, but nothing to me beats the taste of a fresh out of the water cod.  Generally the casual fisher back home used a hand line with a traditional or Norwegian jigger. We’d lower the line overboard till it hit bottom and then pull up a fathom or two and start jigging back and forth till we hit a fish, then we’d pull it up and into the boat to be immediately cleaned.

I can still remember the feeling when you hit a big one, or as dad called them, a growler. You’d be jigging the line back and forth and then suddenly you’d bring up solid.  Sometimes they were so hard to pull in.  And if you happened to hook a mackerel  well, then your line was on times tight and then loose as they’d swim madly like a fly fish.

And of course in the days before nylon line, we’d have the older cord, everyone had notches in the gunnels of their boats where the line wore into the wood.

This one year, for whatever reason, dad decided to try a trawl.  Essentially it was a line with 50 smaller lines attached, with baited hooks on each.  We set it out near our marks somewhere and came back a day or two later.  Well we were pulling it in and caught a few fish, and then… it appeared.  As you can see on the left, the fish was bigger than me!  This was probably about 1974 or 75 I think, I’m pretty sure it was before my sister was born, making me 9 or 10 in this picture.  The cod weighed in at 65 pounds!

We cleaned it and tried to salt it, unfortunately it was so thick it didn’t take well, or we didn’t leave it long enough, and some spoiled, but we still got quite a few meals!

February 16, 2013 by Uncategorized 0

Gravel Roads

I remember when Random Island first got pavement. It only came down as far as the end of Elliott’s Cove if I remember correctly.  We used to call it Election Pavement, because it was slapped down really quickly just before or just after an election call in 1972, with no road upgrading whatsoever.  Still though it was something I guess, a modernization.  Pavement came to the rest of the island in fits and starts over the years, but finally we all got it.

There was something to be said for the gravel roads though.  Of course a lot of those words aren’t meant for polite company, especially after the second flat tire of the day, or being choked with dust in the summer.  In later years, they used to come by and oil the roads, though what the “oil” was I don’t remember.  It did help with the dust, though with hindsight, probably was toxic too.

Gravel roads were fun as a kid though, I remember using the potholes like pylons and weaving through them on my bike.  Also hated when the grader came because it always made the road full of crushed stone and gravel, which was sure to cause a wipe out at some point.

Gravel roads were good for drawing hopscotch games in the dirt with a stick too, and of course there’s nothing like a real gravel road to get a real mud pie from when it rained.

This picture was taken in the late 60’s I believe. I was about 3-4 here.  In the background behind the church, you can see Apsey Brook’s old one room school.  The truck I believe was dad’s.  To the left is what we called the school garden path.  Across from the school was a beautiful garden we used to play on, and that path led to it.  Later on the land was sold or appropriated by the government, and used to dig out gravel.  A crying shame.

If you look closely at the path, you can see an old concrete pipe.  I blame that pipe for my slight claustrophobia, as I once got stuck in it.   Its also the path I remember from my coaster riding days, was a lot of fun to come down there and go across the road and down over the garden.

February 10, 2013 by Uncategorized 0

Cabins in the Woods

As adults we all know the lure of the cabin in the woods, to be able to relax, no electricity, no phones, nothing but birds and relaxation.  But as boys we too seemed to have a fascination with cabins, or at least we did back home.  I can’t even begin to count how many were made over the years.

The most elaborate I remember was mainly built by my brother Keith and Lorne Patey in by the brook in Apsey Brook.  They picked a flat piece of land, that was near the woods path that went in across Uncle Ingham Smith’s garden, we just had to scramble up and down over the bank.  I really don’t remember how old we were, but I remember they knocked down logs and used as a base, and built a floor upon it.  We had a 45 gallon drum with a stove pipe coming out for a stove, and they at least ( I don’t think I ever slept there, or was allowed, or something) had hammocks hung to sleep in.  Yet my biggest memory somehow seems to be looking at our old collections of hockey cards in there.  We had many a full set all kept in special cardboard lockers that were issued for each season. I’m not sure what became of it, maybe the cabin is still there, but more likely it washed away at some point.  And if it hadn’t before, I’m sure hurricane Igor did the job on it.

The last I remember was built up in the woods behind our house, not far in, but not on any path either.  It was basically a shack with a sloped roof, but was always a fun place to go and sit and chat with friends.  I’d say that one has tumbled down long ago as it wasn’t nearly as sturdy, but it was fun, made of planks likely from Dad’s old mill, a door made for it, using pieces of rubber nailed to it for hinges, and a wooden knob pivoting on a nail to keep the door shut on the inside, and a bar and slot to keep it closed when we left.  Not that snow didn’t blow in underneath anyway!

And then of course as we got older, Barry Cooper had a great couple of cabins in Snook’s Harbour down by the water.  I can’t comment on the building of those, but they were much better built than those we built as boys. He had a big wooden table and a couple of bench seats pulled from an old car somewhere.  We’d head there and play cards, have a few beer, and generally use them as our party location.

Another fond memory of growing up.  Do kids back home still make cabins anymore? Of course there aren’t 2 or 3 sawmills in every community now either, so supplies aren’t as easy to come by.

February 3, 2013 by Uncategorized 4

Tunnels and Forts

I grew up, well as much growing up as I did anyway, back in the 70’s and 80’s.  We had a pet rabbit back then, named Flip Flop, because of his habit of flip flopping which ear he had up and which he laid flat.  As he was terrified of being out loose, my dad made this long cage for him to run, and it was connected to our woodhouse with a little hole to an inside cage in the warm.

In winter Flip Flop would make tunnels in the snow in this cage and you could see him running flat out through them.  Us kids too loved to make tunnels in the snow, I was a small brat of a boy, and didn’t need a lot of snow for them, but it also seemed we had more snow back in those days.  I can remember wiggling through tunnels in the snow banks both short and long.

Just to the left of this picture would have been a clothesline stand dad had made, attached to the woodhouse, climbing up a few steps nearly to the roof, with a clothesline mounted a pole from it, with a pulley to string out the clothes.  In winter this would usually drift in, and it was my favorite spot to tunnel.  I could dig a hole under the bottom step, and get under the wooden stand, digging it out and wiggling myself into a cozy warm little house.  Being a loner even then, I could spend hours in there making my plans for world domination in my captain Nemo submarine, with my underground fortress buried in under Granny Walters Hill.  Somehow that fortress still needs to take shape 🙂

Don’t forget being a kid folks, go play in the snow when you can!

February 2, 2013 by Uncategorized 1

Sliding

My little niece went sliding for the first time over the weekend, and reminded me of times sliding back home.

Generally we didn’t have the plastic slides you see today, the fanciest we had was a crazy carpet.  Most times sliding involved a toboggan, or the old fashioned coaster you see here.

These didn’t really work unless you had hard crusty snow, or more likely for my sliding career at least, ice from hard packed ski-doo paths.

You were “supposed” sit on the coaster and use your feet to steer by using the handle, and sometimes I did that.  But more often, I lay on my stomach on it and steered using my hands.

Two rides stand out. The first was towing the slide all the way in to the “level”, a named spot in the woods near the house where the ground leveled off for a bit after having climbed all the way into that point.  There was an old slide path (a path made for use by a horse and slide to pull wood) coming from there to the old school garden, and then turning down the hill, and heading down near the church.  Quite a long long ride, made even longer by previously opening the gates on Ross Smith’s garden and sliding all the way to the beach.  Awesome log ride and a fair rate of speed as it was downhill the whole way.

The second ride that stands out was partially because it was the last.  Up over the hill from us Uncle Lionel Kelly had his house.  It sat on a level spot with a grassy hill rising towards that same “level” from a different angle.  This year, that hill had iced over completely and was a kids speed dream on the old coaster.  Dad had gone up to visit Uncle Lionel, and/or his son Sam, and I was up on the hill with the coaster.  After several high speed runs, on my stomach of course, I came down one last time, being the last because of what happened.  Somehow, the coasters runners got caught in a rut, and there was no way to steer it.  I hurtled along on my stomach and proceeded to slam into the house.  I don’t recall how hurt I was, do remember being scraped and a little bloody, and walking into the house to get Dad.

That was it for the old coaster, not as punishment or anything, but because I broke it in three pieces on that last ride.

January 7, 2013 by Uncategorized 3

Out on the Sound

Random Island is separated from the Bonivsta peninsula on the island’s north side by Smith Sound.  This is about 1-3 miles across in most places if memory serves.  Sometimes in my memory we’ve had the sound freeze completely over, and can remember people ski-dooing, skating to Harcourt, hauling wood on horse and slide, and of course, fishing.

In Newfoundland you go fishing for one kind of fish only, that’s cod.  Any other type of fishing has its own name (trouting, etc).  Nowadays with the moratorium on, even if the sound did freeze over, you’d not be allowed to go fishing, but years ago you could.

One of my most vivid memories of my Uncle Hay was one day him and I went out on our old ski-doo (I think it was that far back anyway).  This was an old Alouette, we bought off Ross Smith and it weighed about 17 tons I think, and had about a 400 cubic inch motor in it ( I may have exaggerated slightly). I remember the ski-doo just because it was so ancient and yet so powerful.  In any event, Uncle Hay and I drove out to some of our fishing marks and put some holes down through.  I think we used my old ice auger, but it may have even pre-dated me having one of those, maybe Uncle Hay had one. You’d probably think that ice on such a large body of water wouldn’t be thick, but I remember there being about 2-3 feet of ice to drill through.

Salt water ice, or at least on a body that large, doesn’t respond like fresh water ice.  Its “softer”, flexible, and you can feel the lop under the ice moving it up and down, and can hear the huge cracks like thunder when a crack opens up.

It was a beautiful winter day, sunny, sun felt warm, and was awesome to be out on the ice, doing what we both loved.  I really don’t remember if we got any fish, but that really didn’t matter to me that day.  I’m not sure where Dad was to be honest, possibly it was a work day, most likely was, but after Uncle Hay had retired.  Some days just belong to certain people or groups.  This was ours, or for me anyway.  Much love to Uncle Hay, and Dad as well.  We’ll fish again together someday.

January 5, 2013 by Uncategorized 1

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