Thinking about the Northern Appalachians

Two weeks from now is another border rollover deadline.  The US-Canada border has now been closed for well over a year, with the first soft opening on July 5th allowing fully-vaccinated Canadians to return to Canada without a mandatory 14-day quarantine and negative COVID tests.  That seems like a baby step to me, but perhaps we’ll see something similar announced by July 21 about vaccinated Americans (and potentially other vaccinated travelers).

I’ve been working through my narrative about our two summers and winters in Quebec, now in the third pass of updating digital files after editing.  I’m sure we’ll get there this summer, I think, as I work on the manuscript.  Surely in August, if not late July?

Our neighbors’ son, who is staying in our house currently, “home” in Quebec from his work life at the University of Mississippi, sent photos of robust plants, overgrown beds, and fortunately not drought-stressed. And he’ll be glad to start watering as needed.

Our landscape needs its gardeners back.  And we both want to be back in the Northern Appalachians, as does Woody, who will benefit from swims in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, soothing his arthritic back leg with the cool water and gentle exercise.

This is a nearby marsh.  It’s a photo taken in late September of 2019, just before we left after 4 months in Quebec.  We went back for two months in winter of 2020, returning in March to Asheville just as COVID restrictions took hold.