Hi everyone! Since my last blog, I’ve been pretty busy! Some of you have heard the stories, and others haven’t, so let’s break it up into pieces; house stuff, English stuff, and (of course) hiking stuff!

House stuff

I’ve posted about my lawn before. After winter, most of the grass stayed pretty brown, which was depressing to see. However, I experimented with some soil, grass seed, and plenty of water, and here is a small patch that I repaired in the front yard.

It’s not perfect, but it’s much better than before!
So I tried the same thing with the back yard:

At these patches, the roots of the tree on the right had come out of the ground, so it was damaging the grass, and mowing the lawn might damage the roots, so I needed to build up the soil some more to protect everything.
There’s no success yet, but I remember the front yard took a long time too. I hope these patches fill out a little.
We also had a wasp nest. As the landlord, it was my responsibility to take care of it, but I didn’t want to hire someone to do it…

I work tough pants, 3 layers of jackets, work gloves, a bug net, and a hat. It was VERY hot to wear this in the middle of summer, but I had to make sure I didn’t get attacked!
I don’t have any pictures, but I do have a short video. The quality is a little poor, because it was at night, and I was scared to get too close.

It was a little scary, and I accidentally locked myself under the deck for a few moments! (My husband rescued me <3) But I managed to destroy the nest with a hose and some spray. I don’t like killing bugs, but I have tenants to take care of now.

English stuff

Rainbow English has been mostly the same as usual! But I set up a tent at the Regatta this year once again.

I set up the day before, and that night there was a very heavy rain storm! I was very worried that all of my materials would be wet… but luckily, this tent held up okay! I was a little surprised, honestly.

My setup was pretty similar to last year.

Some students visited me, and I gave them a Prism keychain! (Do you want one? Let me know, and I can mail one to you! <3)
This year was pretty quiet compared to last year. The weather was grey, and it looked like it was going to rain all day (it did rain around 4 pm), so the traffic was much less than normal. The next 3 pictures are taken from the morning to the afternoon.

I don’t think I got many new students this year, but I did get a chance to talk to some people, meet some students in person, and plenty of people to place flags on the map!

Hiking stuff

After my friend left in July, my husband was unexpectedly called to work in another province for 2 weeks (eventually it became 3 weeks!), so he left his car here. Now that I have my license, that meant I could go hiking any time and any place I wanted! So here is a series of smaller hikes I did.

July 18th - Sounding Hills Path (6.5 km + 6.5 km)

This one started off pretty well. A fairly easy walk, and some nice views.

About 2 kilometers in, the path was starting to get pretty difficult, so I found a nice clearing to take a break.

However, very soon after, the path became impossible to pass. Fallen trees blocked the path, and the trees became so thick that I thought the path was closed temporarily. Unfortunately, I had to turn back, and this one was a bit of a failure. I’ll come back to it soon, I think!

July 19th - Caplin Bay Path (5km + 3.8km)

The previous day, I had to cancel the hike because of the trail conditions, so I felt a bit sad about it. This one was much nicer! The views were great, and most of the hike was very easy. At the end, there were a few hills I had to climb, but the walk back was easy because I walked along the road.

On top of the hill, fog was blowing over the grass and trees. It’s always interesting to see, it feels like living in a dream!

I settled on a bench near the sea, and ate one of those dehydrated meals. Chicken fettucine alfredo is my favourite pasta, and I was eager to eat it. It turned out so delicious, and it really hit the spot!

July 21st - La Manche Village Path (5km + 5km)

I still had a lot of energy after these hikes, so I went on another one soon after. I’m glad I did, because I saw a really amazing sight I’d never seen before.

The trail itself wasn’t so remarkable, and I’ve actually hiked to this point before. It’s the brige here.
But this time, I approached from the north. And I found many puffins there! They were floating and swimming. It was so interesting to see them under the water, but it’s difficult to see in the video.

As I went to the bridge, I found out why they were all there!

This fish is called capelin (or caplin), and this event is pretty famous in Newfoundland, called the “Capelin roll”. People go to beaches with buckets and just pick up as many fish as they like. I’ve never done it myself, so I was surprised to see the water completely full of fish!

July 26th - Beaches Path (7km + 7km)

I didn’t take so many pictures on this one. It was quite muddy, and a tough 14 km in total!

August 2nd - Mickeleen’s Path (7.3km + 6km)

At this point, many of the paths started to look the same, just doing so many hikes in such a short time, haha! For this hike, I took the path south, and then I walked along some roads back north.

August 9th - Cobbler’s Path (4.7km + 4.7km)

And this was my most recent hike! This time, I headed north of my hometown. Until now, all of the paths have been south, so this was an interesting direction I’d never been before.

This place is interesting because it’s where an American military base was during World War II! There were some old foundations I saw in the woods.

And there was a gun emplacement that Americans used to watch for German ships. It was so cool to see all of this for the first time!

The rest of the hike was pretty similar to other paths. Lots of cliffs, ocean, and trees. The trail was pretty easy, but there were plenty of hills to climb this time, which made it a bit more tiring than the ones I’ve done recently.

This hike was already fantastic, but on the way home, I saw a fox on the road! I thought it was a dog at first.

So that’s been my hiking this summer so far. Here is the last map that shows my progress on the whole East Coast Trail area:

But I’ve done a few paths north and south of this area. Here is the updated map!

I only have 2 more paths to do south of my town. There are many paths to the north, but I hope I can finish all of them by the end of the warm weather this year! I have 1 more place I need to camp.

Those are my updates, everyone! Whew, it’s a long blog this time. I’ll see you all next time! :D

Busy summer!

I’m back!