The full moon rose at 6:58 PM and we watched her rise above the Peticodiac.
The lunar eclipse is coming and we’ve got clear skies and warm weather so we’ll make it a full evening and watch the whole show starting at 7 PM tonight when we drove down to the Riverfront Trail and set up to watch the moon rise over the trees. A flock of geese flew right in front of the moon just as I turned off my camera, wouldn’t you know it!
We watched the eclipse start down at the chocolate river with the tidal bore and then went home to watch the show!
We set up our lawn chairs, made a hot beverage and sat like a couple on the deck of a cruise ship under blankets watching the eclipse make the moon turn a shadowy reddish color and darken the skies so more stars were visible. It was a prefect evening and a great show under the moon together!
This year we tried our hand at growing Dahlias and they were amazing. Who would have guessed that last year when we bought the bulbs that it would lead us to eventually go on a trip to PEI with the Moncton Dahlia Club! Who Knew?!
On a recent trip to MacArthur’s Nursery in Moncton we spotted a pamphlet on the wall adverting a day-trip bus tour to PEI with the Dahlia Club of Moncton. The only reason I spotted the poster was because of the Dahlia and it was similar to our first Dahlia that was blooming at home so it grabbed my attention. We had been very happy with our first Dahlia attempt, well DD did the work on this one but I provided moral support and daily growth updates as it bloomed.
So we figured that this was a synchronicity type of moment and decided to join the Dahlia club on their annual trip and since PEI is so close we couldn’t even come up with an excuse to not go it sounded like too much blooming’ fun!
Our first stop was just across the Confederation Bridge at the PEI welcome area where we were greeted by a welcoming committee complete with a big brown sack of potatoes. It was like the PEI equivalent of Santa Clause but this time our good saint handed out bags of tasty PEI potato chips! Glad it wasn’t just a red russet. We stopped in the gift shop and DD had a picture taken dressed as Anne of Green Gables. Then we got back on the bus and drove to our next stop a nursery and also our first encounter with what would become a theme: goats!
Our bus tour stopped at the Vesey Seeds headquarters in PEI and we were given a great tour of the experimental flower garden and the vegetable garden.
The goats outside the nursery were the big attraction, they had these cool wooden climbing ladders that went up about 30 feet into the air and the goats climbed all the way to the top it was so cute!
Next we did a tour through Charlottetown and saw the parliament building and drove down Water Street to see the historical buildings. It was nice to be in the bus because the view is from up high so we could see more than when we had been driving here a few weeks prior.
Next was the soap store where there were more goats. They were selling handmade soaps and cheeses and creams and lotions but I was just happy to hang out with the goats and they were happy to come close and lean against the fence so they could have a little belly scratch.
Our bus tour with the Greater Moncton Dahlia Club could also have been called the Glorious Goat Tour! This little cuties was hanging out on the picnic table.
After the goats we went for a tour of Vesey seeds. We had a guided tour of their experimental flower gardens and research vegetable patch as well. They gather seeds from around the world and test them for hardiness and resistance in our Maritime and Canadian conditions to ensure the best seeds are available. There is a store as well with all sorts of gardening tools, seeds, gadgets, bird feeders and jewellery and knick knacks to do with gardens birds and everything that is wild and wonderful!
There were so many flowers in bloom it was hard not to take picture after picture!
From their location in PEI they ship seeds and products and bulbs around North America and the world. It is quite a big operation and was started by Arrhur Vesey in 1939. We had a tour through the Arthur Vessey memorial gardens which were so nice. I found it interesting that Mr. Vessey, who spent his entire life involved in growing flowers and plants and working with the science of pollination and grafting and biological proliferation himself had no children. Kind of interesting to me that in a way he has children all over the world and so many gardens around the world are full of flowers that have genes and DNA and spores and life that can be traced back to him over all these years so in a way he does have a huge family!
The last stop was at the PEI Preserve company and their shop, resto and garden. The Garden of Hope was truly amazing! It is along the water and winds through forests and planted zones full of various bright flowers and lovely climbing vines and plants. There are benches all along the trail and some lovely sheep with bells around their necks jingled as they nibbled clover on the hill.
We enjoyed a beautiful walk on the hills of the Garden of Hope at the PEI Prserve Company. The large garden was the highlight of my day.
There was a secret enchanted garden near the butterfly house with large wooden doors suspended from the trees that created the gate into another world. Wind chimes were hanging in the woods and when a gust of wind blew through the pines they gently sounded their bells. Empty wooden window frames, the wooden kind you’d find in old Victorian houses or small PEI farms, were hung here and there in the trees and it created a ghostly feeling a bit like a walk through heaven.
There was a mama and baby llama as well as a mama and baby mini horse in a field. We also had a little black and white cat come and visit us in the field and have a little rub. He was a dapper little fellow and was living in an idyllic little place, some would even say the setting was bucolic!
This little pony was enjoying the sunny August day on Prince Edward Island in the pasture with his mama and her friends the llamas!
We had dinner at the Preserve Company restaurant and it certainly wasn’t bland! Thant’s a bit of a joke because we had asked for the meal to be bland due to the food sensitivities DD has to deal with and the salmon came all lemony and marinated…so it was anything but bland. The dining room with stained glass and quilts hanging from the ceiling made me think of clouds in the sky and the water views were beautiful. The food wasn’t really our cup of bush tea and we decided that next time we visit we would bring a supper and eat in the garden and leave a donation for the upkeep of the Garden of Hope as they are doping a wonderful job at keeping it in a state of glory.
The boardwalk from the restaurant to the garden was so sweetly perfumed with the huge flower blooms!
So it was a long day we finally got back home at 9:30 and had a great time. The Dahlia club members were lots of fun and very friendly. Hal the driver was a top notch pilot and Paulette and Merle both did a great job of making sure everything went smoothly.
It was our first official “Bus Tour” we’d ever been on and it was so nice to leave the driving to someone else and just go with the flow! The Dahlia Club were great to hang out with and the day was jam packed with everything from goats to gardens!
