It’s a hot day today. It’s rained here all week which helped the firemen to control the wildfire. I am ready for more sun though. I planted a spearmint seedling in the garden. It didn’t regrow this spring. My garden is just beautiful and everything is growing so fast!
I finished the bookcase project. The two bookcases are now at my Mom’s house and I have one tall bookcase holding a LOT of books. I also switched the witch books with my writing books. That was a huge undertaking. I sorted out the ones I wanted to donate which left me with enough room to hold all the books I did want. It took me a couple of hours to sort through. I have way more room in my bedroom now. I love it!
I finished binding my Herbal Academy lessons in the Intermediate level into books. I had to touch up the covers with green tissue paper, paint and glue but it looks great now. The Celtic dragon trim arrived in the owl mail. I can’t wait to sew that onto the black wool cloak. The cloak will look great.
Midsummer is almost here! The Wheel of the Year turns again. It’s a magical Sabbat! Honour the fiery power of the sun by going outdoors! Yup that’s right. Let the warm breeze sweep away your troubles. It’s summer, after all. Gather flowers, herbs, leaves and press them or use them to decorate cookies. Host a summer party, go to the beach or indulge in forest bathing. Plant herbs , veggies and flowers and tend them as they grow. As you plant each seed, empower it with your intention and bless the seeds.
Try a new herbal recipe, educate yourself about herbs that you aren’t familiar with, and go for a long walk on a nature trail or to the forest with a plant guide book or your cellphone app to help you identify plants. Take your dog with you! They love the outdoors.
Burn candles to celebrate the solstice! There is a ban on fires here in Nova Scotia so I have to settle for candles. Bake garlic and herb bread, brew some mead or cider, and wear a pretty sundress and pair it with a witchy hat. Spritz on an essential oil perfume mix and sunscreen. Men can wear whatever they feel comfortable in too. Then get out there! Summer was meant to be enjoyed.
Happy Beltaine!!!!! Beltane is the third of the three spring Sabbats. Flowers are in bloom everywhere here despite the cold snap.
I ordered gold fairy lights for the bookcase. I know that will look amazing. Stringing up the fairy lights is my next challenge. Scotch tape and push pins are my best bet, most likely. The fairy lights are eighteen feet long. I plan to use the fairy lights outside in the garden too. That will look amazing at night. I need to grow some flowers that bloom at night, such as moonflower!
I finished gluing the moss to the entire bookcase- the side facing out. That is the side that everyone will see, so that gets the moss and decorations. I also kept to one colour plan- gold, browns, moss green, reds and oranges. That is basically the autumn colours but it could also represent the entire green growing season. I foraged, prepared and attached two more pinecones. By ‘prepared’, I meant cleaning the pinecones of any potential pests. I soaked the pinecones in cold water and vinegar for thirty minutes then baked them in the oven at 225% for almost two hours. The sap dried on the cones and they lay more flat. I glued them to the moss on the bookcase.
I glued fake ivy leaves and pink flowers and leaves to the bookcase. I drew runes on to small round wooden pieces and glued the wood mini logs to the bookcase, leaves and moss. It looks so cool. The mini logs look like natural wood and may be created from real wood. I believe they are, and look like they were always there. I await the fairy lights. The faeries must be overworked today, because the delivery is taking a long time.
I can’t wait for the frost to leave. I am so anxious to get my plants in the ground outside. The soil is deeper, leaving more room for the roots. They are exposed to the elements of earth, air, fire, water and Spirit. They can grow more strongly and as big as they want. It is still cold out. It is so hard waiting. I have a lot of work to do in the garden. I can’t wait for the cold snap to end. I need to clean up the garden, rake the leaves away, and move the spreading raspberry canes to a new home/ spot. They can take over there and would still receive sun. I need to buy several bags of soil and work that into the soil that is already there. I have to tidy up the garden supports. Then, once that is done, and the earthworms are up to the task of working through the soil, I will make my annual twice a year offering of cornmeal, honey and milk and pray to the God and Goddess for a bountiful and beautiful growing season.
Then I move my seedlings outside to their new homes. This is the part that I look the most forward to. None of this can happen till the frost ceases. I want to grow datura from seed outdoors. It is a poisonous plant but witches are not supposed to be scared right? I also want to start it outdoors to protect my cat from it. I will regularly fill the bird feeder, stir up the compost and tend to my herbs and flowers and veggies. I can’t wait to get started.
I know lovage will grow well near rhubarb. I plan to get a new lovage seedling from a garden centre. It is easier to start with a seedling and faster. I want to see how well the lovage will grow near the rhubarb. The elecampane main crown root had two new buds (or maybe more) and I hope new stalks come up this summer. I didn’t use the syrup so I won’t make more. The plant needs to get established and it is clearly trying to do just that.
Once Jack Frost bids goodbye, I plan to be ready and armed with bags of soil and my new cute pink garden trowel in hand. I wish you all a lovely Beltane!
Graveyard in the woods: Abandoned Nova Scotia logging village so spooky skeptic won’t visit alone
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The scorched, leafless Inspiration tree is one of the milestones hikers can use to measure their progress when hiking to Roxbury, an abandoned logging village in Annapolis County. – Contributed
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOS
Leafless trees close in and choke out the midday sun as David Whitman and his daughter, Lori, tread further into the dense forest.
The two are exploring the remains of Roxbury, an abandoned Annapolis County logging and farming village described as “lost in the woods” by locals.
“At first glance, there is not much to see,” says Whitman.
Whitman, a retired schoolteacher, is now referred to as the ‘Mayor of Roxbury’ after writing his first self-published book about the area called ‘Lost in The Woods: The Lure and History of Roxbury,’ which came out in 2005.
David and his wife Paulette Whitman are both writers that aim to preserve local Nova Scotian history. – Contributed
His interest sparked in the once-thriving settlement destroyed by a forest fire and abandoned in 1904, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was here where he spent hours fishing at a nearby river with friends.
“I was always intrigued by Roxbury as a kid. The village is about four miles off the main road, in the middle of nowhere. And when I began teaching school in Halifax, I started to research the area where very little is known.”
Over the years, he went digging for facts, church and school records, deeds, newspaper reports, and interviewed descendants of those that had once called the area “home.”
Whitman discovered a mysterious and tragic past.
The dirt trail that leads to the Roxbury settlement deep in the woods. – Contributed
Originally, he says, Roxbury was known as Durland’s Settlement, named after Thomas Durland, the first English Loyalist settler in the early 1800s. His brother Charles followed with his family, and by 1865, there were 15 families in the settlement, with a population around 60.
But the settlement stretches further back. The Mi’kmaq were the first inhabitants, followed by French Acadians fleeing from British soldiers after refusing to pledge British allegiance – known as the Expulsion from 1755 to 1764.
“About 60 French Acadian exiles took to the river and hid on South Mountain,” Whitman says.
“The Mi’kmaq became their allies, but many Acadians did not survive the freezing winter.”
Remains of stone walls from the Loyalist days. – Contributed
Acadian gold?
Rumours persist, says Whitman, that the Acadians, while fleeing, left stashes of gold under Mile Rock on Roxbury Road.
“There have been some treasure hunters over the years, but nothing retrieved or at least made public.”
While piecing his second book together on the area, Whitman says he interviewed many who reported “strange voices” while alone on Roxbury Road.
“Legend has it some of the French Acadians were planning to come back and get this gold, so I think it plays on the imagination which can run wild out there when no one is around,” he dismisses with a nervous laugh.
When the Loyalists arrived (1775 to 1783), they built permanent structures over the Acadian nomadic-style homes using rocks from the mountain.
Shreds of lumber remain from the former logging and farming village. – Contributed
“By 1904, most of the residents had moved out with the lumber industry depleted and the serious forest fire.”
Whitman explains to produce blueberries, they burned the land, but a fire got out of control and spread over hundreds of acres, torching Roxbury.
Today, the scorched, leafless Inspiration tree echoes this history.
“The tree is aptly named Inspiration because if you make it that far, you might as well keep going,” says Whitman.
There is an 18.7-kilometre in-and-back trail described as “difficult” on All Trails, which features a lake and cuts through the settlement.
Roxbury lay dormant for several years, attended only by nature. Then, in the 1920s, families set up homesteads, including Whitman’s father.
“Roxbury had a school, church, post office, sawmill and grist mill. The last family moved out in 1927,” notes Whitman.
Andrew Rosengren and the Thygesen family were the last homesteaders.
“Then in 1948 through to the late 1950s, lumbering activities by J. H. Hicks and Sons and Max Napthal interrupted the settlement’s slumber. And in the 2000s, forestry work from Bowater Mersey and Lafarge Canada Inc.”
Lost in The Woods: The Lure and History of Roxbury, by David Whitman, published in 2005. – Contributed
Haunted woods
So, what’s left there now? Stone foundations, deep round wells, shreds of lumber.
“But people go there a lot to hike,” says Whitman.
Yet Whitman says he will “never walk there alone.”
The supernatural skeptic that claims, “there is a scientific explanation for everything” admits he has heard “through the trees,” a sound the resembles the “wailing of a man.”
Other interviewees of Whitman reported “strange noises” or “figures.”
It is not a place for the faint of heart, he says.
Roxbury: A return to a ghost town, by David Whitman, published in 2015, with a foreword by John DeMont. – Contributed
“I have not been back there for a while. Not by myself, especially to the graveyards. There was always something about them. There is one graveyard where a man lost his wife in childbirth, and he would visit and cry on their graves.”
In one cemetery, a headstone peeks through the vegetation with just one bold word, “Baby.”
“In my second book, ‘Roxbury: A return to a ghost town,’ I interviewed people that say they could feel or even see someone watching them. It gave them an intense feeling that they should not be there,” he adds.
The book, published in 2015 with a foreword by John DeMont, includes photographs by witnesses, capturing “blurred images of a young girl in a white dress” floating through the cemetery and disappearing into the trees.
“This place can stir the imagination, especially in the graveyards that are in the middle of the woods,” Whitman says.
“People that do not know the history or have not read the books go back there and treat it just as a hike or a tour, but those that know the area are reluctant to go by themselves.”
Dormant wooden cottages in the area – designated by the province as a Provincial Park Reserve – have left a ghostly imprint on many people, including former students of Whitman, who he says will “never talk about what they heard or saw” because it was so frightening.
Whitman is part of Friends of Roxbury that gathered funding for interpretative signage to preserve the lumber settlement’s history. As a result, he no longer needs to give tours in a place he describes as “isolated and creepy.”
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