no!vember

By the end of October, I was thinking of November with some trepidation.  Maybe it comes from my years in the PNW—November was the rainy, cold, and dark month.  I remember looking at the NOAA forecast and seeing their car-headlights-through-rain icons (both day and night) for an entire week.  And, I don’t care if it’s psychosomatic, the daylight savings time change always seems to add to the challenge that is November for me—I needed more sleep and Enid the Cat was escorted out of the bedroom (and the door shut behind her) many mornings.

Looking at my previous posts about November since I moved back to Nova Scotia, I was reminded that:

• 2020: After a relatively normal summer and early fall, the numbers in the second wave of the pandemic had started to climb.  Because of that, I was all in for some holiday spirit and had put festive lights around the balcony railing by this time last year.
• 2019: I was back from my October road trip to Ontario, upstate NY, and New England and was busy looking for an apartment to move to before winter.
• 2018: Oh yes!  Winter arrived long before the solstice that year.  I’d already shoveled multiple times in November.
• 2017: My first year back in Nova Scotia.  This was the beginning of cold weather since moving into the tiny house and I was just getting on to using the woodstove.

Nova Scotia is holding (somewhat) steady in its fourth wave.  As of 11/26, there are 172 known active cases of COVID-19 and our overall double-vaxxed rate is 81.2%.  I was doing quite well with November until the catastrophic flooding in British Columbia mid-month.  That set off my climate anxiety and then I had a difficult time pulling myself away from the internets.  This is my slippery slope from self-care to sloth (falling back into procrastination) I became familiar with in the early days of the pandemic.  Then this week, an atmospheric river hit the east coast.  The area where I live wasn’t affected but eastern mainland Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Newfoundland are dealing with flooding and highway washouts after record-setting rain.

I’m ready to dust myself off and welcome a new month. I’ll end with some good news.  In 2019, the previous provincial government delisted a coastal area in Nova Scotia, known as Owls Head provincial park, in a backroom deal with a developer.  Since a reporter broke the story (thanks to a whistleblower), there has been huge public outcry with protests, petitions, yard signs, letter-writing campaigns, etc. to save the park.  At a time when we know we need to be protecting as much biodiversity and forest as possible, this rare ecosystem was going to be sold for … golf courses.  The story isn’t over yet but, on Tuesday, the developer withdrew their purchase offer citing lack of government support.  Now the next step is for our new provincial government to act quickly and protect this land.  This week’s update was welcome news for Nova Scotians fighting to protect this area and an encouraging victory for collective action.

References and related links:

• PNW: Pacific Northwest.
• NOAA: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• First fires, now floods: British Columbia and Washington reeling from atmospheric river (SOURCE: The Washington Post)
• East Coast communities grapple with effects of Atlantic storm that flooded roadways and knocked out power (SOURCE: The Globe and Mail)
• Nova Scotians defeat billionaire developers who tried to swoop in on park (SOURCE: National Observer)
• second wave (post #152)
• wintumn (post #105)