In which I skip out on Instagram and Facebook for the month of March but still allow myself the internet.

We arrive to our property in Mispec, New Brunswick after a 13-hour overnight drive from Baltimore just as the tide is rolling all the way out to the Bay of Fundy. There are rocks exposed, hairy-looking creatures that hulk at the water’s edge, rocks that we’ve never seen before and will be covered again in less than 30 minutes when the tide turns and the water rushes back in.

The road is ice-covered and uncertain, and the Subaru stays behind as Khristian and I trudge to the top of the hill where our property begins. As we walk, we see these:

I didn’t think there were bears in New Brunswick, but I see in the recent reportage of bear attacks in New Brunswick a link that another person survived a black bear attack by grabbing the bear’s tongue. We see plenty of deer prints and some poops of uncertain origin, but no sign of our resident porcupine, Street Stephen. The only other possible evidence of animal presence is the family of crows that sing their welcome (or warning) above us the entire time we are on the property, and snow prints of various animals that lace across our path as we walk.

It is absolutely glorious here. We will spend the week in Saint John, the largest city in the province, information gathering about wells and art and tree diseases. The property is nothing like it was in the heat of August, the last time we were here, and I am glad to have seen it in the winter, even as winter crosses the liminal space into spring-not-yet-spring and we cannot spend as much time as we’d like on the bluff overlooking the Bay of Fundy due to cold.

When we left, the tide was just beginning to come roaring back, but numb toes and fatigue were setting in, and the siren call of a warm AirBnB and a glass of bourbon made the decision for us.

It is the next day, St. Patrick’s Day, as I write in the cold sun-splashed morning, so slainté, revelers. Today we will ourselves walk the streets of the city and revel in each other’s presence, take ourselves out to lunch or dinner and listen to the water. Easy.