Waterlogged

Play was punctuated by the slap of waves against the pylons.

This was Colleen’s playroom. In the ordinary way of homes, it would have been a dooryard (these days, more likely the basement rec room) where children played but, in Digby, the flower shop of my friend’s mother stood on stilts over the Annapolis Basin, on the basin side of Water Street. We played in this storeroom under the shop, inches above the Fundy tide.

The fragrance of blossom and green leaf filled the space, in spite of the murkier odours which seeped up from the water. The area was as large as the showroom upstairs combined with all the little work rooms, big enough we could drive a tricycle and get up to a satisfactory speed. There were lots of large cartons that had supplied sphagnum moss and fern to the florists. Those cartons made superior store fronts or many-roomed houses – even cars - for our role-playing games.

When the moon was full and the weather rough, waves might splash up between the boards that formed the floor - good for inspiring giggles. Even though, in fierce weather, the whole structure trembled at the break of each wave, it never alarmed us the way, over at the wharf, the slurp and swirl of the sea did. The walls gave us a sense of security and we were too short to see out the windows.

Of course, when it was swamped, we weren’t allowed to play down there.

This past week, with a round moon and a spring-like downpour of rain, the tide found its way into our lower “storeroom” here. Oh, we have enough sense not to store anything that could be damaged by water down there, especially at this time of year when the ground is frozen and there is ice in the brook. This combination, with heavy rain, pretty well guarantees a flood.

In my grandparent’s day, the water might rise high enough to put out the coal fire in their furnace. We share a similar worry. Our furnace burns oil, but water in the burner still spells expensive trouble. We stayed up at night, taking turns making sure the sump pump came on, pushing water into the little well where the pump sits. Who’s complaining? It’s been four years since the last flood, and we’ve enjoyed more nature and wildlife here on the edge of the dyke than we have anywhere else we have lived.

But, if the seers who predict a rise in sea level - as well as a sinking shoreline - over the next few years prove correct... the floods will come more often, and more full. We could be up all night more often than one night every four years!

It might not be a bad idea to raise the house up on stilts, like my friend’s shop over the Annapolis Basin. What do you think? We could turn downtown Kentville into a little Venice!