We lost a lot of trees in Charlottetown. But not all of them.

I’m upping my game from Canadian Tire fire logs to maple firewood harvested from Hurricane Fiona-downed trees from the back yard.

I met Stefan Kirkpatrick on the day he was born, in Peterborough, Ontario, in 1988.

His parents, George and Leslie, were good friends of mine; confidants, protectors.

Two years later I travelled with Leslie and Stefan to El Paso, Texas for two months, caring for Stefan as Leslie studied midwifery. In retrospect I’ve no idea how I thought myself capable of such a task, but it worked: Stefan remained alive and, on occasion, enriched. We had good times together, exploring the city, going to $1 movies, eating tacos, and listening, incessantly, to a cassette tape of The Three Pigs. We made a crazy voyage, by air, from El Paso to Canada and back. I fed him, entertained him (and he me), was driven crazy by him at times and delighted by him at others. It was my first experience having a little one under my wings; I’m not sure I could have gone on to become a parent myself without Stefan teaching me how.

Eventually George arrived, I returned to Canada, first to Montreal and then back to Peterborough. George, Leslie, and Stefan returned the next spring, and I was there when Stefan turned four years old, an epic birthday party where Catherine, in an act of great charity, dressed as Big Bird so as to fulfil my outlandish promise to Stefan than Big Bird would be there for his birthday.

The next spring Catherine and I moved to Prince Edward Island, and I lost touch with Stefan.

For a long, long time.

He got older, moved to Port Hope, went to school, grew up, travelled, moved to Nova Scotia, fell in love, got married, had a child, opened a business, bought a house, had another child.

I saw him briefly, 15 years ago, passing through town, before a lot of that happened, but not since. 

Until today.

We trekked from our temporary base north of Halifax out to West Dublin, in driving rain, to drop in for an overdue visit. 

It was a delight, all over again.

Stefan remains the lively spirit I knew at two years old: creative, funny, warm, smart. The spark I saw every day, long ago, remains in his eye.

He took us on a tour of his chocolate factory, introduced us to his wife Desiree and their kids. He fed us tasty pastries and hot tea. Leslie arrived, as a surprise. We talked of the old days, told stories, some of which I alone remembered, some of which only they.

Stefan Kirkpatrick turned 34 years old this week: I played a large role in a small slice of his life; he played an outsized role in mine. That he’s grown into a father, partner, entrepreneur, traveller, is heartbreakingly satisfying to witness.

Through the Red Cross, the Province of PEI is sending $250 to each Prince Edward Island household that registers here.

“Everyone has been impacted in some way by Hurricane Fiona,” said Premier Dennis King. “From spoiled food, to property damage, to extra costs incurred from fuel and emergency supports. Government is working hard to make the restoration of our Island and homes a little easier on everyone.”

While the need to register is clearly a barrier for those without electricity or Internet, the implementation of this program is quick and efficient: I received an e-transfer yesterday, less than 48 hours after I registered.

My Kia Soul EV was charging in my driveway this weekend, a little closer to the sidewalk than usual because we had two cars in the driveway.

When I came out in the morning to unplug the charger, half the connector stayed in the car, the victim, it seems, of someone walking by in the night who decided to haul on it (when the car is locked the charge connector is locked in place).

A pain at the best of times, additionally so as the insurance and electrician professions are over-taxed this week due the hurricane.

We celebrated Olivia last night with a small gathering of Charlottetown friends in The Rafters on Queen Street, a last minute post-hurricane celebration that will be followed up later with a larger do.

My neighbours Doug, Andrea, and Meghan, Lisa, my brother Mike and his partner Karen, and my friend Lauranne, have been very helpful in clearing the felled trees from the back yard here at 100 Prince Street.

This was the scene when I opened the back door on Saturday afternoon, an impenetrable wall of trees:

Less than 24 hours later, on Sunday afternoon, thanks to Doug’s help, and the very powerful handsaw that I inherited from my father, the debris was almost completely removed from the back deck (and my biceps considerably weakened):

By Monday we’d hauled all the debris from the deck and from the front part of the yard out to the curb, and the prospect of clearing out everything began to seem less infinite:

On Tuesday, Doug used his electric chainsaw to start attacking the larger issues: he trimmed the tree on the left, about halfway back, and we hauled much of it to the curb:

By yesterday evening—Wednesday—the entire middle tree, and the large tree at the back of the yard were cleared, and a lot of the debris under the apple trees on the right was cleared out too (all three apple trees survived; the plum tree got toppled. but is unbroken and might be saved):

The tree that remains in the photo above is the scariest one of all, both in where it came from and in removing it: it flew about 3 metres from the fence line, from high atop the tree you can still see standing on the left.

As you can see in the photo below, it has wedged itself into an embrace with a much larger tree, still standing and apparently solid, across the fence on the right. The damage that tree could have done to our house, our neighbours’ houses, or even just the fences, would have been considerable had things gone differently. We’re going to leave that tree to the professionals, as cutting it down ourselves isn’t safe.

Tuesday afternoon a crew from Island Coastal came along the street with a steam shovel (yes, I am a child of the 1960s) with a big claw on the front, and a frontend loader, and deftly ate up everything we had placed on the curb. I expect they’ll be making another round later in the week.

Last night, walking home from across the street at the office, I took this shot of our blessed house:

Meanwhile, across the street at the aforementioned office, things are in disarray: when the power came back on, the circulating pumps for the district heating system appear to have caused a pressure surge, which broke an old cast iron pipe to the radiator in my office, which caused a small flood. Nothing was damaged but the floor, but the office nor the print shop are usable until the rad is repaired and the floor cleaned and repainted. Fiona’s tentacles are deep.

We’ve just come out the other end of Hurricane Fiona. The worst of the storm passed through Prince Edward Island in the early morning hours of Saturday, September 24.

Inspired by a blog post from Matt Webb about monitoring CO2, in mid-summer I purchased an Aranet4 CO2 monitor and placed it on my desk in my basement office at St. Paul’s Church Parish Hall: I wanted to get a sense of the CO2 in the not-very-well-ventilated workspace.

I dropped in at the office this morning and downloaded the data for the past week into my phone. The device measures not only CO2, but also humidity, temperature, and pressure.

As expected, the lowest pressure of the last week was 5:39 a.m. on Saturday, at 960 hPa:

What I find interesting, is that this was coincident with the highest recorded CO2 on my station, 2432 ppm:

I don’t have the meteorological nor physics understanding to know how these two readings are related; I welcome any thoughts from those who know more than I.

We are okay.

Hurricane Fiona was truly horrific and the devastation to property, and to the trees of the city, boggles the mind: we lost almost every tree in our yard, and there are trees, some massive, down on almost every block.

But our little house survived intact. We have food, family, friends.

No electricity for 24 hours now; fortunately my car is essentially a huge battery with car attached, so I have a lot of phone charging opportunity still left.

The lack of bandwidth is very very hard for Olivia, and she’s worried about her October 1 birthday being affected. But she’s doing remarkably well holding it together.