What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Oh holidays, where did you go? Two weeks of cottaging, all too short.

The lack of rain and the dammed-up creek meant the lake wasn't flowing, and so the bottom became covered in algae.   Myles to the rescue!  He dragged the swimming area, stirring up the algae and taking away lots of sticks and clams as well.

Myles' bottom-dragger.

Look at the green goop on that.  Yuck.

On our way to the lake, we spotted a fire near Sebastopol.  Just missed getting a shot of the helicopter that was water-bombing it.

After much fiddle-farting around, I am finally done with the small cabinet.  Ta-da!

Lots of room for the rest of our glassware, and the cookbooks.

Summertime is puttering time.  Iain has been landscaping again.  Here, he has started work on a wee patio aorund the barbecue.

And here he shovels off the load of crushed stone which Myles was so kind as to bring from Renfrew.

We did a bit of goofing off, of course:  a trip into Pembroke for the fun of a tour and to get some groceries, for instance.


Had a snack at the marina, and noted this unique sundial they have there.

Baby loon is growing, and getting harder to tell from mom and dad.

More work for Iain; he was finally able to remove all the wood formers around the pathways.  It looks wonderful and my mom's walker rolls on them nicely.

Dishing the dirt.

We spent a lot of time just reading and having martinis and such.  I read The Hunger Games trilogy, and enjoyed it immensely.  Lots of good times with family, too, having dinners and playing games.  Have you ever played Rummikub?  A good game!

Some sad things happened too.  We noticed that our large tamarack is dying from the bottom up, and it appears it has been invaded by the Eastern Larch Beetle.  Unfortunately, the damage is invariably fatal, so barring a miracle over the winter, we will be cutting it down next year.  I can't tell you how unhappy this makes me, especially coupled with the drought damage that has possibly killed three other trees on our property.

See that little hole?  The beetle bores through the bark and makes these little holes all over the tree.  This is supposedly diagnostic of the Eastern Larch Beetle.

We were also sad when the adorable painted turtle we'd found on our beach died mysteriously.  He'd been much less shy than we'd expected, so he was probably ill already, but we were shocked when he died.



RIP Terry the Terrapin.

It was nice to see momma merganser and two of her chicks still hanging around, though.  They are almost as big as she is, now.

This frog is incredibly hungry.  Iain noticed he'll jump at ANYTHING, including other frogs just about as big as himself.

And we do have a tiny snapping turtle hanging about.  Here he is peeking out of the water; you can see his little body below the surface, and his little feet with their tiny claws.

On our way home, we saw a lovely hawk, I believe a Northern Harrier or Marsh Hawk.

We didn't really want to come home.  On the other hand, I was really happy to get to church this morning!