A Busy Weekend

Oh, so nice to get away to the lake for a couple of days, and even nicer when joined in so doing by fun people! Carl, Irene, Dodie, and Myles all stayed with us, and we had the usual wonderful time!
Friday night snacks and martinis, and so happy to have Joann and Kerri for a visit. This week is Dodie’s birthday, and Joann brought a gift and cake for her. Quite yummy too!
Saturday we started with coffee and muffins, a slow wake up. Then a heartier breakfast of beautiful eggs with hollandaise sauce, ham, and english muffins, which gave us energy for the big “cut down the dead tamarack” project.
I’d been afraid to do this – was hoping to have a professional come in – but Iain convinced me that with some help from his friends it would come down safely. Kevin, who is an incredibly handy man with a saw, just happened to be at his cottage this weekend, so Iain enlisted his help, and he made short work of it.  Iain had tied a rope up as high as he could, and he, Carl, and Myles all went onto the ice and pulled on it to guide the tree fall.

We ended up with a nice pile of wood out of it, though I understand it burns very hot, so we’ll have to be careful using it. Thanks and hat tips to all the guys for their hard work!

Iain just about wore himself out cutting this up! Good thing he had help.

Since we’ve lost two trees already to the pine borer (it was a different bug that killed the tamarack), I’m hoping it isn’t too late for our one remaining young pine. I put tanglefoot around the base of it, hoping to snag any pine borers that try to climb it. If they already went up last year, though, it’ll not do any good. Fingers crossed!

Die insects, die!

The snow that fell Saturday was sticky, and perfect for snowballs! We girls tried to hit Roger’s stop sign, but were all pretty bad shots, so Iain gave us a larger target.

I couldn't even hit it when I had the bigger target...

I noticed that the snow on the old place seemed to be concentrated in the centre of the roof, and I was puzzled as to why it was melted around the edges only. Then, I realized that the inside of the cottage is so darn cold, it is keeping the snow from melting. Not too cold for the mice, though. I did a cursory inspection and found they’d made a mess of at least one blanket and the drawers have lots of nice mouse poo in them. Yucky. Lots of cleaning to do once things warm up, and so much for the mouse repellents keeping them away.

You can tell we've had a lot of snow melt already, because there was about 2 ft. of snow on it last time we were up.

Saturday night we had broiled pork chops. The original plan had been for barbeque, but the cold snap changed our plans. After dinner we relaxed and Iain took us through a little role-playing exercise, which was a lot of fun!
When we went to bed, there were plenty of gorgeous stars visible – a great way to fall asleep!
Sunday: Carl and Irene treated us to a pancake breakfast; so good, I ate 5 pancakes (well, they weren’t huge, okay?) and several sausages. After breakfast it was clean-up time and we all headed home. That was a great weekend.

Just Some Cat Pics

Onyx and Snaps!
Onyx is STILL over-grooming obsessively. The fur on this back and head and tail (anywhere he can’t easily reach with his tongue) is soft and healthy-looking. He has a vet visit in a couple of weeks (check-up time), and we’ll see if there are any ideas there.

That little blue fish is his favourite toy, of late.

He seems very happy and healthy, and his appetite never fails; but I think he is bored. Wendy was home with him most of the time, and he was an only cat, which meant he got a lot of attention – a lot more than we have time for, both working full time and having three other cats to attend to. I make an extra effort to entertain him, but I know it falls short.
Snaps is becoming more of a lap cat, which is nice – I like a cat that curls up and keeps you warm. There’s plenty of him to love, as you can see in the picture. I’m guessing he weighs about 15 pounds, and that may be missing on the light side.

Our gorgeous orange baby!

They play together, but they don’t cuddle; Onyx likes to stretch out in front of the fireplace on his own. Occasionally he’ll sit on my lap, but not often. I was really surprised last week when he leapt onto our friend Tom’s lap to get some pets!