Spring is here, finally!

Song Sparrow!

A favourite sign of spring.

And we made a quick trip to the lake.

So, I guess an explanation is in order.

Here we are, at the beginning of November, and I haven’t written here since July.  Mea culpa.  Also, my computer’s fault, at least partially.

Due to the premature introduction of Windows 10 to my laptop, its hard drive ceased to function, rather suddenly.  It’s only now that I feel confident enough in its inner workings to trust photographs to my laptop again, and consequently am interested in blogging, once more.

Sadly, a whole summer has passed, and you’ve missed out (ha ha ha) on all my comings and goings and truly probably not-very-interesting stuff. But now, I’m BACK, BABY!

Some of my favourite moments from this summer:

Having Craig, Karen, and Kyle visit for a couple of days. It’s so hard to get us all together, and this was so much fun!

So great to have them visit us!

Camping with my buddies. We do eat like royalty.

Everyone patiently waiting for me to take the pic.

Discovering a Cedar Waxwing nest in our backyard. They were hatched and gone by the time we got back from our holidays.  So Cool.


Having Onyx and Jezebel enjoy themselves at the lake.


Finding some Crayfish!

These little guys are hard to spot. They also sort of freak me out, because I imagine they'll pinch me when I'm in the lake, swimming.

Almost (but not, thank God) walking into this spider in the centre of her web, on the way to the upper farm.


Finding a smiley-face in our hydrangea bush.


Day-tripping with my pals to see an old-growth forest.


Enjoying the most incredible sunsets.

The pillar of light is caused by the sun's light shining through a con-trail.

Hanging out with Iain – the best of times!


And that was my summer:  short and sweet, and the weather was beautiful!

Blogging Hiatus

Too darn busy, or lazy, or – maybe just out of inspiration lately. Caught in the humdrum, as it were. Anyway, here I am.

Spring was kind of miserable, after all, and that doesn’t sit well with me. Another of my favourite trees at the cottage has bit the dust – our double birch, which has been ailing off-and-on for a number of years, has finally thrown in the towel. We’ll probably take it down next year, or in the fall. So sad to see it go! And glad we planted a tamarack in the hollow near the old place, when we did.

Less shade, too - glad we have lots of insulation.

The big tamarack that we had to take down in the winter has yielded a lot of wood, and given Iain an on-going project with the chopping that needs to be done.

I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay...

Our dishwasher at home died, so we decided it was time to get all the appliances for the cottage at the same time.

Two problems: a) they aren't that lovely Harvest Gold we were enjoying for so many years; and 2) we can't rely on this refrigerator to heat the cottage for us on cool days (we used to refer to the old one as "The Reheaterator").

Nice to have the kitchen finished off.

Having a dishwasher is SO SWEET!

Did I mention that Sis gave me a beautiful bird feeder for Christmas? I love it!

When the sun hits it, the relections off the glass are beautiful!

My Aunt Eileen and Uncle Wilbert celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary! We were blessed to be able to celebrate with them.

Aunt Doris, Mom, Aunt Eileen, Uncle Wilbert

We have been at the cottage as much as possible.

Mom kicking back.

And we go in to see Sheila as much as we can, too.

Isn't she a lovely lady? We think so!

Her garden is so relaxing!

Her Honeysuckle is always gorgeous!

I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth…

Too many distractions, I guess, but still I was shocked to see I hadn’t posted any ramblings since the end of March! So here’s an update:

We were at the cottage for Easter weekend. It was, unfortunately pretty cold, but we had a good time anyway.

I love the way the sun heats the leaves so they melt into the snow in perfect outlines.
 

We saw lots of sunken leaves.

Lots of puddles but very little open water.

We had a nice turkey dinner – you can’t go wrong with that!

We scared out a few deer on the cottage road.

On the next weekend the office girls went to the Women’s show in Ottawa, and had fun – but this is probably our last trip there for a while. Next time it’s shopping all the way! We did stop at a few stores this time as well, but I have a hankering to spend a day at Ikea, sometime.

Onyx loves to nap in the sun, where he can keep an eye on the feeder.

Stitches was exhausted from her trip to the vet, and curled up under the covers for the afternoon.

We made a quick trip to the lake near the end of April, just to drop off a few items, and the lake was wide open!

Ah, open water! Hooray!

We got back to the lake at the beginning of May, and the weather was much better. We worked outside most of the weekend, getting things in order; and my camera didn’t even come out for a minute, since I was so busy!

Last weekend we did the annual Yard and Bake Sale at the church.

Stuff really sold - the table is pretty picked-over at this point.

Fun, as always, but I am glad to not have to hit the baking aisle again for a while.

Winter has settled in

 

The quiet cold of the lake and woods on a winter day: this picture pretty much sums it up, for me.

I have to say that I love this shot.

November endeth

With the cold weather and the addition of good seed to our finch feeder, we’ve noticed more birds in general. The dining room window is the perfect spot to keep an eye on them!

Eyeing up the tragically flawed cat feeder.

We had to make one short trip to the cottage to offload some laundry and a bunch of building materials cluttering up the basement. Not much “buildy” stuff gets used at home. The basement is a small space to work in and cold as anything in the winter!

You can see all the small branches that have fallen.

We found a lot of branches down, but the only big ones were from the dead tamarack.

The bay, mostly frozen.

A lot of the lake is lightly frozen, but there are gaps at the edges.

Wah! My tree! Gonna miss it.

Yep, the top of the tamarack blew off! About the top six feet or so. I sure hope we get it cut down at New Years as planned.

When it fell, it just shattered to pieces.

It must have been quite a wind, as the top of the tree landed at least 40 feet away.

Thanksgiving

The cottage year is winding down. Thanksgiving usually marks the last full weekend at the lake for everyone. Most of us shut down the water and close our places up soon after.

Iain enjoying the sunset while barbecuing dinner.

We were blessed with warm weather and no rain (none of the s-word, either).

Sheila came to visit!

It was nice to have company for the weekend! Thanksgiving isn’t the same without family. Not everyone could be there, unfortunately, but we were happy to have those who could come. We ate tons of food and visited. I was too busy enjoying myself to take pictures, but you must trust me when I say the meal was amazing. Dodie and Myles roasted the turkey (Mom supplied it) and stuffing, made cabbage salad and cranberry sauce, and made awesome gravy! Iain made bacon-wrapped stuffed mushroom caps, mashed turnips and sliced carrots. I helped a bit and made peas. Sheila brought yummy buns. Janet whipped up some great potatoes, Brian brought tomato juice, and Carolyn provided us with TWO pies, one a deep-dish pumpkin and the other an amazing apple!

I took this pic with my phone, so it isn't the best quality, but just LOOK at the autumn leaves crust!

We were so stuffed, but we sat down to the same meal of leftovers on Monday before going home!

Mom enjoys sitting in the sun with a magazine or puzzle book.

Mom has had a pretty good summer with us. Since Dodie and Myles were at the lake so often, she spent more time there this year than she had for the last several.

There was hardly room for the Blue Jay to fit on the feeder, but he managed it.

Between the birds and the squirrel and chipmunks, we couldn’t keep the feeder full.


My favourite view!

At the narrows.

The Little Lake.

This oak gets more beautiful each year.

Still and lovely.

The colours were less than spectacular this fall, and many of the trees were past their best by this weekend, anyway, but the views were still wonderful.

Hitching a ride.

We encountered a red dragonfly which appeared to be cold and seemed to be having trouble drying out its wings. Iain picked it up and it perched on his thumb, tilting its wings down so they wouldn’t catch the draft as we walked along. After a few minutes it suddenly took flight, finally warmed and dry enough.

Now grow, dammit!

We finally got around to transplanting another tree, which we hope will survive the winter. We are told the fall is the best time for this, so I hope this little guy can make it. This one is a Quaking Aspen, and I wouldn’t mind getting a Big-Tooth Aspen and a Swamp Willow as well. Iain is interested in an Olive tree, and we’d both like a Cottonwood (not sure if one could survive in this soil, though – the sand seems most suited for poplars, willows, pine, birch, and tamarack).
Next weekend will be busy with putting away lawn furniture, chimes, and ornaments, and putting some plants to bed. Then the water shut-off, and good-bye to the lake for a while. We are thankful to have had another year to enjoy here.