August feels like October!

The past few weeks have shot by and the end of summer is quickly approaching!

My Parents have come for a brief two night visit and gone. Matt and I packed for a week of camping at the Haliburton Scout Reserve - yikes the forecast says overnight lows of 6 degrees... sure glad we have our cozy MEC mummy style sleeping bags.... oh so cozy. Still swimming but the river is much cooler than it was in July. We spent the day yesterday at our friend Paul's cottage where we swam, Matt got to go tubing and we shared a fine dinner before driving home after dusk! 

Today we went and found two Geocaches in Gelert - one in the cemetery and the other by the Burnt River! 2 for 2 is pretty good for us!

I have also accomplished some work around the house adding trim to the inside of the front door and the living room! 

We have seen a few more of our wild neighbours.... two bucks at the side of the road near Apsley were very patient subjects! 

We have had some regular visits from the local Turkey family! And this Turkey sure knows how to strut its stuff!

 
I didn't mean to ruffle your feathers.... but I am glad I got to keep a shed tail feather!

Some very fine local mushrooms from the Farmers Market in Kinmount made a few great stir fries!

July Turns into August

The summer is moving quickly and along with daily swimming and a few ongoing projects to improve the cottage, we find time for some adventure!

Getting set to head down the Irondale to Kinmount with our cottage neighbours Sharron and Lynne! It was a glorious day of paddling with lunch by the Falls and a swim at Black Rock.

Matt returned from Montreal where he had a great time with grandparents. We picked him and our weeklong guest WynneAnne up in Cobourg.

Matt and I headed out by canoe one afternoon from Howland Junction - to go fishing for Muskie at Three Brothers Falls just a short paddle upstream from this beautiful trestle bridge. It was a fun spot to fish but two lost Muskie lures and a few hours later... still no bites. The scenery and company make the trip well worthwhile, but a bite or two would of been nice!

Matt gets his new Tomahawk throwing axe from Robyn Simpson of http://www.songofthewoods.com/. We met Robyn at the Kinmount Farmers Market where he sells his handcrafted knives and aboriginal ceremonial tools and leathercrafts. Over the past five summers Matt and Robyn have become buddies as Robyn is always ready with a tip on knife care and a story about his wares. Matt got this throwing axe as a grade 6 graduation present from his Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill and Grandparents - Shirley and Marvin! 

Upon returning with his new axe we go and visit our neighbours Ekk and Doris who are avid axe throwers and they offer Matt a stump of wood to use as a target! 

The Harvest is starting - some fantastic beans! There are lots of tomatoes on the way and some very nice cukes!

With some advice and help from Ekk, I manage to get some electrical bugs worked out. I really never thought things were right as the spare bedroom lights and plugs kept tripping the ground fault plug in the bathroom! Fixed! Now everything should stay on and bathroom plug is separate from bedroom! And all accomplished without running any new wires or lines to the breaker panel. It is amazing how simple things can be when you know what you are doing. Thanks Ekk!!

Weeks 3 & 4

The Summer is rolling by quickly.

We have been swimming almost everyday and playing a lot of after dinner badminton which has been fun for us all! We have also been throwing darts this summer - Matt really likes that.

A recent visitor to the tree in front of our deck gets Matt out of bed one night and after grabbing his camera he gets the shot of the midnight Bandit grooming!

An evening paddle alone on the river brought me close to a few beavers and their Kits! I sat quietly in the canoe taking photos and video (a bit shaky) of the busy creatures as they worked on their house and ate the bark off a few twigs - here the beaver is eating bark much like we would corn on a cob!

We spent a nice afternoon with Linda and Bill at their cottage - where we celebrated Matts Grade School Grad with a lovely cake from Aunt Linda and Uncle Bill (even if they can't spell in Minden!) 

Last Monday we spent the day driving Matthew to Cobourg to catch the Via Train to Montreal for the week to visit his grandparents for the week! As the train arrives the Tag he is wearing is to ID him as an "Unaccompanied Minor" supposedly so Via staff can keep an eye on him, it also tells everyone else on the train he is alone which for some younger, less muscular kids might not be such a great idea!

The early morning drive to Cobourg was beautiful as we took a route along the West side of Pigeon Lake South of Bobcaygeon. After Matt's train departed, Deb and I took a stroll along the beach in Cobourg and then stopped for lunch on our drive back to the cottage at a diner in Milbrook, a little town with many huge Victorian homes and a quaint tiny main street.

The week has gone by quickly for Deb and I with many swims, walks, and a short hike in the woods - where we really noticed how incredibly dry the forest is without any rain in July.

Deb harvested her first ever Garlic crop - the buds are a bit small but the aroma is very pungent as they dry in the bunkie.

I also continued work on the cottage - my current project is making baseboard and door frames. Using 10 ft long 1x4 pine and sending them through a router to create a nice milled edge. Once I get about 20 done, I'll be able to get most of the cottage trimmed up!

There have been many great meals - including one the night before Matt left at Lili and Johns down the road. On our way back from Haliburton today we stopped at a local country butcher and bought some huge Scallops. Fried in butter along with onions they were a great treat! We are planning to host a few neighbours next week for dinner when WynneAnne is visiting.



 We are slowly collecting a variety of interesting twigs and things around the deck!


Tomorrow I am planning (weather permitting) to canoe from our dock to Kinmount with Two of our neighbours - Sharron and Lynne. We did the trip last summer with friends, it takes about 4-5 hours and involved two portages - one around the nicest set of Falls in the Haliburton Highlands - Three Brothers Falls!

Week Two

Week two started with having guests for a night! As Matt and Tess were heading to camp Sunday, having Tess's family over Saturday night proved to be a nice interlude for everyone before dropping the kids off for a weeks camp. 

We have also been having a daily visitor to the yard, I think he likes Croquet. I know he like dandelions and weeds which is good as the alternative is some fine dining in Deb's vegetable garden.



Deb and I spent Monday and Tuesday in Peterborough exploring the various neighborhoods and the downtown core. Dinner at a local pub featured some live music which made for a very pleasant accompaniment to our meal! Tuesday we spent several hours touring a number of homes with a realtor to get a better sense of possibilities.... It was a great visit.
No traffic, drive across town in 10 minutes, walk from west end to downtown in 15 minutes, some nice boutiques and restaurants, reasonable home prices, brand new hospital and YMCA, just over an hour drive to cottage, food for thought....

The rest of the week has involved much swimming and canoe/kayaking along with finishing the trim in the bathroom... I can finally cross that off the to-do list!


Friday - our last day before Matthew comes back for camp Deb and I woke at 5:45 am and headed out for an absolutely glorious morning paddle. Who would ever of thought Deb would get out of bed at that hour??!! The river was magical with the mist rising off the water and the sun peeking out around each bend. The forest was alive with birds! It was really fantastic!

Looking forward to seeing MattI'm sure h'll be pleased with the new darts I got him... He is becoming a pretty good diddler!

First Week of Summer 2012

Our first week at the cottage is quickly going by! Matt will be off to Wanakita next week! Some of the hilights this week have been tackling many of the to-do items around here. These include; Finally making the "Our Magic Forest" sign, starting a 10 litre batch of stout Beer in the BeerMachine (my fathers day gift), setting up the dart board and Matt and I playing a few games of cricket, going to town with Matt to get building supplies and working together to install the closet door in the bunkie, starting to chop firewood we cut last summer, Matt breaking the old concrete pipe we have been using as a kindling holder with a sledge hammer and discarding the pieces in the woods (carefully so we won't see them), fixing dock and installing a new dock ladder that was given to us by Lili and John. But the week hasn't been all work... swimming everyday,community potluck on Canada Day, Matt shopping for items to make a variety of refreshing cocktails to indulge his creative urge for bartending, campfire with Matt, Nick and his jiffy pop. Tonight Matt and I spent the evening from 7-10pm fishing on the river. We saw many beavers give their traditional tail slaps, heard two deer run off into the woods from rivers edge, chased a crazy honking goose up the river as it didn't want to fly away and we even caught a few small Bass. So all in all a memorable, active week so far!!

A treat no mouse can resist!

On Sunday night this gourmet blend of peanut butter and bacon worked to trap what was hopefully the last mouse in the house.... But I've left a few hors d'oeuvres out just in case!

Ready to plant

Tilling the Garden

May Long Weekend

For the first time since we've had the cottage (4 years) we arrived to find a mouse in the house.
Well at least it was dead.... drowned in anti-freeze in the toilet! Okay kinda gross but an easy situation to remedy. And it seemed the only place the mouse had left a mess was in our cutlery drawer... Anyone want to drop by for dinner?  Once again simple enough to clean up. But of course the story continues... last night we saw another very healthy mouse make it's way into the stove. Not so good as I have had to replace a stove in one of our Hamilton tenants' flats due to mice nesting in it. So we moved the stove around and the mouse ran out... great, well now where's the mouse? So today we will have to make a trip to town and get mouse poison and traps and hopefully we will find this one waiting for us next time we come to the cottage in a few weeks! I guess those anti-mouse high pitch audio devices I have been using here and swearing by don't really work and we have just had good luck up to now.

Fantastic hot long weekend weather approaching 30! I almost went in for a swim, but Debs fear of my having a heart attack was all the incentive I needed to enjoy the still very chilly water from the dock. Maybe today as it will be an even hotter day and I need some bragging rights.

The garden is almost ready for planting, we added new soil and manure and has now been tilled! Our garlic planted last fall looks like it is doing well. Deb wants to plant a few things this weekend... may be a few weeks early, but hopefully no more frost will appear.

I can't say enough about Briggs and Stratton engines. By coincidence both our old beat up lawn mower
left here by my friend George when he and his family were here for a weekend and our garden tiller bought at a garage sale nearby have identical engines. They are both at least 20 years old if not likely older. I take no special care of these except to add gas, but every year the tiller cranks up and runs perfectly for the one hour a year it is needed - what a find that was for $25, it is way more solid that what you'd get today for $1000. And pretty much the same with the lawn mower - one or two pulls and off it goes cutting through all the rough which comprised our "lawn".

Deb got a great used bike from a neighbour down the road... perfect condition for $30, well we actually negotiated to $25 but didn't have change. A deal for that price!

Next we need to start hauling the logs we cut last summer out of the woods where they have been aging over the winter... Matt and I will have fun splitting them over the summer.

So summer is on!!

Making A Batch of Golden Nectar

March Break 2012 -
10 hours of boiling to make 1/2 a litre

Cottage Winter 2012