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!!