Our First Anniversary in Blackfly Land

saved by our bug jackets

Choppin' that tree

relaxing with our home entertainment system

This past weekend we celebrated the first anniversary 

of finding the cottage!

Driving to the cottage in the late evening we were accompanied by a beautiful sunset. The serenity of the view was contrasted by Matthew's choice of music.... Nickelback!

Turning onto our cottage road two and a half hours later in the dark,
we noticed a sound emanating from the forest, actually just the wetland areas. What's that? Crickets? No too loud for crickets! Moose? Deb suggested (jokingly I hope). Ah.... The sound of an amphibian choir during their springtime mating ritual! We stopped the car and opened all the windows to listen. I had recently told Matthew a bedtime story of how Deb and I once came upon a marsh full of singing frogs on a spring hike.

you can hear the Spring Peepers at the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Peeper

Again nature surprised the senses, reminding me that I need to slow down and listen more. I know that spending time in the forest, beyond the noise in my head and the desire "to do" will bring me closer to a place unchanged, a place connected to all.

Well that was a nice thought.... Friday I awoke at 6 am, made coffee and headed out to the bunkie to get some work done while everyone was still asleep, I managed to get most of one wall paneled. I am hoping to get the "guest bunkie" ready for guests at some point this summer! 

It turned out to be a beautiful day.... of course that is if you don't mind the swarming masses of Blackflies! What would we have done without those bug jackets?

As this was the first real spring day we have been at the cottage since the frost went out of the ground we were able to get the property set up for Summer... Put up the clothesline, badminton net, kitchen tent over the picnic table, patio umbrella setup.... relax. 

Okay well after a few minutes of relaxing we start chopping the tree that was cut down last fall and is now piled up behind the bunkie.... Matthew is becoming a fine axeman, but we really do need a wheelbarrow to move the wood!

Deb wanted to go on a walk on Bacon Road. We pop Matthews bike into the car and drive to the starting point of our walk. A yellow school bus had just dropped off a neighbours daughter. Matthews' best buddy Alyssa, returning from school (Matthew Played hookie .... again) decided to join us on our walk... her mom got her bike and then Deb and I walking, follow the kids on their bikes.

After the walk we decide to head into Irondale to rent a movie and get a snack.... we find ourselves stopping at the small local "garden centre" along the road to get earth for Deb's new vegetable garden. Then onwards for snacks! Much to our surprise next to the country store is now a little trailer called "Smokin' Jakes BBQ" turns out he makes the best Sweet Potato Fries anywhere!

Back at the cottage we begin digging the garden and gathering trees to make a bit of a border.... the fun just never ends!

I guess the quiet time in the woods will have to wait for summer.

Overnight Trip With Matty

Last Friday Matthew and I decided to play hookie for the day and go up to the cottage - just the boys!

We arrived after a very enjoyable 3 hr road trip listening to tunes and stopping for lunch in Fenelon Falls and food shopping in Kinmount.

After much persistence Matthew convinced me to delay my plans for painting the bathroom and spend part of the afternoon on a mountain bike outing in the woods. We got into our billy boots as things were pretty wet and proceeded to walk, drag, crawl and as necessary carry the bikes through the forest behind our cottage, over logs, through the creek and up the hill to the trail.

In the forest behind our place there is a series of trails - I think mostly used by ATVs, these are great for hiking and biking - although we do have to trespass onto neighbouring land. 

(This summer we will make a point of meeting all the landowner and hopefully getting permission to hike and bike)

After a really nice ride along the trail, past a wet land where a geocache** is located, we finally emerged from the forest into a dry scrubby "tundra like" environment with lots of beautiful lichens and juniper bushes.  Here we turned off the trail and onto another loop that was created as a dirt bike track - we decided to explore this as a neighbour mentioned it last summer. Turns out this is a much longer loop than we anticipated and really took a lot of energy to cycle around. Halfway back Matthew's chain fell off requiring some messing with but we finally got going again.

Heading back we came upon a rabbit next to the trail which stood it's ground until Matt  who was thrilled to see it got to close.  We took a shortcut home through our neighbour John's property which leads directly from the trail back to the road instead of trampling through the back of our property again.

We were both pretty exhausted but this had been a fine adventure on a beautiful spring day.... of course the bathroom still needed to be painted!

On our way home Saturday along our dirt road we saw a Wolf running ahead of us as well as two deer along the highway - each visit to the cottage has provided some great and unexpected wildlife viewing!

**We are very near the geocache capital of Canada - Gooderham

   See: http://www.geocaching.com/

The sunset - not a chimney fire!!

Our Very First Cottage Weekend - July 2008

I thought I should summarize a bit about our first trip to the cottage last July long weekend.

We arrived to find the place pretty much a disaster. The previous owner had not completed moving all his stuff out nor had a rather large unsightly garden shed (also full of stuff) been removed as per our agreement of purchase. Somehow all this didn't surprise us and we quickly set about tidying the place up.

After cleaning up all the left over debris, there were still a few items to take care of. We started laying new floors, then had the wood stove overhauled including new tile hearth pad and a completely new chimney. We also had some new windows installed, furniture and appliances for the kitchen shopped for and delivered, renovated bathroom with new shower and sink, a dump truck load of red granite gravel spread on the driveway, a gift picnic table (from my parents) assembled, a tree over the bunkie cut down, many repairs to the plumbing, utility closet built, bunkbeds in place, new electrical panels in the house and bunkie, shopping for my dream canoe (a swift) and kayak for Matthew, getting that new BBQ barely in time for our dinner guests arrival, finally we settled into a great summer of fun!

But of course the renovations and work continue.....

Just writing these run-on sentences down makes me tired....it really
was a busy first few weeks!

Here are a few of the early snaps from last year.

Our first few hours in paradise were spent emptying out the junk left by the previous owner

Now that all the junk is out - cleaning the plywood floors to get rid of the lingering cigarette smoke odour is next - cudos to Murphy's Oil!

This old garden shed was supposed to be removed before closing day - instead we added all the junk from the house and then contracted a local neighbour to take it to the dump! 

A view of the old shed now gone, an old peddle boat we donated to a neighbour and our Bunkie in behind which is now being transformed into a guest cottage, complete with composting toilet and workshop storage area. 

The inside of the bunkie - before we started renovations....the previous owner apparently had done "some work" on it

Almost Clean - Matthew worked really hard that day taking control of mop duty.

Okay, time for new floors - Rough plywood is not my style!

Matthew working with me to lay flooring in his bedroom. 

Now that's better! New floor, new hearth pad and new chimney.... and a bit of furniture.

Now there's a bed I can sleep in.... in fact these futons are more comfortable than our bed at home, or maybe it's just the air!

Looking good!

Let's check out the roof! 

Matthew in the lead in his new Kayak heading upstream!

Matthew being towed home - Somehow I knew that would happen!

Bunny hops on the deck - fun for Matt, headaches for us! 

The Tree Climbing King

I found this tree with my friend Alyssa. This tree is in our magic
forest and to get to the tree we had to go up one big hill.
The tree is near two big stones. I love those stones, one is standing
up and one is lying down.
There's one thing I like about the tree and one thing I don't - I
like it because it is a good climbing tree, but I didn't like the
branch that broke as it made me really nervous -but I hung on.

Sincerely,
Matthew

Spring Thaw

The Irondale River is normally about 15 feet below the bridge during
the summer.
I just happened to be on a quick overnight at the cottage in April and
witnessed the full fury of the spring thaw - awesome!

First Post

I am looking forward to starting this record of our time spent up north at our cottage - our magic forest! 

I hope this proves to be an ongoing documentation of the time and energy we spend as a family closer to the land and nature.