I have two big Adirondack chairs waiting in the shade in front of my ivy covered cottage in the woods. My good friend Marley and I were sitting there enjoying the light breeze, talking about our gardens, just chillaxin'.
Who should come scurrying in the lane but four adult turkeys and about a dozen or fifteen little poults.
They were so funny, scurrying along, tripping and bumping into each other.
You'll be sick of reading that I live on the edge of Algonquin Park. But there are things here and there that remember history.
Many eons ago, this part of the country was under the Champlain Sea. There were mountains here. Just across the highway are some pretty high, kind of gently rounded hills, called the Geiripy Range. They are the remnants of old mountains that were worn down by retreating glaciers. The little river that flows between my place and those mountains, comes out of Sec Lake in Algonquin. For much of it's route, it flows through a steep ravine. That is evidence that it was once a raging torrent.
The hill that rises behind my house is called an eskar. That is an undulating hill of sandy gravel that was dumped by the retreating glaciers. Digging down, one can find deposits of this black rock, full of fossilized seashells. It almost looks like tarry stuff you find along the road when they were laying new blacktop. We also see lots of gigantic rocks called erratics that were dumped by the glaciars. It's really cool to see a big chunk of rock as big as my house in the middle of a meadow.
Further up the road there are also some really interesting beautiful buried sand dunes. These were actual shores of the old Champlain Sea! The sand is absolutely perfect for the little ones sandbox.
And then there is this>
We have had rolling thunderstorms today. I love a nice thunderstorm.
There have been a couple of torrential downpours along with it. My lane is well rutted again. The garden is happy though.
I'd be happier if this heat would take a break though. My body does NOT like airconditioning. Both M and I are having a lot of joint pain.
Lots of American political stuff on the tv these days. We will just get past THAT election bruhaha and our Canadian bantering will start. Fortunately the Olympics are about to start. There might be something worth watching.
Happy Monday friends
Today was just a beauty after all that rain. The temperature was perfect. It was nice and breezy. I puttered in the garden a bit, but mostly sat on the porch to read. The dreaded deer flies don't dare come on the porch. Haha
We are going to a car show in Eganville this weekend. Davy and Poppa are taking their old cars out to the event. Poppa's Studebaker is a beauty. Davy's old Valiant is identical to one our family had back in the 80s. I'll try to remember to get photos.
It sure has rained a lot today. Hurricane Beryl is giving us a bit of a lick. We haven't seen a drop since 5PM and there was a bit of a nice sunset, but according to the radar it's about to start again and go all night.
The big geranium pots are on the diningroom table. They don't like a big prolonged soaking.
Our vacation plans have been put on hold again. Our pets are giving problems. I think my old Emmy girl is about to call it a day. She isn't eating and just sleeps. Once in awhile she will jump up and holler her head off, then plop down and nod off. There is a euthanasia clinic, but I'm not sure if that is the right choice right now. She is quietly snuggled up on her blanket on the old recliner. We give her a pet as we pass by. She's with her people, you know? The other cat is peeing on the floor and my dog has an ear infection. I can't have all that mess in someone elses hands right now.
What a gorgeous day this has been.
We harnessed up the Princess and headed down the road. M. and the doggo had a nice swim while I walked along the shallows. After that we drove around to the other side of the lake and stopped for some wonderful Kawartha Dairy IceCream. KETO kind of went out the window.
Now we are making strawberry jam with the last of the seasons best.
We had a lovely gentle thunderstorm last evening, into the wee hours. I love a nice thunder storm. It makes a great lullabye.
Have you Ontario folks noticed that we get serious storm warnings and alerts whenever a thunderstorm is in the forecast? It drives me crazy!
M. says he wishes we were at a lake, sitting on a covered porch watching it rage over the water.
We can't seem to get a plan in place for holidays. We were thinking of heading east along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, as far as the road would take us. Unfortunately we can get reservations for accommodation in July. We can't take a chance just winging it with the possibility of a language barrier.
We had great plans to cut and trim grass then go to the Artist warehouse in Renfrew this afternoon. A good old rain storm put the brakes on that. We stayed in and read instead.
THE END
This post will be of interest to readers who live in Eastern Ontario.
We have a close friend who works in THAT industry for one of the biggest collector in E.Ontario.
That person gave us a real heads up regarding our trash and recycling.
Do you know how much of your recycled products actually do get recycled?
How does HARDLY ANY of it sound to you?
Those milk cartons and tetra packs? They go into a warehouse where they are bundled and sent right to the LANDFILL. There is no market for them because of the energy needed to process them. It will cost the municipalities to get rid of them. That's what happened to plastic bags, so the cartons will likely follow soon.
Cans are also warehoused. There is a market for them down the line, if I remember correctly they go to someplace like Vietnam.
The big market is paper and Number 1 to 5 clear plastic. All those fine water bottles and clamshells especially, are worth big bucks in the industry. We don't recycle much of other plastics in E.Ontario, but it is big industry in some other places. Did you know our fleece garments and acrylic yarns are largely made from that other recycled plastic?
Glass goes in waves. It has to be sorted by color which is pretty labor intensive when the darn stuff is broken.
Our packaging is a big waste of energy any way you look at it. Plastic is a byproduct of the petroleum industry which is pretty dirty at every level. Production of the containers uses energy. Then it uses more energy in handling. And then re-processing.
I'd sure like to get that stuff out of my grocery basket.
Well here we are at the cusp of the long weekend.
I had a really hard time getting going this morning. M. hollered at me at least twice that the tea was getting cold. It was after ten!
I pulled a few weeds in the garden and slapped stain on the slats that will go on the porch. I had a lovely hour long chat with my Aunt Shirley. I cleaned the cat boxes, put a frozen roast in the oven and went back to bed. It was just one of those days.
The weather is just perfect yesterday and today. Not a lot of rain and none of that blistering heat that had us panting.
I've been really quiet. My arm is very sore. I have a big sore bruise where she took the blood so I'm trying to let that heal with out aggravating it more. So no vacuuming. Yeah!
At the suggestion of my doctor, I'm starting Keto. I'm already hating it. Craving cereal, toast and a cookie. Man oh man! Good thing I love olives, eggs and cheese though.
We had a little rain overnight. Just enough to keep the plants happy.
So here we are approaching the big holiday event of the summer. In my space we celebrate Canada Day on July 1. There are lots of events in the town. We have fireworks but not sure if we will fire them. My cousins to the south have the big holiday on July 4. Again, lots of fun events and picnics and fireworks. We are the same, but different after all. It looks like there is some rain in the forecast though :(
We haven't really made any plans.
The brilliant colors of summer!
I had to go for Labs this morning so I was up and at it early. The plan was to have a shower then jump in the car. Due to the nature of the test, I couldn't eat or drink anything other than water.
When I opened the bedroom door a distinctive odor hit me like a wet rag. Oh. My. Gawd! The dog had wet crap covering the whole of the diningroom floor. I think she just ran in circles. I went through two pair of latex gloves and two rolls of paper towels cleaning it up. Then it was half a jug of pine sol and HOT water. I told M. I would wash the floor AGAIN when I got home.
On the way into the town they were putting up road blocks. I didn't hear until I got home that there had been a two car wreck with both vehicles catching fire. Ouch. Highway 17 is going from bad to worse!!
So, I chugged a bottle of water on my way into town. I got to the Lab and they didn't have my Req. for this test. She pulled the one for September and did the blood draw, but I could NOT pee for the life of me. They might have got a teaspoon sample. I hope it was sufficient. The lab person told me to go off and eat and wait at least half an hour to come back. I had errands to run so I grabbed an iced coffee and ran around. Got back in the car and picked up the coffee.......whammo.......I poured the rest of it down my front! It's in my (long) hair and looking like I peed my pants! But I managed to give them a second sample so that's done until September.
Man, is this going to be one of THOSE days???
