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???
I'm not hockey crazy. I rarely watch the sport anymore. It's kind of tradition to watch the final game of the season though. I can remember being at our summer place (RV)nin blistering heat, watching hockey and just melting. Our windows would be wide open, along with all the other RVs in the park. When the local (Ottawa) team scored, the park would ERUPT in cheers.
My Dad was crazy for the game, as was my late husband. I am a Stanley descendant from my Dad, so I guess it's kind of a requirement to see the cup hoisted, haha. I think Canada needs a turn at bringing it home.
Go Oilers!!!
We had to go to the town this afternoon to return parts and pick up more parts. We stopped in to NoFrills for "ingredients for cole slaw". We came out $65 down!
It didn't rain here, but the temperature dropped 8 degrees while we were out. The AC in our car has quit too.
The temperature is just lovely this evening. The windows are all wide open. All my bird friends are out in the yard singing about the simmer solstice.
Dear Daughter and I made plans to go out for breakfast and then do some shopping. Her street has been under construction for weeks. Today there is a BIG BIG hole just by the lane. Thankfully the construction guys graded her lane so we were able to get in. IF we hadn't been able to, I was going to grab one of the burly workers and have him carry in two flats of pop, another of water and a 40 pound box of kitty litter.
We had breakfast then hit the Food Basic in the west end. They have a pretty good sale on staple food items this week. Next stop was the farm stand for fresh, local strawberries. Two liters was $15!!! We won't be making jam, but they are a treat. WalMart was next on the list for dog and cat food. That store has the best prices by far on pet products. Just an FYI for pet owners who feed their cats Friskies canned food: WalMart house brand at only 77c per can is the SAME product as the Friskies, which is 99c. (Many house brand products are the same as name brands.) My grocery bills seem to be significantly lower than the last couple of months so far this June.
I picked up a cooked chicken from the deli department, and a lot of fruit. We are going to lay low and just pick as we feel a bit peckish.
I stepped out for ten minutes to give the pup her pee walk across the yard. I thought I'd die before she was done!!
STAY cool my friends and drink lots.
Hopefully all the Dad's had a nice Fathers Day. We celebrated on Saturday with Poppa. The neighbour made some nice appetizers and Davey did a BBQ.
Yesterday M. and I took a drive in the countryside toward one of our favorite access spots into Algonquin. The pup had a wonderful afternoon chasing sticks into Stevenson Lake. We meandered home slowly via another road. The Wood Lilies are blooming in profusion. I just love them. Some are a single blossom, there might be doubles or triples. I found SEVEN on one stem and just had to bring it home and add to my vase.
My peonies are blooming, right in time for my daughters birthday. I try to take her some blossoms. Spreading the cayenne pepper around the bushes sure worked to deter the dastardly chipmunks that were eating the buds last year.
We had a nice little rain last night but it's sure going to boost the humidity later today. We are in for a prolonged extreme HOT spell. Upon rising I closed all the windows and curtains upstairs. I really hate running the AC, (it makes my fibromyalgia flare up) so the longer we can keep it off the better.
Mrs Blanding Turtle did her annual wander through the front yard late yesterday afternoon. She has been doing this for over 20 years. It was so nice to see that she is so healthy. Her shell is just perfect. No nicks or bumps or damage. All of her spots are easily seen. She is a very mature girl. These turtles are a species at risk in more urban parts of the province of Ontario. Development is threatening their habitat. They are not threatened or at risk in my area (unless they get stuck on the road unfortunately) There is lots of native habitat that will never be developed, as well as the population being well schooled in turtle etiquette. Turtle "fences" and warning signs proliferate. Folks watch for nests and put "fences" over them so the vermin won't get at the eggs. I'm not sure how effective these are against raccoons though. The nasty devils don't have any problem dumping my heavy garbage receptacles.
Friends in the area are talking about it.
Lots of photos of it on the Facebook.
We SLEPT through it!
It was a helluva storm.
It was storming a bit before we went to bed, but nothing spectacular by any stretch. I crawled into my cozy nest about 8PM with a good book. We had tornado warnings all day, which is exhausting even if you are trying to ignore them. We kept looking at the weather radar and everything seemed to be sliding south and west of us.
So the storm has meandered off to wherever big storms go and the heat is going to hit us like a ton of bricks. It's coolish today so I have lots of outdoor work to do before it gets to hot to live.
Yesterday I was up with the birds and went to visit another neighbour who is a master gardener. My goodness she has a lovely garden. She has hundreds of perennial plants and knows the latin names of every one! We were bombarded with ROSE CHAFERS. We were picking them off plants and off of each other. It was just gross. They too are having issues with chipmunks and squirrels. We were standing there talking about a certain variety and color of Sweet William, when out pops this dastardly rodent, pulls down the flower and starts chomping on it. NO FEAR!!
When I got home M. said he had been out in our garden chasing off chafers too. The bird bath was full of them. They seemed to be particularly interested in the iris. Thankfully they are about finished their bloom cycle so they can have at them. My neighbour says they won't last long so that's a relief.
We are under tornado warns today, but whether that happens is a big question. It is raining now. I have our "flush" buckets filled and some food cooked. My biggest concern is losing our power for an extended length of time.
I'm going to snuggle down and knit and read this afternoon, so let it pour.
Everything was covered with yellow mud again this morning. I puttered around in the basement but still managed to have a whopper of an asthma attack. I'm sure glad of that fresh puffer! M. remarked that I've been using it a lot the past few days. It's quite windy this evening so lets hope the last of it will have a shake down.
I made a German dinner today. This is Jagerschnitzel with a mixed mash. It was so good!I
Last night and tonight are COLD. We were flirting with frost last night. Tonight is looking even colder. Brrr.
Knowing it was going to be cold again tonight I just left the plants indoors. The tomatoes have bucket hats on for another night. This seems to be the end of it. I sure hope.
Do you see it?
Okay, the sky did. It rained most of yesterday and quite a bit again today.
The coming days are warmer and sunnier. I might have to cut the grass again. The weeds are going crazy, but they are a bit easier to pull when they are a tad taller.
I pulled the card from the deep camera between showers. I see the doe hanging about at the bottom of the trail. I'm not seeing a fawn or two, but you know they/it is down there.
wild columbine
lots of lilacs this year
love those little faces
someone was sulking
until we took her swimming
Petawawa River
The River by my house
