Things are greening up!

 Still no sign of the Harlequin Tabby visitor cat. That is a good thing. With the warmer weather, he might have prey closer to home. Maybe. 

Another cloudy day. Yesterday was amazingly sunny. I whipped out to take photos of the goldfish pond, beside the house. I'd hooked up the water barrel, then our rain filled it. With the cold temperature I opened the spigot to drain it overnight. 

 The gold fish pond froze overnight and the patterns were interesting. 

I went walkies the day before and checked out the frog pond. It's about 1/3 thawed. I took a drive to visit a client, and most of the lakes are open, with ice in some of the bays.

Searching for the owl (no luck!) I was amazed by the moss on the rocks in the gully.

Woody Woodpecker cardinal has been better. I don't know why I didn't think of contact paper before this. My carved bear is happy with it.

Indoors, the orchid cactus is budding up. The contact paper is good for it, since it was getting a bit burned in the window. Despite being a cactus, it doesn't do well in full sun.

Westport harbour

After Narrows Lock, we went on to Westport. JB is good driving, not so good sitting.

After seeing the swans, we pressed on. I'm glad we went when we did. We anticipate snow or rain tonight and tomorrow. Ottawa is getting 20 - 40 cm. Us, they aren't sure. We may be on the cusp of the rain/snow mix. JB has massage therapy and a lunch with his friend tomorrow. We'll see what we get here.

I just finished clearing the sidewalk, as the snow melts, then refreezes at night.



My snowman has kicked the bucket. More on him later.

The rocks aren't as impressive as elsewhere, but they are pretty. At this time of year, the snow melts and freezes.



The creek is likely still moving under the ice and snow.



Someone has made a skating rink!



This is such a sweet view into Westport.



It's still cold, but lovely.



I climbed the bridge. It was quite slippy.

This is a lovely spot, in spring and summer, even fall! The spring was running well.



Westport spring from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Frozen gazebo!



The rocks from Muskoka (2008)!

Rainy fall...

Wow. We've been having quite a bit of rain: yesterday 14 mm, and it is raining today. There were thunderboomers, again, and power outages across the province. We escaped. We had power, although we did have to reset the clocks.


I'm glad I was out and about the previous day. The goldfish pond is full, which is a shame, because once my new aquarium filter pump arrives (Friday?), I'll have to bring fishies in. That means draining it a bit at a time, as there is always one stubborn fish. Eleven fish, I have to remember...

I found that the bugs are still on the milkweed, despite the leaves being stripped by monarch caterpillars and milkweed bugs. It was quite a meeting!


I wanted to liberate a stump from the forest. It's a tree that grew on a 'nanny tree,' and the curve in the trunk reflected that. The birch tree is still standing, but as the stump rots the support for the other trees is gone. The photos are from March, 2019.
 
I found meself on the trailcam bringing it back.

The trick was to chop off the rest of the tree branches with the reciprocal saw, which I did. Then I could lift it. I popped it in a garden, it looks rather cool.

While I was at it, I took the wagon down to lot #3 to liberate some rocks from the forest. Whilst there, I found a total of three red efts.
 

In case you are wondering, I did not pick them up. (My hands were clean.) I covered them back up carefully. However, an archive photo, a red eft:

The eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) is a common newt of eastern North America. The red eft (juvenile) stage is a bright orangish-red in color, with darker red spots outlined in black.

a red eft

I brought this triangular-shaped rock back to the garden. The rocks shift as trees grow around it. 

Yay, fall.

Muskoka Trip – Part 4 Bala

Here it is, Canada Day. Canada is a mere 152 years old! I put up flags, for fun. JB went into town and bought Fristy a $5 t-shirt. He wears size 4.

We took a brief road trip last week. I am slowly curating photos. There were a few.

Our vacay – a road trip Part 1

Trip to Muskoka Part 2 – the turtles

Trip to Muskoka – Part 3

Part 4 begins now!

Muskoka, here we are! This is the famous signage Tony Clement had installed for the G8 [Muskoka G8 souvenirs], while the bigwigs never travelled these back roads. Sigh.





When these rocks were blasted, back when I was a preteen, they disturbed a lot of rattlesnakes, who dispersed. We had one in our backyard at the cottage. People killed them, when they didn't know better, now they only live around Georgian bay, in Ontario.



Here it comes.... my favourite view in Muskoka!

Port Carling

Our old pharmacy.

This was fun. There was some controversy, as they blasted to clear this wee harbour. A dentist's building, an old home, had some issues at the time.

Port Carling construction – 2008

It's a busy spot, now.

There are 4 or 5 real estate firms on this corner alone. There is a lot of profit to be had in Muskoka. This is Chestnut real estate, where they blasted out a parking lot for themselves. Parking was terrible in high summer around here.


This is the teak store, where I bought my chair. They seem to have moose!


I've been trying to look this up. Over the years, the pillars caught my attention. It looks intriguing. You wonder who is in here!


From Bracebridge to Bala and Torrance.


First, Bala, where we cottage 50 years, from the time I was 5. We moved from there in 2010.





Bala Falls plaque


This is the church where my parents attended until they had a falling out with the minister at the time.
Mom directed the choir in winter.



After mom died, they put a plaque up to commemorate her service to the choir. I tried being choir director, but they were so entrenched in their ways, I couldn't carry on. They eschewed inclusive language, and set us back to the days of gender bias 40 years.

They were having a garage sale and the place was getting organized. I found the plaque, and a women said my mom looked after her mom for a time. Then, she asked who else we might know. Mom's best friend was there, but apparently we're in her bad books so she barely made eye contact. We won't be back.


This was Herb's gas station and nursery for years. I loved him! Here is my little brother, in the 60s, outside the store.

Now, you should not go back. You shouldn't. But I did. This is the cottage, with mom and dad's home behind it (built in 1991). We lived there fulltime between 2006 and 2010.

This shows the flooded frog pond. Spring melt helps the froggies.

The cottage, built in 1962.

I knew the new owners renovated the house to put in a back door. We took far less money for the house than we should have. It was a 1-bedroom two-story home, with a cottage attached. We were afraid it wouldn't sell. They had the money to renovate it, and add rooms. Lord know what they did to my cottage!


The picture rock. I took a walk down the neighbour's driveway.


I shall admit that I walked down to the neighbour's frontage to see my old haunts. Here I am, I took the photo below this next one from the rock on the back left. Mr. and Mrs. Flett cottaged there in the 60s. It's a precious little cottage.

Here I was, peeking.


This was all wetland in the spring. The neighbours filled it in. Here is my old frogpond. The new owners filled it in, too.

They've filled in the frog pond, the rocks have been moved to the shore. The rocks used to be on the Whale's Back rock, where the dinghy is overturned. This is where we were married, and had our Weddings in Muskoka photos taken.


Here is dad raising his flag back in the day. You can see all the frog habitat we destroyed. He put sandbags all across the shoreline, and filled the rest in with sand. Then, they planted grass seed. I think the new owners have laid sod.

Here we were, my mom, Caitlin and I in front of the cottage. Caitlin turns 40 this year!


This was prior to mom and dad building the house beside the cottage (1960). The view from the top of the road.

Dad's garden is gone.


The Flower Rock in the background, mom always put flowers in it.

Jenny, our dog

The water is high. You can barely see the flower rock.


At least they left the picture rocks there!


I smoked dope with my girlfriend on top of these rocks, back when I was a teen! This was prior to the building of this cottage!


The lagoon. as we called it, on Long Lake.


Last view of Long lake.


On we went to the cemetery.



Mom died in 2006, dad in 2007.


Back on the road. The rocks are amazing.


The driving was iffy. This dude just passed us, and two cars, at great speed.