February in Retrospect and March Blows in Like a Lion

February of 2016 has been one of the more lively months, and has presented a wide range of weather to keep us interested.

At the beginning of the month, all of the snowmobile trails were closed due to lack of snow and on February 3 we experienced the warmest February day on record.  Some malevolent West Coast friends sent pictures of the daffodils blooming in their yard, and I was fortunately able to report that we were enjoying the same excitement.

Then, February 13 and 14 we experienced record lows at -30C both nights.

Then, by the last 1/3 of February, we have beautiful days for skiing, and snowshoeing.  (Note that while skiing, I am at my best standing, while Brian shows style going forward.....)

Snowshoeing provided great opportunities to see many tracks, like those of the flying squirrels (that’s a quarter in the snow).  They have very lacy little tracks, but what amuses me most is the tail prints in the snow.

In February I got cataract surgery on both eyes, three weeks apart, and that has proven to be marvellous.  I had no idea what I had not been available to see, and it has been somewhat of a rude shock to see how much dirtier the house has become.  However, the improvement has been huge and I am much more happy doing handicrafts again.

We got a more mixed menu of rain and snow near the end of February, leading to some pretty pictures (including the poor flag frozen stiff as a board).

With all the warm weather in February, we were expecting to see spring real soon, but the night of March 1 gave us a mere 17 inches of new snow.  I had to snowshoe out to fill the bird feeders and Brian spent 3 ¼ hours cleaning the driveway.

Now that I see how dirty the house is, housecleaning is a big priority for the next few days because we are interviewing real estate agents starting the week of March 7, and plan to have the house relisted by the end of March.  Busy busy busy............

Wildlife Updates

I have to keep you informed on the flying squirrel activity in the house.  After the cupboard chewing, I was allowed to start feeding the flyers in the garage again to reduce their incentive to raid inside the house.  This has worked very well.  However, there have some interesting repercussions.  Instead of coming into the house to steal peanuts, they are now coming inside the house to hide the peanuts found in the garage.  I was doing the laundry this morning, and voila! a peanut fell out from the laundry basket.  Brian needed to wear his dress shoes last week, and found one uncomfortable.  The reason became apparent quickly.  I think we are now on an Easter peanut hunt.

This last weekend I had the marvelous opportunity to attend a weekend workshop on animal tracking in Algonquin Park.  A group of us were at a remote research station on 30,000 acres of truly wild park with no public access.  We had three instructors with the most immense knowledge of bush/nature lore I have ever seen.

We first started out learning about tracks and how to determine the direction of travel.  This area of land had a large marten population, and we quickly learned what their tracks looked like.  The tracks were everywhere, but to the disappointment of the guides, we never did see one.

On the other hand, we did see a moose and an otter playing on the ice.  The otters were active in the area, and although I did not get a picture of one, I did get a picture of one of their access holes in the ice.

We also got a good look at some beaver lodges, and learned how to tell if the lodge was active by the ice crystals formed around the breathing hole on top.

We were extremely fortunate in having warm weather although it meant more water around than we might expect, and some crossings of water were a bit more challenging than others.

We are getting warnings of some very active weather in two days, so the next pictures may be those of snow.  I know, I promised you that last time, but it is mostly melted.  Perhaps soon!

Excitement in the kitchen

The biggest news the last couple of weeks is the kitchen (yes, we don’t have a life.....)

The good news is that our new appliances have now been delivered and installed, and they are a big improvement over the last ones.

The bad news is that I came down on the morning of January 1, and found a pile of sawdust on the kitchen counter, about 4” across and 1” high.  What the heck?  I looked up a little, and noticed the kitchen cupboard door looked a little odd at one edge.  So I opened them up.  Oops!

You may think that a beaver had been at work in there!  I started taking stuff out of the cupboard, row by row, until I took out the very last box at the very top.  The box contained a couple of packages of instant oatmeal....and....a flying squirrel who had settled in for a nosh and a nap.  Ah hah!  We figured he had got in from above by prying a door open, but once inside he couldn’t get the leverage to push the door out.  Now we have two more cupboard doors on order, and I have been allowed to feed the flyers in the garage again, to prevent them from needing to come inside.  A victory for both of us!

We’ve had nine inches of snow over the past 24 hours, with more to come, so the next post will be some winter scenes from the log hut.

December 24 and all is well

Merry Christmas, everyone!

This is a catch-up blog, to explain various little things that have been going on around here.

First, I want to note that we have some very entrepreneurial people in our vicinity, and I always appreciate this business sign when I drive by.

Last week, we had our annual Christmas Clogging Party, which includes invited guests , friends and family.  We try to be on our best performance, even when it looks—well—silly!  Our beginner’s class did a Christmas song from Hawaii and they went all out to make it look appropriate. 

Our class, a more sedate bunch of ladies, merely did a reindeer boogie song, which featured appropriate antlers and tails.  I am proud to say that I made all the tails.

We ordered a new fridge and dishwasher for delivery December 20, and arrived, much to our excitement.  However, there were two glitches.  The fridge was damaged and so it will be sent back January 4, and the vendor did not include installation services for the dishwasher.  In the meantime, our kitchen is a little crowded, and our old fridge is out in in breezeway, still struggling along.  I feel a bit like the poor folks with my fridge outside, but what can I say?

We left on Monday to go to Ottawa to see Brian’s mom, who turns 96 in February.  I took a picture of Ottawa in the evening, and it kind of looks like it is snowing, but that was merely rain.  The day we departed, there were fog warnings everywhere, but no sign of snow.  It was predicted to go to +17C this morning, so it looks like they will be having a green Christmas.

We will certainly have a green Christmas here.  We took advantage of temperatures in the low teens to go out for a walk in the forest.  As usual, there is always something new to see.

Much of the big downed maple branch has been cut into wood for splitting, but there are still two trees to cut which broke when the maple fell on them.

One of the more amusing signs of red squirrel activity is that they like to hide pine cones in the crook of branches.  Some bushes look quite festive when they are done.

Brian confirmed my other neat discovery.  We have a small grove of poplars near one side of the property, and I thought I saw bear claw marks on some of the trunks.  They were! The tree here is about 8" in diameter, and there were obviously baby claw marks as well of those of a bigger animal.  We are now calling the grove the "Bearclaw Playground".

Finally, I had to include a picture of my primulas outside, which are still growing buds and blooming.  It is a bit strange looking out over a fall landscape at this time of year, but the temperatures are hard to beat.

Brian and I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

We have finally returned to the Blog World!

After a long and painful struggle with my computer,  Windows 10 and the Internet, we can finally catch up with some news.  I am sorry for this long delay.

From the inside, the biggest news is that the new ensuite is finally finished.  It looks very smart and modern, and the feature mirror is quite spectacular.

From the outside, the biggest news was the snow storm we had 10 days ago.  At one point, we had over 16” of snow on the ground, and the power was on and off for 3 days, with the longest outage being 18 hours.  When you are on a well, power outages definitely limit available water to a mere trickle.

The community closest to us, Coldwater, got 51.6 cm of snow during the fall, and we likely got that as well.  It was very heavy and wet, and tore down numerous trees and branches, leading to the long blackouts.  We did a damage walk of our property today, and you can see how much damage a single tree could inflict.  The coniferous trees were bowed over with the heavy snow, and many tops snapped.

One of the most interesting findings was that Brian thought he saw a cougar track in the melting snow yesterday.  We went back to check after consulting a couple of field guides, and sure enough, that’s what it was.  The snow was too melted to see much, but the size and configuration of the print were definite.  That’s Brian’s glove there, not my delicate little one.

As you can see, virtually all of the snow is gone, except for a few patches, and we are hearing predictions of double digit plus figures for the weekend.  Needless to say, we are not going skiing yet.

All is fairly quiet in the Malloy world as renovations near their end.  This week, we expect the mirror and the shower doors to be delivered, which will be the end as far as the project goes.  There are one or two minor details to be addressed and then we will have our house back to ourselves.

In the meantime, this fancy new room is forcing the upgrade of other rooms, so I am in the midst of repainting the master bedroom.  This will be the third time I’ve painted it, but over the years I have learned some extra techniques for wall repairs and finishing, so this should turn out the best yet.  This room has always been cold and drafty, but as I crawl around on my hands and knees at the baseboard level, I am finding new areas to chink, with the hopes of improving things somewhat.

Even though the house has sucked up most of my time, I did manage to finish another quilt.  My friend, Rita, gave me a pack of fabric of the most lively colours I have ever seen.  I needed a new winter lap quilt to make up for one lost, so this seemed to be the ticket.  It is hard to be depressed around this quilt.  Fortunately, I found a much more subdued backing.

You might see that behind me, in the forest, there are few leaves left.  We have had a week of high winds and rain, and the trees have shed 90-95% of their leaves.  The temperatures are still pleasant, so this week will be a good time to put the garden to bed for the winter, and to de-frog the pond.  Despite cleaning out our little pond thoroughly each year, inevitably we find anywhere from 1-2 dozen frogs of varying sizes in this little pot of water.  Our tradition is to relocate them to a spring-fed dugout on a neighbour’s property so they can survive the winter.  Witness Brian's efforts, including the dumping of Frog #13.  This year we sent 18 in total to the spring-fed spa.

And finally, the wildlife highlight of the week was seeing a small juvenile black bear in the back yard a few days ago.  In hindsight, the big one we saw in the spring must have been Mom.  The youngster was merely checking things out of curiosity, and we enjoyed watching for a few minutes before scaring it off.  It is heartening to think the area can sustain a bear family.

That's it for now.  The bathroom should be finished by the end of the week, so more pictures will come.

There are a lot of things to tell you about that have happened in a relatively short time.

Renovations: the bathroom renovations are moving smoothly, with only a few more things to be done.  The project is shaping up to be quite attractive.

Fall Colours:  The fall colours were probably at their peak on the Thanksgiving weekend.  There will still trees that were quite green, but as of Monday the leaves started falling, and there are many on the lawn.  This was a view of our driveway and then on the road by our mailbox.  Last night we had our first frost, and today there were brief snow flurries.

Guests:  We had Brian’s sister and brother-in-law up for a visit on the Thanksgiving weekend, and then friends from Ottawa, Hal and Monique Hamilton, for three days this weekend.  I worked with Hal when I started out as a stockbroker.

The Bala Cranberry Festival:  We took the Hamiltons to the Bala Cranberry Festival today.  This is an event in a tiny little town; we tried it last year for the first time, and it was charming.  That weekend was cool and rainy, but this weekend was not.  The place was packed.

A little highway is the main street through town, and the traffic was literally stop-start.  The crowds were huge, and there were all kinds of attractions including many street vendors.

The Bala falls are a beautiful piece of traditional Muskoka scenery with all the rocks and trees.

All kinds of groups were represented, including the local volunteer fire department.  My view was that if my mother could do things with dinosaurs, then I could have all the fun I wanted.

We had seen signs for camel rides, and were laughing.  How ridiculous.  How could this possibly be?  This was before we met Todd.  Monique and I had a rather unique experience.

Tod was from the Bowmanville zoo, maybe a two or three hour drive from Bala.  He had been born in captivity, and now was considered a fairly young camel of 12 years of age, given a normal life expectancy of 30 years.  When he handler was slow in getting started, Tod would nudge his shoulder to indicate he was ready to get going.

On our drive home, Monique noticed two moose very near the road.  I got a hurried picture of one before they moved off.  It was an unique end to a unique day.

Oh, I couldn't resist.  A Thought For The Day from the Bala Cranberry Festival.