Well, that's one way to get away and have a "private" conversation.

This looks like a nice place to relax on a hot weekend.

This is one of my favourite places to photograph on the lake. I take photos here every season, and the view always strikes me.

Red Pine on Point

I took this photo of a Red Pine tree the other morning on my kayak paddle.

Yesterday morning was fabulous for a kayak ride along the lake shore. More photos to follow ...

We went fishing on Lake Nipissing last evening at sunset. The weather was fabulous! The lake is pretty low - down about 3 feet, so finding the fish was more difficult than normal.

There is nothing like a sunset on the big lake.

And we finished the evening of fishing under an almost full moon.

We went for a little sunset cruise last evening to cap off a fabulous Victoria Day on the lake.

The sunset through Payne Island looks a little like Golden Pond.

Sunset through the west end of Payne Island.

I built a side extension for the dock yesterday, and to top it off we brought down the spare TV and watched the Habs playoff game on the dock. Wahoo!!

This is looking west from the back end of Camp Island on Trout Lake. The sparkling water is a bit deceptive in that it's still a pretty cold 50F.

This dock/party platform sits at the entrance of Four Mile Bay. It might be a place to be on this long weekend.

It's so nice to be out on the boat at sunset when the weather is glorious!

Baby Emmy Lis catches a cat nap while mom and the grandfolks grab a bite to eat at supper.

These "rock pines" seem to require next to no soil for their growth. They just scramble to live and hang on to the rocks on the lake shore.

Swamp Road

Sometimes the road less travelled leads to something unexpected or interesting. This road near the Scotch Line between Merrickville and Oxford Mills remained less travelled for us, as the unexpected looked to be uninviting.

Trains tracks and cross-like telegraph pole near Cobden.

Storage, ice hut, change room, sauna????

Sunny is turning into quite the contented, comfortable boat dog.

I went for my first "official" boat ride yesterday and, as usual at this time of year, was blown away with the new leaf growth and shades of colours of buds and leaves on the trees. It was also nice to see that all the weekend snow was gone!

The bark on a cedar tree can sometimes look like woven cloth.

Mothers' Day dawned with a ton of snow everywhere; although, most of it melted during the day.

The contrast of the snow on the lakeshore with the new spring growth was quite cool, but enough's enough.

There was so much snow it accumulated on the forest floor.

The roads were tunnels in some areas as the Birch trees were bowed over with the weight of snow.

The Fortuitous was heavy with wet snow, and too uncomfortable for a cruise, at least with passengers, so I didn't venture out alone.

It was a winter wonderland yesterday, boy did we have snow! We also spent a good part of the day without electricity as the heavy snow and winds knocked trees over and, many hydro lines were down. We did the usual in those conditions -> filled the bathtub with lake water, got the wood stove going, and spent a lot of time outside around the burn barrel as we marvelled at the trees bending under the weight of snow.

Well, that's a fine "how do you do!" The temperature is hovering around freezing, the cold arctic wind is ensuring any rain turns to snow, and the forecast calls for heavy snow for 6 to 12 hours. As guest John just said, "Looks like it's a stay in and eat and drink day."

Bob and I enjoyed a pop or two as the concrete guys poured the footings for the Walpole's new house. The real big hurdle has now been crossed, and the first indications of "there goes the neighbourhood" are revealing themselves.

I guess Bob can now use the line, "Would you like to see my etchings?"

Los tres amigos spend another Arkansasian-like day toasting all things good.

Yesterday morning I went for a drive to investigate Monday evening's fire that the water bombers were pounding. Using my trusty sense of direction, I found the extinguished fire in Corbeil on Voyer Road alongside the Ottawa Valley RR tracks. About 2 km of land between the tracks and the road was burned, caused by sparks thrown from passing trains. On the other side of the road are several houses whose occupants were probably a bit worried while the fire was being fought. They did, however, have a ringside seat for the 2+ hours of water bombers. The bombers had an easier time than with other fires, I think (and my pilot friend, Butcher Brophey concurs), because they had the RR tracks to help line up their water bombing runs. On land, the MNR fire crews were ensuring the fires were suppressed. Funny, The Nuggett only ran 1 photo, taken by one of the worried home owners, with a short caption underneath the photo. Our small city newspaper, run by a larger city, Sudbury, really doesn't do too well on local stories as it seems to rely on wire services for its news reporting.

MNR water bomber coming in for a water "fill up." The smoke from the fire is visible to the right of the photo.

The bomber is banking for its "fill up" run with the fire's smoke right below it.

Around supper time last evening, we were treated to an aerial water bomber show for 2 1/2 hours. Three MNR water bombers made repeated "fill ups" in front of our place to douse a fire on the other side of the lake, maybe on Doc Bain's property. Each bomber's run from "landing" to fill up with water through "bombing" and returning for "fill up" took 3 minutes and 20 seconds. So the fire wasn't too far away. They were pretty serious in their attack, and when they were finished at twilight, the smoke that was visible over the trees on the far shore was gone.

Nothing like a cat nap for Sydie between bouts of terrorizing the dog and critters in the yard.

Sunny in her usual back seat of the truck position.