Mother nature is an artist, though I do suspect a man-made machine may have put thses rocks on top of each other some years ago at the Mattawa Golf and Ski Resort.

A Mother's/Father's Day present to us - with nice weather on the horizon this long weekend, it looks like we're "going to" Margaritaville!

This little memorial off the forest access road between Noth Bay and Mattawa always makes me sad.  Bradley would have been 61 this year.

When you tee off at the blue tees at the 7th hole of the Mattawa Golf and Ski Resort, there is this nice little waterfall running right beside the tee box.  In the early spring it becomes a raging torrent from the winter snow runoff.  In golf season the sound of the waterfall is barely noticeable to golfers.

The green at the 6th hole of the Mattawa Golf and Ski Resort where the Ice Marshal, Dr. Thug and I played yesterday.

With the fungi growths and the pilliated woodpecker action, this tree hasn't a chance.

The Fortuitous captain's controls.

Sunnydale Stables, just off Highway 17, east of North Bay.

Sometimes spring photos on the lake look a lot like fall photos on the lake.  I took this a couple of evenings ago.  The slight green of the new growth isn't visible here, but it certainly is not autumn.

 I had some fun on Saturday as I turned this section of a spruce log, above, into ...

... this, a self-contained campfire - a pretty cool experiment!!

Here's the "super" full moon from last night as it was rising over Trout Lake.

I was out on the Fortuitous last night with the Ice Marshal and GAWD, and on one side of the boat we had a gorgeous sunset, and on the other side there was the "day before' super full moon rising.

This is a photo from this morning as I was looking through the fog down One Mile Bay.

It may well be spring and the beginning of May, and the boat is in the water, but we are still a few weeks away from the leaves on the trees  appearing.

 The Fortuitous cruising down the lake for the first time in 2012, May 1.

The Fortuitous at the dock intead of in the driveway.

3/4 of the dock is now in - that means there is enough to dock the boat, so ... maybe it's a boat launching day.

A Costa Rica sunset, somewhere, by Marsha.

This is a bit of a self portrait of Marsha as she snaps a photo on the beach at Playa Guiones, Costa Rica, of the tracks in the beach of a sea turtle.

Marsha took this cool photo at a beach wedding in Garza, Costa Rica.

The gusty wind knocked down a couple of balsam firs on our driveway yesterday.  Today we have snow.  It's hard to believe a month ago it was 28C.

This is a mural just off the main street in Mattawa that depicts its Ottawa and Mattawa Rivers' waterfronts.

Our area got hit with a snowstorm yesterday.  These photos are from a local backroad from around noon today.  There were a bout 8 inches of sloppy wet snow.

Yesterday was Sunny's 5th birthday, so today she's just taking it easy.

Old 1800's stone house on the north side of Highway 17 somewhere near Cobden.

This new trail system off Highway 533 between Mattawa and Temiskaming looks like it would be worth checking out soon.

Ambitious

It's a bit foggy this morning, but it will clear up to be a nice day.

Nothing like a little time in the boat.

Ah, dock work. This is the exact opposite of what I hope happens this weekend. The photo shows us removing the dock in the fall; hopefully, we can put the dock in this weekend and get the boat on the water.

Sunny and I were checking out the bush trails on Easter Sunday - just a few buds on trees, so far.

Trout Lake became ice free yesterday afternoon a few hours after I took this photo. In the center you can see one of the first returning loons taking off from the lake.

The wind was pushing the ice around a bit on Lake Nipissing this week. Here it's piling up in the trees at Sunset Point.

The ice on Trout Lake is slowly disappearing, but it will be a while yet before the lake is ice free. For the first time that I can remember, there are circular and oblong holes appearing in the ice. Usually the ice melts along cracks and fault lines that open up to large channels of open water, not expanding "holes" in the ice.

While Trout Lake remains ice covered, Lake Nipissing is sheding its cover of Ice. This was taken at Sunset Beach of Lakeshore Drive.

This is a photo of the beach at our place, but looking through a layer of ice. The swirls and patterns are all ice, not the lake bottom.

I took these Trout Lake ice photos yesterday morning as I sat on the beach and listened to the lake ice "sing" as the sun heated it up - pretty cool.

The usual suspects were over on Sat. for some sun in Arkansas, what we call the deck on the garden shed, and some smoked pork tenderloin. Things started going downhill, a bit, after vittles.