…..Ailsa’s travel theme this week is where land meets water
Water and beach scenes have to be my favourite subjects for photographs……. from the shores of Ireland to the rocky coast of Lake Ontario and the sandy beach at Christian Island.
…..week of July 14th
What is your favorite comfort snack food?
At the cottage I’d have to say that my favourite comfort snack food is hot freshly popped corn with a little drizzle of melted butter. I have a special cast aluminum pot that I inherited from my mother-in-law over 40 years ago. I don’t know how old it was when I first got hold of it but it’s probably from the 50s. It makes the best popcorn but it stays at the cottage so I never have access to it when I’m back in the city. Therefore my second favourite comfort snack is cheese. I love cheese and a little wine on the side doesn’t hurt.
If you had to spend one weekend alone in a single store but could remove nothing, which store would you pick? (except food or beverage)
I like Cee’s answer (Ikea) but I think I might get bored. There are nice comfy beds to sleep on and the food there is also pretty good but I think I’d choose a Chapters Book Store. Most of them have a Starbuck’s on the premises and their chairs are comfortable enough for sleeping. I’m assuming I can take books off the shelves as long as I return them. I could really get into all the art books and decide which ones I’d like to own and maybe I could bring my knitting and find some great patterns that I could experiment with.
What was the largest city you have been to? What is the one thing you remember most?
The largest city I’ve ever been to is probably the one I live in. Toronto is the largest city in Canada. The next largest city I’ve been to would have to be Montreal. The things I remember most are how the city is divided into old, historic Montreal and the new modern Montreal. In old Montreal there are great cathedrals and churches and in modern Montreal there are fantastic restaurants and great shopping.
Photo courtesy of: http://www.designsponge.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/montreal.jpg
Photo courtesy of: http://www.cmdai.org/images/montreal.jpg
Finish this sentence: It has recently come to my attention that ….
…..my husband is going to have more surgery in August. After all the tests and the indecision and differing opinions of numerous doctors, the tumour board has decided that surgery was the best option. We’re actually happy that a decision has finally been reached and we will find out exactly what it is in his lungs that keeps showing up in his scans.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I’m grateful for a week spent at the cottage. Now that the place has been opened and cleaned future trips will be much easier and there won’t be any hesitation about going up there. I’m also grateful for time spent with my daughters and husband and being able to take part in the Pan Am Games experience.
This week I’m looking forward to going back up to the cottage and hopefully the water will have warmed up a bit so that I can go swimming. My husband has another doctor’s appointment on Friday but I hope he can find the time to join me on the weekend.
….last Tuesday it poured at the cottage and it was cool
There’s always plenty to do in the cottage but when it’s cold outside it does limit my choice of activities. Last week we had one of those days. Luckily the rain held off until noon so I was able to cook a nice warm breakfast on the BBQ. I should have gone out for a long walk but I didn’t so I didn’t reach my walking goal of 10 000 steps.
The inside of my cottage holds whatever heat there is fairly well and when the windows and doors are closed there are no drafts to worry about. I did a lot of reading on Tuesday and when I felt cool I put on an extra sweater and covered myself with a blanket.
Close to supper time the rain ceased but the temperatures remained cool. I walked over to CH’s cottage, four roads over, with D and we found her unpacking her car. She had just arrived from Toronto with her 10 year old granddaughter, from Norway. I stayed for a cup of tea and I was then invited for dinner. Wonderful!
CH’s cottage is small and has electricity so it was nice and cozy warm inside. When I returned to D’s cottage, however, it had cooled off even more. D turned the electric heater on but you had to sit right in front of it and then it felt like you were starting to bake. If you moved back a cool draft hit the rest of your body. There was only one solution to really warm up and that was go into the sauna.
Now this sauna is something else. As with most projects done up here it was over engineered but it works like a charm. D’s father did an amazing job with the finishing details. It’s big enough to seat 6 adults comfortably and right next door is an outdoor shower with hot and cold water. What a luxury! Not only did I warm up but I also washed my hair. Heavenly! It’s the things we take for granted that bring me so much joy up here!
….thank you Becca for hosting Sunday Trees
This grand old oak sits on the edge of my neighbour’s lot. I don’t think anyone’s used that treehouse in over 30 years.
…….thank you Cee for this week’s questions
I’m a little late answering this week’s questions. The internet connections on the island were a bit wonky this past week so I had to wait till I came back to the city to post my articles and take part in challenges.
What is your favorite month of the year?
My favourite month of the year is October. It’s a busy month but the weather is usually mild, the autumn colours are out, the craziness of school opening has died down, we celebrate numerous birthdays in my family and we host Thanksgiving dinner. This year October will be extra special with the birth of our first grandchild. Can’t wait!
Do you drink coffee at all?
Yes! I couldn’t imagine starting my day without coffee. As I get older I like it stronger and it has to have cream. Milk just doesn’t cut it except in a latte or cappuccino.
What was one of your first moneymaking jobs (other than babysitting or newspaper delivery)?
My parents owned a milk store when I was 14 and I worked in that store till I was 16. They gave it up shortly after I was robbed. The guy pretended to have a gun under his shirt but I wasn’t about to question him so I emptied the cash register. This was the second time that my parent’s store was held up. Luckily no one was hurt during the robberies.
After that my parents opened a fabric and sewing machine store and I worked there off and on for the next 20 years when they needed the occasional help. Other jobs where I earned a pay check included working at Woolworth’s, Ontario Produce as a clerical secretary, Pitney Bowes making metal and later plastic mailing cards, factory jobs making Barbie tents and filling sample pouches with perfumes, gels and other cosmetic products, cashier at a large grocery chain, waitress and one summer I worked in Germany in a small family owned hotel as a chambermaid.
List: If you play video/computer games list 5 games you like?
This will be a short list. Scrabble and sometimes Solitaire
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
I am grateful that I finally opened the cottage and spent a glorious week just puttering around and spending time with friends. I’m also grateful that my oldest daughter and her partner had a wonderful vacation on the west coast of Canada and returned safely last night.
In the coming week I’m looking forward to seeing a Pan Am soccer match in Hamilton (the game is actually tonight) and returning to the cottage. Hopefully this time my husband will be able to clear his work schedule and find time to join me for a few days.
…..I’ve been obsessed with gas pumps this week
If you have any odd ball photos join the fun and check out the rules at Cee’s Odd Ball Photos
….Monday, July 6, 2015
People often wonder what I do at the cottage all day, especially when I’m up here alone. Well there’s lots to do but no pressure as to when I do it. I like that.
Instead of spending two days of solid cleaning when I first open the cottage I like to spread it out and do a little bit every day. I take care of the absolute essentials when I first arrive, like fill up the water barrel, start the fridge, make the bed, uncover the furniture and wipe down all the surfaces that I’ll be using right away.
On subsequent days, I’ve washed all the dishes, even though they were clean when I left in October, wiped out the cupboards and restocked them and organized my clothes and put them back into the dresser. All of this is necessary because at some point in the months when we’re away a few rodents manage to find their way into the cottage, looking for warmth, food and shelter. Unfortunately for some of them they don’t survive and I usually find a few carcasses lying about and of course evidence that they’ve been around. Luckily this year the evidence has been minimal and a few of them had drowned in a bucket of water that was inside the cottage.
One of my goals this summer is to finish reading the books that I started this year and then didn’t finish before I picked up another to read. I’m happy to report that I’ve finished two of them and am concurrently reading two more. I also started a new book and I finished that as well. I think I will report on those books in a future post.
Another goal is to do a little bit of art everyday or at least a couple of times a week. I completed one art assignment this week and I started sketching in my art journal. Another goal well on it’s way!
I didn’t bring up a lot of food on this visit but enough to get me through the week. When I was cleaning out the cupboards I noticed that I had left a container of dried beans here over the winter. I decided to make soup from scratch. I turned on the side burner on the BBQ and cooked onions, celery and carrots in a large soup pot. I added a chopped clove of garlic and then 4 cups of broth, 2 cups of water, a tin of diced tomatoes and 1 cup of dried beans. I added salt and pepper to taste and then I let it cook for 2 hours. After the two hours I looked in the fridge to see what else I could add and I found some chick peas, cooked hamburger and fresh mushrooms. I chopped up the burgers and the mushrooms and added everything to the pot. I let it cook for a few more minutes and dinner was ready. I grated in some fresh parmesan cheese. Delicious!
Of course I had way more soup than I could eat so I put the rest into container and froze it for future meals and I kept some in the fridge for another dinner this week.
While I was cooking I got a phone call from a friend who has a cottage four roads over from mine. She invited me to come to her place for a chat, a glass of wine and to see the finished renovations on her cottage. The soup had pretty much finished cooking, so I turned it off and walked over (1500 steps). The cottage looked fantastic and since we hadn’t seen each other since January we had a nice long gab and got caught up on each other’s lives.
When I finally left it was going on 8:00 and I ended up having a late dinner. The nice part was that it was already cooked, I just had to reheat it. Even though it was getting dark I ventured down to the beach for one last walk and just managed to get in my 10,000 steps for the day. I did decide though that leaving my walk for that late wasn’t the best decision because the mosquitoes also come out at that time. Note to self, walk before the sun sets.
So that’s my day in a nutshell. Everyday I read a little, do art a little, cook, clean and visit friends, either in person or on the phone. I hope all of you enjoy your days as much as I do. Cheers!
…..Sunday, July 5, 2015
A few days ago I wrote about stopping in Midland to purchase some tracing paper. On Sunday I took the six sheets that were gifted to me and tore them in half. I now had 12 sheets of paper to experiment with and attempt Lesson 13 from the Year of the Spark. As some of you know I’m taking an on-line course with Carla Sonheim and Lynn Whipple.
This week’s assignment comes from Carla. We’ve been instructed to paint a picture with black acrylic paint onto a piece of plexiglass and then, before it dries lay a piece of tracing paper on top to create a print. After creating several prints we are suppose to lay interesting papers underneath that will show through the tracing paper and add bits of collage to the surface to create a new piece of art. The final step is to photograph the finished piece and then the actual artwork is the photograph.
Being at the cottage I was somewhat limited with what I could use. My black paint dried pretty quickly and I didn’t have the extender that would have solved that problem. I quickly threw some papers into a bin before I came up here but I was wishing I had added more, especially more of my gelli prints. Having said that I’m pretty pleased with the pieces that I’ve created. I’m thinking that some of these might make interesting cards. What do you think?
….Saturday, July 4, 2015
I’ve been coming to this island since 1988. I’ve only ever experienced a long,wide and sandy beach. Apparently the year before I arrived the water levels were at an all time high and many cottagers, especially those on the waterfront were afraid of being flooded out. One cottager at the west end of the beach built a wall to keep the water back and it worked.
Like I said I’ve never lived through a summer where the water was lapping up against green areas and covered trees. My first summer here the beach had returned to normal and every summer after the water levels went down and the beach grew larger. Some of us were concerned that the water levels had gotten too low. There was talk of water from the Great Lakes being drained into the U.S.. But the beach was grand and people compared it to being in the Caribbean.
All that changed this year. Our long cold winter and late spring saw the ice on the bay melt at a much slower rate and therefore the normal evaporation of the surface water didn’t take place and consequently the water levels rose and the beach disappeared. It hasn’t risen as high as the summer of 1987 but many parts of the beach have lost sandy areas because of the marram grass that was planted years ago to protect the dunes. The grass is indigenous to Ontario but not this island. The roots have held so well that they’ve created mini cliffs along the water’s edge on some parts of the eastern shore.
When man steps in to protect one aspect of nature to keep a natural change from occurring, i.e., the erosion of the dunes, he creates a new problem. The newly planted grasses have kept the dunes from shifting but they are now green grassy knolls and the beach is overgrown with weeds, grasses and trees.
When going for my walks along the beach I now have to walk in the water or I find myself walking on a 45 degree angle and stepping over masses of roots that have been exposed when the waves push the water up the shore line. After my first stroll along the sloping beach my hips ached from having one leg higher than the other when walking along the 3km stretch of beach.
Since that first day I’ve walked in the water so that I can still get my walk in. The good news is that since Friday (it’s now Tuesday as I write this) I’ve managed 10,000 to 12,000 steps a day.
Next year the beach may return or the water levels could rise again. Nature follows its own path and there’s not much we can do about it except enjoy what we have and hope for the best.
For more information about the problems of planting marram grass check out Marram Grass: A Hazard to our Beaches
…..every year when I go to the cottage I learn something new
Friday, July 3, 2015
First things first. Coffee. I started the BBQ and boiled water to make a pot of coffee. I don’t know why we feel the need for expensive coffee machines when using a kettle and a coffee filter over a carafe makes excellent coffee and in the same amount of time.
Dr. D came over and shared a cup of coffee with me and then we went to tackle the water problem. We’ve both started this pump hundreds of times and have never had a problem that couldn’t be solved with a minimum of effort. Today was the exception.
One of the things that I noticed was that there wasn’t a strong smell of gas, even after numerous pulls on the cord. Most people would think that we flooded the motor. Just in case we gave it a rest. Dr. D also thought that it might need a new spark plug so she rummaged through her brother’s stash in the boathouse and found the exact match. The difficulty came when we tried to remove the old one. I don’t know how a man with big hands could possibly remove this spark plug. We found the socket wrenches but the plug was so far into the motor that the wrench didn’t fit.
We found another tool that fit over the bolt at the bottom of the plug and with a screw driver acting as a lever we finally managed to remove the old plug. We screwed in the new plug and tightened it the same way we loosened the old one. We pulled on the cord again. Nothing. Now what?
Dr. D remembered that her brother had heated the end of the spark plug for another application so we removed the new spark plug using our make shift tool and got out the propane torch. After heating the contact end we put it back into the motor and tried again. Nothing.
As a last resort we called D’s brother and her parents. We reached her mom and dad who were on holiday on the east coast, first. We told them what we had done and all the suggestions that they made we had already tried. Their final recommendation was to get buckets and get water from our neighbours. Luckily D’s brother D called. He was on his way to the cottage but was still one and a half days away.
After explaining, again, what we had done he advised that we check the carburator. Okay but where is it? We’re lucky that he knows this motor so well because he described exactly where to locate the carburator and how to empty it. The theory is that water had mixed in with the gas and wasn’t going through the motor. That would account for the lack of gasoline smell when we were pulling on the cord. Again we had difficultly removing the bolt but this time the socket wrench proved useful. After emptying the tank we pulled the cord again. Nothing! Arghhh!
We decided we needed a break and went inside D’s cottage. She made us each a cappuccino with the expresso maker she brought to the cottage. Did I mention that they have electricity where I don’t. What a treat! After being satisfactorily caffeinated we decided to clean up the tools and wait for D’s brother to arrive to fix the problem.
After putting the tools away and cleaning up the area, I suggested that we give it one more try, just to make sure that it really wasn’t working. Voila! It worked! We gave each high fives and acted like little children who had just won a competition. We had beat this thing and fixed it ourselves.
I filled up my water barrel and five large bottles of water that I took to the kitchen. Someday I will actually have the water piped right into the cottage so that I don’t have to lug water every other day but that’s for another day.
Now it was time to celebrate. A little bit of wine and great food. A wonderful way to end the day.
Mama Cormier 
