Still Filling the Well in Bayfield, Ontario

The view from my hammock in Bayfield, Ontario.
I am currently blogging at my group blog - Four Mugs and a Crock. Come and check us out.

Weekend Mucking About at the Trailer

Along with trailer ownership comes trailer maintenance. On Friday night there were severe thunderstorms for about 2 hours, and when I went outside in the morning I could hear a steady drip drip drip.

I found that water was dripping over the edge of the eavestrough at the lower end. That can't be good I said to myself. Who knows how long its been since the eavestrough had been cleaned out but I was up for the job, so to speak, at least once I got out the stepladder.

I had no rubber gloves and the only tool that would fit into the narrow trough was a garden trowel. Up the ladder I went, trowel in hand. Wow, you can see all around the park from the top of my ladder - cool.

However, the black sludge in the trough, years old accumulation of maple leaves and maple keys, wasn't so cool. It smelled. Bad. Like manure. But being raised by a man who could stick his bare hand into the entrails of a dead chicken I am no wuss, but I do admit to wrinkling my nose. I scooped with the trowel and bravely dug down with my left hand to lift masses of oozing black guck out of the trough and then tried to toss it onto the same spot on the lawn, over and over again.

Oh, and did I mention that all this goo (I think a few more years and I would have had my own source of petroleum) was lying under several inches of brackish water? No? Well it was, and as I gradually worked my way down the front of my porch the water slowly started to trickle down the spout out onto the lawn. By the time I reached the downspout most of the water had successfully escaped but looking back I could still see small bits of sludge here and there that I had missed when it was still underwater.

Not one to leave a job partially done I pulled the hose over and started at the other end again spraying water down the trough till it was totally clear of yucky stuff.

I was a little smarter when bagging the goo I had tossed down. Not really yearning to immerse my hands once again in black slime but lacking gloves I put my hand inside a plastic bag and then cleared up the manure pile. Farmer Hazelnut!

I was able to sleep much better that night knowing my troughs were clear.

Monday Memoirs - Turkey Point

When I was a kid, yeah that's me kneeling on the blanket, my gramma Catton used to rent the same cottage at Turkey Point for a week every summer. This was quite a few years back and it cost about $30 for a week of sunburns, underwater handstands, potato salad and cucumber sandwiches. Yeah, pure bliss! Seated beside me is one of my older brothers - Kim, and one of my older sisters - Dale. I still remember that short set I was wearing - I thought it was so cool. It was white but had these red and white striped thingys you could tie into bows at the neck and on the legs of the shorts.

It was a great place to spend a week - the beaches were sandy and the lake full of dunes - you could walk out a mile and the water would only be up to your armpits. Not that I was a great swimmer, but I never came too close to drowning. The water and the food and the freedom were the best part for me, (no mother telling me to eat my vegetables or not to go out into the lake too far - just gramma who never said no to a second ice cream cone) however, from what my sisters remember it was the gin that my gramma doled out in generous amounts mixed with Wink that provided some of their best memories!

We always rented the same cottage - cottage #4. It is still there, now part of the "Whispering Pines" group of cottages, though updated and a bit more pricey at $535 per week. It has new siding, new windows and linoleum and I don't remember there being a firepit.

#4 was our favourite because in addition to 2 bedrooms it had a sunporch with a couch where another person could sleep.

Here's the sunporch now and you get a good view of the road leading down to the beach - the water isn't too far away. My cousin Murray and I would play on the road with our cars and trucks making roadways in the sand, impatiently waiting for gramma to announce that it was time to go to the beach. There was also a swing at the other end of the road behind a little hedge and a spring coming out of the side of a hill by the swing with cold wonderful tasting water. (Pesticides?)

My cousin Murray usually only lasted til about Tuesday or Wednesday when his dad would have to come and get him because he'd be sunburned so badly. No sunblock in those days. I survived somehow and usually only ended up with the usual assortment of scrapes, cuts, bruises and second degree burns.

Honestly, I was the most battered looking child ever. I was such a tomboy I was forever falling out of trees or falling while climbing over a rusty barbwire fence. Yet I never broke a bone or poked an eye out like my brother Kim. In fact, (correct me if I'm wrong ceeb) I don't remember a single broken bone in our entire family. I give all credit to our mother...."get down from there"...."put that down"...."get off the roof right now"...."stop shooting those arrows at your sister"...."no you can't play with your father's rifle"...."no, you can't drink that"....etc etc.

Now I have my own trailer to go to at a different lake but the feelings are still the same. Everyone needs a place to escape to in the summer, a place to let your hair down with no boss looking over your shoulder, no deadlines....just pure bliss.

Photohunt - ME

In my happy spot! I was there (trailer at Bayfield on Lake Huron) for awhile after school today. I had ordered some chairs and they had been delivered to the local variety store by Sears. It wasn't sunny today though, but after my crazily frenetic Friday, it didn't matter. It was AWAY from it all.

For more photohunt participants click here.

Happy Mother's Day! all you Mothers!!

My mother would have been 85 years old today if Parkinson's hadn't taken her away at the age of 77. But while she lived my mother was a thoroughly modern woman. Born in 1923, the second of 4 children and the only girl, she had an independent spirit and a gift for drawing, painting and writing. Growing up during the depression with only a mother she dropped out of school in Gr. 10 to work in the local broom factory. Times were tough yet photo after photo show her impeccably turned out in a wide array of flattering outfits - how she did it I'll never know.

Somehow she also managed to clothe and feed her five active and always hungry children, including me, pictured above in a pretty snazzy outfit for a 2 year old. Note my mother's stylish coat, coordinated head scarf and of course spotless white gloves. You'd think we were quite well off by appearances. And you know, we were, in the things that counted.

Today I'd like to thank my mother for a simple gift she gave me, which I enjoyed to the full today. The gift of artful puttering. My mother loved to putter, indeed, she lived to putter. There was nothing she loved more than to putter around the house in the morning - sorting through the accumulation of stuff on the dining room table, a little dusting, writing a few lists, putting misplaced items back where they belong, moving around a few pieces of furniture, trying on a new blouse or two, pruning a few houseplants, reading a few snippets from the newspaper, magazines and a half dozen books, sweeping the kitchen floor (a task she did so often we called her The Grim Sweeper!), and a myriad other little odd jobs.

While I puttered around my trailer today, inside and out, I thought fondly of our "ma". How she would have loved it at the trailer I thought as I vacuumed, dusted and arranged several new storage ottomans. "Just the ticket" she would say, "so handy - you can sit on them, you can store extra linens etc in them and flip over the top and it becomes a tray to hold cups of tea and cookies!" As I raked leaves I could envision her sitting on a lounge chair with her favourite book in hand and the inevitable cup of tea on a side table.

And as I swept my large front porch I wished she was there with me, because then SHE would have been sweeping instead of ME!

Trailer Made!

You will notice that my blogging output decreases in direct relationship to good weather and "trailer time!" Last July I purchased a trailer in a summer park just outside Bayfield, Ontario. It was the best money I ever spent. I lead a somewhat (hah!) stressed existence as a single parent of a university bound 17 year old child/teen/woman (cheeman...chilteman...cheenan?)

The other major stressor in my life is my job. I love my job, don't get me wrong, but it wakes me up about 3 or 4 times a night. I jolt awake and wonder how to convince "Sam's" father to accept some help, like a support worker for Sam, a medical checkup....etc when he sees any recommendation as a sign he is a failure as a father (she just moved in with him last August after her grandmother died and we just want to help him out but he sees it as interference). A little while later I open my eyes and worry about "Tanya", a student with autism who is graduating this year, she is 21, as her parents have made no plans for her - what is she going to do all day? Then about an hour before the alarm goes off I sit upright and hope that "Rusty" remembers to take his medication for epilepsy when he goes on his overnight trip with his Gr. 9 band class. And on and on it goes.

When I go to the trailer I can leave all of these worries behind me. When I am at the trailer I am no longer a teacher. Instead, I am someone who can take apart a large, heavy sofabed with a hammer, a screwdriver and a pair of scissors. (It came with the trailer but it needed to go and it wouldn't fit through the door so I took it apart- it was for the best as I was able to recycle all the metal and kept the wood for burning in the firepit!)

When I am at the trailer I become a beachcomber, walking the shoreline everyday picking up kindling for that night's fire. I become an expert at recognising birdcalls, and keep my eye on the birdfeeders and bird houses nestled in the trumpet vines across from my trailer. My heart rate slows down and the most important thing I have to do is ride my bike into town to drink iced coffee in front of the Bean Bag, buy delectable pastries at the bake shop for tomorrow's breakfast and a bottle of wine for tonight's BBQ. Well, that's important!

This week's trailer task is to take up a futon to replace the sofa bed and two storage ottomans to hold my daughter's clothing/stuff. Hopefully it will be sunny so I can finish raking the leaves and plant the climatis I bought a week ago and plant the native grass seeds a friend gave me. Then we'll be ready to stay through the Victoria Day weekend, better known in Canada as the May two four weekend (in reference to a case of 24 beer bought by millions of Canadians as we kick off the long-awaited summer party weekend season.)

I'll stick to a six pack myself.

Warm Weather Keeping Me Outside!

I've been putting a few miles on my sneakers this week. In southwestern Ontario we've been treated to about a two week preview of late spring/early summer weather and it has been heavenly after a long winter of being cooped up inside. So at lunchtime and after school I've been strapping on the sneaks and walking around the neighbourhood soaking in the sights and sounds of spring.


Many flowering trees are in bloom, along with forsythia bushes and the ever popular pussy willow. Robins are nesting, sitting on a new brood, and the air is filled with the chirping sounds of a variety of very happy birds. It's a good time to be alive. The other day my neighbour and I toasted the beginning of BBQ season by sitting on my newly cleaned up patio with a glass of wine. Ah.....good times.


Of course, all of this outdoorsiness means less time spent in front of the computer but nature calls, so to speak. This past weekend saw me up at my trailer just outside of Bayfield raking leaves and discovering new plants and flowers poking up. I also spent 4 hours taking apart a 20 year old sofa bed as that was the only way to get it out of the trailer. A light rain fell for part of the morning but I was very cozy inside with my hammer and screwdriver, tunes playing from my iPod, the raindrops hitting the metal roof, coffee close to hand.


The good news is that I can now access the internet at the trailer park so will be posting from the comfort of my hammock this summer as I watch the hummingbirds at my feeder, the white geese ambling across the road and the little chipmunks chase each other around the silver maple.

Bliss!