Last evening.

Again.

Again.


This morning.

Again.


Today has been a good news/bad news kind of day. Bad news; black flies. Bad news; no word on my boat, yet. Bad news; went back to digging the trench. I have to dig four feet under the side porch. Bad news; black flies. There is a band of sand stone beside the porch. On the first swing of the pick I holed the siding. I blame it on the bi-focals. Good news; the other day I found a self draining water system on the net. I emailed them but got no reply. Bad news; black flies. I called them this morning. Good news; they can have a system ready for me on May 1st. Bad news; price. Good news; I have already dug deeper that they require. Bad news; I have to go to Toronto and pick it up. Bad news; black flies. Did I tell you about the black flies yet? I had to wear the bug jacket while digging. 23 degrees and no wind. I had sweat running over my pearly white. Right now I'm trying to decide if I want to haul some water for a shower, or walk off the end of the dock. Now, I've had a few first this year. First one to walk across the lake, first canoe in the water, first dock in, first boat in. I'm not sure that I want to be the first to swim.

PS1 The black flies are BAD!

PS2 I almost forgot the public service portion of this blog. I think that we've provided some educational services. We've learned a little of the tribulations of living alone in the frozen north. We've learned that it is difficult to blow slush bubbles inside of a helmet. We've had the first trial and conviction on the internet. And now it's time to inform you of a missing person. It seems that this young, sweet, innocent person has been missing for over twenty years. She may have been abducted and may be living deep in the northern forest. If we find her and return her home, her mother will finally teach her how to cook. So, keep your eyes open. Note, there is no reward at this time.

Last evening.




This afternoon.




Quiet day at Little Tomiko. I took Kita in for his appointment and did a little running around town. The black flies are so bad that I had to put on my bug jacket just to bring in the groceries. The weather here hasn't changed for a while, and the forecasters are calling for the same until next Tuesday.

Nobody came to my door to deliver the census forms, go figure! I went to the internet site and they say that it would take 40 minutes on high speed. Who knows how long it would take on this sketchy dial-up, and you have to down load some programs before you start. I guess that I'll call them up. That's it for today.

View from the Frasertown marina last night.


Rain today, again.


The rain is really bring out the leaves, though.


We had the bestest Mother's day dinner last night. Shirley, I love you!, and your prostitute pie is the yummiest! I think we can work around George. For all you vegans out there, I even had some parsnips. I'm not sure I like them enough to turn into a vegan-back to nature-hippy or not, but they are OK. But I do have three hemp hats, so that's a start. I'm heading back to Frasertown after supper to help the Foreman with some more culverts. And into town tomorrow for Kita's annual check up.

9:00am


Noon


Early, short post today. Going out for supper this afternoon. Sure hope Mom is cooking, even if it is Mother's day. Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there.

Washed up the furniture on the deck this morning. The pollen, from Yellow Birch I think, was all over everything, even though the deck is screened.

The forcasters are calling for rain, forever, at least that's what it seems like, all next week any way.

Pollen on the deck furniture.

Today.


Yesterday afternoon.


Last evening.


Another last evening.


Kita misses his boat.


Nothing of interest to report for today. Just house work. Maybe I should dedicate an hour a day, instead of four or five hours every week... or two.

Happy Birthday Squeegie!!!























This is what today looked like, except there was a lot more wind and rain when I went across the lake at 8:00am.


I dragged the boat into town this morning. I miss not being on the water. At least in the winter, if your sled broke down you could always walk. On the bright side, my truck is at the house for the first time since November 28. It is easier taking groceries out of the truck and right into the house. Going into town sucks all the energy right out of me, so I'm taking the rest of the day off. Tomorrow will be house work day.

The Tomiko River.


We have a new resident on the Gibson's road. I'm going to tell him that the trees are nicer on Moose lake and maybe he will relocate on his own. If not I might have to persuade him that the road is not a good location for his front pool.

Well, two steps forward, and twenty-five back. I was so proud of myself yesterday for figuring out what was wrong with my boat motor not tilting, and making the broken part good enough to work. Then after supper I was going to Frasertown to help the Foreman with some culverts, when the motor wouldn't start at all. GRRR!! I looked at it this morning, but it's beyond me. So I decided that I have to take it to the outboard hospital. Of course you remember that I broke a bunk on the trailer when I launched the boat. So I fixed that, and dragged the trailer around the lake. Razor was really nice and lent me his boat. I don't care what you say about him Rich, he's a pretty decent guy. This evening I'll tow the boat to the boat launch and load it on the trailer. All the boat hospitals are really busy, getting ready for the long weekend, but I used the old "I'm an old guy living all alone, with out a road" trick. So they'll see what they can do for me.

I left Kita chained up when I went around the lake. I was only gone about an hour. You can see the hole he dug, burying the bottom step. He does look happy to see me though.


Blueberry Blossoms.

They say that this is as good as it gets for the next four or five days.


Pollen in the lake last evening.


Sun set from Tomiko Pond.


Sun set from the Frasertown Marina.


No digging got done today. Last evening, the tilt on my out board stopped working. It would tilt up, but not down. If it's not one thing, it's another. It took a couple of hours of standing on my head, in the back of the boat, and running back and forth to the garage to get more tools, to figure out what was wrong. Hey Greg, I had to use the upside down bifocal thing too. By then, the black flies were out in full force with reservists called in to replace the ones I squished yesterday. So I said "fuddle duddle", it can wait til tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. Gee, I miss January.

Kita has been asking for a boat ride all day. Maybe we'll go to Frasertown after supper.


I thought that I would be smart and start digging the trench early, before it got too hot. Bad maneuver, the black flies are out. Thanks a lot for that rain Aunt Bessie. Oh, they were bad, even when it got hot and windy. I dug until I couldn't stand the flies no more. The digging is actually pretty easy. I've hit a couple of bands of sand stone, but it's not too bad. I probably started digging too soon. I don't want to dig up the bank down to the lake until I'm ready to bury the water line to prevent run off into the lake if it rains. Kita informed me today that he has a doctor's appointment next Tuesday, so I'll order the pump and stuff then. It'll take about a week for it to come in.



I thought that maybe the flies wouldn't be so bad if I went up. So I washed the pollen off of the solar panels and cleaned the chimney. But the horse flies were waiting for me up there. I don't think you're going to see my butt till next January.

Nice day today, Thanks for taking your rain cloud with you Aunt Bessie.


Aunt Bessie's rain did bring some wild flowers.


I spent most of the morning coming down from a sugar high from all the fudge I ate last night. I did get some small jobs done that didn't require much concentration. After lunch, I removed the sod where I'm going to bury the new water line. Then my brain started trying to compute how many shovel fulls it will take for a trench 75 feet long by 2 feet wide and 5 feet deep. OUCH, my head hurts! If you figure it out, don't tell me, it will only depress me. Then I thought I should put a toll on the narrows. Any body going through the narrows, both directions, would have to come here and dig for 1/2 an hour. Of course, I'm the only one using the narrows right now and I figured that I owed myself about 9 hours so far.

This is about as nice as it got while Aunt Bessie and Gord was here. I told you, you wouldn't like it here.


Aunt Bessie having her morning "coffee". You DO NOT SEE the bottle of port!


Aunt Bessie and Gord finally leaving the cold, cold north.


I had a really nice, but too short visit with Aunt Bessie and Gord. Don didn't come because of back problems. I might have to go down and throw him and his bed in the back of my truck to get him up here. Aunt Bessie didn't make me any bread, but she did bring me one. She said my bread was ok. I hope that they come back when the weather is nicer and we can get out and terrorize Little Tomiko. It seems too quiet here now.

While I was at Frasertown seeing them off, I met my future wife. She has no problem with the cooking, cleaning and chopping wood. But we are still negotiating the cat puke part. But she says that she has a recipe for chicken chow meow. She's the one who didn't pass on the cooking gene. I hear that she makes a super prostitute pie. As an engagement gift I received a bag of fudge! I'm eating it right now, and no, there won't be any left overs.

PS: The North Bay Kelly's have moved out of their house and into their cabin. Welcome to Little Tomiko as permanent resedents. So now we can call them the Tomiko Kellys. They hope to start construction on their new mansion in a couple of weeks.

Look what the Newfies brought!


Here is Aunt Bessie and cousin Gord.


The Newfies arrived yesterday and brought Aunt Bessie's famous rain with her. She is the lady with the rain cloud over her head. We woke up this morning to a nice clean white covering of snow.

Happy Birthday Sis! I know that it improper to tell an XY's age, so I won't. But welcome to the half century club. Sis!!!!! Aunt Bessie and Gord say Happy birthday too.

Last evening.

This am.


This afternoon.




I think that we had just enough rain this morning to hatch the you know whats. We are afraid to say those words cause we've been lucky so far.

Big clean up today. I haven't been keeping up on the house XY thing since the weather has been nice, spending all day out side everyday. The white bread I made doesn't look very good. When I was making raisin bread, the top fell off the cinnamon bottle dumping half of the bottle into the dough. Oh well, I hear that cinnamon is an antioxidant, or something like that. Maybe I'll tell Aunt Bessie that Tomiko Tina came over and made the bread. Rich says that everybody would believe that one. It seems that the cooking gene skipped a generation in her family. So I hauled water for a couple of loads of laundry, beds are made, cat and dog hair all vacuumed up. The only thing that I didn't get done was to fill the 60 gallon tank. I figure that Aunt Bessie is a lot younger than I feel, so she can fill the tank. There might not be a posting tomorrow, I'm not sure what time we will get back from town.

Last evening.


This morning.


No fancy pictures of this afternoon. Nothing but blue skies. My graphics program has run out of white to draw pretty, white, fluffy clouds.

I think that I'm burnt to a crisp. I worked all day in the boat and on the dock, with out shade. I thought of going for a swim to cool off, until I remembered Razor's squeaky voice when he put in his docks the other day. And he was wearing a sexy wet suit too. I have pictures, but I don't want my intestines dried out to make snow shoes. (I'll show you if you come here).

Big clean up day tomorrow, getting ready for my visitors. I have to make bread too, which is a daunting task as my Aunt Bessie is the best bread maker in the known world.

Last evening, this graphic took a lot of air brushing.


This afternoon. That's my place on the left, past Glenn's point, my closest neighbor.


Who owns this lot? I hear that he's planning on putting a love shack on wheels on the lot. I can hear the night sounds now. The lonesome call of the loon, the hoot of the owl, the croak of the frogs, and the squeak squeak of rusty springs.


I did a bunch of small jobs and outside clean ups until it got too hot to work. It was 24c at noon. So I quit working. Kita was kind of antsy all morning, so I took him for a ride to Frasertown, to see how the "mayor" was doing with his chores. It's a good thing that Trailerpark Dan was helping him out, because the real Mayor was hovering around trying to reorganize the to-do list.

PS. I guess it's official, a couple of comments and emails say that the big white bird was a snow goose.

Trouble with Blogger again.
Last evening. Just remember, these are computer generated pictures, you really wouldn't like it here. Really.




Right now.


I took Jack's quad out this morning to knock down a widow maker that was hung up over the drive way since last spring. I thought that I should do it now, before Jack comes back and tries to repossess his bike. Good luck on that one, Jack. It was really hot, I thought poor old Kita was going to croak. I think he's gotten out of shape since ice out. Not much running for him since then. We saw a dozen ruffed grouse and I picked today to forget my camera. I'm just going to do small fix ups and clean ups the rest of the week till my company comes. I see that they are calling for rain on Thursday. I hope the Newfies don't need their sou'westers and oilskins on the weekend.

Here's another bit of Newfie tradition. The Newfies have a ritual called "getting screached in". This is a very high honour, and is only bestowed on the Rock. This rite involves kissing a dead cod fish on the lips and downing a straight shot of Newfie Screach rum. You would indeed, be blessed and have a long and happy life, if you were lucky enough to be so honoured. Or, at least a long and happy night!