Winter is pretty well all but done although there is still snow on the ground and the lake remains iced over. This time of year is typically when there is not much to do; the ground is too soggy to work on, we can't turn the water on in cottages because the evening temps often dip well below freezing, skiing is over and hiking trails are deep with mushy spring snow. So what do we do? When possible, we take off for a spring fling.
Julia's has had the West Highland Way on her "to do" list and so in mid March she took off to hike the 100 miles of Scottish wilderness with two of her friends. Although it was earlier in the hiking season - I think that the trail was still closed for winter - the gals had a great time enjoying the scenery, the old inns and Scottish cuisine. I stayed home to take care of the chickens, the cat and the dog.
A few days after Julia got back, I was off to Lake Tahoe for a few days of skiing with Meg, Adam and Adam's girlfriend Teresa. The weather wasn't brilliant and the snow was a bit on the thin side for spring but we had a great time skiing Squaw Valley, Kirkwood and Heavenly Valley. Of the three I'm pretty sure we all agreed that Kirkwood was #1. A bit more low key, fewer people and really good skiing!
Poor John missed out on the West Highland Way and the skiing at Lake Tahoe, however he also had an exciting spring as well. He was part of a team of 3 who were fortunate to be accepted to participate in the Oxford University Intellectual Property Moot competition in March. The team was sponsored by a local Ottawa law firm and the event involved a simulated court situation where opposing teams argue for one side of the case or the other. After losing their very first round to the 2012 winning team, they went on undefeated and won the whole thing! The Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa University Gazette covered the story
Next for us is to wait for the snow to leave and the ground to dry out so that we can get Foxwood open and ready for our May guests.
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Talk about cold, when we got up this morning the temperature was -37C without the wind chill factored in! By noon it had warmed up to a balmy -23C. We even heard some places were recording temperatures of -38C. Fortunately, there was little or no wind around otherwise it would have been a very different story.
Starting up our vehicles went OK however it is interesting how everything changes once you get below -30C. The doors creek, the dials on the dashboards become stiff and hard to move and the trees make a "cracking" sound as they adapt to the cold. The stars in the night sky seem to shine that much more brightly in the crisp air as well.
So far, we haven't seen any snowmobiles on the lake as the ice has just been too unreliable up to now. We imagine that by the weekend the thickness of the ice will be sufficient ....however where ever you decide to venture make sure that the surface is safe!
We noticed that Hidden Valley Ski area has taken advantage of the cold weather to make heaps and heaps of machine made snow. That should make for great conditions on the slopes right into spring time.
Annie, our border terrier had her winter coat on when she was out snowshoe-ing with us today. The trails now have a good covering of snow. Funny how winter looked like a loss a week ago when it was raining and the snow was melting away.
Winter has finally reclaimed it's ownership of January. Bring it on!
We are 2 months late posting news about our trip to Italy, but we feel it's better late than never. So, here is a Cole's notes version of our trip.
On October 11 we flew to Rome and everything went smoothly. After landing we found our way to the train station to catch a ride to Naples. After a few hours speeding along at about 225km/h we arrived. It was then another train ride, albeit much, much slower, to meet our friends who had earlier traveled from Kamloops,BC. We hung out in Sorrento few days and then took the bus to Amalfi. The roads and buildings were amazing as they clutched onto rock faces hundreds of feet above the ocean. We made a number of side trips. It would have been so easy to spend days exploring Pompeii and Vesuvius, Revello was absolutely beautiful (we took tons of pictures at Villa Rufolo), the hike along the Path of the Gods was everything we imagined and we met Pietro who sang for us at dinner and even signed his "limited edition" cd that we bought from him. The Isle of Capri and the Blue Grotto were definitely memorable adventures on several fronts.
After saying goodbye to our friends in Amalfi we hired a car from Sorrento and drove north to Assisi to meet up with some of Julia's family. We rented a spacious villa that sat in the middle of an olive grove. Our trips here involved a bit more travelling by car. There was lots to explore in Assisi and plenty of good food and drink. We sat in a small church that was built in 1166 and wondered about the people built it and what it was like living then. The caves at Orvieto were fascinating and the cathedral, like many in Italy, left us in awe; it took 30yrs to design and 3 centuries to build! We visited the Marmore waterfall. They were made by the Romans in the 3rd century BC and are the highest in Europe, dropping 165m.We couldn't resist taking a winery for a tour. Just outside the town of Todi we found Roccafiori, an organic winery and just 15 years old.
We flew back on October 26, thoroughly touristed-out and glad to be back home. There were many more adventures which we are happy share if you ask us. All in all, Italy was a hit for us!
We haven't done very well with our BLOG lately. The summer seemed to fly by and before we knew it we were off to Italy on vacation.....and then we just got lazy. So, sorry if you kept checking us out, only to see that there was nothing new. We'll try to do better.
Anyhow winter is bearing down on us. Last week the temperatures dipped down to -14C. Now that was chilly, but certainly no where near the -30C that we occasionally see in the winter months. Those cold nights and quiet breezes allowed for the lake to start freezing in the bays and sheltered areas. The main parts of lake will take a bit more time. Usually sometime over the holidays we see it ice over. Lately, with global warming has made things more unpredictable; last year the ice came in later and it went out a month early.
Also, with coming of winter the sun sits lower in the sky. There are still the great sunsets to see, it's just that the sun goes down earlier and slightly more to the south.
The Foxwood nature trails are almost ready for snowshoeing. Guests at Foxwood are welcome to use them free of charge. We'll even take those who want on a evening hike when the sky is black as ever and the stars are shining brightly. It is really quite a memorable experience particularly under a full moon.
The local ski area, Hidden Valley Highlands, just opened last week and they are working hard to get a good carpet of snow down with the aid of their snowmaking system. Over the winter remember that you get 10% off lift tickets when you stay with us.
All of our shopping is done, the tree lights are up and we are getting ready to greet our holiday guests....we have a few spaces remaining over Christmas and New Years.Sometime in the next week or so we'll update you on our Italy trip.
Cheers!
It took more than 3 weeks of patience and a lot of hard work by Luke Bussey and his dad Barry to get the whole court rejuvenated. The weather was a big factor when doing this work and it played havoc throughout with 34C+ temperatures one week and then 1", pea size hail stones on another week.
Luke owns Canadian Shield Surfacing and his specialty is redoing court surfaces. He knows his trade well, he works harder than anyone we've seen, he's honest and he takes tremendous pride in what he does. Does it sound like we're happy?
It took 3 coats of leveler, an amazing amount of patching and sanding to the fill holes, two coats of colour and then the lines painted on. Our guests will be tremendously happy with what they find this summer. The transformation from a rough, tired old court to what we have now is fantastic.
Luke and his dad were each given the honorary first serve to open the new surface.
What is going on here. Over the May Long weekend the weather was glorious -
temperatures reached upwards of 30C, sunshine and guests enjoying the lake. Then a few weeks later we had a tremendous hail storm. About an inch of hail with pieces the size of a marbles came pounding down. It was very localized but it knocked the power out for hours and made quite a mess of our roads and walkways. We even had to delay our tennis court resurfacing for a few days until everything dried up. We are now back to resurfacing the court and temperatures are back up into the 30C's. What's going on?
For now it looks like the next week or so will be great. The new court surface should be down by the weekend if we are lucky. So bring your rackets and get ready for some good tennis. The new Moomba ski/wakeboard boat is looking good too! We were out for a ride tonight to test things out.
It was almost 32 years to the day when the two of us set out from Canoe Lake for our honeymoon. And now, many years later, here we are setting out again for a paddle in Algonquin Park...albeit heading in the opposite direction down Smoke Lake to Ragged Lake.
Although we were gone for only two days and an overnight it felt much longer, which was a good thing. We had an easy paddle in calm-ish waters to start, then a short portage and then we reached Ragged Lake. Lots of bays and interesting points of land made up the shape of Ragged Lake, much like Lake of Bays.
Along the way we spotted several beavers swimming, a painted turtle sunning itself on a log, and a couple of eagles soaring overhead. The temperatures were about 27C and because of the little moisture around the bugs were really not a problem. Annie, our boarder terrier, didn't take long before she felt comfortable back in her saddle, riding the packs and balancing with her forelegs on the gunnels of the canoe
There was nobody on the lake anywhere and so we checked out a few camping spots and had our pick. We settled on an idyllic point with a nice sandy landing area for the canoe and a good SE exposure for the morning sun. It didn't take long before Julia was in the lake for a swim. She thought the water seemed a bit warmer than Lake of Bays, which was about 66F or about 15C.
Dinner was beautiful. A bit of smoked salmon with crackers, followed by one of Julia's interesting concoctions of beans, onion soup, chili and rice. We topped it off with an amazing bottle of 2007 Chateau des Laurets sipped out of a pair of plastic coffee mugs....ah, camping is still so very romantic!
A few days after Julia got back, I was off to Lake Tahoe for a few days of skiing with Meg, Adam and Adam's girlfriend Teresa. The weather wasn't brilliant and the snow was a bit on the thin side for spring but we had a great time skiing Squaw Valley, Kirkwood and Heavenly Valley. Of the three I'm pretty sure we all agreed that Kirkwood was #1. A bit more low key, fewer people and really good skiing!
