Thanksgiving weekend at Bruce Lake

There is a jewel of a lake snuggled in between Lake Joseph and Lake Rosseau in Ontario's Muskoka Lakes. A few years ago, my son-in-law bought a cottage there where we often spend family time together.  On Sunday morning, before all the cooking and preparation started, we decided to walk two restless Labradors. 

Finding the path we normally take blocked by two small dogs and a larger female who took an instant dislike to Bliss's enthusiastic body slam greeting, we changed direction and headed along the road to inspect other views of the lake. Above, is a photo I was compelled to take, being struck by the reflection in the mirroring water, and the red Muskoka chairs on the rocks. The colour had turned overnight it seems. What had been pale and washed out the day before was beginning to glow!

This view from just in front of the cottage catches the ripples from dogs drinking and pawing the water... again the reflection in the water is, to me, beautiful. Down to the dock with my camera...

The grey skies seem to make the colours gleam even more.

A tiny island in a tiny lake - privately owned to protect it for generations of wildlife including a loon family that returns year after year.

The table centre is complete, and the table awaits place settings, family and friends and a fabulous turkey dinner complete with "all the trimmings" and a pumpkin pie for dessert. A warm and wonderful time.

We have much to be grateful for I'm thinking. 

Hopefully you and yours celebrated - in some fashion - the joys of family and being together with those about whom you care. 

Views of Rice Lake

This bend in the highway occurs just before you reach our driveway, on the left hand side of the road. This graveled area is a turn off spot so that local residents can get to their mail boxes. Along the lane going straight ahead on the left hand side are several cottages bordering the lake like a little string of pearls. The blue at the end of the lane is the lake with a right curve to follow the edge of the lake. 

I truly do live across the highway from the lake.

The weather lately has been beautiful - warm and sunny - Indian Summer we used to call it when I was a kid. It's brought out the explorer in me. Though I've lived outside of Port Hope, a town on Lake Ontario about 30 minutes south-west of here, and wandered all around the lake 15 or so years ago, I've forgotten much of what has obviously been here for years.

The lake is ringed with cottages. Cheek by jowl. Some of the tinier cabins are obvious holdovers from the 30s and 40s and were at one time fishing and hunting camps. There are many small cottage businesses - several lakeside or near the lake, clustered around a main building or "office" with cottages of one room or three rooms - two of them being bedrooms. And now the "McMansions" as a fellow blogger calls the larger homes, or weekend retreats, (certainly not cottages), are creeping in.

The above photo shows one of a group of small cottages along the water's edge in Harwood. You can see a smaller RV park across the inlet.

This little lane projects out into the water and appears to be a bridge to a small island... there is an ice warning sign just beyond the edge of my photo. This lane is posted as Private Property and No trespassing! A family enclave perhaps?

Over the roof of a cottage right at the edge of the water in the village of Harwood, you can see here, the remains of the historic Cobourg to Peterborough rail road that once skipped and jumped from island to island across the lake obviously on pilons and a rickety (to me it would have been) wooden rail road bridge. Two anglers cross the water in a small motorboat just beyond. Apparently people unfamiliar with the lake still get caught on the remains of the bridge.

Originally considered in 1831, due to the Upper Canada  Rebellion in 1837, it wasn't completed till 1859, but was one of the first railway lines in Central Ontario and at the time the longest trestle bridge in the world. (information courtesy Wikipedia).That must have been something to see.

This is a view of the lake, which in many places seems like a long narrow river running from northeast to southwest, taken from the top of Lilac Valley Road, which is a minute or two from my home, and one of the routes I take to move south through the network of sideroads, lanes and county roads to Lake Ontario and the towns of Cobourg, Colborne and Port Hope. 

Taken from the same spot - but with a closer look, this farm is perched high enough to see the lake and the communities beyond. Peterborough's lights can be seen at night in the north west, and even in this photograph you can see villages nestled in the rolling hills of Northumberland county.

Rice Lake is similar to a bright ribbon in the centre of the county. It is connected to Lake Ontario by the Trent Waterway which runs from Trenton a city and military base spreading along Ontario's banks and into the country as a way to reach Georgian Bay. The Trent uses canals and locks and natural water ways - rivers and lakes - to eventually move boats (and historically, goods) into Georgian Bay and the upper Great Lakes - Huron and Superior. One of the items on my bucket list is to take a houseboat onto parts of the Trent waterway - what a holiday and adventure that would be.

And so to all who read this - I hope you have enjoyed the glimpse of my new neighbourhood, and also that you have a very happy Thanksgiving! To others not celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend - may you be blessed with good fortune and happiness as well.

Fall in the back yard

The pond is the centrepiece of this tiny back yard. It was created by mistake - I wanted water and hydro in the drive shed when I first moved here - and didn't pay attention to the fellows who were digging the trenches for the piping. So the clay and topsoil got pulled out of the ground in a heap and weren't separated, probably couldn't be... and when everything was filled in, I had a patch of clay in the middle of the yard instead of a green lawn.

For a few years it sat, not growing grass.

Finally with the help of some neighbourhood teens, we dug it out, and eventually  lined the hole with black plastic which I was to regret after two years, but lined and filled it was... ultimately I purchased seven little fish. And planted sumach around it and now have put in small gardens around it - and stones. It's undergone several incarnations since but now seems to be better organized with a neoprene liner.

Frogs love it, the fish have multiplied - I also was given five largish ones, and now have 26 or 27 - can't be sure 'cause it's so hard to count that many moving bodies.

From the other side - looking towards the house you can see some of the fish enjoying early morning searches for bugs and maybe a handout from me since they swim immediately to where they see me standing and always at supper time when they are usually fed.

The changing colour of the sumach is a delight - and the cosmos on the left has added a lovely feathery splash of pinks, purples and mauves. All in all it makes it all okay - the fact that I haven't trimmed the grass away from the edges, haven't mown the grass in a couple of weeks, nor gotten to the flower beds to remove the ribbon grass that insists on spreading everywhere way more quickly than I could possibly rip it out. It will get done eventually. But having living things - there are often as many as a dozen green and leopard frogs in the pond as well - in my back yard is fun.

Birds land on the edges and drink from it. As do my cats, one of whom watches the fish with fascination but hates to get her feet wet so I'm not worried about their safety. Dragonflies hover and I'm sure have laid eggs in it. Butterflies float around. It seems to be more than a centrepiece for the yard, but for some forms of life as well. What a treasure and a treat.

The view from the deck is astounding with the colour explosion everywhere. The phlox, blackeyed susans, echinacia and even some Sweet William and straw flowers add bright splashes to the garden's green. A feast for the eyes everywhere I look, close to home or around the Valley.

So today on this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, I'm thankful, grateful that so much has come to be here, making my life more fun and definitely more interesting. For my Canadian friends and family - Happy Thanksgiving, for everyone else - hope you have an interesting weekend full of fun.

Some things to love

There's something for me to love in every part of this photo - one I'm really pleased I stopped to capture.

First it's the hints of colour - the changes that speak to autumn which bursts on this area in all its glory - it doesn't seem to creep this year - it is just suddenly everywhere.

Second is the image of young Clydesdales eating their way along the edge of the pasture. (Well maybe the horses are first given that I love those big animals so much - I have to chuckle at this passion.) That these youngsters respect that the river is the edge of their range is remarkable to me - I love that tails are switching. They're obviously walking and ripping out grass as they go.

Third - the reflections in the river - the horses at the edge - the edge of the river bank, the large rock on the left hand side... reflections always make me pause for some reason. They often are so beautiful.

And then did you notice the grass is only partway down the bank of the river? It shows the grey clay, bared by the decreasing water level in this big river that has supported so many farms, and historically many mills of various kinds grist mills, flour mills, timber, all kinds - and even further back it was a support for First Nations - teeming with trout. There are still trout, but not nearly so many, and you have to be a skilled angler. Decreasing water levels mean to me that we need to be more careful and take better care.

All in all, this photograph has made me feel grateful. With Canadian Thanksgiving approaching this weekend,  perhaps that's what has me thinking along these lines. But I know I'm so blessed to live in a beautiful area, filled with things I love, and the ability to move around freely unlike half the world, without fear, with a full belly when I wish it and with friends not deadly enemies wherever I look.

Just some reflections of my own on this beautiful morning. Do you have some as well?

A fall bouquet

One of the blogs I follow - wildramblings.com - has a post this week about mindfulness. About paying attention to the little things that often in our hurry and fast-paced world, we neglect.

It certainly made me think.

And when I was searching my photos (my camera connecting cord is missing at the moment) to find something to write about I came across this small photo of a fall bouquet - but if you look at it closely it's also a summer bouquet.

There are sedum, and rudbekia, but also lilies and pale pink roses. Something about it's eclecticness (is that a word?) made me smile when I saw it on my pottery mentor's counter. Tools in the background, a dish made by a friend beside it and the edge of a sander in the upper right corner surround the flowers and all speak to me of the things that I love about pottery and this group of people I meet with almost every week.

It's the little things - that we meet once a week for lunch even if we're not staying to take a class. That we exchange notes on family and other friends. That we plan for the event that helps the local food bank - this year it was "Mug Shots" a collection of mugs for sale at a silent auction the main fund raiser for the group that runs the food bank. That we care about each other in the small ways as well as the big ones.

Just a few of the things that I sometimes overlook.

So with the Canadian Thanksgiving just past, I'm full of thankfulness for my rich life and for everything and everyone that makes it so.

Here are two of the mugs that I made for Mug Shots -

And a couple I painted that my mentor Carol made (she is a potter par excellence)

Perhaps you can see in these mugs some of the little things that I enjoy so much and for which I'm grateful.

May you have a day filled with little things that make you smile, think, be happy, or even sing!