June 15,16, 2013 Father's Day Tradition continues...

Well, another Father's Day at the cottage.  The weather was great and lots of good food was consumed!!  The Kempe's brought their trailer again -- they were headed to their camp out at Cookstown after the weekend.

It was a perfect time of the year to enjoy the lilacs and I discovered so many more big lilac bushes/trees than I ever had seen up there before! The smell was delicious!

The dogs were pretty well beside themselves with joy to have 4 Grandparents there at the same time for cuddling and spoiling with treats!

After Sunday brunch, gifts were opened by the father's and everyone settled in for a picture show.

My Dad received solar lights to match his new deck at the back of his house.

Paul's Dad received strings of lights to go on the new gazebo at their trailer site in Copetown.

Mom K brought a Father's Day cake for the guys!

Later, after brunch, some of us decided to take a hike around the trails.  Rudy immediately disappeared down a different trail than the one we were on.  We called and called and finally I went to see what happened to him.  We found him at the base of a tree going crazy and barking like a mad dog. At first I though "oh no" its a skunk or a p-pine but....thank heavens it was just a baby p-pine!! Luckily it was out of reach in the tree but that didn't stop Rudy from trying to climb the tree - at one point he was actually bracing himself against one trunk while climbing the other - that is the picture below:

Here are pictures of the baby - not very good but his camouflage is pretty good and he blends in well with the tree trunk.

The poor little thing was scared to death and we were scared that its mother was going to appear and start shooting quills!
I had to grab and hold Rudy and bring him back to the cottage and every time I let him out he would right back to that spot - finally we had to put him on his leash when he went out.  Later in the afternoon when we made certain the baby was gone we were able to let him out.

I spent some time before we left for home taking some pictures of Spring flowers and here are some of the best ones:

Not sure what this one is - identity tbd!

My one hidden peony plant - I found it at the end of Woodcutter's way.

I also found a big expanse of day lily plants that I didn't know about either!

A new plant I need to identify - only flowers at the junction of the leaves and stems.

Dames Rocket

June 8th and 9th, 2013

Just a quick overnight this weekend, we wanted to come up and make sure all the new plants were surviving and get things tidied up before Fathers Day weekend, next weekend.

We did manage to get out fishing once, but the water was very high and we were not able to walk very far.

We also managed to "drop" in at the farm on Concession #2,  Glencolton Farm and buy some barley straw to combat the pond algae. Some of you may remember the algae problem and my research on the Internet for natural products that would eliminate it without harming fish. We had been guided in the direction of the farm from a helpful home hardware employee, when we realized that the small bags of barley straw pellets would not be cost effective for the size of our pond.

So we headed (Saturday) a mile or so up concession #2 from North line to the large farm with the big "government keep your hands off our land" sign. We drove into the driveway slowly - didn't quite know how to go about this...we saw a couple of youths and we asked them who we might speak to. He said we should probably speak to "Elisa" at the house.  She seemed to be just saying her goodbyes to a visitor so we waited.  When she was free we told her our story and how we had been directed there by the home hardware guy.  She had never hear about the straw solving the algae problem but thought it would make sense as it would produce nitrogen as it decomposed.  I don't think she was particularly happy about having more people sent to her to solve a problem - just a feeling we got.

Anyway, she brought us around the back of one of the barns and showed us the straw and we realized we hadn't brought anything to put it in.  She suggested that they had some empty feed bags in the main barn and we went to the entrance and were very amazed to see a whole stage setup with huge pillars and a seating area.  She explained to us that they used to hold concerts through the summer until the "authorities" told them they needed upgraded safety systems in order to have the public in the barn.  Of course they couldn't afford these changes so the concerts are a thing of the past.

We also found out that they were nearly bankrupted from a legal fight that they had waged about selling their unpasteurized milk.

As we were walking back to the straw, I noticed some little sheds and asked her if her husband was selling these sheds.  She explained to me that they would host school children, mostly grade 4 and/or 5's through the Peel District School Board for a farm experience and that these were little cabins for the kids.  She did mention that they had received some inquires from the Halton District School Board.

So we stuffed our ten bags full, our $30 dollars worth (suckers/city folk born every day) and said our goodbyes and headed back to the cottage.  We moved the bags out of the truck, over by the pond and called it a day and I proceeded to get dinner started and Paul went for a quick fish.

New plantings around the front deck

Sunday, I worked like crazy getting most of the rest of my perennials planted around the front deck and I think it turned out very well.  Its a tough go when the soil is very rocky.

We also wondered what to do with our Barley straw, now that we had finally got it, and I threw in a few handfuls before I decided that I better revisit the web to find out exactly how to apply it to the pond.   Read this paper on controlling Pond Algae with Barley Straw.

In a nutshell I found out that a) we were much too late to apply it, b)it should be packed loosely into net bags, and c) submerged about 3 feet from the bottom.  Well we were NOT prepared to do any of these things! 

So we packed our bags full of straw into the front shed until I found some net bags and it was the appropriate time.

Other than that we are all cleaned up for Father's Day!