Snows the Word - February 16,17,18th

Well, after all this time we finally got stopped at the driveway by a mountain (OK - a hill) of snow put there by the plow.  We have always worried that we would arrive in the dark, in the cold and have to dig out the driveway and that's what happened.
There was no where for the dogs to go, so I sat in the truck with the headlights on while Paul used the snow shovel to dig out a track for us to get through.  When we pulled into the driveway, we realized the dogs still couldn't get to the cottage so Paul had to dig a path for them over the deck and around to the door.  Ah... the problems of having dogs with short legs!

Unfortunately during all of this manual labour, the snow blower was in the shed with no gas in it - the gas was in the tractor shed with the lock frozen shut!!

The next morning, we woke up to a winter wonderland.  I think the snow was probably the deepest that it has been since we owned the place.  Paul used the snow shoes to create a path and was luckily able to unfreeze the shed lock to get the gas for the snow blower. He then set about creating a space for my dads truck since they had planned to come by for lunch on their way to Woodstock.

After the bird feeders got replenished, the birds came out in full force - well, all except the woodpecker, who came to see what was in the suet feeder before we got it filled, I guess he got his nose (I mean beak) out of joint, because we never saw him (or other woodpeckers) all weekend!! (See my bird page for a discussion of types of suet and who likes what). I think that left the door open for the whole flock of blue jays - I have never seen so many at once, and witnessed the secret (to us) pecking order in play.  I need to find out the who and why of which jay is king of the feeder. 

Anyway.... Mom and Dad Ward arrived right around noon and I was just in the middle of making a pot of cauliflower soup for lunch. I forgot again that I need to get a hand blender for the cottage - its hard to keep track of which item is where, home or cottage - so had to puree the soup with a wire potato masher.  Lunch consisted of the cauliflower soup and cheese buns with a little thinly sliced turkey inside.  Mom brought some cinnamon coffee cake that we polished off with our tea.

Before they got on their way we took a little walk - even walking in the previous footsteps it was a good little workout.

I have to mention that the game camera is still a bust!  The back-story is that Paul had given me a game camera (a camera that hunters use to track where the game is!!) for my birthday (I know how romantic right!!).  Most of you know that I always complain that even though we see lots of 'signs' of animals at the property, I have never seen anything more than a mole and a snapping turtle.  Paul has seen deer and a coyote (UP CLOSE) but not me!
So every time we see a trail of animal tracks we attach the camera on a tree pointing toward the tracks. This camera snaps pictures based on movement .....so we now have about 8000 pictures and NO ANIMALS!!!!!!!!  I don't know whether its working properly, or what but how disappointing.  When we first put it up and left it for the week, we would come back on the next weekend and be so excited to find out what was on it...not so much anymore!

The only time we have had any success was when I had the brilliant idea of mounting it 'inside' the tray bird feeder.  We ended up with a ton of pictures and some are pretty hilarious because the birds are actually looking at the camera - I don't know if it is because they can hear it or whether it is just a strange entity in their space - the blue jays especially like checking it out!

After our company headed off to Woodstock, we headed into town to grab some wine and check out the types of suet at Home Hardware.  The temperature was still -10 degrees even though we were lucky to have sunshine.  When we got back Paul decided to try out his old cross country ski's (mine went off in a garage sale and the boots disintegrated... that's how old they were).  I guess it was pretty hard going without a groomed trail!  He thinks he only needs to have wider ski's.  

Sunday, I tried out the snow shoes and liked them quite a bit. They don't keep you up quite as high as I had anticipated but you can certainly move quite a bit faster in deep snow.

I found some of my old notes from March 2011.  That year, the ice broke on March 13th with lots of flooding.  So it is interesting that our ice already broke this year on February 5th with violent floods - I sure hope that doesn't mean it will freeze again and flood again, although we did miss the breaking up of the ice - which is a big event for river people!!

River breaking up March 2011

Sunday night we decided that we would go home early Monday to spend "family day" at home, as both of the kids were there.  Emily's boyfriend Chris was also in Burlington, so we headed home at about 3:00 pm for a nice family dinner and games night.

Snowy scenes from 'Our River Place'

February 2nd/3rd - An Icy Discovery

Welcome!  Paul and I headed up to the property on Saturday at about 11:30 a.m.  Paul had been worrying all week about the potential for flooding because of the warm weather during the past week, especially rain all day last Tuesday.  It was a pretty messy drive, lots of blowing snow over Hwy. 6 and even some whiteouts.  It looked like there was a layer of fresh snow in Durham, even though overall it didn't seem like there was a lot more snow than last week.

When we drove over the bridge on Concession #2 we noticed that the river was free of the solid ice from last weekend and very high and running very fast.  Hard to believe we were walking on that river just 7 days ago!

As soon as we pulled into the lot we noticed the huge broken ice slabs around the pond - I said (as a joke!) "what if the bridge is gone".  As we headed quickly over to the pond we were dumbfounded to see that there was no bridge!!!  I think we stood there dumbfounded with our mouths open. There was no sign of it.

The bridge

The space where the bridge used to be!

The pond was full of strange shaped snow covered items, thick broken slabs of ice, pieces of wood decking, parts of a composter, and what looks like a lot of big logs.
A large ice slab had been pushed up onto the shore in front of the deck right beside the front fire pit.

Debris in the pond

Part of the back stairs - just inches away from the deck

We then headed for the back of the cottage and found that part of the rear stairs leading to the back fire pit were gone.  The ground over by the compost pile seemed very empty and we realized that all the extra decking that was out there was gone.  A long piece was found propped up against the back of the tractor shed. Walking towards the back creek and bridge we came up against tree debris blocking the path.  After getting to the creek though some trees we found that the back bridge was gone as well.

Some of the extra decking by the tractor shed

At that point we decided to unload our things into the cottage and have something to eat before we journeyed out to look for the bridges.

After something to eat (and fortified with a take along butterscotch schnapps) we went in search of our bridge. Heading down Woodman`s Way to the landing this is what we saw...

Amazingly, upon closer inspection of what looked like a disaster, the main damage (pic. /2)
is a slab of ice that jammed under one of the railings.  The rest of the bridge ``seems`` to be minimal.  We just kept wondering how high would the water have to have risen to carry that big bridge past all the trees and leave it to rest there.  Needless to say the other little bridge has completely disappeared.

Paul took these pictures to give some indication of just how high the water was the weekend before.....

For those that remember that area of the river you will notice that the big clump of fallen trees (on the right side) that would catch all the other branches and stumps floating down the river is completely gone.  Makes us think that we may not be finding the other little bridge anytime soon!

The following pictures show the level of the ice and the extreme grinding that was happening as the water pushed it out of the way.  Notice the bark missing to about 3 feet up the trunk.

Saturday evening we bundled up the dogs (and ourselves!!) in minus 20 degrees and walked the dogs along the road - we didn`t see one car or light.  The stars were amazing in the night sky, actually better than any sights in the summer months.

Sunday we sadly (we are always sad to leave) bundled up our stuff and hit the road about 3:00 p.m. to head back to Burlington and our Superbowl party at Don & Tammy`s!

More info next time....!

January 26th/27th

Last weekend we had a whirlwind trip to the property - we hadn't been for a couple of weeks and we thought we'd better see what was happening 'snow wise'.  Even though it is only 2 hours drive sometimes the difference in weather conditions is extreme.

We planned to head out on Friday night but it had been lightly snowing all afternoon and after seeing the snow blow across Hwy. 6 the last time we went up, we decided not to go up in the dark.  So we left in the early afternoon on Saturday, with plans to return Sunday afternoon.

Had a pretty uneventful drive - it was nice to see a decent amount of snow and lots of snowmobilers catching up on the lack of riding from last winter.  There was lots of new snow and the pond was only showing a bit of open water where the creek comes in.  We noticed (it was dusk) that the snow looked very high under the little bridge.

Pretty cold that night about -14.  Woke up to beautiful sunshine and a winter wonderland!

Paul spent the morning having fun with his new (to us) snow-blower and we went walking in the afternoon.  Surprisingly enough, even though we found the river completely and solidly frozen over, we discovered that the river had flooded between the pond and the river (already) so the paths were thick ice with some broken spots where we could see the water running underneath.  This was the first time that Paul and I have walked down the middle of the river in the winter!

Frozen river Winter 2013

River in Fall 2012

We didn't see too many animal tracks on this walk, although we did see ones that we identified as a fox.  As usual, once we loaded the bird feeders, we had lots of our feathered friends visiting!

We headed home about 5:00pm - the drive was uneventful - update you next time!!

Welcome to my blog!

Since purchasing our river property 3 years ago, we've probably driven our friends and family crazy with our constant updates about the 'cottage'.  I've finally realized that I can put it all down in writing and everyone can choose to read it or not!

I will be blogging about flowers, fauna and food and family, not necessarily in that order.  

For those that don't know the details, we have about 1000 sq.ft. cottage/cabin on 22 acres on the Saugeen River.  We chose this property because we are all avid fishermen (persons?), kayakers and canoeists.  There are many lovely trails throughout the property as well as a big, big front lawn for summer games of bocce and croquet.

We have entertained lots of friends and family there and even hosted a fairly large family reunion.  We thought our favourite time of the year would be the summertime but we were happy to discover that each season has its wonders! 

So thanks for checking out 'Our River Place' - I'll bring you up to date next time....