Concluding Birthday Week

But first, let's go back to the first part of the week.  The dinner to which I referred is called "Canadian Chickpeas" and it's good. Perhaps more importantly, it's easy to make.  So don't pre-judge it because it's vegetarian and try it some time.  Who doesn't love...huh...spinach?

Right.  So Christine and I returned to Crow Lake on Friday morning with the fish fed, my hair cut and after much-appreciated showers.  My folks, Caroline and Astley joined us on Sunday to spend the night.

Most of the day was spent outside.  Asley, Caroline and I began training for Baywatch: Crow Lake.

Whoo!

There's still some work to be done...

Throughout the day's activity, we nearly lost mother.  Get a load of this beast on her arm:

"What are YOU looking at??"

Luckily, we were able to frighten it off before it picked up mum and flew away with her.

We enjoyed an evening by the fire and, as usual, retired early.  If ever I manage to make it to 11PM at that place, I'll feel like a bad ass.

Also, I came up with something of a new project while flipping through 20-something-year-old issues of Cottage Life magazine that had been left behind by the previous owners.  Take a gander at these logs.

I want to make tables and/or chairs out of them.  These come from the two dead trees that were cut when the place was for sale.  I already know that cutting them is a huge bastard, and we've barely made a dent in the pile after almost a year anyway, so we're not hurting for stock.  So I'm going to try to convert a couple of them into something both useful and more attractive than some of the pieces of furniture that were left behind.  We'll see what comes of it.

Something else that might arguably need a little work.  Our picnic table.

It was previously covered by a table cloth that had been stapled down.  The table cloth had faded over the years and Christine wanted to replace it.  The white strips across the top are what's left of that after Hurricane Christine blew through.  Clearly the table cloth masked more significant problems.  So we'll replace the five table boards as well as the four seat ones (which are covered by plastic above, apparently an excellent way to trap moisture).

Now it wasn't all cannonballs and fish feedings.  We did get SOME things accomplished.

The quarter-round is now almost entirely installed in the master bedroom.  Not that the room was unbearable without it, but I feared it would become one of those jobs that gets eternally put off (sounds like something I'd do), so I'm really happy that it's done and the room looks much better now.  And hey, I got to use a nail gun and did NOT drive a nail through my second toe and into the floor!  A win in every way!

Also, we (Christine) spotted this wall covering at Village Green in Westport and thought it fit in perfectly.

It's not crooked, my picture is.

It looks similar to rug we put in the dining room so it fits the theme (the theme is...huh..."cottage").  The previous wall covering was nice enough ("mallards in the marsh" or some such) but it ate up the whole wall and had no particular meaning to us.

This is more our speed.  It even motivates me to go snowshoeing, but I'm sure that will pass.