Hark! Squatters!

Not really. It was just my folks.

On Friday night, my football addiction caused me to walk, then sit, through six hours of rain to watch my team get beat by eight. Eh. So Christine and I only made out way up to Crow Lake on Saturday, but my folks took possession early the previous day.

We couldn't hear much activity when we walked in but that was because they were in the middle of a "24" marathon begun the night before as a result of said rain. No spoilers, please, people. They were only watching the first season and spoilerers are jerks.

I don't know to what degree the modified schedule affected his behaviour, but big George lost all composure when he figured out that my parents were in the living room. He was all wags and jumped up on the couch for kisses (giving) and belly rubs (receiving). Nice to see that he's adapting to the extended family nicely, since introducing Oscar to new people usually required 24 months and 15 pounds of sliced ham. Kathy dropped by for a spell too on Saturday so Georgie had plenty of visitor-based excitement.

I can't report much else from Saturday because, you know...I took quite a few naps. But I got back to work a bit on Sunday morning. With the shed now gone, we wanted to continue with the removal of the floating dock.

Remember that thing? It took on water in one side so it floated all tilted. We removed the top boards a while ago, originally considering the possibility of replacing them with something lighter, but the further along we got the more unlikely that seemed. So I went after the frame Sunday morning. After Frankenshed, taking that thing apart was no effort at all, except for the one screw that had a broken head, inevitably. But there it went.

Jack Bauer's father is actually a traitor to his country and highly placed within a Ukrainian terrorist group.

Not really, I just made that up to confuse my mum.

The piece on the right was super light so I was able to flip it over without difficulty. By process of elimination, the one of the left was the one taking on water. Christine drilled a hole in it and sure enough...

See that trickle? Lasted over an hour.  As you can imagine then, filled with that much water, this thing was some kind of heavy. I would estimate it at about 800 pounds, so most people couldn't really budge it, but you know...

Anyway, that's as good as gone now so we can remain within our property line. Most of that beach doesn't actually belong to us. The last thing we want to do is start is a Crow Lake turf war.

And hey, doesn't Scott Canoe look pretty good back there? Or maybe not "good" but at least "logical"? You know, next to a BEACH. Beats having to carry him across most of the property.

The floating dock is nearly gone, but we do have another addition. Following a visit to Nanny's last last week, Christine brought back a bird feeder that fits in rather nicely.

Though it would arguably look better and definitely be easier to see and refill nearer the cottage, from past experience Christine decided against having it up there. While various furry critters are munching on food that isn't meant for them, they also look at the cottage and decide to take residence in a structure that wasn't meant for them either. Chipmunks today have no sense of property (I blame rap music). Best to keep the food at a certain distance so as to avoid a whole other kind of squatter.

And that's it! We return on Saturday with the goal of spending the entire week. We have SO many grand plans for that time, both in terms of entertainment and cottage improvements. And we'll probably complete about all of 15% of them. We'll see how it plays out.

Hey, Look Who Dropped By!

There was a fair bit of traffic at CFB Crow Lake over the past weekend!

Rob and Deb came down on Saturday and spent the mosquito-filled night. Their timing was very convenient; we'd nearly finished the remaining steps in clearing Frankenshed's skeleton. Rob pitched in to tucking away a couple of floor panels and that was that. From then on, it was all sun, food and drink and not necessarily in that order of priority.

Now when people come over, they sometimes bring wine, coffee, food, etc. Not content with following the standard operating procedure, Rob and Deb surprised us by bringing an umbrella.

This is my bad, but the picture comes off a bit like when you see blatant product placement in movies. Right, Arnold?

I think there are now more pictures of Arnold on this blog than of my mum.

Anyway, everybody good and thirsty now? Good.

The story is this: Debbie's nephew owns a pub named O'Grady's Outpost in town. Every year they are given umbrellas for the patio to replace the previous year's batch. We've now ended up with one of last year's "models" which by necessity need to be considered obsolete. We're all too happy to prevent umbrella waste, so here we are. The moose head logo is certainly a good thematic fit, too, so winning all around.

Then on Sunday afternoon, we had a rookie visitor.

I don't even know how to begin abbreviating how this came to pass. Truth is, I'm not even sure I understand it all! If it doesn't involve capes and/or linebackers, I'm pretty helpless.

But bottom line, as most people reading this will know, Christine's dad spends a few summer/fall months near North Bay. Kathy assisted him in getting out there this year, and they visited us on the way to getting her home. So it was a relatively brief stop, but one we'd been looking forward to for some time now.

Between those two events, we found out that George is an excellent canoe dog. I didn't take any pictures of that because he might have been a terrible canoe dog and that could result in much wetness and loss of photographic equipment. But now that we know, maybe next time.