Whoever Draws The Sword...

As I write this, Ottawa is hit with its first significant snow of winter. After as green a Christmas as I can recall ever witnessing, we've got a solid foot of snow, if not more, coming down out there.

I rarely have the week between Christmas and new year's off, but this year I do, and judging from the chaos outside, I picked a good one to have off. As I recall, a co-worker of mine named Gail (Hi Gail!!) was emphatic that I should request it this year, to the point where I feared I would face physical violence. And so here I am, drinking red wine by the fireplace, listening to blues, and updating my little blog.

Making me feel more clever still is that my dad and I rode out to Crow Lake yesterday before snowmageddon hit. We dropped off a load of wood, took a peek in the bunkie in preparation for reno work there in the spring and made sure everything was where it was supposed to be. On the way in, we stopped in the Perth Home Hardware which inspired a few more decoration/renovation ideas and on the way back, we stopped at The Maples in Sharbot Lake for a delightful lunch.

I felt a little less clever when my pappy spotted something that required a little explanation. Last year, I posted about recreating Stonehenge using a concrete slab from the dock ramp and a couple of logs.

Well this year I inadvertently recreated Excalibur using another log and my wood splitter.

We were running a little short on firewood. That was one of the remaining logs from when a dead tree was cut prior to our taking possession of the cottage.

I thought I saw a crack across the top that had...potential. My goal, obviously, was to widen it and eventually cause the whole thing to split down the middle.

I was hammering away but seemingly getting nowhere until I heard a loud crack and my momentum damn near caused me to face-plant. After a moment to think "Finally!" I realized I wasn't as successful as I'd thought.

Thor would just shake his head at this shameful display. "Verily, thou art a dipstick", he would say.

Ah, crap...Well, still better than my wrists!

And now I can't get the splitter out. So screw it, that log has become decorative in our "Little Ol' England" spot alongside mini-Stonehenge. Yeah. I just thought of that now and I think we should keep it.

Christine was far more successful that weekend. Not only did she and Kathy combine to whip up some good Thanksgiving eats...

...But she whipped up this clever little swinging gate to prevent the wiener tots from running off the deck (well, one end of it for now, at least).

Ain't that something? I think the whole thing is built from wood we'd had laying around the place, much of it from our dismantled floating dock. Fantastic. Only three more of those and we can finally keep some control over the sausages.

We make such a great team. She builds stuff, I break things...We complement one another extremely well!

Thanksgiving Dinner

This post is brought to you by...Covered Bridge Chips!  Christine states that the creamy dill variety is among the best flavour of potato chip she has ever tried.  So, there you have it.

Bloody hell, how I love tofurky.  I really do!  I know to most people it sounds like the equivalent of being served a bath sponge for dinner but for me it is among the meat substitutes I like more than the real thing.

Christine gets the Tofurky Roast, whips up some mashed potatoes, snow peas and butternut squash with walnuts and BAM!!  Thanksgiving awesomeness!  And the-day-after-Thanksgiving-awesomeness.  And since we're spending a good part of our day catching up to recorded football and NASCAR, probably the-day-after-the-day-after-Thanksgiving awesomeness too.  Sounds good to me; I could eat it daily until Easter.

Little something about the above spot; In the September 15th/16th post I mentioned that the corner at the top middle of the above picture needed to be cleared.  We've done that and here's a picture from last week to display that a bit.

The shelves and dresser at right have been moved (and you can assume the cookies are gone, too).  The lamp was taken from another room and moved to this one because it matches the ceiling fan almost perfectly.

Most importantly, the canoe picture was a gift from Kathy from many years back for which we'd struggled to find a suitable spot.  It could not be more appropriate for a cottage and so it finally gets the proper display area that it deserves.

More to come once fully recovered from multiple tofurky dinners.