Running hard to stand still......

It's that "end of the trip" feeling again and we're cramming a lot in.






Friday - lots more clearing - it almost looks acceptable in the immediate vicinity of the house now!   
























Evening supper with Karen and Denis; Mark and Janice; K and Eva; Dan and Lorraine and us at l'Escalope in St Jovite.

Saturday - sealed the front window frames - they look nice and bug-proof (and there are some BIG bugs around looking for places to spend the winter.  


 
Lots more general clearing.  Ali washed all the wooden floors and containerised all the food against the mice (funny, haven't seen any this year; last year was a plague!) Lorne and Audrey; Marta and Norman to us for supper - paella (and great starters from the ladies!).  A very happy evening.


Sunday - a lovely start to the day but confusing news from sister about passwords for Da's iPad.

The new neighbours came over with K & D to be introduced.  They seem very pleasant.  Whizzing around, cleaned the car 














and took it Michel's where it will spend the winter; I've written of his view before - it really is lovely.  


Only problem is that the trees keep growing and there is a restriction on cutting next to the lake....








 Transfered a bit more black earth on to the meadow centre and cast seeds from Karen's black-eyed-Susans and some mallow from the back of the house; fury at the recalcitrant weed-eater but got some of the tall grass cut - it looks better shorter.

Packing!

The sun set in glory behind the maples - but yesterday's leaves were better, it's been windy...

On the other hand......

... we could always head south on our fabled expedition via the Riviere Rouge..... No, not really.  The portage to Labelle to pick it up would be a killer!

But we did decide to paddle some of it today!

We put the gloss paint on the outside of the winter wheels, then we headed off for Labelle, the Peterborough on the roof-rack, Karen's kayak inside!  It was all a bit of a tight fit.


We had already arranged with Cafe Kayak for the return trip, so we unloaded, paid our return fee and launched.  

Some minor altercation at the outset as to the route to be taken but, since upstream was blocked by the fairly impressive Chutes des Iroquois, downstream seemed a good idea in general!

The Peterborough seems a good deal less tippy than previously - something to do with familiarity, perhaps?


We have many times driven alongside the Rouge; the 117 follows it for some of its meanderings, but today there was quite a lot of water.  Often it has seemed half sandbanks.  Paradoxically, that would have made route choosing a bit easier.....  

Nevertheless, the colour lived up to the name; it's the sand on the bottom that has red colouration, although the sand itself is white; strange!  the river is essentially flat from Labelle to Brebeuf, 37km downstream.  


But the bottom has a succession of little "drop-offs", just as you think you're going to have to get out and push!

At about 6 km we got out to stretch our legs on a wide, sandy beach.  


We were temporarily in the company of a trio of French with their dachshund, who also took advantage of the beach to race about - as did the dog.....  We left before they did.

The water was crystal clear and not very cold, but we didn't swim.

Karen's kayak seems very fast - perhaps it's because she's pushing on both "strokes, 

whereas we only push on one movement?  

Maybe it's the boat.  

Maybe we're just feeble?

It was a glorious day, although the Fall colours are better with us.  Too many pines by the river.

 
Resting on her laurels, eh ;-)

Reasonable J stroke hand position; nice, comfy "saddle bag"; what IS that knee doing?  And facing too far forward.

Any more comments, coach?

Oh!  The socks are Sealskines - toasty warm even when wet......




 

If you look at the skyline, 3/4 left, you can see the ski-runs on Mont Tremblant!

Who knows, maybe next year....

Journey's end; take out just an elegant ferry-glide across to the other side of the river...

Where Ali found these:

..and this - which is poison ivy!

Hmmmmmm.

Jottings .....

An aide memoire.

 

Monday - the basin fitted like a dream; mostly. Started work collecting up the piles of debris around the place. Brought the car winter wheels up from the barn for painting.

Tuesday.  More clearing up, much use of the quad bike and trailer.  Wire-brushed and primed the inside of the wheels.  

Jet washed the living room carpet. 

Huge work in the wood, cut a gap in the fence to make a circular trail for snow-shoes.  

Very tired, hot showers, lit a log fire, only enough energy for soup for tea. Lovely, cosy evening.


Wednesday; to St Jovite for breakfast with K & D; we shall so miss them next year.  


Toured around some of the developments they had been involved in in Tremblant.  

Taxed the new trailer; now we can transport the quad!.

Gloss painted the inside of the wheels. 

Thermasealed the edge of one of the front windows.
 

Fabulous Pike for supper. 

Made a dozen bottles of corn relish :-)

Late to bed. 

Plumb tuckered!

Saturday - up, popped by to see Michel along the road.  A beautiful day with a beautiful view from his newly-painted balcony.  Felt like the Cote d'Azure; just missing sails.....

Home, drew the plumbing arrangements and then headed up to the village to the BMR (builders' supplies) there to buy the necessary bits for the repair.  Raining, a good day for indoor jobs - and so everyone thought and the shop was HEAVING.  Back via the garage for fuel for the truck and fuel for the chain saw and a chat with M. Laramee, the proprietor.  Nice man - gave me a chain saw lesson a year ago, offered to give me a quad familiarisation now.  I'll see if we have time.......

So - no more ado, this lot needs to come out (hiding conveniently - that's the only thing that WAS convenient) behind a screwed-in back panel in the cupboard next to the understairs. 

Those of you who have done any plumbing and who, like me, are complete novices will understand the perverse ability of screw-unions not to sink right home - and leak; of seemingly simple solder joints to flow with silvery, running solder - and still leak; of one end of a carefully bent pipe so to resemble the other that you three times replace it the wrong end round......


Sufficient to say that we did manage a shower in time to go out for supper at M & N's - an hour away - and that I had no re-soldering, and a very little tightening to do this morning.  It wasn't really very wet at all.  I am so pleased that I introduced stop-taps into the lower (supply) branches in the new installation.  Hardly leaked at all there and made the rest of the job a breeze - relatively.

Wonderful supper; Good chat, great salads and pickles (Audrey), Brilliant brisket, Montreal style ( Marta), Scrummy deserts - Peach Clafoutis and a Boodle's Orange Fool (Ali - of course!).  Jordan was there - Lorne was unwell I'm afraid - really good to chat with Jordan.  He's such an interesting young man; recently back from Vancouver where he was studying.  He is a four-way translator - French and English; speech and sign!

A late return considering that it's an hour home.  But a lovely evening; thanks all.


The bird feeder has been going down at an alarming rate!  Ali has filled it twice in two days; filled!
today we discovered the culprit.......

Blue Jays, how could we have doubted you?  Chipmunk, please accept our apologies.  Squirrel; we are so sorry.

It's one of the deer.

Although Ali took this picture from our bedroom window, in reality, the animal was six feet away from the kitchen window whilst we cooked.


Hmmm - we've moved the feeders; the chickadees were definitely not impressed with the sudden famine.

Breakfast (toast and peanut butter and coffee) in the village with  Karen and Denis.  I went up to BMR for parts for today's job - the upstairs wash-basin - it was closed.

Denis took me down to Claude Lanthier - Gilles' brother - who left his barely finished lunch, raided his O & S box of plumbing parts in the garage, donned a work-coat, grabbed various necessaries and was up the road, up our stairs, replacing wrongly-sized adaptors with rightly-sized ones with taps on before you could say "white-tail"!



Here are the bits / debris from our combined efforts.

So we took the opportunity to take the basin off the very feeble screw that held it to the wall, to fit the new tap and waste kit on the landing floor, not upside-down under the basin, and (Ali) to varnish the wood panelling behind the basin.

That'll dry overnight and then we shall re-fit the basin, we hope.

The end of the day saw something of an improvement in the weather - which had been torrential overnight and this morning.  We moved out and about, cutting kindling against the winter; pressure washing the rest of the winter wheels against the need to paint them before they're fitted this week, ready for the snow.  We're tired and hope to start a regime of early nights and early mornings in preparation for our return to the UK next week - the 30th of September

But how about this?

(Nearly) coming a cropper; wonderful wildlife; it never rains but it pours (plumbing!).

Well, the wildlife - and more of "Kit" - first.

Thursday morning I went for a paddle out on to Lac des Mauves.  I thought I had taken at least one more picture, but this is all that is available now.

Kneeling is OK - but my ancient ankles managed about 3/4 of an hour and then I wasn't sure that I would be able to stand when I got out of the boat! 

I think I shall take some of the tension out of the "saddle bag" and try sitting with one leg across the boat...  Fun finding out, mind.


I think I have said elsewhere; the primary stability (tipiness if you like) is reasonable; a bit jittery.  The secondary stability (the tip-overable-ness) seems very good; very stable.  I may have to move the thwart to get the front to back point of balance.  Kit is a work in progress......

So, I gently (because of the sand on that wonderful bottom) came to shore and thought about getting out for a minute or two whilst my ankle unfolded and I rested on the paddle across the boat.  And I stepped out and straightened.  And something caught my eye to the right; into the sun.

I couldn't believe it - the bird-books here say "common but rarely seen"; I guess the British bird books say rare - a Bittern!  Right at the water's edge.

Bottom pictures - same shot; can you see it in the left hand one?

This bird was perhaps 20 feet away from me; totally unconcerned; fishing (or frogging, I didn't find out.).

Eventually it moved into the rushes and I thought that it had gone, so I packed up and started for home, to find it again in the water's edge further up the trail; the lower pictures.

So I had to go and find Ali, on the off chance that it might still be there by the time we got back, and it was!  Magical :-)

The trailer is mended (the draw-bar was nearly rusted through) so we got going in the wood, clearing Christmas trees - dozens of them. 

And then we came across a "hanging" Ironwood (so we were told) tree.  A full sized tree that had rotted at some point and broken with the wind and had fallen, only to be propped up by the rest of the woodland!.

Hmm. You always cut leaning wood from underneath, so that way, the cut opens up as the work continues.  I knew that; but this tree was loose at the foot and only tenuously connected to the stump, which was about three feet high, so cutting only underneath would have brought the loose-footed base swinging back on the blade as I thought.  So I cut a big notch underneath, then started the felling cut from above, cutting a notch there as well.

The blue arrow is my first cut, the red, my second.

Weeeeell, you can imagine what happened.  The wretched thing slumped and caught the blade of the saw; properly! 

I tried to use a winch to pull it off - broken (must service that), then I started a relieving cut above the saw blade.  Fortunately, Karen was about (!) and went to fetch Denis and his chain-saw but, eventually, the axe prevailed (beautiful thing; must sharpen that!) the new base of the tree, from the cuts downwards, swung under the trunk, briefly freeing the blade that Ali pulled out and then crashing down to land further along its length.

And so the whole process began again. 
Don't forget, this is a forest tree, ironwood by name and by nature, hanging from the canopy  :-(

MUCH sweat and fatigue later, we got it to fall clear.  We logged some of it but there is plenty still to do.  I fell asleep at about 8.30.......

Today, Friday, was a bit easier!  Last window returned to its place.  I have taken the blue-painted interior edging off in order to remove the hinges and strip and paint them, but I have replaced it for now; I shall change it for self-coloured wood another time, perhaps.



The outside of this window is perhaps our best - most experienced - work.  The inside we have left the original blue for now.







More wood-moving; we needed to go shopping for bits and pieces for supper at the Wales' tomorrow evening.  (You didn't know that William and Kate lived 'round here, did you?)  So, we took the opportunity to take two sets of tap innards to the plumbers firstly in Labelle, then to the wonderfully named "Plomberium" in St Jovite, then finally to BMR in the same town.  No-one had seen fittings like ours (I tell you, this is the enchanted house, full of surprises).  BMR was as helpful as the others had been, but much cheaper.

As a result, we have bought a new tap for the upstairs wash-basin and shall be buying (BMR didn't have one; earlier in the week, BMR here in the village did) a complete new tap system for the bath and shower and I shall try to get access from the back of the bath into the under-stairs cupboard; and learn to solder!

I kid you not; problem-solving is a great transferable skill to have!

What HAVE we been doing?

Well .....  Monday we thinned the copse between the barn and the cabin - we still need to log up some of the fellings as fuel for the cabin if we have winter visitors.




The sap-suckers have been raiding ants' nests amongst the wall-stones













 

Tuesday was a bit warmer; first coat of paint on the blue room window frame.  It was so (relatively) warm that Ali chilled out (in reality as well as spiritually) in the hammock. 

In the afternoon we "walked the boundary" - actually, walked a compass bearing from the road at the front of the property to the new cadastral spike in the wood at the back.

I'll add a picture of that later.

Quebec province is re-measuring all properties.  Boundaries are marked by deeply-driven steel spikes, usually highlighted by fluorescent tape.  It is a severely punishable offence to move them.  In May, we knew that the surveyors were out doing this and they had marked up one of our road-side markers - the middle one; we have two lengths of frontage adjacent to each other.

But they have very clearly replaced the one in the wood.  We seem to have gained some land!

The wood along the "boundary" to the north is actually a swamp. Although it's been a relatively damp summer, and there is some standing water, it's pretty walkable - apart from the innumerable fallen trees and rotten roots.  We had great fun sighting from tree to tree with the compass and then walking (Huh!) the line to the next; checking with a back-bearing and so on.  Pretty good for line, too (when we came to the cadastral spike) it's just that they have placed it much further east than we had previously thought.......


Supper - after much needed, swamp-fighting showers - at l'Etoile in Labelle with L & A and M & N.  Good company, fair food, pleasant evening.  Eating out in Canada is no longer cheap!

Troubled night - too much cheese on the pizzas :-(

The day dawned fair, more paint on the window; Gilles greased the quad and added brake fluid - there was none - as needed, bless the man.

Riding :-)

This is Summer Rose - and a thorn, obviously; and Flash - and an English Rose!

Logging!




Logging the route for our particularly crazy idea (the trip from home to the South by our own steam), and logging for the winter after this!

Of the preferred (yellow) route, we have already "done" the north-bound bit of this; we paddled to the swamp at the head of Chapleau a week or so ago.

The next bit needs us to get into a river system west of here; the Petite Nation or the Lievre (which doesn't look very padleable really).  The Rouge - to the east of here, would be OK but would take us almost into Montreal and the mad idea is to head West.




We know that the next bit is a long walk (about 8 km)  from the head of the lake where we left off to lac Minerve; but we wanted to know whether we could go south from Minerve to lac Castor and, particularly, whether the stream leaving Castor south (the pink arrow) was navigable.

It's not - at least, not for us.  We are very novice paddlers and this:



is not do-able by us :-( 

It is about 5 to 7 feet wide and shallow - at least at the moment; but we have had quite a lot of rain.......




So we decided that we needed to explore a watercourse further west, the green route - still coming down to the Petite Nation but by lac Gagnon, leading to the village of Duhamel.  A wonderful, testing, dirt-road drive through the forest brought us along the west shore of Gagnon, firstly to the cafe that we stopped at with G & I & N four years ago, for very good nachos, and then to the (open) library and information centre in Duhamel. 

A charming, local lady in her (I guess) mid-twenties was some help, and certainly helpful.  But the river south from Gagnon remains a bit of a mystery.  There is no paddling guide and there are undoubtedly rapids, one or two chutes and three - at least - portages; one of which is presently a matter of dispute between the owner of the land it crosses and the local council, who do not want to see a trail of 400 plus years tradition blocked.



The river is already called the Petite Nation at this point and promises well.  That's a road-bridge over the falls.



 But, given the unknown and unknowable nature of this section, and the discovery on Google Earth of a track due south from lac Castor to lac Rat Musque, we think that that's the way to go!











Mind you, it does make you wonder why we're even contemplating this hardship (because it certainly will be tough!) when the locals use the river in this way!

Might as well just drive it!








Home for supper with Michel, a neighbour from France who is as tested by the Quebecois accent as we are - now there's a relief!

Today threatened rain all day according to the forecast so we didn't paint anything and stayed close to the house - apart from a mad trip by me to the village on the quad - which was all right, when I'd found the proper route!  Anyway, I got to see a bit of the wilderness that I would not otherwise have seen.......

The other logging was the big birch trunk which we cleared from the meadow last year.  This took about four hours to log up, filling the chain saw twice, with the respite of a phone call from M&D in the middle.  Wonderful to talk to them.

 

We started our trip on Saturday with a visit to the Council depot to leave old paint and oil.  Not a bad view from the Municipal garage, Eh!

Stop Press!

The new boat, "Kit", is launched; early this morning, before the weather improved!  It needs some getting used to but it is as light on the water as the feather it bears.

I think that I shall usually paddle it with the horse ahead, but today I was just worried about the varnish and the rocks; this also explains the lack of fore and aft balance.

Much more today but that's all for now!

:-)

Our Way Way in 107  

(Sorry about that :-(  )

Weather is still unreliable - except that it's getting a lot colder.  Yesterday was wet and felt like 25 Celsius plus.  Today was wet and feels like 12 - 15, which it actually is!

But we can't wait any longer; we took advantage of a dry spell and did a roundabout of wood; a birch trunk, felled last year, cut into logs.  The split logs stacked last year moved into the tunnel, ready for winter.  Looks like the AGO exhibition - a bit.......  Should have enough, but really need to log up another trunk against next year....

 

And then we noticed that the draw-bar on the trailer had deeply fractured, almost to the point of separation, and so, pretty exhausted, we headed up to the village to leave the bar with Marcel at SOS Mechanique - it should be ready by Monday night;  he's having the weekend off; grandchildren!

Meanwhile, I have no idea what's going on in the basement.  The canoe varnish seems finally to have decided to set.  Perhaps.  But the undercoat on the last window has now decided to stay tacky.  This paint (it's a new can, it's true) has in its previous tin set to touch hard in about 4 hours; recoatable in ten.
Not that we can do anything about it until the skies clear - when we are due for 3 degrees of frost overnight on Wednesday I think.

Hmmmmm

Stormy weather .....

OK - so it's not as bad as the Lena Horne lyrics, but it's been thunder and lightning and very  "mixed" at best!  Not enough to stop Ali going riding yesterday afternoon, and not enough to stop us sitting out on Denis and Karen's veranda, the Loons whooping all round, before a wonderful supper of corn and Rib-Eye steaks  ...

Not enough, indeed, to stop us removing the "last" of the windows for this year - the "Blue Room" - nor yet  to stop us clearing out the basement access this morning and begin the loading of  the wood - cut last year - for the winter wood pile.  But enough to thwart attempts at continued activity.

However, the forecast from tomorrow afternoon, albeit cooler by far, is clear.  So we may yet get out and about!

The big "angst" at the moment is the continued failure of the varnish to dry on the inside of the little boat.  There is much on line about this particular family of (acceptedly very good) varnishes refusing to dry fully when used over some resins.  This strikes me as stupid!

However, the reality is that the coat that I had applied before we went to Toronto was still "tacky" (although any runs were fiercely set!) by yesterday so I took my life - well, my Scotchbrite pan-scrubber - in my hands and, with a large amount of White Spirit, stripped the surface back to one that dried.  Then I applied another, thin, coat.

As of today - 24 hours later - the varnish is hard on the decks (that were not previously resinned) but still tacky in the hull.  The temperature in the basement is high; I have tried windows open and windows shut.  Despite the dehumidifier registering 68% (which is good considering the outside conditions and cement floor), being down there is uncomfortably muggy.  If things are the same in 24 hours, I shall Scotchbrite and White spirit again and leave the surface for this year.  I want this boat on the water!



Karen gave us - amongst so many wonderfully useful things - a feeder for the chipmunk.  


Only the deer have different ideas!

Back from the big city!


Toronto is great; I can see why people love to live there, although I myself long for the wide silent spaces...

Lovely day Sunday, inspiring sermon in Church, very good panini and coffee in a cafe just across the road - that could become a regular! -  and a chilled afternoon (after a visit to Cheese Boutique - a sort of Harrods food hall in your pocket.  All those foods that Ex-Pats from every nation can't buy.)

I just love the almost organic way that these poles and wires and layers of house have "grown".  And the full sized tree on the roof-top garden - right at the busiest intersection.
 

 

Slow run up the Seven, saw these amazing house-movers,


 
via friends, to home at 9.30. 
Very tired!

Ai Wei-Wei and the AGO

TORRENTIAL rain this morning; the sky crying fit for a funeral.  Which was only appropriate as Karen and Denis were in Mississauga for that of a close friend of Denis who passed away recently.  But it did mean that we were able to meet up with them for Brunch and they could re-meet Guy and Julie and meet Lila for the first time!

Such a happy time.

So, they went their way, and we went ours - to the astonishing exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).  The work presented fell into three main groups; his extended series as memorial to and investigation of  the Chinese State reluctance and refusal to acknowledge the extent of the disaster caused by earthquakes in May 2008. 

The "Memorial" section begins outside the exhibition with this wonderful "Ceiling snake", made of children's knapsacks.  Over 5,000 children died - as you can read here: ai-weiweis-snake-ceiling.  The work is much more vivid than my photo suggests.....

This theme of challenge of the authorities to remove the secrecy from this tragedy continues within the halls.  Most powerful are his wall of the names and details of the children about whom he has gathered information - at great personal risk - and whose names are read in quiet litany.

Secondly, some of the twisted, tortured reinforcing rod salvaged from the ruins was brought back to his studio where it was straightened by hand, most pieces requiring over 200 sledge hammer blows to correct the damage.  These straightened bars form a most moving, extensive, wave-like structure,very difficult to photograph, but powerful indeed when you consider the forces that initially mangled it and the patience and care that put it right again.....

His exhibition is surrounded with many photographs of a China in rapid development, and with screens that represent in slide-shows - his daily life - thematised as it might be.  Very intriguing but these caught me less.

His second major theme seemed to be the long tradition of Chinese craftsmanship and the damage wrought by Mao in the cultural revolution and the present government in its own attitudes and practises.

He used wood salvaged from Mao-wrecked temples to have craftsmen build beautiful things again.  Not religious but respectful of tradition.  I have not been able to photograph his "maps" of China - they are too big - but here are "Moon Chests"

...and some details of the fabulous sphere-based structures:






















Lastly - some pieces from his childhood:

A rosewood box given to him by his father; a chest inspired by that box; a stack of wood enclosed in gymnastic parallel bars - the winter fuel for his family and the inevitable playground centre of every school.  The wood was again salvaged temple wood.  I found the scrolled details reminiscent of the saying "the sculptor seeks the image already hidden in the block..."

And that's it.  A wonderful experience.

Of course, being in AGO, we had to creep to see the Thomsons again.....  and our very favourite:

And a  very big Thank You to Lila - for being a star - start to finish!