Long Walk...

...off a long pier. The endless project has ended, and it is now possible to walk across the water to where it is deep enough to (not dive!) but begin swimming.

This afternoon as we were installing the last section (and installation is really quite easy compared to construction and all that entails) we noticed the shift in the weather. Early on we had calm with a little fog. By mid-morning, a gentle northwest breeze. But about 3, the bay went flat. And then we could hear it, a south-east wind moving across from the marina to us, and it is very fun to hear the wind coming long before you can actually feel it. Radar and forecasts say rain is coming, and, as we all know, an east wind blows no good. So we (excluding Pax) were glad of the shift—we like as much weather as we can get.

Early morning calm, last section of pier not yet installed.

Sue was nearly waist deep shooting this.

And here I am walking the long way back from the last bolt on the last section. 

Lots of Time

Time for morning coffee. Time for the Father's Day pancake breakfast at the Park Centre. Time to hang Sue's newly made sunburst curtain. Time to wash the truck, which had been slimed by the newly graded and calcium-chlorided road. Time for naps. Time for a sail, and cocktails at the Zen spot, and a roast beef dinner, and an episode of White Collar—and we are still in strong daylight. Just to make a point I am going to sit out on the porch at 10 p.m. and read a book by nothing but sunlight. 

Nearly 16 hours of daylight here, on the day of the summer solstice. It does seem odd, however, to begin summer the day before the days start getting shorter. 

Summer Weekend

People around. A motorboat or two out on the bay. Sunny, warm, intermittent southerly breeze.

Lots of fun little projects like weeding the garden and trimming bushes, and hanging a few photos. (Sue finishing the Cetol on the boat). And, two more sections of dock installed (they were already built), and only ONE MORE section to go.

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The question ought to be, not "What good is it?" but "What is its role in the economy of nature?" I like that phrase "the economy of nature," though there is a special word for the study of the interrelations of living things, ecology. Both words come from the Greek oikos, meaning household; both have narrow and special meanings, but both can also be used broadly. Economics can be thought of as the ecology of man; ecology as the study of the economony of nature. This is one aspect of biology, one aspect of the study of life. It is thus also one aspect of science.

     —Marston Bates, The Forest and the Sea

Launch Day

If I am counting right, the 28th time Heliotrope has splashed down since we have owned her.

Passing the fish tug as we head into the Clapperton Channel. This tug supplies much of North America's whitefish, and today it was fishing in Mudge Bay.

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So, it’s seven-thirty in the morning and Pax and I are just getting back form our walk, and Sue is making tunafish sandwiches. Not long after, we pick Wolf up at his place, a bit around Mudge Bay, and head to Gore Bay.

Because, today is launch day. 

When we arrive at Norm’s boatyard we find Heliotrope already in slings, and even before the first cup of coffee has started to wake anyone, up the boat is in the water.

Together we pull the sails up on deck, and then Sue goes to work putting the cabin back into useable order. Wolf helps me bend on the canvas. By 11 a.m. all below decks is shipshape, the water tanks have been flushed, the sails are flaked, the jib is furled, and the dingy is clipped on astern. 

It is worth remembering that the boat has been sitting in Norm’s boatyard since last October, and never once have the batteries had a bit of charge. But, still hoping, I set the controls, and then turn the key. And. contrary to all logic, the magnificent old diesel instantly roars to life.

Sue heads home while Wolf and I head out the bay. Wolf steers while I rig the reefing lines (today it is hard to believe they might ever be necessary). What little wind there is is coming due north into the bay, right on our nose. So we motor. Once past the east point we lay off and cut the motor, but then we find the wind producing only a knot or two of forward motion, so we roll in the jib and fire up the iron jenny. And the iron jenny unfortunately, takes us right up to the Clipperton channel, where we cross the Purvis fish tug.

The Canadian marine forecast has the wind southwest 10 to 12, and when we reach the channel, sure enough there it is  6 to 8, from the northeast. Excited, we get in a good half hour of sailing close hauled, occasionally taking, and making a good three knots.

Then the wind quits. So we motor down the balance of Mudge Bay, down to the marina, where we tie up in Lollipop’s regular spot, because all the other finger docks are not yet anchored because of rotten chain. (And that is a story in itself.)

A great day! A day on the water, even if the wind is fickle, is almost always a great day.

And now Heliotrope is snugly berthed in Kagawong.

Turtles On The Move

This individual was crossing our newly graded and rather muddy Serendipity Lane. Earlier in the day we helped a much larger specimen complete its crossing of Maple Lane.

And here we have a goose circle (on Fraser Beach). Apparently, geese, like bison, circle the wagons at night, rear ends facing inward, and clearly consider it unnecessary to wait 'till morning for a constitutional. I don't know if bison have the same habits, but if so, I'm not sure I would want to see a bison circle.

Boat work in the morning under partly cloudy skies. Rainstorm between 2 and 4 p.m. Then clearing, warm and humid.

Boat Work

Boat

Tyson's daisy farm.  

Nearly perfect day for boat work—almost cool, mostly cloudy, and a bit breezy. Sue took the upper half, I the lower. While I finished my part not too long after lunchtime and after lunch came home, Sue carried on.

Back home, after a brief recuperation, I treated myself to a bit of fun, and with lopper and chainsaw (used little), made a walking path along the ice-age ridge from our place to Tyson's. This being necessitated by the higher water which makes the usual shore trail a boots only affair.

What's fun is that at the outset it is a vast, impenetrable tangle. Cedar limbs are curling down and actively trying to snag the passer-by, while dead balsam branches are stabbing at anything that moves. Heavy fallen poplar limbs also block anything that resembles a path.

But, in general, it is an exercise in rot. Almost everything blocking the walkway has been down for centuries, and you know this when the most effective tool you are using is your glove, scooping cedar logs to the side with nothing else.

An hour of scooping, lopping, and (every once in a while) a bit of sawing, and behold, a path, looking exactly like what the original inhabitants walked, right here, a few thousand years ago.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise

Native, wild iris, aka blue flag.

Nearly sixteen hours of daylight now, here in the north country. We eat a late supper, take the dog for a short constitutional, watch an episode of something or other on Netflix, and then read for an hour—and it is still not dark. So we go to bed before nightfall.

But, we also get up not too long after daylight. "Who would want to lie abed in a summer dawn, when the air is filled with birdsong? as has been said.

Perfect summer day—clear, bright, and fresh, with a frisky west wind. All windows open. I shirked my afternoon duties and went sailing— upwind past Gray Point and then along the shore north of Murray ad Elaine's, then a broad reach down to the east shore of the bay where I saw another sail, then a close reach out around Gooseberry Island with Patrick and Rachel trying to keep up in their yellow boat (never quite making it), then back to the marina with the yellow boat fading into the distance. Such fun.

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In winter, woodcutting; in summer, gardening. Our calendar is never so precisely divided, for cookwood must be rustled up in summer and the garden is a year-round concern.

All our living is regulated by the revolving seasons. They determine what we do, what we think and talk about, what we eat, the pattern of each day. Our house adjusts to the seasons, opening in summer and closing against the winter’s cold. The time of our getting up in the morning depends on when the sun rises. Who would want to lie abed in a summer dawn, when the air if filled with birdsong?

—Harlan Hubbard, Payne Hollow

Slipper Foot

Cypripedium, or Lady Slipper. One of our local orchids.

More dock work, enough, in fact, to ignite thoughts of  joining the Longshoremen's union. Each section takes about 3 hours of assembly time, including 32 bolts, and 84 nails. Five sections done—three or four more to go. The first section was a rollercoaster ride on the learning curve. Section two was an improvement, but of considerable duration. Section three was fun. Sections four and beyond—drudgery. Typical of most cottage building projects dockwork involves substantial mindless repetition and lots of heavy lifting and hauling. On the upside, this dock is built and will last forever. On the down side, each section adds only a measly eight feet to the long stretch to deep water.

Mostly cloudy, warm and humid. Wind light and variable.

Mist and Fog

Rain in the morning. Mist in the afternoon. Fog in the evening.

Sitting down at the Zen spot after work we watched the fog thicken (which is considerably more fun than watching grass grow). The mountains disappeared; then the marina disappeared, then Sandy Beach was gone. We were left in our own little world of rollers breaking along the shore. Still, we saw a raft of geese angling inward from out in the bay, a flock of mergansers fishing closer, two mallards riding the waves, two crows grubbing shoreside, multiple gulls doing their thing, several terns slicing the fog in pursuit of tidbits, and a couple of flycatchers working through the ninebark bushes. Fog or no fog, life must go on. And sometime it is nice to watch the fog from solid land rather than being lost in it on a boat.

As for work: one more section of pier/boardwalk, a good start on trimming out the staircase, lots of finishing touches on the powder room, a bit of picture framing and curtain making.

"What we didn't perhaps see so early was that self-realization, even enlightenment, is another aspect of our wildness—a bonding of the wild in ourselves to the (wild) process of the universe."
     —Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild

Tango

We were out of some color of paint, so that meant a trip to Castle Lumber at  M'Chigeeng, and that meant, seeing we were so close to Mindemoya, breakfast at Mum's (again). However, once back home, we did get another section of dock installed. The goal was two, but complications like a broken bolt slowed things down.

And then, after naps, and seeing it was Saturday, I decided the heck with work, and went sailing. (Sue stayed home supposedly having fun with a paintbrush.) After wiping two weeks worth of algae off the hulls and making sure the amas were dry, I headed out into a flat calm. Seeing me, Patrick came out in one of his new Windrider Tangos (which he is renting and selling from his new "store" on the dock). And just then the wind came up, puffy and brisk, from the south-east. We had fun buzzing around each other, like a couple of high speed fun-loving dragonflies.