EASY RIDERS

This was us getting ready to go on one of our extended quad rides - we tried to go down the colony road but there were a lot of trees down from the storm a couple of weeks ago so we ended up just grazing on a big patch of raspberries we encountered.
Susan left this morning and Joanne and Mitch will leave on Saturday. We have so much fun together it is sad to see them go but come November, the sisters will be off to Florida for another adventure. Can't wait!!!

DINNER

...compliments of Mitch and Rejean (sorry Jack) and they were delicious!!!!

MITCH AND TOBY

Here's Mitch and Toby - Mitch doesn't have a motor yet hence the oars.

HICKORY DAQUIRI DOCK

Mitch and Joanne's dock on Axe Lake - just relaxing in the sun yesterday.

ROMANTIC EVENING ON THE RIVER

Joanne was giving Mitch some fishing tips as the girls were catching all the fish this evening...just saying...

A GOOD CATCH BY SUE

Sue caught this on Jack's long rod that he left for her - thanks Jack!!

TWO FOR SUE

Here's the sisters saying "two two two" for Sue's two fish - girls rule!!!

MY NEW HAIR

I don't have short hair anymore...

ANOTHER KEEPER FOR SUZIE

It was Susan's night again tonite - she caught the first fish - we just caught bass but Rejean caught as sucker. Nice fish Susan!!! Yum Yum.

LOOK WHAT JOANNE CAUGHT!!!!

We all headed down to the river after dinner for some fishing and it turned out to be a great evening on the river. Everyone caught fish!! And Joanne caught this beauty - we figure about 5 pounds of bass. We took pictures and let it go to fight another fight.

SUSAN FISHING ON THE RIVER

Susan caught a few bass on the river - her day was the day before when she caught almost all the fish and Joanne didn't catch a one but the next day, Joanne caught more fish than Sue and I put together - as long as everyone catches fish, I don't care. I was kept busy putting worms on Susan's hook, un snagging their snags and re-rigging their rods. A good time was had by all.

JUST CHILLIN'

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon relaxing and floating on Axe Lake - it is different than our lake and nice to experience all the friendliness of the neighbours.

GIRLS JUST WANT TO GO FISHING...

Susan, Joanne and I headed to the river the other morning and what a good time we had. We must have caught 10 fish - bass and walleye. Joanne had Mitch's 11 footer and I had my long rod as well. It is so much fun to catch the fish on the long rods. This was Joanne's second cast in and she landed a nice walleye. I got one as well but after a couple of hours in the creel, when I was putting the bass in, mine made a break for it and got away - fishing 101 - I should have known better. Joanne also caught a big bass that only had one eye and a big chunk out of it - we called it Wood Eye and let it go to give another angler a thrill of catching it.

SUNFLOWERS

This was a surprise - I feed my birds all winter long on Black Oil sunflower seeds and this is the first year I ever had one sprout - and there are 4 more growing. It added a nice pop of color to my front slope.

DINNER!!!

The top 2 were caught in a supposed Brook Trout Lake but my guess is that Brook Trout is what made these fish big!!! And the bottom one was caught by Joanne in the River. It was a good day fishing.

SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW...

This rainbow appeared after the storm we had last Monday - the colors aren't very vivid in the picture but in real life they were beautiful and it appeared to end right on our dock - but alas, no pot of gold for me. But who needs a pot of gold when you have this to look at everyday...

MITCH'S PIKE

The guys headed out to Tunnel Lake the other morning and got pike on leeches. This was Mitch's beauty - and they were delicious!!! Rejean and Jack also got lucky that morning - on the lake that is.

JUST THE BASICS

Never leave home without the basics - one Bubba filled with Susan's famous concoctions to keep us hydrated, our sippy cups and our fish boxes (only one pictured here) What else do you need - other than worms.

GEARING UP

Here's us getting all our gear packed away in the quads. Thank goodness for the totes on the back of our 4 wheelers - they carry a lot of stuff like our coolers, worms, towels, our fish boxes etc etc etc.

MUDDIN' IT

The Sisters took off as usual on the 4 wheelers the first chance we got. We wore our bathing suits under our clothes because we knew we would be stopping off at the Jacuzzi and applying the medicinal mud found in the stream. This was the first time I had been there altho I have heard so much about it. And it was very soothing to smear all that mud on ourselves then wash it off in the jacuzzi. And we had it all to ourselves to boot. We will be going back for sure as the temp with the humidex will exceed 116 degrees!!!
It was fun!!!

LOOKING GOOD

My garden is looking quite good this year - but so is everything up here - it has been a very good year for new growth - it rains just when it needs to and the berry crop is going to be exceptional. The trick is to get to the berries before the bears do. It is fun to come across a great bush of raspberries and just stop and eat till you are full. Yum Yum.
Tomorrow I start working at the Wharncliffe Hall to prepare for Sunday's Chicken and Fish Fry. 3 days of preparation. Making jello salads, pasta and macaroni salads, deviled eggs, bean salad , cole slaw, peeling 70 pounds of potatoes (Jerry has offered to do that - thank you Jerry) veggie trays, cheese trays, corn fritters, pickle trays, 50 pounds of white fish and 60 pounds of chicken. AND it is supposed to be 30 degrees with a humidex of over 45 on Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will probably loose about 10 pounds working in that hot kitchen. I'll have to stay very hydrated (I may have to sneak a cold beer - did I say beer? I meant water...)

GOOD FOR THE SOUL

We put on a Hard Hat Luncheon at the Algoma Manor this week - every week a group prepares a luncheon for the hard hat workers at the Algoma Manor in Thessalon with proceeds going to the Algoma Manor Auxillery. It was the Ladies of Wharncliffe's turn this week and as the Manor people are very generous to us by buying our meat and fruit pies, we decided to return the favour. We prepared 4 generous lasagnas, a salad, sour dough garlic bread and cookies and served it Wednesday. We will be doing the same menu on August 31st so if you are in the neighbourhood. We made about $236 for the Manor. Hard work but as I have said before, the most rewarding work you can do.
See Ya Bye

CONVOY

We followed Ron and Mary - they pulled the trailer and we pulled the boat - altho it would be legal for Ron to pull both the trailer and the boat, it was safer this way. Mary and I returned home on Friday to get Rejean's trolling motor and on the way I saw the biggest bear I have ever seen - I noticed it down in the ditch looking to cross the road - they stand out like a sore thumb because they are so black. When I got a little closer he turned and ran into the bush but not before he stopped to look at me and you could see the massiveness of him. I was glad I was in the truck!!! But he did what a good bear should do - he ran from people - probably why he got so big.

ROUGHING IT

Our camp site - we arrived on Thursday and were set up by 12:30 and out fishing by 1:30 - there was no one else around. There were a couple of trailers set up but their owners were probably coming back on the weekend. It was nice a quiet. Ron and Mary's fifth wheel was nice - all the comforts of home. There was an outhouse right in back of us which we put to good use - We only used the trailer's facilities at night. And we never used the kayaks we were so busy fishing, eating, drinking and sleeping. Maybe next time.

A PRIZE CATCH

Ron, holding one of Mary's fish - I think it went back to grow bigger. They were using leeches as bait. I won't touch a leech. But they were the bait of the day. Even dead ones!!! But I caught all my fish on worms - sometimes just a hook and worm and split shot but other times with a jog and a twister tail. We found we caught all of our fish, except one, anchoring and casting and jigging just under the boat. And we were out morning, noon and night. I enjoyed every minute of it!!