Trimming Branches

We have been cleaning up the yard and we have needed to trim a bunch of branches off trees and clean up some dead-fall. It has been accumulating in a couple of different piles around the property. I took a couple of days to trim up lots of branches into smaller pieces to use in our fireplace and the junkiest bits will be used for a bonfire sometime soon. As fall is approaching we are already seeing the nights turning cooler. It is always amazing to me that so much work, collecting up wood and trimming it, can burn so quickly in our fireplace!

This job is satisfying to me, but not easy. I find it hard to be bending down over and over to pick up the branches and kindling and it makes me quite dizzy. I can only carry a little bit at a time, so there are a whole lot of trips carrying branches and twigs to make piles and sort them out. My physiotherapist calls it "functional exercise". At any rate I was pretty stiff the next day.

I was also collecting pine cones to use in a craft for this Christmas. I was going to leave them out on the porch, but Bob pointed out that they won't be there when we came back next time. The little squirrel that lives in the pine tree will think I made life very convenient for him.

Apples

Apples on the Porch



A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible. ~Welsh Proverb

Wildflowers in a Mug

Wildflowers on my Windowsill

Guess What This Is?

I was impressed with this find at the cottage.

Can you identify what you see in the pictures?

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It is a whole miniature little world in a tub!

We use this container of sand each fall when we celebrate a couple of birthdays and the long weekend with a little fireworks show. We just left the tub outside, behind our porch, last year after our celebrations. I didn't give it another thought until this summer.
When I looked in the tub this year I was amazed at the beauty of this tiny world.
We thought the pencil would help give you an idea of the true scale of my lilliputian moss world.

Dragonfly

Deep in the sun-searched growths, the dragonfly hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky.

~Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Silent Noon

Cool Shades Bob!

Bob jumped into the boat so hard that his sunglasses bounced right off his head and into the reeds where we dock our boat. We drove out to our island and Bob changed into a bathing suit and wading gear. We went back to our dock and I sat on the shore with the camera and Bob went "fishing" for his sunglasses. It took a while with him wading and feeling around, encounters with blood sucking leaches and a fair bit of frustration but eventually he found them suspended above the bottom caught in some reeds. I got a picture of the triumphant Bob with his big catch of the day.

The Flag

We now have a flag pole.

A pole was kicking around the cottage from before we owned the place and we decided it was time to get rid of it. We hauled it down to the dock and seeing it there Bob realized it would fit nicely into one of the support poles of our dock. Next thing I knew Bob was telling me to look out front and see what was different.

Yup, a big flag pole and a flag too.

The Chair Part 2

The chair we found a few weeks ago is all ours and fixed up now. We are fondly calling it our "drift wood chair" because we believe it was drifting in the water and someone fishing nearby got it out of the water and threw in on the dock to get it out of the way of the boats.

Bob worked hard at sanding down the roughest, most beat up spots but it really could not just be stained so it we were going to paint it we went all out with a vibrant blue. I love it! I keep finding myself plopping down on the chair in the backyard of the cottage. It seems that I always really wanted a comfy chair back there and never even knew it.

"Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs".
~Fran Lebowitz