Ducklings by the Dock

We drove the boat up to our mainland dock and these little guys were napping with their mom. Mom flapped up and into the water but the babies looked up questioningly even though this big boat pulled up within a couple feet of them. Mom gave a little quack. Still nothing but then she got out of the water again a bit in the distance and the little family stood up and waddled over to the next dock..  Five little ducklings all in a row...

Window Flowers

 Flowers whisper "Beauty!" to the world, even as they fade, wilt, fall.

~Dr. SunWolf,

 

These flowers were gathered by my daughter almost 3 weeks ago and have been

 sitting in the kitchen window all this time. So pretty.

Cruising with Jasper and Emily

I love this picture.

Don't you want to go boating on the lake too?

Jasper is almost a two year old now and looking quite mature. We always insist that no one, not even a puppy, goes on our boats without a life jacket. Safety first.

A New Light Fixture

 

We have never liked the original lighting fixture that was located over the pass through counter of our kitchen. We finally found something we could agree on at IKEA but it turned out to be the ultimate IKEA Hack. The light would not hook up to our unusual cottage electrical system, and besides that normal Ikea light bulbs, even though they are very energy efficient, drew too much power to light up.

 

The light is supposed to hang way down and the space is much too small for the lamps design so we umm...  rearranged it. Poor long suffering Bob made it work. It is amazing how Bob can find a creative solution to any problem.

 

We are even going to change it to a dimmer switch so we can have bright task lighting when needed, or perhaps a little mood lighting.

 

 

 

 

 

The IKEA Kroby Pendant Lamp started off like the picture below and is a great product.

The fact is that our Island Cottage is mainly solar powered and designed for minimal energy usage. This creates a lot of challenges that we take pleasure in solving.

 

July Flowers on the Island

 

The plants of summer are blooming...

 I just took a few quick  and somewhat fuzzy pictures with my phone so I could share the beauty. All of these lovelies are within a few meters of my cottage door.

 

 

 

Saskatoon Berries were everywhere this year.

Lovely lavender colored Harebells Campanula rotundifolia

Raspberries were lovely and full.

The Pontoon Boat

It is summer at the cottage once again. We got here late this year because  warm weather was really slow arriving and there was a late thaw in our lake country.

Also adding to our slow start was all the concerns we had with our boat last year. Bob ordered parts to do the necessary repairs and we waited a long time for everything to arrive.

The second day we went out to work on the boat I sat in the parking lot near our dock with Bob working on the engine. We still hadn't been over to the island this year. We were approached by the guy that owns the campground where we rent our mainland dock space. He told us he heard we were interested in getting a pontoon boat and might need a bigger dock space. We wanted a pontoon boat but we were imagining it in the distant future.  

Trying to power wash it clean.

The camp ground owner told us he had an older boat for sale that he bought from someone who needed to give up their trailer space last year. He offered us a good deal on boat, trailer and motor and would arrange for us to switch to one of those rare bigger dock spots.

We took a look.. and it was not in bad shape really. It has a lot of mildew and the carpet has several major tears but it works fine!

SOLD!

We now have our very own pontoon boat and a new rental dock that we will need to fix. A pontoon will handle rough water better than our smaller boat and it will be easier to haul larger material and more people. As one friend commented we didn’t purchase a party boat -- we got a barge!