Spider Nest

This spider's nest was alongside the Cansibay Lake Road. If you look carefully, you can see that it actually forms a ball shape. We'd never seen one quite like this before and so here it is.

Dock nest

While I'm on the subject of "nests" I couldn't resist this one. Our cousins Rick and Barb under their beautiful new pergola - built single-handedly by Richard in two days!

Cottage nest

And finally a cottage nest - one of our guest bedrooms at the cottage. You can't tell from this picture but it has a lovely view of the lake when you are lying in bed.

Home for the weekend

Although we RARELY miss an opportunity to be at the cottage, every so often there's an occasion worth staying in the city for. This weekend, it was our turn to invite our former neighbors, current neighbors and forever friends to dinner in our backyard. Mother Nature was very co-operative and a we partied on until the wee hours of the morning.
More from the Park next weekend.

You can still make "smores" in the city

We may be in the heart of Montreal, but with a clay chiminea you can have a campfire in your very own backyard - and so smores can be made. These two kids were good enough to make smores for the whole gang!

What to do on a cold and gloomy weekend?

It was not the finest of weekends in the Park – the thermometer never rose above 45F and we never saw the sun. Bad weather doesn’t have to be a total bust though and below are my two favorite options for a “poor weather weekend”.

There are always chores!

And keeping moving and doing things keeps you warm. Plus there’s always that “glow” that comes with a sense of accomplishment. This weekend I got the bath house pump running, sanded and painted the refrigerator shelves and installed (not entirely successfully) the new automatic bilge pump for our boat. It turns out the pump is defective. Thank you Canadian Tire!

Or better yet…

You can always build a warm fire, put your feet up, turn on some music and read a good book!

Grandmother's Log

I went for a little ride through the Madawaska River to see if the lilies had started to show their pads. Not yet, but I couldn’t resist taking a quick snap of this log. My grandmother used to attach her minnow trap to this log, and on many evenings it was my job to paddle up the river and collect her fresh bait supply for the next day’s fishing. For a couple of years there were iris growing among the grasses on this log, but then my grandmother filched them and for years they bloomed in front of our cottage

In the River

Soon the lilies will fill in the sides of the river, but for now there is only the marsh and the trees. A wonderful juxtapositon with the very old dead tree trunks and the fresh green of the new grasses and leaves.

Sunset in the Back Bay

This gorgeous sunset is the view we often see through our kitchen windows in the evening. After a dull and rainy day, the skies cleared and graced us goodnight with this rosy display.

A sure sign of spring....

Is blackflies - and this year is the WORST year I remember EVER! There are masses of them and they're big and they're biting. Let the hot weather come and finish them all off!

And pollen on the lake

Every spring it coats docks, boats and the lake with a soft blanket of yellow. There seems to be an extraordinary amount of pollen this year too - directly proportional to the number of blackflies, but I suspect unrelated.

Old and New

Here's some new wood growing on some old wood. New bushes spring to life on the ruins of one of the two old railway trestles that crossed Cache Lake.

Come into my parlor

And a lovely parlor it is. This web was built on an old railroad trestle that collapsed onto the lake several years ago. A long time ago, the trains used to travel through the Park across these wooden "bridges" and deposited guests at a couple of luxury hotels in Algonquin. Now this trestle houses a "hotel" of it's own.

Red Sky at Night

This lovely evening sky was snapped by my wife Carolyn on Saturday night. It capped off a day of sunshine and blue skies, but contrary to the rhyme, Sunday was overcast and muggy.

Our Loon

I call her/him "our loon" because it was never far from our shoreline this weekend. This loon is actually one of a pair and we think they are nesting right in front of our deck. This one let me get within 6 feet to take this picture and about 30 seconds of some nice close video. The pair of them floated up and down the same 15 foot stretch along our shoreline all weekend while making soft cooing noises. We don't know exactly where the nest is because we didn't want to disturb them. We're hoping for babies! If you have a high speed connection and you want to watch the video, click here. It's best if you watch it at the smallest size since it is highly compressed for the web.

What Global Warming???????

Yes indeed - that is what you think it is on the ground! Snow. My cousin shot this on the morning of May 21st. Over the course of the Victoria Day weekend we had rain, snow, hail, wind and cold. Hardly a weekend for first swims or sunbathing. But hearth and friends kept us warm and cosy and a great weekend was enjoyed by all.

Beaver Art

This week we arrived to find that the lake contractor had removed all the fallen trees left us this winter by Bucky the Beaver. As a souvenir he left this piece of "beaver art" on our deck. It's actually quite beautiful and we will be sure to find a suitable display location for it this summer.

New Green

Here's one of the things I love about Spring in the Park. I call it the "new green". It's the soft green of the new leaves on the birch and maple trees when they first come in. It usually doesn't last more than 10 days so I'm always happy when I'm there to see it.

The maiden voyage

As many people have noticed - I drive on the wrong side of the boat. I have my grandmother to thank for that. She taught me to drive a boat when I was about 7. She was happy to teach me, but she wasn't giving up her seat - hence I drive from the left (or right depending on how you look at it). Oh well - it works! This is the maiden voyage of our new boat and motor.

Our new boat has arrived

This spring I called the local marina to have them get our motor ready to go to the cottage. Color me surprised when the owner told me the marina had burned to the ground and taken my motor with it three weeks earlier! So since I had to buy a new motor anyway - I bit the bullet and bought a boat too. I found a nice, used fiberglass boat with a 4 stroke Yamaha motor on the Internet and it was launched into Cache Lake this Sunday afternoon.

Eager Beaver

We arrived on the island to discover Bucky (as my cousin called our guest) had been very busy over the winter. He gnawed right through this big cedar and took out two more trees at my end of the island and a couple of good sized birches at the other end as well. Bucky needs to find a new home!

It may be spring, and although both Saturday and Sunday were gloriously sunny and warm, it still is pretty cold at night. There were still lots of pockets of snow along the highway and the lake entrance a full 10 days after the ice went out. We drove in on Saturday morning and it had been cold enough the night before to leave a skin of ice on the ponds.

Moose Season

Spring is a great time for seeing moose along the Park road. This was one of a pair of yearlings that we stopped to watch along the way.

Spring has sprung!

While the ice may be off the lake, there is still some to be seen on the rock faces along the highway. In some spots water rushed down the sides of the rocks and on to the highway. In others, water slowly dripped from the melting ice.

This Just In

The ice is out on Canoe Lake (and I correctly predicted the date on the Canoe Lake Ice Out Website - Ice Out). I'm assuming that means the ice is out or very near to out on Cache. And so another season begins. I'll be going up next weekend and will post some spring pics!

Isn't she lovely?

Dorothy Gray sent me this picture taken last year. What a beautiful building it was. A few of you have emailed me for news - I have no info what the next steps will be, but it seems there are willing hands.

It all came tumbling down

Joan and Brookes Prewitt were up in the Park and were good enough to send along these pictures along with the accompanying note:

Brookes and I were just up at camp for 1 night last night, and took these pictures yesterday (Monday, March 6) before we went in. Singie's e-mail said you might want to load some pictures on your site. It really was a shock to see the rec hall--hard to believe!

On a positive note, Cache was absolutely beautiful, and the weather was perfect both yesterday and today. We were very fortunate with our timing.

The West Wall

I was quite shocked by how much of the walls came down. That must have been some snow weight on the roof.

Looking at the Inside

This picture seems to have been taken from the front door. It seems from the pictures that the stone walls seem to be pretty intact. Do you think we could do a barn-raising?

It's a very sad site

Brookes is standing next to the Rec Hall - and it is a mess.

Sad news of the Rec Hall

The following was received by many of us from Lela Gamble. I will post pictures if I am able to obtain some:

"On or around March 1, 2006 (I'm not sure of the exact date...), the Cache Lake Rec Hall collapsed due to snow load and general age and condition of the building. The west wall is down completely as is te roof. With all the snow and debris, it is quite a mess at present.
I am hoping to be able to send some digital pictures to Sue Kingsley who has offered to load them onto her Cache Lake website at http://www.cachelake.org or on her personal blog at http://www.wahbahmimi.blogspot.com so that people can see what's at present. Bear with me, however, as I'm not as tech savvy as I would like to be. Perhaps others have some photos they would like to send sue at sue@cachelake.org just in case I can't get our pictures out to her."

Coming and Going Dec. 27

Or going and coming if you look at the pictures left to right. Carolyn and I swung through the Park on the way back to Montreal from my parents' in St. Catharines. We were incredibly lucky as the sun broke out only about a half an hour before we arrived, and went back in just as we were leaving. In that time we played at the landing and took some fun shots of the lake in winter. There are lots more below, and if you want to make them larger you can just click on them. Enjoy - we certainly did!

Island in the Sun

This island is worth a painting in the winter.

Looking Back to the Railway Bed

A beautiful shot on a beautiful day. We were so lucky the sun came out for our short visit.

A Beatiful Day in Algonquin

The shoreline at mainland taken from the loading dock

Bartlett's in Winter

Bartlett's shore as seen from the mainland.

Playing in the Snow

I stuck the camera on a tripod and then had to run through the snow to get in the picture. I wasn't quite there yet!

Vista from the Mainland

A long shot from the loading dock.

Where's the Boat?

Carolyn calls the Lodge for a lift over to the island. Oddly - nobody answered!

The Back Bay

This is a great shot if I do say so myself - through the trees from the old railroad bed looking back into the back pond.

The Island

This was a great view of the island from just up the trail on the old railroad bed. You can see Rick's boat on the dock and Ted's boathouse.

Happy just to be here!

Here we are on the little bridge on the old railroad bed. We'd spent lots of time frolicking in the snow and we're happy to be spending a brief time in the Park.

And the sun goes out

Just as we got in the car to leave, the clouds came and covered the sky. I took this last picture to show what a difference a few minutes can make. What's neat about this picture is you can see more clearly just how much snow is in the trees.

Beaver in the Boathouse

This beaver took up residence in my cousin's boathouse along with at least one baby and 4 muskrats.

Heron in the river

A Great Blue keeps us company as we travel up the Madawaska river. 

Swimming in October

Man that's cold! It may look like it's summer, but it's actually October and the water is a chilly 58 degrees. But it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the annual swim. 

A misty morning

A misty morning in mid-September as seen from our dock.