Monday, October 31, 2005

Boo from Barrhaven

Here are some of the pics detailing a typical Halloween in Barrhaven.

First it starts with the traditional pumpkin carving (we seem to add another member to the ghoul cast every year).

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Then the costumes...

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Popping in on some friends...
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And a very appropriate pint of ale provided to Papa while making the rounds with the little ones...

Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale

A weekend in the GAT

I spent both Saturday morning and Sunday morning hiking in Gatineau Park. The weather was incredible. Combine that with blue skies, awesome landscape, colourful leaves, good company, and a refreshing pint or two and you have a little something this side of heaven.

Here are some pics from Saturday morning's hike into Meech Lake area from P16...












The next one was taken on Sunday while following half the population of China. Somewhere around the halfway point, Emma found a coin (1 yuan) She called it her lucky "Chinese king-kaka coin". Luckily they didn't understand her accent (or her unintentional mockery) and we were spared a serious martial arts style beating. Hey, maybe the coin really is lucky.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Fall has fallen

Is it just me or has the peak of Ontario's fall leaf season already come and gone? I look out my window and half the trees are completely bare of leaves while the other half are still green. Weird.



Oh yeah, I hear it's supposed to snow tomorrow too.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Biggest White Bur Oak (1975)

While driving home from watching the salmon jump in Port Hope (I stress the word "the", as in one) my father started to spin a tale about a record setting tree that used to be in the area. Taking him up on the story, I side-tracked our return trip and headed south from Mather's Corners in search this mythical monster.

Well we found it, however, it was in rather poor condition. Turns out it had been hit by lightning twice and even though it had pretty much passed on to forest heaven it was still an incredible sight to see. There was a plaque on it declaring it to be the largest White Bur Oak in the Otonabee region back in the year 1975. High praise indeed.

We pulled up and all of us (except my wife, who was sleeping) hopped out of the van to get a closer look. Between us and the tree there was a steel farmers gate topped with the wire from an electric fence. You guessed it, ZAP! My oldest daughter got zapped good (btw, she claims that Opa told her it was off). And at the exact same time as Sara was running back towards the van, my wife was barrelling out of it shouting something about closing the doors and a bee.

Well as it turned out, in our haste to see if we could all hug this tree and completely encircle it we forgot to shut ALL the van doors. Normally not a biggie, but as luck would have it there was a rather large and out of control collection of bee hives nearby. Sorry mommy. Needless to say, after calming the crowd, I snapped some quick pics, shooed out a dozen bees, and headed back down the road. Fun.

As luck would have it, I coincidentally snapped this pic only moments after Sara was zapped by the electric fence. Talk about luck!!



Look how small everyone looks against this bad boy...



Here's a quick pic I took of the bee hives. Not sure what's up with the barrels other then to create mass bee hysteria.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Gobble gobble

After a dark and rainy drive last Friday night we arrived at my parent's farm for Thanksgiving weekend. Family time... and surprisingly it turned out pretty good. Time well spent as they say. (read, yes my mother now has access to the Internet and can now read my blogs).

Here are some pics...

Cows love apples (cut in half, as they may choke and die if you leave them whole). Man these things have freakishly long tongues. I think I now know why my brother spends so much time in the back frield.

Cows love apples

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Hoe'ing it with BvT. Apparently some 73 year old man dropped by the farm to help my dad fix a low spot that kept flooding out. Unfortunately he didn't leave us the keys... however, this was likely a good thing as it took us 10 minutes just to figure out how to shut the door.

Posing with the hoe

In the bucket

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Salmon jumping. Nothing like hanging out in Port Hope with 50 chinese families waiting for some lethargic fish to jump up a ladder. We saw lots of salmon but only one jumped. Luckily I snapped the pic. (who da man?)

salmon run

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Did I mention it was fall? Still lots of green around Peterborough though.

I see red

BvT

Monday, October 03, 2005

Charleston Lake camping

We went camping last weekend at Charleston Lake (near Gananoque) with some friends. The weather was incredible. Sunday actually reached 27ÂșC with the humidex. The kids (5 all together) had a blast and everybody, including me, went swimming. What a great trip to end the year's camping adventures.

Here are some pics from the weekend...

Crayfish claw collection:

Collecting crayfish claws

Whatever was eating these poor fellows apparently didn't like the claws too much. Either that, or maybe they shed them before winter and now there's a whack of clawless crayfish swimming around Charleston. You decide.

Crab claws on Charleston Lake

Hiking up Blue Mountain:

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Osprey/heron rookery:

Osprey rookery

Relaxing at the beach:

Relaxing at Charleston Lake

Charleston Lake in October