Summer 2011

This summer has been great fun and I have been outdoors most weekends in the glorious sunshine. It has been wonderful to have endless blue sky days again - I feel as though I have had a proper summer.

May was Turkey season and we spent many hours tracking turkeys and getting up before sunrise to be hidden in the bush before they woke up. Our hardwork paid off and we managed to get a turkey for Thanksgiving.




Mom then came to visit me for 3 weeks in May and it was amazing to be able to show her Toronto and my life over here. We went down to Niagara Falls and also to Tobermory for a few days. We spent the time walking and enjoying our time on the lake.






The coastline along the edge of the lake.





The water in this cave really was this colour! It was beautiful.




Sitting in rock chairs!



Ship wrecks







We spent a day taking mom Menonite spotting. They live as though they are in the 1800's. They don't use any machinery and drive horses and buggys. We went on a horse trolley for a visit to one of their farms and to learn a bit of their history. It was a bit difficult to photograph the people, as it just seems a little rude. Mom tried her best to photo them as they were driving past in their buggys, but it really didn't work!




The kids finished school at the end of June and we decided to make the most of summer. We picked strawberries, fished for trout, visited Richards parents in New Liskeard, went canoeing, rode our bikes and generally enjoyed the hot weather.





A rare piebald deer





Once a month I have to fly to Bermuda for a site visit - work is tough!!

Snow Tubing

Another post on my blog and its another snowy adventure! This time, we went tubing down the slopes. Everyone has an inner tube from a tyre, which has a slippery cover on it and you basically get pushed down the slopes. It was the most amazing fun :-) Waiting at the top of the slope...



The slope...

And sliding down... :-)

The piles of snow are getting higher

As it continues to snow, so the piles of snow get higher!

Dog Sledding

I had the most magical day on Saturday, when Richard took me dog sledding. We had quite an interesting drive north, driving through my first snow squall, where the snow comes thick and sideways, so that its quite hard to see the cars in front of you. This photo was taken out of the front window on the main highway north, once the worst of it was over.



The dog sledding was so much fun. I absolutely loved every minute of it. There were 6 dogs and we went through the trees, with snow gently falling making it quite magical and just like the movies!! The dogs were very happy and were having as much fun as us on the sleds.








After our dog sled ride, we investigated the "igloos"...



And tried snow shoeing...



The snow shoeing was hard work - the snow was deep and piles onto the back of the snow shoe, making it hard work to pick up your foot! But it was all such good fun.

We had our lunch around the fire, but by now it had started to snow. It was rather surreal sitting around the fire, eating bbq'd food with a pile of snow on my lap!!

Shovelling snow!

I had my first experience of shoveling snow today! It's quite hard work - more so than I expected. The main issue is where to put the snow, so it gets piled up in heaps on the side of the driveway. In Canada, everyone is responsible for your own sidewalk and driveway so you can end up shoveling snow for 40min every evening if it snows for days on end. The main problem is what to do with all the snow! You can see in this picture, some of the piles of snow and this is after only a few days of snow...



This is a picture out of my front car window, looking down the street.




The countryside is beautiful however under it's blanket of fluffy white snow. Much as everyone still laughs at me for enjoying the snow, I do still enjoy waking up to a white world in the morning. The novelty hasn't yet worn off. I also enjoyed watching the snow ploughs as they cleared the motorways this morning. Completely different to how things work in England when it snows.

Snow

The snow in Ontario is beautiful We haven't had very much in Toronto itself and so I will have to spend more time in the countryside next year Jan and Feb, so that I can get my fill of snow!

This is a picure of some of the treats that winter has to offer...

Hockey Game

I watched my first ice hockey game last night. It was good fun! I was taken out by one of our clients and so had tickets for the box. Quite a luxurious way of watching my first hockey game. Its fast and quite exciting and as we were watching a league game it is supposed to be one of the best. There was quite a lot of atmosphere, but I think it would have been more fun to be in the stands, rather than watching from above in the box.