We're finally home.....

Our Location: Summer Home, Tehkummah, Ontario

A few very cold, wet and dreary days at Buttercup Ridge, but also one really nice day that helped to dry up some of the water, and the constant wind also helped with that but still soggy and muddy. We had to re-level once and would have had to so again if we stayed longer. We didn’t do much over the last remaining days but managed to do a few little errands.  

Toronto sky line, circle K (who knew we had 'em in Canada), and getting closer to C & M's.

We had one remaining goal while at Buttercup Ridge and that was a trek into Toronto to visit oldest daughter Courtney and her hubby Matt. They live on the east side of downtown which meant we didn’t have to go all the way through the city. Toronto like any other major city is just busy all the time. Except for the DVP (Don Valley Parkway) the traffic flowed relatively well with only a few slow downs, so we were fortunate. The DVP was stop and go the entire way, lucky we weren't going too far. We spent a few hours visiting C & M, catching up and just enjoying their company. It’s always wonderful to see my girls and their other halves but they lead very busy lives and so we keep our visits short.

Courtney & hubby Matt. Courtney, Riley and Matt.

We decided we’d pull out on Monday, April 29 and head north due to the incoming bad weather. We decided it’s better to be high and dry in our summer location even if it’s a few degrees cooler, it’s only for a couple of days. So with that in mind we pulled out of Buttercup Ridge around 8 am  on a bright and sunny Monday morning. 

 

Some sights along the way.

A leisurely drive along ON 7 to ON 12 North brought us to the small town of Orilla, and from there we hopped on ON 400 North bound for the rest of the day. A stop in Parry Sound due to yet another issue with the rear tire on the Igloo had us at Seguin Automotive Repair at Exit 214. Darcy and Dave both agreed it was a wheel bearing issue. I watched as Dave pulled it apart and made note that the wheel bearing was loose but otherwise in perfect condition. Now how could that be? Both sides had the same issue but only wear on one tire. Hmmm…. I think there may be another issue but I’ll have that dealt with in the fall on our way south again. I know the perfect place in Hamilton to have it looked at. So Dave reset and tightened the wheel bearings on both rear wheels, replaced a tire and checked everything else. They could find no other issues. We only went a few minutes down the road and pulled in at a Walmart. We called it quits for the day. It was now mid afternoon. 

 

Strawberry Channel (top L), Hwy 6 S (top R), Hwy 400N (bottom L), Hwy 69 N (bottom R)

Morning found us up and on the road by 8 AM with a mostly sunny sky above and the decision to bypass our regular stop in Lively to visit friends Randy & Linda. We instead opted to go all the way through to our home spot, we'll be visiting with Randy & Linda on Sunday at their camp on the island. A stop in Espanola for fuel, a dump station and a few groceries would be the last stop until we were parked in our spot. 

A single turbine blade for a wind turbine. I think I heard they are 90 feet long.

At 2 pm Riley was opening the gates to let us on to the farm and by 3 pm we were up the big hill, turned around (which is always a bit of an adventure) and with the basic set up complete. Not a bad amount of time for us. We pulled on our shoes and headed up to see Dad for a quick visit. He was surprised to see us, he hadn’t been home when we came by and so didn’t know we had arrived. 

Top - along ON 12 N heading toward Orilla. 2nd-snow/ice on ON 400N, 3rd-water in the farm fields Hwy 17 E. 4th one of the many little inland lakes with ice along Hwy 6 S.

Back home for a light snack, a bit of reading and around 7 pm we climbed into the Dogsled to drop in for a visit with my brother Rick and his lovely wife Barb. Son Jason wasn’t there at the time but is around for another day.

So there you have it, our last few days. We have now arrived home and over the next week will set up our Igloo for the summer and begin enjoying our time with more family.  

 

Top Left- town of Espanola. Bottom- crossing the river into Espanola, Top R, snow in the bush along the way.

A belated Happy Birthday to two nephews, Allan and Jesse. Allan was 35 way back on April 21, and Jesse turned 23 on April 28. Allan is my sister's only son, and Jesse is my brother’s youngest son.  Jesse and girlfriend Claudia just bought their first house and moved in 2 weeks ago. So a congratulations to them on that as well.
 

Crossing the swing bridge onto the Island. The North Channel which flows under the bridge above.

Thanks for stopping by, I’ll do one more update before I stop blogging for the summer months. I just don’t seem to have the time to do a blog while we’re here. As I type this it is raining, today and tomorrow will be rain events on both days but after that the good weather starts and we are looking forward to it.

Until next time… take care, be safe,

Deb

Warm weather, a bit of rain and some quite days....

Our Location: Near Tonopah, Arizona

No post yesterday, I simply didn’t feel like it and this morning I was busy and so, no post. Warm overnights have been our luck the last couple of nights and the days are hot with intense sunshine. This morning the sun kind of almost shone but then hid for a while and soon the rain came down, not lots but just enough to say, hmmm…..I think it’s raining before it stopped. It washed a bit of dust off the windows but didn’t amount to any thing. Shortly after noon the sun came back out with an intense heat that was cooled by a light breeze. 

We followed this road for a little over a mile and then turned around and followed it back.

Yep, it took us back toward those big hills.

 

Today’s pictures are from a short walk Riley and I took yesterday morning. It was only about 2.5 miles but it was nice and relaxing, just enough to feel that we’d accomplished our walk for the day. From there we kind of had a lazy day except for a few little things that we managed to accomplished such as washing the ceilings, a bit of dusting and uploading some music to Riley's phone. In a day or two we’ll tackle the walls and then slowly do our complete spring house cleaning.  

 

We always know where home is because we aren't far from these power lines.

Pretty purple, aren't they?

Today we managed to vacuum the whole Igloo, corners, edges, everything that looked like it couldn’t get sucked up was vacuumed around, under, and over. Two bathrooms were also cleaned today, although no walls were washed. No walk today either. 

 

A pretty good road to travel.

 

Two roads diverged in the desert green, and us, we took the one on the right. For that don't recognize it, it's a play on Robert Frost's poem, The Road Less Travelled.

 

We started putting things away outside in preparation for our departure in a day or two. I checked the tires today and tomorrow I’ll do the oil, and the wash the windows, etc. You know those pesky little things that we all do before we head out. 

 

Looking down the arroyo.

And the other direction too.

 

I’ve chatted with both of my other daughters in the last couple of days and I don’t recall which one on which day. I also chatted with brother Rick, nephew Jesse and SIL Barb for a few minutes and I talked to dad this morning for a while. The great white north is still white, warmer though, so of course it’s snowing, not hard but some. Hopefully they start clearing that stuff up so we can all head home in nicer weather. 

 

The red is fading.

In these ones it's gone.

 

So that was our last couple of days, nothing too exciting but we like it that way. Warmer weather has us starting to plan our homeward journey a bit more, we have less than 6 weeks to get home to Ontario and we don’t like to rush. The jello plans at this moment are stops along the way in a number of places but due to our route we will be by passing Big Buck Resort in Tennessee on the way home. Instead we are thinking that we will spend a week in the area of Independence, Kansas to visit some friends that we haven’t seen for a while. However, that is of course all up for consideration as the weather and our homeward journey allows. 

These are the little peaks you can see in the background near the Igloo when I point it out in other photos.

 

Those ones are across Salome Hwy.

 

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you’ve had a wonderful couple of days. 

Garbage in the form of cans, bottles and broken glass. I've never seen a purple coca-cola can.

You can tell these are passers by, not campers here. Empty, we'll just throw it out the vehicle and keep going.

 

Until next time… take care, be safe,

 

 

Home sweet home here in the Saddle Mountain BLM.

 

 

Deb

To tired to fight with blogger any longer tonight....

Our Location: Lakeshore Road N, Tehkummah, Ontario

(blogger is being very difficult tonight and I'm just going to post the post how it is, after 3 hours of trying to fix the layout I'm too tired to fight any longer.)


The past few nights have been cold, right at or below the freezing mark and my morning trek to Dad’s house for coffee is a bit nippy. Sometimes that old north wind just whistles down the road right into my face causing my teeth to chatter. ~laugh~ Aw well, it’s a short walk and I make it in quick time. The days have been warmish but once again the north wind makes them less comfortable than they should be. However this shall pass as spring is here and of course the warmer weather is also on it’s way. 

The weekend was quiet and uneventful, although we did manage to visit with a couple more family members including Isabel and Seth, (niece Nicole’s two little folks), along with catching a hug and a glimpse of nephew Jesse and his girlfriend Claudia. My sister Jan also came out for a visit which lasted for a few hours during which we spent some time staggering around in the bush hunting for the ever elusive mushroom type known as Morels. We found a very few and although she offered to share 50/50 I declined, giving her our entire haul. Generous wasn't I? After all what would I do with 3 morels? ~laugh~

View from up above our spot

I managed to put in at least one walk a day, sometimes only a mile or so, but twice I’ve managed to get myself around the ‘big’ block which clocks in according to my dad at 3.5 miles. It takes me about an hour and 20 minutes now that I’ve got my sea legs under me again. The gravel road is a bit of a challenge at times as the gravel in some places isn’t always the small fine stuff but with all the rain it can get muddy in places as well. 

This morning started off with my short stroll to Dad’s for coffee time at 6:30 am, after which I went around the big block (added together it’s probably about 4 miles), back home before 9 am. Mind you it was a bit nippy in a couple of spots but I was starting to get warm by the time I was coming down through the inside trail to the Igloo on the homeward stretch. 

Old Igloo and Dogsled taken from the same spot as the above pic.

While I was just putting the bagels on to toast my phone rang, the ODSP rep was calling me back since I left message on Thursday. She couldn’t help me but instead put me through to the case worker. I can say with absolute certainty that this is the way to start off Monday morning. The call was fruitful and within 10 minutes I had Riley’s issues with them straightened out. I also had a list of things to do to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. I can tell you I”m extremely pleased with the start of the week.

After bagels and a quick tidy (yes I know it’s Monday and we didn’t clean) we headed out to brother Rick’s place to shower and do a quick chore or two there. From there it was back home to finish up the necessary items required to email ODSP, a check of Riley’s blood work (which all shows good, no red flags), and pay a few bills. After that it was a matter of just reading my book and taking it easy.

Front yard

Riley headed out for a walk today up in the field. She was gone about a half hour and seemed to be doing better when she got back. I think the walking is good for her but she seems to have discomfort from the effort of walking up the hill. I’ll be glad when we have her issues behind us.  Her blood work results show no red flags but I haven't yet spoken with the doctor but it's looking good for a quick resolution.

She made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies this afternoon. They are excellent. The recipe is from her sister Bradey. The only problem with the cookies is they don’t seem to last long. We can’t decide where they disappear to but we do know they disappear. ~laugh~ 

Upper part of the driveway

Dad was off to Espanola today and so we haven’t seen him since early morning coffee time. We walked up to check on him, finding him putting a fire on in the wood stove to take the coolness out of the air. They have had a fire on since last October with I think he said maybe 2 days of letting it go out this spring. Gives you an idea of how the weather is here on this little rock in the middle of Georgian Bay. The last few days the forecast has talked about possible flurries a little further north of us. The rest of the week looks to be hovering around the freezing mark most nights with day time highs reaching between 10 -13 C/ 50 -56F. The north wind is the factor that plays havoc with the warmth and if you can find a spot out of the wind it's pretty nice sitting outside.  

Tomorrow we will head out to the post office to check on the letter from the broker. Hopefully it arrives  quickly and I can get this truck stuff out of the way. That would be so wonderful. ~laugh~ Tomorrow will also see us getting our second small 20 lb propane tank filled. We keep two here for BBQing, using with the heater and of course having an extra tank never hurts anyway. With these cold nights we heat the Igloo up pretty good before bedtime but turn the heater off at night. I turn it on again early in the morning when I get up and it usually stays on until at least noon, but some days it's on most of the day. Low and slow, like the BBQ. ~laugh~

From our fire pit area

 Laundry is calling us, some banking, and of course a few other odds and ends that need to be taken care of as well seem to be the agenda for the rest of this week. A few things we absolutely need to get accomplished will be top of the list over the next number of days. 

For those that follow this blog, I want to apologize for not being more active in reading your blogs, commenting and of course replying here to your comments. It's just a bit busier here when we first arrive and I don't always have the time or the energy to do so. As the summer goes on I'll get more into the routine of doing those things again but for now it's just a bit more than I can handle.

Taken while standing at the front end of the Igloo.

Dinner tonight was something a bit different for us, we of course cooked inside again. We had fried potatoes, Orange Zest steamed vegetable medley, and Italian Chicken Breasts. We followed that with some Oatmeal C. Chip cookies. A couple of games of Yahtzee ~doing my happy dance~ and after that we headed off in our own directions. 

Thanks for following along, I'm so glad you dropped by. I will eventually get some new pictures of our spot but for now I'll post a couple taken over the last few years.

Taken just out the door of the Igloo

Until next time...be safe, take care....