Thanksgiving weekend

This week has had me thinking a lot about sound. One day I could hear music pretty clearly INSIDE our cabin, but coming from somewhere outside. I thought someone was on our nearby shoreline, so set out to see, and was surprised that it was actually one of our neighbours up the river, playing their radio. Now it was playing pretty loud, but it made me realise how much the sound travels here, and how I can't always tell what direction it is really coming from.  I also think I could hear the radio because it wasn't competing with a lot of other sounds. Although we can hear a bit of traffic from the road that runs on the other side of the river, there isn't a lot of other noise here. I can hear the wind, the river, the birdsong, and this week I was actually startled by the sounds of the leaves falling. When a good wind comes up and shakes off the loose leaves, it actually makes quite a bit of (lovely) noise. I don't think I've ever really noticed the sound of leaves falling before! 

The cold wet weather last weekend seemed to give us a bit of a "push" this week to get some things done. We've made new to-do lists, and are trying to figure out what our real priority is every day. The work on the shed is nearing completion, but as always the last few jobs are time consuming, and weather dependent. Rob needs to caulk some of the pinholes in the shed roof, and needs a nice warm and dry day for that. Today we are being teased by brilliant sunshine, followed by high winds and rainfall. Not a good day to be on a metal roof. So instead, he is busy filling in some of the gaps along the roof line, to make sure it will be nicely sealed for the winter. The door is in, but the windows still have to be installed. This week he also spread some of the stone around the concrete pad so that he can now drive right up and over it.

I am really starting to get a feel for how this is going to work, and that Rob will be able to easily handle the large timbers here.

This week my native wildflower seeds arrived in the mail. I chose ones that could be planted in the fall, so spent a few hours at the side of our new road, clambering up the newly exposed sides and poking little holes everywhere and hoping my plan will work.  I'm hoping the new plants will prevent erosion, and add a little colour here and there.  Hopefully they won't all just get washed down the steep bank! If they do grow, I should be able to collect more seeds from them, and continue down the road and plant more each year. It was lovely to be out digging in the earth, listening to the sounds in the woods, watching the leaves fall. I was pleased to notice that the wild strawberries and ferns are already slowly coming back in at the tops of the banks, so maybe they will also spread down the banks a little bit.  I also collected some seeds from the local asters and scattered them here and there.

Despite the feeling that we urgently need to get some things done before the snow flies (and the talk in town this week is that we may get snow next week) we did agree to take some time off if the weather was good. On Friday we were promised some sunshine and above normal temperatures, so we went for a drive in the afternoon to take in some of the fall splendour. Years ago we remember driving through a place called Wolfe, and that the view there was spectacular and we wanted to go back there again. It is no longer on any of the maps, but we were able to find the road, and then eventually the church that used to mark Wolfe's existence.  Just before we got there though, we spotted a pretty little lake at the side of the road and stopped for a photo.

When we arrived at Wolfe, we pulled into the church parking lot, and took a little stroll around the church and graveyard. This area is so lovely - rolling hills, stone walls, and lakes on either side of the road.

We continued on through Quadeville, Palmer's Rapids and on to Combermere, following the same route we had taken many, many years ago.  We try to get all the tourist brochures for this area as there are always interesting events going on in these little towns, so it was great to travel to a few and get a feel for where they are.  There is supposed to be a very good Farmer's Market in Combermere, but this is the last weekend for farmer's markets so we will have to go next year.
In Combermere we saw a sign for "the historic crooked slide" so made a little detour to go check it out.  It was a pretty little park area, with trails around, and a restored "log chute" that we learned was once used to get the logs through the rapids of the river.

We would both love to someday pick up a couple of small kayaks, and this looks like it would be a great area to explore by kayak. We will have to keep an eye out next year for a good kayak sale!

 

We walked around a little bit of the trail, but didn't really have time to go off exploring.

 

Rather than retrace our route back, we decided to continue to Barry's Bay, and rather than take the main road, we stayed on the back roads. It was the right choice, as we were treated to a narrow windy road, with glimpses of rivers and lakes, small cottages, and stunning fall colours everywhere we looked. In Barry's Bay, just by chance, the farmer's market was still running, and we could not resist stopping for a quick look.  Right. In truth, we knew that the most magnificent home made donuts could be found there!  And this was the last day of the season, so we had to stop to pick some up.

 

This is the line up for the donut and baked goods stall.

 

 

 

 



We were pretty worried as the people in front of us were buying dozens of donuts (and bread rolls and everything else! ) at a time. I guess this stall was extra popular, not just because everything is so delicious, but it's Thanksgiving weekend and everyone seemed to be buying for their Thanksgiving dinners. We were sure they would run out before we got to the table, but they did not, and we left with 4 lovely donuts (yes - 4 - not 4 dozen!) and a pumpkin pie.

We drove back along the scenic Opeongo Road, and took a little detour down through Cormac.  This photo is a bit blurry as our windshield is none too clean! The trees were so beautiful that we decided to go back up through one of our other favourite roads - and down around Lake Clear before heading home.

Today the wind is pretty gusty and the leaves are flying off the trees. We are so glad we took the time yesterday to get out into the Valley and tour around, as I think we probably caught the trees at their absolute peak of colour. Already around the cabin, the sumac is beginning to fade, and the road is covered now with leaves and pine needles.

The cabin smells like pumpkin pie (and I didn't have to try to bake one!) We have a tiny little 6 lb. turkey defrosting, and are looking forward to having our first Thanksgiving here. Hopefully next year we will be able to share it with some family or friends.

For this year, we will be hanging out with our feathered friends at the river.