Spring = New Growth!

One of the nice things about spring is enjoying the nice weather, after a long winter, and seeing the pretty flowers and the new growth. The deer don't seem to have discovered the tulips yet this year, which is nice, so we are able to enjoy them for a few more days.



Freda has started her sweet peas inside. They are sprouting nicely.

And the peonies are coming up outside. Hmmm, love those peonies!

A Wet, Dirty Lab == A Happy Dog

We took the dogs out for a walk this afternoon. Tawny found a puddle. Well, more like a ditch with some water in it. She ran/splashed gleefully up and down the ditch (only about 5 feet long) and then lay down in it and used her nose to stir up the dirt and sediment. Why? Well, because she wasn't dirty enough before, obviously.

You can't see it in this photo, but the right side of her face is impressively filthy!

Not as good as my sisters

My sisters, being excellent house keepers, tell me they iron their pillowcases. Well, we had never done that before, but I thought I should do that so that maybe they will not be so unimpressed.

This is the pile of pillowcases, with a before and after photo. The colour rendition in the After photo is clearly wrong, but I couldn't correct it. However, I think that you still can see the difference.

Hydro tree trimming

We received a letter in the mail from Hydro One that they would be in our area trimming trees that might interfere with the power lines. This is the result. They really made a mess of the trees that they cut, with lots of splintering, etc.

Ahhh, coffee!!!

There's nothing better on a Saturday morning than sitting out on the sun deck, enjoying a nice coffee!

28C and loving it!

Ottawa set a new record high this weekend. It was something like 13C above the previous high. Wow!

Of course, the dogs loved it. We threw the Kong into the water a bit for Tawny. We threw the Kong on the hill about half the time because the water is still quite cold, and we don't want Tawny to get cold tail again.

I plunked a few pebbles into the water, and so Taz thought it was time to go hunting for tadpoles!! Very funny boy, Taz!

Meanwhile, the Canada Geese are swimming lazily along, obviously unconcerned by the canine antics... :)

Of course, after a nice swim and run, there's nothing better than chewing on a fresh rawhide roll. Here Tawny is enjoying a fresh new rawhide.

Taz, being a big dog, of course wants to chew a little piece of a rawhide roll. Very amusing!

Dethatching and aerating...

 
It was another gorgeous day - it was forecast to get to 28C and it may have. I don't know for sure as I wasn't watching the weather. I got the lawn tractor running today, and first hooked up the dethatcher and ran over the front and back lawn. Then I hooked up the core aerator and went over the lawns again. You can see the brown plugs of dirt on the lawn.

And then we had friends over for Easter Sunday supper - a wonderful way to end the day.

Cleaning the deck

Our large deck is made of cedar, but cedar turns gray as it ages which isn't all that beautiful. It was so nice this weekend that we were going to get the patio furniture out. But before we did that, I decided to clean the deck before we put the furniture out. Here you can see the sprayer, the stiff broom, and the hose are ready to go.

This photo was taken after I had finished the cleaning, but before it had completely dried. The gray has gone, and is now a nicer, paler colour. Of course, when it is wet it will look lovely.

Here is a photo after the deck has dried and ready for us to put the patio furniture out tomorrow.

Of course, after working hard, it is a good idea to relax and enjoy the view!! Taz is demonstrating how to do just that!

ICE FREE 2010!!

The first 2010 photo of the lake with absolutely no ice on it!

Still a bit chilly for swimming though! :)

And then, it's gone!

Photo taken April 1, 2010 @ 11:25am

The ice is disappearing... This shows that there is a large gap opening up between two pieces of ice. It won't be long now!

I have quite a number of photos that I have taken over the past two weeks that I will post in a few days. I haven't been able to do it so far because I have been very busy with some things.

April 1, 2010 - 6:25pm

Except for some ice at the north end (far right of the photo), the ice is gone!

Don't look too closely at this panoramic photo - the shore line did not match up very well.