Monday, July 30th - Happy Birthday to Ethan (and ME!)

What another glorious weekend we had! It's an overcast 16' right now at 5:15 am but the sun will come out later and provide us with another wonderful 24' day. We sure can't complain about the weather this year - at least if you're a beach person. If you're a farmer, then maybe not so much. But it really has been quite exceptional, and it's forecast to be more of the same for most of the week.

So Friday was a fun evening. We invited the Van Gaals over for a BBQ (well, really we just wanted to use up the left over salads from Thursday, but they weren't left over to them so it was all good!) We had a few drinks and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics online and had a lovely evening. Of course the rum soaked slushy drinks helped as well.

Saturday morning I worked and when I got home, Lloyd was attempting to move the shed - by hand. He had jacked up one side, placed long poles underneath and was rolling it from point A to point B. It's a very slow process to do by hand, moving a couple of inches at a time. He still has a ways to go but he may get a bit of help today or tomorrow.  Right now, it now has quite a lean to it.  This is all in preparation for the digging up the site for the garage, that he hopes to have the outside shell completed before winter.

The "Leaning Tower of Pisquid"

 While he did, that I finally got started on the flower bed I've been wanting to dig up since June. When Patti's aunt died, she bought a lilac bush for me to bring back. Jean loved Anne of Green Gables as a young girl and always wanted to visit PEI. I was so pleased to essentially make that happen by moving here. She came to visit the summer of 2010 and was able to visit Cavendish and see all the memorabilia surrounding our beloved Anne. Patti thought a tree planted on the island in her memory would be a nice thing to do. So she purchased a lilac bush - it had to be small enough to fit into our already crowded car - for the trip back.  But I needed to dig up a spot to plant it and I wanted it to be just right. Finally after a month, it's now in the ground. We all talked about the fact that now the family members will have to make to pilgrimage to the island to visit the memory tree (or in this case, bush).

A reflection of Jean's rural roots and her fondness for PEI

Sunday morning dawned a little foggy but that soon burned off. It wasn't as sunny a day as was predicted but it was lovely and warm. Lloyd went off for breakfast with the boys on their bikes while I finished up my flower bed and tree planting.  I still had some sod to remove and the soil to dig up. Once that was done, I headed over to Brenda's to see if there was anything I could help her with. She had lots of company arriving and was in full on cleaning mode. I arrived in time to help with a couple of small chores until Bernie got back. When he arrived I was ordered to go home as my husband was also at home.

A perfect spot to cast in a  line

 We decided to go for a drive and  have a picnic. We headed down to Murray Harbour, where the guys had traveled last Sunday. There's a lovely drive out towards the water and the road ends at a series of tall red cliffs, overlooking large rocks. Lloyd slowly picked his way down the cliff to the rocks to try his hand at fishing. But it wasn't so successful as there's lots of greenery in the water there that kept snagging on his line so that experiment didn't quite go as planned. But in his walk about he saw that off to one side there was a sandy beach - a perfect place for a picnic. If you could have seen the two of us navigating this cliff with picnic backpack, table and two chairs you would have thought we were both nuts - but it was worth it in the end. We set up our table (that folds up into a carrying bag when done) complete with bottle of wine, wine glasses, cheese, pate, a lovely fresh baguette and some grapes.  When he first mentioned a picnic I was thinking salads, maybe some fried chicken, that sort of thing. But I didn't have any of those things available. Then we thought, wait a minute, we have to drive right past a couple of grocery stores in Montague on our way.  So we picked up what we needed there  and it all turned out quite pleasantly. We did see one couple, who came walking along the beach. I'm sure they must have thought we were totally mad! But it was fun.

"Oh, look honey, I found a beach for our picnic"

All we have to do is climb down this steep hill

 

Now this is what I call a feast!

Can't go wrong with a bottle of wine, a nice piece of cheese and a loaf of bread!

We packed everything up just in time to get back to Sturgeon, a little hamlet on the way home, to attend a musical evening in the church hall. Our neighbour, Margie Carmichael was performing along with a host of other folks. It was a very enjoyable evening and a good time appears to have been had by all.

Neighbour Margie (far right) with some of the other performers

 This morning is mine and Ethan's birthday. So Happy Birthday to you, Ethan.  You have lots of visitors at your parents place so a good time is sure to be had by all. Have a great day. As for me,  nothing special is planned. It's off to work as usual. I had thought about baking a cake to take with me to work today, but I was just too busy yesterday. Not a big deal. Brenda and I plan to go out sometime later on when things are not so busy - but from the looks of it that might not be until October! haha
I guess my celebration will come in August - when I receive my first pension cheque!