AstroGypsies

I think we were so busy battling the remains of Winter we just never saw it slip by! Funny how that is. We go from freezing, snowing, howling winds to 22° Celsius, how IS that possible. The cats fought for window seats to smell the smell of Spring and feel the sunshine on their fur. I had to go to town, somehow back in January I forgot to register the truck for 2022. I’d heard our premier Doug Ford had called for refunds for all vehicle fees this year, I just didn’t ever see the fine print, light trucks and cars only, thanks for nothing Doug. A refund really can cheer a girl up…arse. Ha!

Better to be like a cat and simply enjoy every day, registered or not! Windows were open for the first time this morning-always a delectable moment for the felines! They get to go out on their leashes and escorted but this, is window time, salivating over little birdies they now can smell, watching bugs! Yes bugs! Ah, the simple pleasures in life are often the most enjoyable!

We go from snow storms, to tonight, a weather watch for thunder storms, we do need a good rinse still! The one thing about the less than stellar weather has been the down time to write, just not the blog! I had to sit and catch up today! The book is coming along. A month has gotten me as far as the Galapagos, and about to make the Pacific crossing…we have stopped running aground every day and now just are doing it weekly, or trying to run over other boats as neither our motor or generator ever seemed to function as we slowly learned the fine art of maintenance…battery water must be checked and refilled periodically, the engine overheats if the radiator is dry and two anchors keep one from colliding with rocks at times! It has me thinking about the wonderful crew we had over the years and what they are doing now. So far my searches have been futile for the first bunch but we’ll keep looking!

The writing has gone well, the picture and slide cleaning and restoration has been the most time consuming. They were stored where pipes broke in San Diego, in a century old barn and surrounded by herds of cats after being sent in from half way across the globe by mail, hand carried by cruise ship passengers we cornered and anyone we could cajole into saving us postage. It has been a wild ride the recollections, both good and bad but I am approaching everything with a sense of humor given the fact we did somehow manage to survive! Ha! Am I getting it all right? Not sure, these are a twelve year old recollections so far, although written down daily, they were from a unique child’s perspective. Stay tuned…it will one day be published! All I can say is good thing no one told my mother you could eat sea lions because we did eat about everything else out there swimming around, except penguins, there were no BBQed penguins! I promise!

Spring here is a combination of watching the ice melt and depart, at times quite quickly, to seeing the amazing return of reflections in the water to not being able to see the water at all for the snow flurries…ah, Spring in Canada! At least no plowing bills! February was brutal, beautiful, but brutal:)

We’ve lost our Winter visitors, no I didn’t bury anyone, the birds! The Northern Redpolls have left for their Arctic breeding grounds, the Blue Jays have become very quiet and the Red Winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles have invaded. The bruisers are back in town. Even the squirrels are intimidated!

I need to buy stock in a sunflower seed company…these guys can eat! Between the birds and the squirrels they are eating me out of house and home! They are on half rations, time to forage in the forest kids! Looks like we have baby red squirrels already. Mama is looking like Dolly Parton right now, she, the squirrel, not Dolly, was NOT impressed by our latest snow squall. We went to bed, it was nice, we woke up in the morning to 4″ of snow…not nice at all!

Just when it was going so nicely! ha! The wonderful thing was that by 6pm it had all melted and we were back to thinking, Spring really has arrived! The little resident porcupine has been out and sunning in it’s favorite tree and mother deer and baby have been keeping the compost well cleaned, she really loves the cantaloupe rinds! No more signs of the fisher marten on the wildlife camera but we have picked up a small mink down at the dock as well as several raccoons, one had no tail…I’ll be on the eye out for stumpy! Check out Mom and baby munching the cantaloupe here: Deer who love cantaloupe rinds!

Here is a quick one of stumpy and his buddy: Raccoon with no tail

As the ice was going the otter was taking full advantage of all the new holes to pop up in and the numerous icy shelves upon which to sit and devour the perch he had so handily caught! Those hands! He thoroughly enjoyed chomping on this Bluegill as he attempted on multiple occasions to swallow it whole before deciding it needed to be tenderized a bit first.

We even had some socializing this month! Un milagro! Mike’s cousin and wonderful family visiting from Germany got us off our tushes, away from the lake to do some sight seeing, I mean, eat pancakes, as well as enjoy several delicious meals together. We have not quite forgotten the art of talking to other people…in person!

We enjoyed a lovely pancake lunch at Wheelers Pancake House, explored a road creche, that is an experiment in building with reeds and rushes, suffering from a biblical flood at the moment, visited the horses and donkeys, started cooking a turkey, lost power in the howling winds (for almost 24 hours) and cooked it on a BBQ. All in one long run on sentence! ha! Also, if we do much canoe paddling in the early spring a dry suit might be a good idea;)

Grammar is a dirty word I am learning, after not having perhaps learned as much as I should of as a child. It seems I was prone to run on sentences, or maybe just the use of commas and periods wasn’t always necessary I thought as a child. I’ve spent the last three days rereading the 80 or so pages of my young life sailing around the globe, correcting the glaringly bad grammar, glossing past the less than perfect syntax, and thinking…this sounds like a twelve year old wrote it…sigh…it was written by a twelve year old, until we get as far as Tahiti, then it will be written by a thirteen year old! A teenager! It is simply being translated by myself right now!

I may be wishing for some more gloomy weather to batten down and tackle the next leg of the journey! Sunshine always screams “Please go outside and look for wildflowers and garter snakes eating little frogs!” Right?

So, I did that, went outside, I couldn’t stay in yesterday. I didn’t find any cool snakes eating frogs, but our first Hepatica wildflowers and Redshank, which is the coolest moss ever! The forest is tinged red with all the maple blossoms and we have seen our first mushrooms already as well! Now warmth, and rain…it is going to explode, the bug population anyway! I did get to chase a few butterflies and I could have sworn I saw a dragonfly…will go look again tomorrow! One more reason to put off vacuuming…again….I could build a spare cat out of the fur on the carpet alone!

So April, almost gone but oh so beautiful! From the last of the lake ice and otters perched eating their supper to rainbows and reflections. Time to sit and watch the world go by, it does indeed seem to be speeding up. Today I count my lucky stars and am thankful for friends and family, food on my table and several cats, one that just stole my shoe, what a rat! Bring it back! Love them all! Saludos amigos and Happy Spring!