We had a great Thanksgiving at the cottage. My self and my sons family arrived Friday night. Holiday traffic was pretty good, and we managed to get to the cottage around 9pm. I always find it a bit unsettling going over to the cottage in the boat after dark at that time of the year. We settled for the evening with a nice fire on and I had my electric blanket pre-warming the bed! Saturday arrived in great shape, very sunny,around 5 Celsius, so nice weather to work in. First on the agenda was tearing away an addition on my Mom's cottage that had the soil run off and build up around it unfortunately rotting part of the floor and of the wall. With two strong guys going at it, it was surprising how quickly it was gone!
A chainsaw helped quite a bit!
It came down faster than it was built!
Sunday was pretty cold. My "other son" Mark (my sons best friend and an adopted family member), had to leave to go to his families Thanksgiving and had turned the water off in the one cottage before he left. One major chore out of the way. It snowed all day, melted as soon as it hit the ground though, and since we had already done all the major work that needed to be done, this day we just relaxed. A few little chores to assist in closing the cottage. Cleaning the shed out, putting away all the summer out door furniture. Of course we had to continue burning the rock as well. It was a large boulder when we started last weekend.
When we started this weekend it looked like this, the result of last weeks burn. Throughout the day the rock continued to crack and we were able to reduce it even more.
This is how much we have taken off the rock, quite easily since we started the burn. There is about 1/3 left. The next time my son goes up it will be gone from there.
On Monday my son and youngest granddaughter went for a walk way back on the property. It goes up to some cliffs and the view over our bay on the lake is amazing!
A very good weekend and Thanksgiving! We came home late yesterday. I carried that relaxed feeling on into today and am now cooking for Thanksgiving #2 at home.
Sounds like a great time. A question: I never heard of burning a rock. How does that work? I don't know anything about Canada's Thanksgiving, so I feel uniformed.
The view of the bay is gorgeous.
Very nice, productive trip! Never heard of burning a rock away -- we just incorporate them into the landscaping. :) You truly have a beautiful place!
Sandra - Canadian Thanksgiving is pretty much the same as yours but we have it in October instead of November. It is a long weekend, Thanksgiving is on the Monday. Family, friends and great turkey meal included! Burning the rock is a trick we discovered for getting rid of boulders at the cottage that were in the way. You partly dig out under them and start a fire underneath as you "cook" the rock it becomes more brittle. Natural fault lines in the rock show up and with a couple of good whacks with a sledgehammer,the rock starts to break off in big chunks. A rock that before we couldn,t even put a dent in with a hammer.
Cheryl - It was a great weekend and the colour was at it's peak!
Sandra - On Oct 5 I did a post on Burning The Rock - A new way to move Mountains, there its shows the progress and technique.
That is one gorgeous view!!
Sounds like a great and busy weekend. Rock burning.. very interesting, havent heard about it before..
Sounds like you had a lovely week-end and got lots of work done. The view from the cliffs is wonderful.
Hi Lorac
will you keep visiting the lake over the winter?
5* would mean don't get out of bed for the day to me...
Happy days
Disregard the log in name. didn't sign into Google
Deborah - Thank you, I think so too!
Turquoise Diaries- It was a great weekend!
Ann-Thank you. It is a long walk but worth it.
Delwyn-We do go up in the winter to shovel the roof and the boys go snowmobiling on the trails. Sunday it was -2C all day. I think that it is not your cup of tea! LOL
Shutting down the cottage for the season is a bitter sweet experience. Glad you had so much help.
happy thanksgiving! it sounds like a perfect weekend and that view is so beautiful. wow burning rocks!!! what a good idea. what kind of rocks are they? must be sad packing up the cottage for the winter? thanks for your lovely blog and insight into Canada
Barry- Exactly! We make the most out of the weekend, so nice to have family and friends around.
Val -Hi there! Good to hear from you! It is sad to know I won't be back until spring. I am going to try to get up in the winter with the guys, but then, I tried and didn't make it last year too!
Is this one of the Dorset holiday cottages ?