Gardening and Golfing and Sailing Oh My.

Or perhaps,  “Life as we know it”.

I’m coming up a little sparse in the picture department though. The sailing was too lumpy for picture taking and of course, it would have been a good idea to actually take along a camera.  Just as well I didn’t.  Too lumpy.

That’s OK.  We can handle “lumpy”.   Only thing is,  I sort of gravitated up to the foredeck,  which meant that doing a sail change (we were over canvassed with a Genoa ready to go) resulted in getting thrown about like being on the far end of a giant teeter totter.  I’m a wee bit sore in places this morning.  Especially my knees.  Gah!

Just a reminder that I ain’t no spring chicken.  That too is OK,  there’s always Ibuprofen. 

Not that you give a rat’s tiny behind,  but we were also doing OK on the racing end of things,  since there’s at least one boat in our fleet that owes us time,  and my GRAND STRATEGY is,  if we can keep him within 10 to 20 boat lengths,  we can beat him.  It’s that whole handicap thing.

I’m putting these links in here so you can’t come along and say, “I have NO IDEA what you’re talking about.” 

So there.

Anyhoodle,  we could at least see the name on their transom, but we made a fatal error the second time we rounded the mark.   Um,  that one is worth looking at by the way,  as it will become clear just what we did wrong.

Or,  what our skipper did wrong.

He’s too polite.

That’s the conclusion we came to over a beer later that evening.   And by being too polite, I mean he didn’t enforce his “rights” at the mark,  since we were within three boat lengths of rounding and could have called off any other boats bearing down on us,  even though we were on port tack. 

Ya see?  It ain’t that simple,  now is it?

So,  we came in contact with the big yellow inflated thingy that they put out there that you sail around. You’re not supposed to do that. 

That would have meant a penalty of doing a three sixty at some point before finishing the race,  except for the slight issue of having snagged the ground tackle with our rudder!

Well now.  We were then totally screwed.  Ended up having to haul up the weights they had put on the other end of the thing,  deflating it and taking it with us back to the slip.  We made the skipper take it all over to the committee boat.  

Kind of like when your dog has to wear the “cone of shame”?

Later that night,  since we didn’t have our paper bags over our heads,  we got the WTF award. 

I’ll not explain that one.

 

BUT,  here’s what I learned!   That buoy should have had at least twenty feet of chain attached,  going down into the water.  That would have mitigated the chance of getting snagged on the ground tackle and dragging the whole contraption along the bottom.   The chain is heavy, you see.  And would therefor hang straight down.

I think they’ll be changing that.   One of the wise old sailors made a comment at the clubhouse along the lines of, “Those lazy buggers,  they’re supposed to use chain.” 

Hm.

I mean,  we still hit the damned thing,  but at least we wouldn’t have been dragging it half way to Hamilton. 

Possibly a slight exaggeration.

 

 

Well,  I put a couple other things in the title,  but now I’m starting to get a wee bit wordy with all this sailing business,  so I’ll only put in a couple pics for your amusement.

 

This is the joy of having trees.   Sometimes you just have to get up there and try and sort things out.  That dead bit has been hanging around for….a while.

The top of the shed is only 12 feet off the ground,  but I quickly realised just how lousy my balance is.  And no,  I didn’t take a header into the neighbour’s yard,  but man of man I was a wee bit unsteady.   That’s the extent of my aerial  tree pruning.   Just saying.

 

Plus then of course,  there’s the mess to deal with.

Oh,  and I’ve started the process of removing the old fireplace insert/stove/whatever the hell.

 

I now just have to put it on a dolly.  Off you go!

It has to go down the front steps,  but gravity is my friend.

 

And,  in keeping with the title.  (catchy title,  no?)

I’ll include at least one picture from our golf outing on Saturday.

 

Gotta do it again.  Ball swackin’ was fun.

 

I’m approaching my “word limit”.  

 

*thinks*.   That wasn’t really “gardening”,  now was it?  Meh,  whatever.

 

If I don’t check back, enjoy your weekend.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

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My face sorta hurts a little.

Always happens after I’ve gone to the dentist, which is where both Travelling Companion and I were this morning.  All was well in the tooth department,  but it’s really NOT my favourite thing to do. 

He was eyeing a tiny little irregularity that might need some attention in four or five years.  That works for me.  Other than that of course,  there’s the usual gut wrenching scrubbing,  picking, scraping and other such eye watering torture that took nearly an hour.  Such fun!

Speaking of “fun”,  of course I have to include at least a few more pictures of the weekend “Testo Festo” that we had up in Grand Bend.

We had been eyeing a pile of firewood at the back of the property that Henry felt he’d like to have split up one fine day.  Of course,  some of it was green,  so I was more or less keeping quiet on the subject.  (can’t really split green wood by hand, truth be told.)

 

So,  what could possibly get the adrenaline going any quicker than spotting a log splitter go by on the back of the neighbour’s truck?  

That’ll fill the quota in the “testo” department.

 

Now,  I don’t want to judge or anything,  but this thing was meant to be TOWED behind the truck,  not put in the bed.  Plus, the owner of the truck had a perfectly functional two inch hitch receiver on the truck!   I’m pretty sure I would have stopped at the hardware store and bought a drawbar if it had been me,  because putting that log splitter on the bed of the truck didn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

Didn’t matter,  we had ‘er off there and fired up in no time.

 

 

Didn’t take long for us to go through the entire pile,  and work up a little sweat.  But then of course,  there was all that beer calling us from the cottage.

 

I’m just making sure I have the camera set up correctly.

 

And,  there we go.

Thankfully it wasn’t as humid as it had been today here at the Ponderosa,  or we would have *really* been sweating.

 

All in all,  I think it worked out pretty good all around.  Henry got his woodpile spilt up,  and we had a bit of fun with a noisy contraption.   Win win.

 

I suppose that’ll be it for today. It’s going to cool down again tonight.  T.C. is in the next room flipping over to the political debate once in a while.   I haven’t the stomach for it.

Oh,  for those of you in far off places,  we have a Provincial Election coming up in a couple weeks.  The Liberals had a minority government,  and the NDP didn’t allow the budget to get passed,  so now we’re having an election. 

It’s a hard choice to make between a party that wants to cut 100,000 public sector employees and then magically create a million more (we only have 13.5 million people in the whole province,  so that doesn’t compute)  another party that has pissed away a billion on some sort of “gas plant” scandal, and the third party who forced an election that will now cost us roughly $79 million.   Of course,  there’s the "Green Party", (not a lot of confidence) and the "Libertarian Party". 

I’m not so sure about them either.

See,  even with more than two parties,  there’s still very little in the way of actual choices.  But this isn’t about politics here, so we’ll let it go.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

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Haven’t stepped on the scale just yet.

Didn’t think that would be prudent.

In the grand scheme of things,  I probably shouldn’t have another beer until some time about mid July.  Considering such things as “quotas”, and the concept of “restraint” or some such thing.  But that wouldn’t be all that much fun I figure. 

And you know,  I don’t *feel* too bad,  since there was a certain amount of moderation that was observed.  But only a certain amount.

Of course you have to understand that,  when a “guys weekend” involves each of the participants being either somewhat or well past the half century mark,  there’s not going to be any stories of closing bars in town or some such thing.  Not that I’d break the “Cone of Silence” either.  Also not prudent.

But no,  other than a trip into Grand Bend on Saturday for Brunch,  a round of golf and a trip to Sobey’s,  we were all content to lounge about and sip various libations.  Or eat.  Note previous mention of the weighing device.  Maybe I’ll need to do another “prep”?   

*thinks*.    Um,  no.

 

So I’ll throw up a couple pics for fun,  and maybe add one or two over the next few days.  I’ll also likely put some on the Book of Face,  so keep an eye out for that.

Not tonight though, I’m starting to fade….

 

So this was our destination, within view of the lake,  but not right on the lake.  Our host,  Henry is there to greet us.  We were just in time for Happy Hour.

After dinner or course,  there’s always at least one Lake Huron sunset.   Missed the sunset altogether Saturday night.  We must have been eating. 

I’ll not bother to name all the participants.  They know who they are,  and for those of you who don’t, well then what does it matter?

Of course,  this was just about our only evening activity. 

There was no “clubbing” in the evenings. Unless of course, you count giving the fire a whack once in a while.

 

I’m just rambling here,  so I’ll not drag this out for too much longer.

After breakfast on Saturday morning,  I had this overwhelming urge to have my picture taken in front of some of the local “art work”.  I guess that’s what they call it.

By the way,  the breakfast at the Colonial was OK.  I do recommend it.  Not overly pricey either.

I suppose I’m not really qualified to comment on prices there,  as I didn’t have to pay for my breakfast.  Something to do with a little contest we had the night before.  I’m not at liberty to give too many details due to the “Cone of Silence” restrictions,  but it was along the lines of the “cuss jar” of days of old.  Only it wasn’t just a quarter.  That’s all I can say.  A couple fellers had to pony up for breakfast,  and I wasn’t one of them!  Giddy up!

 

Oh, and then look what I noticed sitting just off the main drag!

 

 

Anyone recognise this RV? 

Don’t worry,  I didn’t rub my nose on the glass or anything.  Plus,  I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the inside,  so we didn’t take the time to look.

I had to break down and crop that one,  as my wonderful assistant had just a wee bit too much sky in the photo.

 

That’s it for tonight.   Tomorrow there’s something to do with a garden,  bunnies and a fence.  Should be just too much fun.

 

Thanks for stopping by.