Neighbours

D & Papa post-swim

The weather this summer has just been unstoppable. When I woke up on Saturday morning it was gray and I thought, “Oh, it’s going to be our first cloudy day at the camp.” But by 9am it was sunny and warming up to be a scorcher. 

But it's the abundance of beautiful days that has helped us get out and about and meet our Chezzetcook neighbours. Whether it's on a walk over to the beach or taking the green bin out to the end the road, I'm definitely feeling like we're beginning to be part of the neighbourhood. 

We met Dwight and Andrea first. Then Tracy and Steve. John a couple of weeks ago and more recently Doug and Mary. We even had a visit and tour (beautiful gardens and inspirational bunkie!) of their place when we dropped in to say hi the other night (the baby swing out front was calling!). 

And all that socializing paid off too. When the truck wouldn't start Sunday morning (we left a door open overnight) the entire neighbourhood came to our rescue. I'm kicking myself now because I didn't take any photos. It was my job to get Diego to sleep so I forgot to get a shot of the narrow driveway-two-sets-of-jumper-cables-strung-together set-up. It was one of those "oh shit" situations that was solved lickity split. 

But our first two-night weekend included lots of other fun too! Diego is loving playing in the waves during our beach walks. He wears his swim trunks so we can dip him in and out of the water. 

During Kharim's run with D, I mowed the driveway and lawn. After a couple of months of chopping and mowing I was able to lower the blade today. The lawn is looking more like grass and less like hay these days so that’s reassuring. My favourite part is mowing the driveway. It’s so pretty. Afterwards I took out my (pink!) loppers to trim the trees in the driveway. I filled the green bin so I bought some orange compost bags for extra green stuff. I have so many tree cuttings it’s hard to keep up. In some ways I think I should just chuck all the cuttings next to the boathouse where I want to put a load of fill. But I’ve decided against it because it’s too messy looking. There’s enough scrappy looking stuff on the property as it is, tree cuttings I can at least clean up. It’s all about the little things I can control.

Speaking of control, Diego’s nap schedule has turned into something I can’t. He was so good for so long but this week it seemed he had boycotted the whole nap concept. But today he had a marathon nap from 11am-4pm! Perhaps playing in the waves combined with country quiet is the perfect recipe. The lovely downtime gave me a chance to finish my book (The Gravedigger’s Daughter, Joyce Carol Oates) while Kharim paddled his surfboard across the lake to check out the surf on the other side of the sandbar. I don’t think it was surf was high but he had fun all the same, despite the nasty cut he got from a wipeout.

We had a late run into Porter’s Lake for supplies: water, duct tape, band-aids. The guy at Home Hardware even gave Kharim a short length of wire that he was going to use to clean the hot water heater pilot light. Unfortunately the little wire was just in the bag loosely and ended up being (mistakenly) dumped in the garbage with a poopy diaper before we made the trek back. So hot water is on hold till next time. (But with the hose sitting in the sun I had a pretty long hot shower today.)

Me & D after our swim to the sandbar behind us

Before dinner the whole family swam from the point over to the sandbar, which is roughly 200 metres. Kharim and I swam, Diego drove his little police boat. The water was beautiful. A wharf would’ve made the launch smoother, but I used my Crocs to help ease into the water instead.

After our social call to the neighbours we finished off Saturday night by popping open the wine the McLeods brought us last week (Jost Prima Rosa). Yum. We'll have to get some more to take with us for our next baby swing adventure. Who knows when we'll need to be rescued again.