Another Week in the Lives

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

Monday morning was the day to put the new Friends of Rivers Lake dock in the water.  Springland Manufacturing, a local company owned by long time Rivers residents, put it all together and delivered it and put it in the water for us.  The dock will make access to boats much easier for the disabled when we get it finished.  The Committee is pretty proud of the accomplishment!!!

I don't know why I decided to be the Incredible Hulk!!! LOL

My job today was to pickup the sponsorship sign from Brandon so it could be displayed at the site.  It just barely fit in the Jeep!!!

That pretty much filled up my whole day so I took a nice sunset picture of the finished product.

Today I had a little laugh.  We have a natural Manitoba grassland as part of our park and it is one of a rare few natural prairie grass areas left around.  Now I know we need to try to preserve these areas, but sometimes I wonder who decides what is more of a priority in the preservation process.  This boot brush showed up one day and I stopped to check out what it was for.  Apparently they think this thing will stop the spread of noxious weeds somehow.  A few things that don't make sense are:  1.  The weed seeds I brush off will be sitting there for the wind to pick up and blow all over the grassland. (But my shoes will be clean).  2. The trail is mowed every week with a mower that has been all over creation picking up noxious weed seeds and they are then spread all over the grassland.  3.  Not more than 50 feet from the sign is a large patch of Leafy Spurge which is one of the most hated noxious weeds around this area.  Control is by spraying or mowing.  The provincial park system has banned sprays, so only mowing will help.  Nope they are not doing that either.  So I just wonder what that little boot brush is going to accomplish, and I wonder how much money was squandered developing and implementing this ridiculous tax funded thing.  Rant over. lol

Our friends Jim and Marilyn are camping again this week.  Its nice to just slip over there and sit around their fire.  

Archie loves spending time with them too!!  He makes himself right at home.

This afternoon Michael and I stocked the wood boxes down in the seasonal area.  

Today we celebrated Dani's 16 Birthday.  We had presents and supper and a chit chat.  My goodness they grow up fast.  She is leaving on a trip to Mexico with her day in a couple days.  Have fun Dani.

We have some new little birds in the nest on our deck.  Two birds with one to hatch yet.  

On my trip to Strathclair on Wednesday, I spotted a moose out in a crop munching away.  They are such a majestic animal.

I stopped by Hamiota at Cj's on the Links for breakfast.  Riley was there to serve me.  They always have fun doing their jobs there.

In the afternoon, Winston and I did a couple of Manitoba Housing jobs.  We had to trim some trees around one of the houses in town.  I think we did a pretty good job.

And we finished hauling away all the trees from the manor this afternoon.  We always pick the hottest days to do that as well.

And Thursday came as Thursdays do...early.  I'm actually getting used to it.

We are starting to put a big hole in the second truck load of wood.  It won't be long and I will have to order more.  

My helper is always by my side.  He loves to go on Wood Wuns!!

I finally got all of the picnic tables that we used for the Hootenany put back where they belong.  This trailer makes the job easy.

Saturdays are our busy days and today was no different.  The girls had to work hard to keep the burgers, fries and ice cream going out the window.

Our Music in the Park guest was Shaya who entertained us along with her uncle Robin for the night.  The crowd loved her as usual.

After the music Sue and I took Archie for a run and saw our friend John Lepp out in his airplane spraying crops.  It must be a very tense job as there is no room for mistakes.

The aerial spectacle was followed by a pretty nice supper.

 Sunday was a good day after a busy weekend.  The ice cream freezer is empty so we had to put in an ice cream order today.  It will be delivered to Sheri on Monday.

A good day to put the feet up.  

And we have the kids tonight so Max makes sure his bedtime snack is Chocolate Ice Cream.  I sure wish we all could do that.   Good Nite!

Hootenany Week

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

My mother had a saying that went like this - "the faster I go, the behinder I get"!  That seems to be my life these days.  There is always something to do but it is not always that interesting nor does it seem to gain me any ground.  Monday, Canada Day, was one of those days.  Our community does not have a whole lot going on Canada day, because we have all our events scheduled for the weekend after Canada Day.  So that is why I have nothing to report other than I finished my day watching a few more episodes of Survivor 13.  

Remember Yul!!  Yup he won 13

How about Jonathan?  

Anyway, just to help me get farther behind, we were informed on Friday that we were the successful bidder for the caretaking contract for Manitoba Housing in Strathclair at their 12 suite seniors complex there.  So Tuesday morning Sue and I set off to Strath to check things out.  The cleaning part is fairly straight forward, however the 2 hour round trip drive is a bit of a logistical nightmare.  We are going to find someone to cover for us so we don't have to go so often.

When I got back to Cj's, one of the young guys we have was here to help me straighten out the wood yard.  We will be getting a truck load of wood soon and its nice to have it trimmed and stacked for that to happen.

After the wood pile clean up, we went in to town to do some tree trimming for Manitoba Housing.  We will save the cleanup for another day when the dump is open.

When I got back from my trip to Strathclair this morning, the load of wood I was needing had arrived.  8 cords in that pile.

Then I spent a little time with Sue and the grandkids and Jim and Marilyn on the beach.  It was a hot day!!  Maybe summer is here!

Today is order day and when I looked in the ice cream freezer I was glad we would get more tomorrow.  20 some pails this week!!!

I took Archie for a run and because it was hot, he decided a mud puddle would be the best place to cool off.  Little piggy!!

THURSDAY!!!! My favourite day.  Shipment day.  Up at 6:15 to unload boxes and boxes of stuff.  Oh how I hate getting up in the morning.  After I get going, I'm ok but its the start that gets me.

We are always working on our new POS system trying to get it to do what we want it to.  We have online ordering and lots of menu items to manage.  Plus there are always quirks to a new system that we don't fully understand.  We have found that the best way is to let some of our young employees figure it out.  They dance around on the screen, and poof... its fixed!!!

On my trip to Strath this morning, we found a bear on the highway.  He stood there until I tried to take a picture, then he started running up the road.  He was a good sized one.

Winston and I had a bunch more trees to cut in town again today.  The hedge has been overgrown badly in the last few years when we were not the caretakers.  So we spent about 3 hours there today.

As you can see there are lots of dumpsters (12) for the residents and they are only ever filled half full.  So I am going to screw the lids shut on 6 of them and hide them behind the building.  At least the garbage truck will only have to start and stop half as many times.

Friday was the day for getting ready for our "Hootenany" tomorrow.  We bring in a bunch of picnic tables and get them all set up.  We hope it will be a busy day.  

Dave Falkevitch went and got the beef for tomorrows beef on a bun, and when he got back, I insisted that we try it to make sure it was ok.  Oak River Quick Freeze had cooked and sliced the meat for us and we gave it a big thumbs up.

Samantha and Sue were having no part of our tailgate sampling.  Dave and I are farm boys so we don't mind a little dust in our roast beef.  I think we are ready so bring on the Hootenanny!!

This Friday Saturday and Sunday are busy days in our community.  Lots of different things going on.  Saturday is Hootenany day for us.  Its always busy setting up and making sure everything is in place.  Posters have gone out and Grace likes to help by designing her own poster!

We took a little time out of our day to take the kids into town for some horse rides.

It was a nice touch and we thank Lucky Break Ranch for donating their time.  The kids sure enjoyed it.

Grace

Emma

Max

The supper started at 4:30.  It was beef on a bun, potato salad, baked beans, and a drink for $25.  The proceeds go to Friends of Rivers Lake and it looks like we made about $2000 this year.

There was a pretty good crowd for the event.  I think we served about 85 suppers.  

We had a some very good talent on stage today as well.  Julianna joined us and was a pleasant surprise.  I generally try to stay away from singers with recorded music because I always liken it to Karaoke.   Well Julianna was not Karaoke!!  Then Jeff and Martin took the stage to finish things off.  Jeff is a local boy and has played for years on the local circuit.  We are tickled pink anytime he joins us on the stage.

Everything wound up about 9 pm and we retired for the evening.  Sunday morning we spent a little time on the deck with our friends Gary and Jean.  They are avid travelers.  We first met them in Florida about 5 years ago but have not seen them since, so we were thrilled when they stopped for a couple days to visit us on their way back from Alaska.

There was an antique tractor parade scheduled for 10:30 in the park this morning.  It was great that they came all the way down here to show us their tractors.  There were probably 25 tractors in total.  All of the campers came to check it out.  Here are some that had meaning to me.

Local farmer Harry Airey

I spent many hours on a W4 and its big brother WD9

Local farmer Lawrence on his Farmall H

Mark Gill

Abe Krahn showing off

An old AR John Deere.  I used to pull harrows with one.

An R John Deere.  Dad had a 60 John Deere which was a newer version

A U model Minneapolis.  My Uncle did all his farming with one of these.

Gary and Jean had to head out this morning so we said bye to them about later in the morning after the parade.  Safe travels guys.

Next on the schedule was the Friends of Rivers Lake Paddle Derby this afternoon.  We had a good turnout of people in Kayaks to complete the 5 km course.  Winner took home $125 with various other prizes.  We just got done when it poured.  Nobody got caught in the storm from what I heard.  We will have another one in September.

While the paddle derby was going on, some kids were busy catching fish off the dock.  Its fun to watch them fight with the feisty jacks.  

That was about it for our week.  Next week should be more normal stuff I think.  Good Nite!!!