June July Recap

WHERE ARE WE? Rivers Provincial Park, Rivers Manitoba

I have been a little tardy at keeping up with the blog, but what is the saying? "Better late than never"

We are in full swing here at CJ's and the summer is going by so quickly.  A few things of interest have happened so its time to bring you up to speed.

Early in June we were treated to watching the nest of Great Horned Owls emerge from the nest and make their way into the big world.  We had lots of bird watchers from all over Western Manitoba coming to take pictures so I stole a few!!!  They have since flown away but some have been spotted not too far from here.

Mom always keeping a watchful eye

A fuzzy chick

I see you!!!

Mom again warning us to keep our distance

And the ear!!! In early July I was lucky enough to get an appointment to see the surgeon to get my little friend removed.  The Dr was amazing and she did a wonderful job of removing it.  Was it Cancer I asked?  Of course it was she said.  All growths like this are a form of cancer but this one was very consolidated so she got to cut it all out. She said it was definitely from the sun so I will be wearing a hat more often now I guess.

Before

After surgery

A day later

A week later

And today.  All healed up and a nice job of reconstruction.

Because we are like normal people, we collect STUFF!!!  Over the years here at CJ's we have been hoarding some things in the back room and it was time to find alternate storage.  A friend down the road had this van for sale with an 8 x 16 foot box.  The thing still runs, (barely) so I bought it to keep our precious (junk) stuff in.  I seem to have an obsession with yellow!!!  We call it "Ole Yeller!"

And every Thursday morning around 6 am that supply truck shows up.  Although I dislike getting up at that time of day, I must admit I enjoy joining Sheri at the shack and chatting with Tim and Justin the delivery guys.  Sheri always makes them coffee and eggers for the road.  

CJ's has been quite busy even though the weather has been crazy with cold, hot, wet, windy and anything else a Manitoba spring can throw at you.  Jill and Mia are our managers this year and we have tasked them with basically running the show.   I know they will do a great job.  We are so lucky to have great staff this year.  It means we don't need to be around all the time.

                                                

Dani and Sheri help out a lot with firewood sales

I do have a little side gig that keeps me occupied.  I do small repairs and maintenance for Manitoba Housing.  There is always something to do and it keeps me out of trouble.

Putting hinges back on doors

fixing screens

resecuring downspouts

redoing eaves troughs

And of course we have to take Archie for a run a couple times a day.  We run him down to the boat launch which is a half mile one way where he jumps in the water to cool down and then back home another half mile.

And every year we have some of our employees graduating.  This year it was Jillian and Serena.  They do a march downtown to show off their beautiful dresses. Good job girls!  It's kinda bitter sweet because often after graduation they go away to school or work and we have to let them go.  

Karalee and I spent a little time building some shelves in "Ole Yeller!"  We will be able to store a lot of stuff in here.

My other chores include being the gopher.  Go for this and go for that!!!   Here is my list today.

We have some great wings and every Saturday night is wing night.  The girls are always coming up with a new flavour.

One thing we have trouble with around the shack is Richardson Ground Squirrels.  They get real tame and will bite your toe to get your attention if you forget to feed them.  I keep trapping them and relocating them but there are so many it is a full time job.   They sure give me heck when they are in the live trap.

We have a live trap for our employees too!!!  Because the doors are open so much on our ice cream freezers it is almost a weekly task to get rid of the frost build up as well as clean up the spilled ice cream in the bottom of the freezer.  Mia takes the task quite serious!!!

Our newest venture is selling Bison Burgers!!  We purchase our bison from a local rancher and it has been a hit.  The taste is amazing and once again the girls have made a sauce that compliments the meat perfectly.   There are only a couple other places in Western Manitoba that sell bison so we hope to become known as the place to get Bison Burgers.

 

love the entrance to the ranch with the buffalo skull.

We always say we will enjoy sitting around the campfire in the summer but it seems we don't get a lot of time to do that.  We have a pretty camp spot for the summer but between being busy and just life, we don't do it enough.

And then on June 29th the heavens opened up and it rained.  Man did it rain.  It was fun to sit on the porch and watch it but we also knew this was going to bring up the lake level.

The water came half way up the parking lot overnight.  It reminded us of the flood of 2020 which ironically started on June 29 as well.

The kids loved it and the paddleboards and kayaks became quite popular.

About 4 inches

So what does one do if life gives you lemons?  You make lemonade.  So life gave us flood water so we bought a pair of Seadoo's!!!  It's like an end of life crisis, but what the heck.  We have lots of kids and grandkids to enjoy them.

We could park them right in the parking lot so that was handy.  You can see the dock way out there.

It seemed like Sue migrated to the red one and of course what colour would I choose? Yup yellow!!

They are big enough to pull the tube behind with kids in it so that's a bonus

Of course with all the water around, the mosquito's went crazy.  We had to go out and buy a stock of mosquito spray to sell.  They lasted about 2 weeks but their numbers have declined lately.

And of course the old wood truck had to blow another lower ball joint out in the parking lot again this year.  Oh well, just another thing to fix.  I'm glad I bought all the right tools to fix it last year.

Oh look, we are out of ice cream in one freezer!!

Oh yes that was fixed the next morning at 6 fricken oclock!!!! LOL

We had a Canada Day Parade in town so we put the CJ's jeep in it with some kayaks. Kids had fun riding on it.

Once again the grandkids all had swimming lessons at Aspen Grove campground. Sue went and stayed for the week with them.

And we had our yearly hatching of Eastern Phoebe's.  There are not a lot of them around here so we feel privileged to have them nest here.

The girls always like to entertain Max. They made him into a robot today.

One thing Sheri enjoys is her coffee on the deck. Look what she has on her lap. Yup Dani has a new puppy. Her name is Honey and she is an 8 weeks old cocker spaniel. Ever cute!!

And for a little excitement we had a bear in our tree. How cute is that.

We still have music every Saturday night and boast that in the 4 years we have been having music we have never been rained out.   We have some name brand singers come to visit.  Our crowds are generally between 50 and 75 and we have had over 100 a couple times.  Shaya was with us this week.

And we started a Sunday Southern Gospel presentation. Stan and Shannon were here to sing for us.  We had a nice little crowd with some good old hymns that made you want to clap your hands and sing along.

And although La Penita Mexico has some spectacular sunsets, Manitoba has them too. There is a bit of smoke in the air and it makes for a nice coloured sunset. Good Nite!!!