The Canadian Chronicles: September 2022

There are things we do up here that we never do at home! There are things we can't do, things we don't have to do, things we don't have the opportunity to do, things we don't need to do and things we wish we could do. Last week, as we moved probably the 12th and 13th mattresses of the summer I just had to laugh! There would never be a 3 month period in my "real" life that I would have moved 13 mattresses! It just happens to be the summer of the mattress! In the farmhouse alone we have moved 6 mattresses this summer. We have a lot of mattresses...plus the new one, which meant a bit of shuffling. In the cottage we moved in a new one, moved the old one to another bed and moved that one to the curb. We also helped friend(s) move 4 mattresses. It was a 13 mattress summer! We are all sleeping very soundly now...from moving so many mattresses! Unfortunately, my back is paying for moving so many mattresses. If it's not one thing, it's another!

One of many this summer.

Back home, at night, we have dinner and then usually watch tv. We used to go out occasionally...pre 2020, then we just stayed home and watched tv or stared at some other screen. Up here, we don't watch tv. We go out! We go out to other cottages and play games or just chat. If we stay home we are busy watching the sunset, which for most of the summer comes late and lasts a long time. Then we sit in the sunroom and talk. Sometimes we play cribbage while watching the sunset. Other nights, I catch up on my social media...because I don't do much of that during the day. I have not watched a show in months! Not complaining either, but don't ask me about anything on Netflix! I don't know.

Netflix North

At home, we go out to dinner at least once a week and sometimes more often. In the two and a half months I have been up here, I have eaten dinner at a restaurant three times and had lunch out once. I have however, cooked A LOT! I might cook more at home if I had a huge garden out of my backdoor that produced mass quantities of food. Having so much produce is daunting at times. Dinner usually consists of whatever was picked that day or whatever is giving us an over abundance. Tonight we had stuffed peppers, because we had a lot of peppers! I must say the garden really spoils us, when we go home and bite into produce from the store that is weeks old instead of minutes old we can't help but be very disappointed. We also have dinner at other cottages. Communal eating is very common up here! When our extended families are here, in the busy part of the summer, we ate dinner with our kids and their families every night, as do many other extended families. Once our kids and their kids leave, the cousins pass the baton for cooking and cleaning until everyone has had their turn. This is one of the many things I love this about this place. Maybe I should have lived in a commune.

TJ, the great provider, in his happy place!

When was the last time you had dinner at home and then decided to just drop in on a friend or a neighbor? At 8:30 at night. It happens all the time up here. I love it when people just show up to visit after dinner and I love it when we are welcomed to do the same! I am starting to realize this is mostly a summer phenomena, as the days get shorter and the crowd is dwindling, drop-ins and drop-byes are less frequent. The darkness seems to already be keeping us inside.

Darkness...let's just consider darkness. Our dark sky allows us to see so many more stars than ever possible at home. Again, instead of tv, the night sky provides me with visual entertainment. I have had a good time experimenting with night photography. Although for every 10 photos I have taken, I have about one keeper, thank goodness for digital photography!

Billions and billions of stars!

And that one in a thousand photo!

While there is so much I love about this place there is a lot I love and miss back home. About this time every year, I watch the sun set farther and farther to the south and my inner migratory soul tells me it is time to go "home". TJ does not have as strong a pull to home as I do and so he will continue to live his retirement dream and stay a little bit longer. I will enjoy everything I love about this place for one more week and then this bird will fly south. The summer was a real treat! It was full of exactly what we love about summer up here. We were back...and it felt right! There were children who experienced the shore for the first time ever and I think they loved it! To see the love of the shore passed on the yet another generation is heartwarming! Our grandparents passed the love of this place on to our parents and them to us and we have continued the tradition and I sincerely hope some of them are the ones to pass it all on again!

I will miss this serene view on my daily walk!

With only 3 more days up here and countless tasks to check off the "to do" list before I go, I decided to mindfully enjoy the day as much as possible. I won't be walking along this country road with a view of the water for 9 more months, so I took an extra long walk today and soaked it all in. I won't have those super fresh vegetables for much longer so tonight we had squash, potatoes, peas and tomatoes, all from the garden. I won't have my favorite room in the world, my sunroom, for much longer so every time I sat down today I made sure to do it in here. I wonder if everyone experiences this last melancholy week. My head says to enjoy it for as long as I can but my heart already aches. "Parting is such sweet sorrow", said some famous British chap. How can one enjoy what they have and still feel a bit of sadness? We say goodbye to another summer at the shore. A summer that is now a unique part of history. While it did feel "normal", it wasn't quite there yet. There were still people we missed who couldn't make it up this year for one reason or another. Seems there is always a slightly different crowd every year. This isn't the easiest place to get to, which means everyone can't come every year. Each year is unique in some ways and the same in many ways, which is part of its allure. Au revoir, arrivederci, adios, so long, farewell...until we meet again.

These are a few of my favorite things....