Off to Clear Lake for May Long Weekend

Well, the mattress fit - hallelujah! And we had three wonderful sleeps on it. Almost hated to leave it behind...lol

I had heard that it had snowed at the lake (Clear Lake aka Wasagaming - pictures right - gorgeous isn't it?) but had not expected more than a skiff of snow around the bushes and stuff. It was everywhere! And deep! And...Bruno made it up there before we did - thankfully - and had to use the rake to "shovel" off the patio to get into the cabin. He is such a trooper! I was sure glad I brought my rubber boots... there was almost a foot of snow up there! What a beautiful sight - it was almost like stepping into a magical fairy postcard. There were icicles dripping in the sun, snowmen with solar light arms and sandals, trees laden with snow, a decorated Christmas tree with led lights - it was truly the most remarkable May long weekend I have ever seen.

Talking to various other brave souls and some of the older cabin owners who have been coming up since they were kids (at least 30 plus years) said they had never, ever seen this much snow on a May long before. The temperatures were great - I was out with just a turtleneck and quilted vest and was more than comfortable, until Monday that is - then we had a nasty, brutal wind that made being out quite unpleasant.

Got a lot of hand-quilting done this weekend. We even burned out (literally) one of our heaters. The smoke in the corner wasn't something that was supposed to happen - what a smell! Yuk. Glad it happened when we were in the cabin not down the street taking a shower - I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for a fire up there.

Bruno even took the kayak for a quick trip along the shore and checked out the ice floes on the lake. He asked if I wanted to join him but I am not that brave or (my usual excuse) experienced enough to brave the frigid waters yet - he said it was pretty exciting. lol

The cookhouse stoves were all stoked to the max this weekend. We have communal cookhouses (below right) in the "Old Campground" at Clear Lake. Although we have cabins and stoves or hotplates in them, the old camping cookhouses are still available for our use. It is such a unique setup here at the lake - our cookhouses, showers and bathrooms are all communal. Although it can be quite an adventure to head up the street to the washroom at the wee hours of the morning - it sure makes for more neighbourly type of co-existence - most of the time. I think there are a couple bonuses to having the communal facilities - among them - I never have to clean a bathroom up there, heat up the cabin when it gets brutally hot and you can't beat watching the northern lights and all those wonderful stars on your way down the street and back when you need to take that midnight call. Besides - how often have you had to run to the washroom at midnight, through the snow? Definitely a first for me this year! lol

Well, not much else new. Take care - hopefully the rest of May will be wonderful for all of us.

I woke up this morning and just felt happy -nothing else just happy. With all the changes in my life, the happy part of me has been more than subdued lately. I tell you, it felt wonderful! I even caught myself laughing a lot today - what a great feeling it was to have that back! I somehow think it is connected to the May long weekend and the fact that we are going to the cabin at Clear Lake for a couple days. This has always been my happy spot and when times get rotten I think about how wonderful it is up there and all the bad stuff just disappears. We even splurged and bought a new mattress for the lake! It is going to be pure bliss pretty soon if we make any more improvements. I don't know how I will ever get Bruno out of bed though - the only place he ever sleeps in is at the lake - the new mattress will never let him go. Now, all we have to do is figure out how to get it up there... If it doesn't fit in the back of the van, well, I guess it is definitely going to be a lo-o-ong weekend especially since Bruno already threw out our old mattress and the floor is going to be hard and more than a little cold.

I have been trying to figure out how to blend the remnants of two quilts and the large star block I made from my Dad's shirts into a special memory quilt for one of my uncles. I had an aha! moment when my daughter, Heather, came along and said "Why not just applique this cabin picture on top of the middle of the star? That'll tie it in." and voila it worked! I have all the pieces cut and ready to go - it is just a matter of sewing it together now. This quilt is for my Uncle Jim because he helped my parents so much while they were in The Pas and I really wanted to thank him and this is going to be a big cozy hug for him. I had taken some of my Dad's shirts and made a really nice Poinsettia Star from them - in blues, white and greens - not Christmas colours at all - it turned out really nice but I was finding it hard to incorporate the remnants from my Dad's quilt and his twin brother Frank's quilt into it as they had off-white/brown backgrounds and the shirt block was in the white/blue spectrum. I'll post pictures as I work on it.