There's no place like home

    For the two years after my father died, I dreaded coming back to deal with his estate. Everyone in the town seemed downtrodden and depressed. (of course we were spending a lot of time in Walmart :-) Once, on a drive down in the Fall, I did notice and photograph the brightly coloured maple trees and of course, the swans, but in this past year the whole area has seemed different to me. I guess, that now, the grief has lifted and I am seeing it through the eyes of an adult that loved it as a child.
     Another added bonus: the entire County next door has developed and gentrified into a wine producing, chef attracting, antique selling, tourist destination. I always loved to go around to Prince Edward County when I was young because we went to the beautiful Sandbanks Provincial Park and would spend long days at the beach in the white sand and surf. Never in my wildest dreams though could I have imagined such a perfect haven for my adult passions of Eat, Drink and Buy dead people's stuff! check out the Taste Trail?!?!? Ohhhhhhhh yaaaaaaaaaa!

Outlet Beach at the Sandbanks, circa 1964

                          Dune Beach, July, 2013                                                           

Clearing the Land

     The best laugh is that hubby and I thought we'd do this ourselves! After 4 days, 2 experienced "bushmen" with a backhoe, a 3/4 ton and a 20 foot long trailer, we are still not THERE yet!

Here's Hubs doin' manly things....with his mini-chainsaw, brand spanking new, that was intermittently starting and intermittently quitting and the chain popped off. I thought he looked great in the wife beater I bought him for the event, though. :-)

I'm determined to keep and maintain the shoreline native plants and hope to reduce the Zebra Mussel infestation in future but in the meantime I also had to plant SOMEthing. Seemed funny to plant in the middle of this construction(destruction?) site but I couldn't wait to get my Hercules vines into the ground.

 

This is the current shore line. I think these are Morning Glory? I'll figure it out. I'm constantly asking anyone I meet down there: "What's this called?"



....But this? this is what I call our "Stairway to Heaven"