Whiling Away the Day

I don't have too many notes from this day, it was filled with doing "this" for a while and then "that" for a while. We probably even got involved with "the other thing" for a while.

The kids whittled some decorative sticks, which we decided to bring home — controversial! As the kids learned in Scouts and Guides, moving wood is not a good idea. The danger is introducing pests from one area into another. For example, this is how the Emerald Ash Borer came to Ottawa, which claimed one of the trees in our yard (I put that tree up our chimney, so it wasn't a total waste). In this case however, the sticks are small, so clearly not bug infested, and won't be left to rot in our neighbourhood. On the plus side, it is nice to have souvenirs and the sticks make a nice display on their shelves.

Lunch

Lunch was two boxes of Kraft Dinner with kobasa chunks and another half of a sliced cucumber. The quantity sounds about right for us, but an extra box probably would have been eaten too. We'll take more kobasa next time.

We really were hungry that day and had a snack of cheese and crackers that afternoon. The block of cheese was another food item that I wasn't sure about packing, but was glad that we had. It was a 2-year-old white cheddar which kept well it in our beeswax wrapper. I'm not sure if the wrapping had anything to do with it, but the cheese was good for the entire five day the trip, and we'll use it next time too.

Nothing

During the day I converted the rest of the teeter-totter into firewood, thinking that we might roast the rest of our marshmallows that evening. As described later, we had a rainy evening and this wood wasn't used and we left it for the next people. However, at that time of year it seems unlikely that anyone would be at this site before the wood rotted. Either way, good etiquette isn't wasted and it gave me something to do.

I also had some time to read by the shore. I noticed a few groups canoeing along the far side, all coming out of the Varley Lake portage. I think most of these people were heading through to other lakes. The few sites on our lake seemed to be taken, and there was still plenty of time in the day to get other places.

Other than a short excursion for water, our canoe stayed parked for the day.

Almost Neighbours

Later in the day, I did see one canoe head toward our site, apparently looking for a place to stay. Our canoe was parked around back, which might have made the site look available. We hung the big blue tarp in a place where it should have been visible, but maybe the site was too dark for it to stand out from that distance. Eventually they got the message and turned away, headed for the site to the north. That was also rejected, they probably didn't like our dark shoreline. I didn't see them back, so I think that at least one of the other sites on the lake was still available.

Loony Tunes

Katherine worked on her loon calls and we were all surprised to hear the loons calling back. She was able to make two different ones, the traditional long howl and a shorter ha-ha-ha-ah sound. The second seems to have something to do with fish because the loons would often dive after hearing that one. It could also be a warning cry, but the loons didn't seem to be in distress, so we figured that it was just to find food. Of course, we don't actually know what she was saying, it might have been something like 'Hey Fatso!' — maybe they were leaving due to the insults.