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October 2007 |
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28 October - Getting Ready for the Winter
Well Poor Marie is still in the water all alone. We made an arrangement with a marina to bring her in but they warned us that the water level was nearly at it lowest at that point and we may have trouble getting in. They had a boat that was stuck in the channel for 2 days before they could finally drag it in. We thought we would give it a go anyway and went to great lengths to heel the boat over, making a makeshift mast and hanging the dingy off the side. We removed as much of her content as possible, to make us lighter and shallower, but when we tried to get her up the channel we still got stuck on the bottom. The marina came and towed us back out again, but said that the water always raises with the autumn rains and they will be around the whole winter so to try again when the Lake has filled up.
Typically for us this autumn so far has proven to be one of the nicest they have had in a long time, the weather has stayed warm and the rain at bay!! Would you believe it!! We were beginning to have serious worries about what on earth we were going to do with the boat for the winter, the railway bridge at the beginning of the Richelieu has now been shut for the winter so we no longer have the option of taking the boat into any of the marinas further up. Luckily in the last week the rain has shown its face in good quantities and the level of the river looks to be slowly raising. We are keeping our fingers crossed that in a few more days it will be high enough for us to get into, if not we will have to wait for more rain, failing that all sorts of other crazy plans are being hatched!
In the mean time, we have been helping out as much as we can on the ranch, Stuart has been heading up into the woods every day with Andre's father, chopping down the dead trees to bring back to the house for firewood for winter. I have been helping Isabelle redesign her website. We have greased up a lot of the machinery and put it away in the barn ready for winter, cleared stones from the horses pastures, emptied barns of old storage, brought in boats and piers for winter storage. We have spread manure, brushed down horses, replaced fence posts and chased horses around the pasture for photographs! In the last 2 days one of the foals has left for his new home and a gelding swapped temporarily for the winter with a previous inhabitant.
Click here to see pictures of around Lacolle and back at the Ranch and click here to see pictures of boys in the wood
Its not all been work, work, work though!! We have been introduced to friends and family of Isabelle and Andre's and experienced yummy dinners in wonderful settings with lovely people. Sitting by the lake in the evening around an open fire toasting marsh mellow was pretty fantastic! We have had new dinner experiences such as Caribou steak (the Caribou was caught by Isabelle's brother) and Caribou spaghetti and a traditional dish called 'Raclette', which involves eating a lot of melted cheese! Yum, yum!! Stuart has been off sailing dingy's with Andre and friends, and we have both done a large winter clothes stock up at a huge charity shop with Isabelle. We now have enough jumpers and trousers to keep us toasty (and won't have to rely on 4 bikini's and a pair of swim shorts to keep us warm in -30°C!!) Stuart splashed out on a new computer with birthday money from his parents too. We were pretty impressed with being able to buy a computer with monitor for £250, CD, DVD and Lazerscribe writers with 250GB memory.
And... we went flying in a 4 seater Cessna!!!! 'Carol' a friend of Isabelle and Andre's, often fly's and offered to take us out with her when she next went. We woke up last Sunday morning, fed the horses, then Andre said, "we're flying at 10am!" Crazy, I was a little nervous (ok very nervous!!) to start with, I have never flown in such a small plane before and its so light and small inside it felt as though your car was taking off, its just not right to have that much air below your car!! But it was such a lovely day and after a while I got into the swing of things (even though every time Stuart nudged me to point something out I thought I was going to fall out!) We flew over the farm and the boat (poor Marie all alone) and got to see the whole of the area from above. It was definitely not something I had expected we would be doing here!
Click here to view the flying pictures
Fingers crossed next time this is updated Marie will be out of the water and tucked up and warm in a nice marina. We have a possibility of snow showers this week too!