Photo Gallery

Spring Time in Lacolle

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Isabelle's Birthday Party

Isabelle's Birthday on Easter Monday and wow look at that cake!!

Isabelle's mum spent ages making the chocolate horse wonder cake, and I am very sad that it is all now gone. I wonder if she fancies making another one???

The band were fantastic

and everyone enjoyed the party

A few days in Montreal

Stuart spent some time helping Pierre out at his place in Montreal this month and they very kindly invited me to stay too. Whilst Stuart was up to his knees in mud each day I had the opportunity to go and explore the city on my own which I really enjoyed, this is the McGill University Campus

What was the Ice Hockey pitch in the centre of the green

Stuart had a day off the last day we were there and we took a trip down to the old town and the St Lawrence

This is Habitat 67, a housing complex designed for the 1967 World Exhibition (which we think looks pretty nasty! It reminds me of the over crowded housing slums we saw in Colombia)

Trip to a Sugar Shack

Andre and Isabelle very kindly treated us to a trip to a sugar Shack, a traditional Canadian thing to do at this time of year.
When the Maple Syrup is harvested a celebratory feast is had with family and friends at the syrup making cabins in the woods (Sugar Shacks). There are a lot of big comercial Sugar Shacks now but you can still find very traditional small family run business around.

Our snow has just about melted but just North of Montreal they still have a little of theirs. These are the buckets that are tapped into the trees to collect the sap which will be boiled down to create the syrup

This is what the sweet sap looks like before hand

Slay rides for the kids

The barrels they used to bring the sap back in

having fun with the animals in the small petting zoo

He was such a lovely donkey

Then inside for the feast

Maple Syrup with everything

After the huge meal we come back outside to treat ourselves to Syrup toffee lollies

The guy boils up the syrup until it gets to a toffee like consistency

then throws it out on tables of fresh snow

then you come along with your lolly stick and wrap it all around

Yum, yum yum!!

General Horse Care

The vet has been to visit a few times to grind the horses teeth down, they can grow unevenly and leave very sharp long edges if they are not ground down naturally and will cut the horses gums and mouth if not removed

They were all pretty good about it and didn't seem to mind too much

Some of the more nervous horses were given a light sedative to calm them down a little

and poor Luna just wants to go to sleep

Finally got the rascally tooth that needed pulling, look at the root on that!

Stuart has been helping out with clipping some of the horses hoofs (with instruction and supervision from Isabelle of course, we don't just randomly chop!!)

Aww, what lovely toenails you have Pirate

Nice and short now

Warmer Weather has finally arrived

The deer are very happy that the snow has melted apparently a lot died this year due to the extreme amounts of snow making them unable to dig deep enough for food.

The Geese are all back too

But they had better keep there wits about them as lurking around every corner is a hunter hoping to get one for the pot.

Spring is time for a big tidy up and Isabelle is very happy to oblige by burning anything that makes the place look untidy!

and we have finally been able to start working on Marie

We shouldn't have the same problems getting her back out of the marina that we had getting her in, as with all the snow melting the river level has risen at least 5 feet! Good news for us,

not such good new for anyone who lives close to the river. Poor Isabelle's sister house is completely surrounded by water, we had to wade nearly up to our knees to get to the front door

This guy has the right idea, he steps out of his house into his rowing boat and rows up the road

I wonder why they are selling this place? Probably not the best time for viewing's!

Down at Marie and Sylvan's where we anchored the boat off of originally, now we could nearly tie up to their garden wall!

This is the height of the river in February which was already 2-3 feet higher than when we brought Marie in

and this is the water now up to the top of the garden wall!

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