Beach Baby

 Went with Kathleen to her cottage today to make sure there was no damage to it from the storm Sunday night.  There were reports of a mobile home nearby tossed over by the crazy winds, and other wind related damage so she wanted to make nothing had happened to her place.

On the spur of the moment she suggested bringing Mac along for another adventure so we stopped by Denny's house and got the hound and took off.

Mac had a good time, she did a little wading, a little rolling on some seaweed after we nixed rolling on the dead bird and the dead fish.  There was one tree down beside Kathleen's cottage and thankfully it landed on the neighbor's garage and not anything on Kathleen's property.  Although it is leaning on the hydro wires so she's going to have to call and get that taken care

of asap.

Once we left there, we decided to drive over to the cottage area hardest hit by Sunday's storm and the news reports weren't kidding - there were tons of trees down and some of them were pretty massive.  They'd fallen on cabins, on out buildings and vehicles.  Hydro crews were everywhere trying to restore power to properties that had downed wires.
It was pretty sad to see what a mess the area is.  They are still trying to recover from last summer's floods so the storm damage is just added insult.

I finally got the chance to take some photos of a sunflower field but I really wasn't impressed with any of the
photos I took there.  But I did finally get a good one of a hay bale. I always joke you can tell I'm a city girl because I'm so enamored with taking photos that look 'country'.

Market to Melting

Started off at the Farmer's Market. I think that was a popular choice with half the city.  The place was packed but compared to the last market this one had tons of vendors and tons of produce choices.

 There were vegetables and flowers and baked goods as well as arts and crafts. Not sure what kind of flowers these are, but they sure looked cool!

After the market we decided to go to Fort Whyte. Things started off great, there was a bit of a breeze and hardly any crowds.

But the more we walked, the hotter it seemed to get.  Of course it didn't help that instead of wearing shorts or even capris, I was wearing yoga pants.  Not sure what possessed me to put those on in the morning, especially considering what I knew the weather was going to be like.  Was supposed to be high humidity and high temperatures and guess what?  For once the forecast was bang on!

By the time we made our way through the boardwalk area and part way around the lake and finally to the buffalo viewing mound I was feeling like I was about to melt.  The buffalo were hiding on the far side of their enclosure and basically looked like little dots on the horizon. 

Next time I wear shorts. Or else I wait to go back there until fall.  Or winter!

Summer Road Trip

 Denny, Darrell, me and Mac went on a road trip up to Winnipeg Beach and Hecla. The first stop was in Petersfield to take pictures of the giant Canada Goose statue there.  Mac decided the first stop was the perfect time to jump in the water for the first time so she barreled on in and there were a couple times we weren't sure if she was going to come back out again.  She seemed perfectly content just standing around in the water.

Next stop was Winnipeg Beach and talk about crowded.  The first obstacle was finding a parking spot.  There was nothing on Main Street or along Prospect so we wound up driving over to the marina and then just walking along the lakeside to the boardwalk.  Didn't seem too hot when we first started out but by the time we made it to the beach and the boardwalk it was definitely hot. 

From Winnipeg Beach we went to Riverton and stopped to take photos of the giant moose statue.  Yup, practically every town in Manitoba has some kind of statue as a tourist draw!  Winnipeg Beach has this giant wood carving!

It was a lot cooler beside the water on Hecla Island and Mac celebrated by playing fetch in the water.  Felt sorry for her later when all the sand flies decided she looked like dinner.  Her back was just covered in them but she didn't seem overly bothered by them.  They probably couldn't get through all that thick fur to bite her, thankfully!

It was getting more and more cloudy as we went from Winnipeg Beach to Hecla and just after we'd finished a walking tour of Hecla Village and got back into the car, it started to rain.  It was just a brief shower but it was nice and cool!  Planned to have dinner in Gull Harbor but service was non existent at the restaurant there so we left and drove to Gimli and got fish and chips to go and ate down by the lake.  A picnic was the perfect way to end the day!

Zombies, the sequel

Here's the second Floss Box design for Pam and her husband.  Obviously this one is a Christmas design and its just as completely adorable as the Halloween design I finished earlier.  Can't wait to work on the next one but since it worked out so well last time when I did another project before starting another of these ornaments, I'm going to do the same this time.

Country Roads

 It was cloudy today and normally that would make me shy away from taking photos but for some reason I had the urge to capture some images of dramatic skies.  And I wanted them over fields.


The first road I chose, hoping not to have to go too far outside the city, was a bust but about a half hour out of the city I finally found what I was looking for and the clouds were willing to cooperate.

A wheat field with easy access to the road, hydro lines along the highway, and a plain old gravel road caught my eye and I'm pleased with the results.

Zombies!

Here's proof I actually do cross stitch some of the time, okay actually its proof I actually FINISH a cross stitch some of the time.  I'm really good at starting them and I have a container full of WIP's to prove it.  This is going to be made into an ornament for Pam. Its a zombie Halloween design by The Floss Box.

Love how adorable it turned out.  The cat is supposed to be black but Pam's hubby's fave cat is their Russian Blue so I tried to stitch the cat in the design in a colour reminiscent of one.  There are three other designs I'm going to do for them, but I'll intersperse these quick stitches with other projects to try and keep myself motivated.

Happy 4th of July!