Boy, that was a short autumn...

We ended up leaving the city in the wee hours of Friday morning.  DS was exhausted, and since we were taking both vehicles with the dogs taking up the back space in mine, sleeping on the road would not be an option for me.

A stop at SIL's place in Drummondville to pick up four young oak trees for transplanting to our property ended up taking 1.5 hours, what with the coffee and chat.  We made a quick stop for groceries, and arrived just after noon.  With me having cut back to two large coffees per morning, I was totally wired when we finally touched down.  For the first time since owning this place, there remained some color to the trees when we arrived for this long weekend.  Mostly gone by the time we left, and snow flurries....yes, that is what I said, snow flurries, enough to accumulate on the truck and ground, Saturday night and again overnight to Tuesday.

The beavers have been busy:  the lake was within inches of flowing over the causeway.  So high, in fact, that the beavers had taken to crossing the causeway overland, 'cause they didn't have to drag their branches up a slope anymore.

We picked up our wood on a slightly rainy Saturday morning.  Like last year, the maple is nicely dried.  Two pick-ups and our trailer with one layer got loaded, moved and unloaded in just over one hour by three women.  Not bad at all, considering we stacked into the trucks rather than just pitching the wood in.  Because of the recent rain, though, the maple got tossed into the carport and will sit 'til the next visit.

The beavers had felled the large poplar across the lake, north of the house, as well as another smaller one, in addition to the medium one they had felled earlier.  DS went and removed branches, and cut them into roughly 4' lengths.  We'll float them across the lake on one of the next two trips.

We planted the oaks across the lake, west of the house, in a line with 24' between them, including the tiny seedling oak we planted two years ago. They'll have lots of room to grow, and will get good light as well.  We used good earth from the garden area and added compost to the bottom of the holes from the forest floor.  Water and a good tamping and we'll hope for the best.  Although they can survive in our zone, there are very few oaks in the area, and there were none on our property.  While we had the shovels and little trailer out, we removed the two large rocks that had surfaced in the drive over the past two winters.  DS was sure they were huge, but I estimated not.  Should have bet a bottle of wine, I was right for a change!

I took care of the mouse mess and put out some traps.  Three days later, no catch, so I suspect that we don't have any in residence, but we left the traps out 'til next visit just to be sure.  And, we confirmed that our snow removal guy is still working and set that up.  I also got 'hold of the trapper, so the beavers ought to be gone by the time we go up at the end of the month.  I lowered the dam, so the water was down more than a foot by the time we left.  I'll take it out completely next visit.  The list didn't all get done, but we didn't just laze around, either.  And we winterized the outside tap, which was important.

I had been contemplating moving our bedroom around and proceeded with that.  The tools now take up half the space they did before, and are hidden behind the Asian-style shower curtains I bought about a year ago, for $5 each.  The head of our bed is against the outside wall, just south of where it will ultimately be.  We don't see the tools anymore when we're lying in bed, and aren't looking directly at the yukky part of the ceiling either.  Plus we have more room to move around.

I also moved the blinds from the south-facing LR window to the large north-facing one.  While we don't do it often, if we want to watch TV during the day, the window would be reflected on the screen.  Now it's not an issue.

We also visited with BIL who is back for a visit from working in Alberta.  They live on DS' parents old homestead, and DS had reserved all the boardlengths that are stored in the attic of the old garage.  She's the only woodworker in the family, so no one else wanted them.  We went to pick up some and she and BIL were quite surprised to see how much was actually up there.  We ended up with 34 cubic feet (yes, cubic feet, not board-feet) of mostly maple.  There are varying thicknesses from 1/2" to 2" and some as long as 14 feet.  DS says that what we picked up is about a third of what's actually up there.  Eventually, our DR table and chairs will be made from this wood.

Next visit is at the end of the month, as someone is celebrating a 50th...but we won't say who.  Hopefully the rest of the list will get done then.