July 7 1988 Brimley Michigan
Peter Donnelly's Cottage
One hundred seagulls have invaded the
sandbar in front of the cottage. A couple of sandpipers are foraging but
keeping their distance. It is a bit hazy so we will have another
record-breaking day in the heat wave that has continued for several days. It
was 97° yesterday 100° in the Sault.
This year we have left our Canadian haunts
for the American shore of the St. Mary's River to a cottage at Brimley
Michigan. It is a beautiful spot. I am not sure whether we are in the lee of an
island or below the hook of land Point Iroquois, which forms an arm of Brimley
Bay. There is a river mouth two cottages west of us.
A
lovely sand beach and a small dune fronts the cottage. Far across north and
northeast of us there is a blur of land that is the Canadian shore. At night we
can see the revolving searchlights of the Sault Airport and looking to the far
northeast on a clear day the plume of pollution from Algoma Steel is physically
visible just up off on the horizon.
Suzanne scouted the territory early in May
with a friend who was familiar with the area and came upon the owner of the
cottage quite by chance, Peter Donnelly who also owns a small motel on the
highway. So here we are!
We
moved down in shifts, scouted the cottage on Sunday, brought the boat and chairs,
big stuff on that day and I came on Tuesday with Joanna Michael and Angela.
Jim
and Susan and children were up from Elliot Lake on Monday so I stayed home and baked.
Tuesday Jennifer and Sarah had dental appointments about braces and they came
down to the cottage in the afternoon and left for home late in the evening.
Jennifer has a babysitting job, so they are tied to Elliot Lake. Jim is
teaching a computer course in August so they are tripping to Susan's brother
and sisters next week and will not be back while we are here. They have a youth
rally in Elliot Lake this weekend, so their summer jaunts are restricted. They
both are happy with their teaching grades for next year. Jim has grade eight
and Susan has kindergarten. Sue looks rested and relaxed which I was thankful
to see. They have had difficult teaching years.
A crow has just landed near the seagulls
noisily announcing his approach. Steven and Christina stayed over Tuesday night
but went back with Suzanne yesterday. I only have Michael and Joanna who built
sand castles on the far sandbar only to have them disappear with the incoming
tide. There is a tide!
John and I sat and watched it come in on
Tuesday evening. It was so still. The water was very low having receded quite a
bit in the afternoon. We sat outside and suddenly there seem to be a current
starting, but there was no breeze. We listened and there was a very soft sound
of water movement. The ripples became stronger and the water lapped at the
sandbars and slowly eliminated the greater part of them. The crow is getting
bolder! He is marching up and down the cement blocks that border the river.
They were laid a couple of years ago when the water was very high. The water is
very low this year!
It is a year of drought on the prairies reminiscent or
worse than the “Dirty 30s”. The Alberta Ranch lands are dried up and herds that
have taken 25 years or more to build up are being sold because the grasslands
are destroyed for want of rain. Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the main grain
growing areas are disaster areas. The southern Ontario fruit crop is being
threatened. There have been a series of destructive forest fires here in
northern Ontario because we haven't had rain in weeks. Absolutely unheard of!
Evidently “El Niño” the position the Pacific Ocean
“gulfstream” I don't know the correct term, that occurred two years ago has
changed the Jetstream into two prongs instead of one, so that the winds that
control the moisture have gone north and south of the Midwest Prairies. There
are record temperatures throughout Canada.
Michael is moving so the day has begun!
Sunday,
July 11, 1988
I am
sitting all dressed up in white slacks and jacket and pink shirt ready for 9:30
AM mass in the village. It started to pour rain as I got dressed. I intended to
walk because if I start the car everyone in the cottage will wake up and they
were all up late last night. By everyone I mean Mary Jane and Suzanne in room
one, John and Michael in room two, Joanna who slept with me in room three, Brendon
Steven and Christina in room four.
The plan of the cottage is Pine paneling in
the living room; the ships wheel chandelier, indoor outdoor carpeting, and
sturdy nice maple furniture, ideal for us at $250 a week American. The cottage
is situated on Shenandoah Drive down the fourth Road from Highway. There is a Cemetery
at the corner of fourth and the highway which I'm prowled when walking early
yesterday morning. Names of the traders: Lapointe, McKay, McDougal, with one L,
the usual little lamb and angel. An unusual one probably of native origin “Never
Sorry”! All the Catholics seem to be segregated in one corner. There is a Sullivan;
one of the children who died was Ellen, Aunt Nell's name. I wonder if she is a
relative. The Sullivan’s all originate in Kerry. Brothers and cousins came out
and scattered. My father's mother's name was Sullivan.
Yesterday afternoon Joanna and I went to the Point
Iroquois Lighthouse. One hundred and sixty four steps in the tower where the
light was. Quite a climb, but my plastic and metal hip took it well. Then we
drove to the Cemetery Hill “Overlook” on the Bay Mills Indian Reserve. Prowled
that cemetery! One tall tombstone had a man's baseball cap on its pointed top.
There were artificial flowers everywhere. One plot was defined by a low cement
wall with earth filled with marigolds growing on it.
“That's what I would like to have” said
Joanna and my heart took a thud. Children and grandchildren are immortal. It is
difficult enough to confront my own mortality but they are immortal.
Mary Jane was coerced by Suzanne into
staying overnight. They spent the evening between Dave Vena’s rented cottage or
the other end of Shenandoah Drive and the Brimley State Park. They had a guitar
and singing musical evening. Suzanne was convinced that she wouldn't be “the
third wheel” her own label and went with John and Mary Jane. She came back for
Steven Christina and Brendon so Michael Joanna and I held the fort.
We went to bed at midnight, Steven Christina
and Brendon came in shortly after with the station wagon. They wouldn't let
their parents drive. sensibly although Mary Jane and Suzanne and John came in
about 1:30 AM certainly far from being drunk but had been drinking. Wise good
example in letting the children take over the car. There is a sailboat anchored
quite far out in the front of the cottage. Perhaps it will encourage John to
bring the boat out. It is too shallow, the water in the river is so low, to try
and get it into the Whiskey River. The name of the river must be derived from
the native chief who was the head chief of the Chippewa in this area. Chippewa in
the US, Ojibway in Canada, just a difference in Anglo sizing the name. His name
was “Ouiski” or “Owiskiwan”, his grave is in the Bay Mills Indian cemetery. A
very old one with the bark “Spirit Houses” on the graves! I hope I got some
good pictures.
Joanna and I included it in our tour yesterday
afternoon. The road to the Cemetery Hill overlook reminded me of Ireland's
roads. The trees met overhead and the road was narrow, unpaved and winding,
uphill and downhill. It wound around one hill on a shelf with this sheer drop,
no guard rails, to treetops far below. All kinds of trees, Oak, Pine, Maple, huge
old old trees for part of the road to the lighthouse is through the Hiawatha National
Forest.
I have
missed mass in the village. there is another one at 11:30 AM on the reserve.
Suzanne had offered to come to that one with me. I doubt if we will be able to
take the whole tribe since there is mass in Brimley Village we may be de trop
on the reserve.
I talked so much to the teens about the drive
to Cemetery Hill that Brendon took the station wagon and the three of them went
exploring last evening. They continued on past the Overlook and the Cemetery
and I guess the road got even narrower and steeper and more like a tunnel. They
finally came out on the highway at Point Iroquois. Point Iroquois is opposite Gros
Cap the Canadian side. It is where the Ojibway’s were in a bloody Indian battle
stopped the Iroquois invasion of their territory in the early 17th century.
The
early French traders knew it as the “Place of the Iroquois bones”. There is
another lighthouse and Museum I want to visit, a Marine Museum where there is
an exhibit of artifacts brought up from the wrecks of ships that line the
bottom of the area here. It is somewhere on the Lakeshore Drive at Whitefish Point
I think where the river becomes open lake.
The area where the Edmund Fitzgerald sink in
the storm on November 10, 1975! There was another terrible November storm
around 1910 1911 or 1912. I just forget the exact date but it was so severe that
many many ships were lost in the three upper Great Lakes.
The seagulls are quiet this Sunday morning
they are hunched over on the sandbar. It is now 10:10 AM and stopped raining.
The river and sky are several shades of gray. It is impossible to see the Canadian
shore and the arm of the bay is dark and reflected in the still water. There
isn't a ripple!
The
sunsets are glorious here, it is open to the west and the sun sets on the
horizon. The sunrises visible to the east I haven't quite made it yet but will
before I leave.
Yesterday
and today is the first break in a weeklong heatwave and prolonged dryness
before that. I have taken a couple of films already I hope I get some good
ones.
Brendon has just appeared in the hall. The
day has just begun. I sense the tension between teens and parents that was half
forgotten, but very familiar.
The
three teens are fine young people but the parents are too close and love them
too much to see it or are too worried and afraid for them to recognize it. The
three are defensive about their budding independence. Their friends, Christina’s
and Brendon’s come calling and Fiona seems like stable young one with a few clues.
She is a very quiet, shy I suppose. Colin is very quiet too. Fiona is more
communicative very graceful, tall, dark. I am sure that they are all strong
enough to stick to their principles I pray for them! There is nothing else to
do they are off on the road now even though still at home.
I am
surprised that some of Stevens following hasn't appeared at the door! They call him three at a time on Centennial
Avenue.
Brendon's
foraging for food a favorite occupation! I love them so much but try not to
show it because it would both embarrass and bore them.
Joanna and Michael are still children,
fun-loving and argumentative. They play cards “Hearts” and fight. They bicycled
to visit friends at Brimley State Park last evening and left it a little too
late and had to come home in the dark. Michael in the lead took a right turn
down Leyland, Joanne missed the turn became confused without her daytime
landmarks and had to ask “strangers” the way home. She was roaring by the time
she got here! Michael was yelled at for not waiting. They have been warned not
to separate. Michael is spooky about the dark so I'm sure he just took off and
headed for home full speed ahead.
July
15, 1988, I think!
It is
I know! It is the Friday of our second week. A hazy day, no longer a heat wave!
The past week has been mixed windy and cool, sunny and bright. I've been home once
on Monday to attend the Library Board meeting and on Tuesday to drive to Blind
River for Susan and Donna's Aunt Jean's funeral. Cancer! She demonstrated to
everyone the right way to live, acceptance, and the right way to die,
acceptance. She was a kind merry lady, has left a great legacy for living, to
her family.
Wilfred's new car performed well. He traded
his 86 Pontiac for an 88 Pontiac with cruise control, air conditioning, stereo,
and tape deck, very comfortable. He is off today to Toronto to be inducted as District
Deputy of the Knights of Columbus. I should be with him but the Toronto trip
came after I had booked the cottage.
It is
a great day! In the bedrooms are Joanna Rachel Michael Yorke Kyle Steven Olsen
and Michael Barbeau. John stayed in last night after Michael's ball game.
Joanna Rachel and I had a beautiful swim in the
waves yesterday, white caps and the water warm. We acted like porpoises
frolicking in them; my artificial joints stand up very well to such frivolity.
I haven't tried to bicycle yet, today seems to be a good time to try.
Suzanne is on 3 to 11 so she and Mary Jane are
slated to come out this morning. Neither made it yesterday and it was a much
nicer day. On Sunday there was a gang out. Brendon and Christina’s friends,
Terri and Johnny Veale, Dave Vena were all here with their children. The grey
day suddenly turned into a downpour! I ran to the clothesline where all the big
towels we're drying, got myself wet, but the, towels did not get sopping.
So Wilf and I took ourselves to Whitefish Point
Lighthouse and Museum. The lady at the store at the corner told us it was only
about 30 miles away; it was at least 70 miles away. A beautiful drive though to
Paradise Michigan, the sign “Welcome to Paradise glad you made it!” and through
the Hiawatha National Forest. The museum was well done professional, a 15
minute video to explain how the divers work, and the museum itself contains
accounts of wrecks, and artifacts from the ships having been retrieved from the
sunken ships in the area of Whitefish Point which is known as “the graveyard of
the lakes”. The Edmund Fitzgerald is one of them.
We both enjoyed the afternoon and evening
because we didn't get back till 8 PM, however they had saved some steak for us
and Wilf got the last piece of rhubarb pie.
In
the evening John and Dave and Johnny regaled us with music and song. They are
members of the group “The Night Shift” that have gotten together and play in
the Sault at the Marconi and for weddings and parties. They are so good! Johnny
didn't have his drums with him and he was bursting to join Dave and John's
guitars, so Suzanne tossed him two aluminum pots from the kitchen cupboard and
the rhythm sounds he got from these old pots was great! Mention a song and they
could play it! What talent what fun!
The rain has
stopped perhaps it will clear but it looks very, very, grey. We had one violent
storm Wednesday evening. We saw the clouds on the horizon and the wind rose and
it got dark. We could see the wall of rain sweeping towards us from the west.
Steven and Michael Barbeau grabbed the rubber rafts and sat behind them on the
beach to face it, but the wind whipped them around and snatched them and made the
rafts fly. They ran for shelter! One raft wound itself around the birches in
front of the cottage. Lightning streaked to the land across from us and there
was a wild crashing noise three or four minutes long and then it was gone racketing
down the Michigan peninsula. The power gone with it!
Another heavy shower but the clouds are
beginning to break towards the Northwest so it may clear now. I will have some
breakfast and bake some muffins. They are eternally eating, especially on a rainy
day. We played Scrabble until almost midnight last night. Johnny brought his
powerboat and waterskis to use on the weekend.
Clear!
Clear! Clear!
Saturday
at 10 AM
Yesterday was a day of wild winds and storms.
The water kept receding and then surging into shore. We walked far out where we
had been swimming the day before. Johnny Veale’s boat flopped to one side and
beached, then the sandbars disappeared under the water and the boat which had
been pulled way inshore was floating.
Michael Punch explained by saying that Lake Superior
is like a giant bowl. Strong winds push the water northwest, winds for example
from Thunder Bay towards the Sault, when they subside, the water flows back but
with a giant ripple effect just as if you tilted the bowl from one side to
another and then held it steady. the water would still move back-and-forth. That
was what was happening yesterday. The winds were shifting too; there was a
sudden blast from the southeast that set the tall trees dancing behind the cottage.
A “flight
herd gaggle” whatever it is of about a hundred or so blackbirds appeared in the
trees and on the grass behind the cottage, chittering, moving, and flying in large
groups in front of the cottage, picking at the grass. They were there for about
an hour and then gone.
A
duck with about 15 young ones went hurriedly by in front of the cottage, the
little one stumbling on the sandbars and flinging themselves into the pools,
swimming furiously to try to keep up with the mother. Michael Punch says it is
another bird other than a duck, because their necks are too long.
We expected Suzanne and Mary Jane for noon. They
did not come. I had chili for noon and then baked frozen chicken strips for
supper for Michael Barbeau, Michael Yorke, Kyle and Rachel Punch, Joanna Steven
and myself. I made banana muffins which disappeared!
Joanna
Rachel Kyle and Michael swam. Rachel is still the water baby no matter what the
weather; she is like a little seal the water. I just waded yesterday because
the water was cold. Then Mary Jane arrived about 7 PM with an extremely
reluctant Christina. Suzanne is on 3 to 11 so Christina could've stayed home,
and really unless her friends are here there is nothing for her to do. Mary
Jane let Brendon stay home, but Christina came unhappily and curled up in a
little ball in one of the big chairs, the symbol of resentful misery.
Suzanne is in a volatile mood these days. I
sometimes think she takes out a lot of her frustrations on Steven and Christina
not on Joanna. She also doesn't realize how disappointed Joanna is when she
says she is coming out and doesn't arrive. I tried to explain Suzanne to Steven
and Christina, but her complexities are beyond even my years of knowing her,
always always head strong, her own worst enemy.
The river
is very high and rough this morning, the sandbars have disappeared, and the
waves are rolling over the cement brick wall. There will be no waterskiing
today.
Mary was to come out with Tarryn but I doubt
if we will see them. Wilf is in Toronto and after Mary Jane left with Michael Barbeau
for the Sault, we lined the chairs up in front of the windows and watched
spectacular flashes of cloud to cloud lightning as a storm moved around us. The
four young ones were put to bed shortly before midnight, I went too, but I was
wakened at 1:30 by giggles from Michael and Kyle. Evidently Kyle had a sneezing
fit!
This looks as if it is going to be a day of scrabble
Trivial Pursuit and arguments. I hope Suzanne makes it! She is on a wicked shift, 3 to 11, and the
lineups on the bridge are fierce, but Joanna is lonesome and become
supersensitive and bossy, if you can imagine both at once. She was wrong
yesterday about the spelling of a word in Scrabble but would not admit it. She
ended up stomping noisily (and in her bare feet) into the bedroom and hiding
under the bed. I made a loud comment to Rachel hoping that there were no
spiders under there, so her retreat didn't last very long. She has acquired the
habit of making a derogatory remark to someone and then saying “just kidding”. Reminds
me of Joel cutting Suzanne with few words, then winking and smiling, he was
really “only teasing”. I love them so much; they have so much living to do and
so many hard knocks to survive.
I
hope Suzanne's unhappiness does not alienate Christina and Steven. She loves
them so much and is so hard for them to understand. Anyway I pray for them,
they will all survive, one way or another.
There
is movement in the bedrooms probably Michael Yorke who like his mother does not
need much sleep. Now Rachel is up.
We
have had a northwest wind and yesterday a Southeast. This morning it is
whistling in the trees more like a low howl. It is supposed to be clear and
calm tomorrow but with the kind of weather we have had this spring and summer
we can expect anything.
Rachel
is sitting like a small Buddha in the big chair in her pink and turquoise
jogging suit, colors lovely with her dark hair and big brown eyes. “What is
your, was your, favorite camp?” she asks “I say Richards Landing but I really
don't know” she is thinking swimming, “Mine is Point Aux Pins, then Richards
Landing and here the same, then Pine Island”. It is so grey today that there is
no north shore. On to breakfast!
Sunday
at 9:45 AM
Only the younger ones were with me last night,
Kyle Michael Joanna and Rachel.
Mary and Jim McIntyre and Tarryn came out in
the afternoon yesterday. JL was in some kind of a McIntyre snit when he came,
sat on the couch, superior, withdrawn, perhaps because he couldn't play golf. There
was a tournament on. It was almost as if he had been forced to come. Mary was
congenial, Tarryn the usual uncontrollable imp.
John
finally persuaded Jim to take part in a game of Trivial Pursuit with him and
Johnny Veale with Steven doing the reading of the questions. He began to enjoy
it in spite of himself. Tarryn was a bold nuisance in the game, but nary a word
did Jim or Mary say to him. He was on the beach with Michael Yorke and Kyle and
was being most obnoxious throwing sand and spoiling their games. Finally
Michael could stand it no longer and burst into the house. “I can't believe
that kid he's being awful.” Jim leaped to the window and I beat Mary to the
door. Tarryn had a large dead limb of a tree using it as a club. I made him put
it down. It brings back old memories when the McIntyre children could do no
wrong and the Punches were given no quarter whatever. An old old resentment of
mine kept in check by Mother. “Katherine let it be. It will only create trouble
and you won't change anything”. There was no waterskiing as the day did not
clear. We had a good time though and Donna and Michael stayed late until the four
went to bed.
Michael
has been up this morning had a bowl of cereal and back under the covers. There
was such a fog I couldn't see Johnny Veale’s boat anchored out front. I could
hear the groaning foghorns of the distant freighters. There would be no sleep
at Point Aux Pins this morning! The fog has lifted here and there is sunshine
and no wind, although I can see the fog bank on the far shore the freighters
are still complaining.
Suzanne was interviewed by Jackie Hoffman of
the Sault Star and the interview appeared on the front page of the newspaper.
Jim mentioned it and no one took him up on it. I just said “Oh she didn't think
it would be in until Monday” and the subject dropped with a thud. Suzanne is ONA
union president and there is a battle royal going on between management and
nurses at the General Hospital. Jim is a political appointee on the Algoma Health
Council which is also under fire. Golly I haven't read the article perhaps that
is why Jim was ready to erupt.
I
must call Joanna and Rachel, they want to wash their hair and have a shower
before they come to mass at the reserve church. There is going to be an Indian Purification
Ceremony at the mass. It should be interesting!
The
sun is shining perhaps there will be water skiing today.
Wednesday,
July 20, 1988
Sunday
was a gloriously beautiful day! John Mary Jane Michael and Donna all the teens
and the children plus Terri and Johnny Veale and Adam were here. Johnny's boat
did overtime towing the water-skiers. Valerie and Fred Dawson and Alanna were
here for part of the afternoon and the barbecue did overtime.
I
took the four Michael Kyle Joanna and Rachel, to mass at Brimley Indian reserve
“St. Kateri Tekhawatha”, where the native purification took place incorporated
into the Mass, (The veneration of the four points of the compass, north south
east and west, symbolic of the universe and of the mastery of Gitchi Manitou (God)
over the universe). Four people took four bowls containing water and stood in
the four places symbolic of north south east and west in the church. People
then went to them dipped their fingers in the bowl and bowed their heads for a
moment. Two elderly people (the woman very old and blind) took gifts to the
altar. She had the shawl on as did many women in the church. At the side of the
altar was the large ceremonial drum, and four children arrived in Native
costume drummed for the opening hymn which had the rhythm of native dancing. “Follow
in the steps of Kateri” something like that was the opening line. In place of
the homily the life of Kateri was told while a beautiful young Indian woman
stood on a high platform beside and in front of the altar and pantomimed the
actions. She had a deerskin loose dress with thong decorations and a decorated
headband for her parted hair.
Sunday was a fun day everyone enjoying it! Wilf
came out for supper having arrived from Toronto in the afternoon where he was
inducted as District Deputy for the KofC. He left his briefcase and all his
documents from the induction seminar on the airport bus in Toronto but luckily
it has been recovered.
Suzanne was off Monday and Tuesday, I went
into town for Monday evening for a K of C do, reluctantly, I must admit.
Donna
and Michael were out for Monday evening and they had a bonfire. Michael played
the guitar for a sing-along. They also saw a huge bird either a great Blue Heron
or a Sand Crane just as at sun set, feeding near the sandbar between the
drifted dead trees. The children found a creature which they have named “the
blob”, two of them in fact. Large jelly objects hard jelly and when turned
upside down there is a serrated opening. Steven pulled it open and said there
were guts and blood vessels, the jelly is hard and clear and comes apart in
chunks once it's poked. I am going to
ask fisheries when I go home, it could be some kind of jellyfish, but it has no
tentacles like the ones on Prince Edward Island or any color either. It looked somewhat
like a giant barnacle and there has been a Saltie anchored in front of the
cottage for a couple of days so the theory is that it is a saltwater species
that has died in fresh water.
One morning rather early I was sitting by my
lone in front of the cottage and there occurred wild chattering coming up on
the beach to the east. There was an Airedale who was prodding and smelling his
way up and down the dunes. Preceding him at a safe distance was a Sandpiper chirping,
chattering and hopping and flapping its wings. The dog was totally ignoring it,
but wherever the dog went to so went the little bird. It performed his antics
along the cement break wall, the dog left the beach and went out behind our
cottage and the bird was quiet but watchful. When the dog appeared at the other
side, the wild dance and chatter resumed until both dog and bird disappeared
along the shore. Was it a warning to other birds or had the dog come to near her
nest? Was he being scolded for a misdeed?
There was an old Indian Cemetery off the
road past the reserve. It has the small bark houses on the graves “Spirit Houses”
I took pictures and then broke my film taking it out of the camera so lost all
but one which wasn't any good. There is a bay and an inland pool that is
covered with water lilies and has myriad frogs across from the cemetery. I am
going back as soon as Steven and Rennie get up.
I have the four plus Steven and Rennie today.
Rennie and Steven took the flashlights and went walking after dark! Peter
Donnelly has given us the use of a canoe for the duration.
Last
evening was not good!
Michael
Yorke has injured his back and is out of the ball game series! Grumpy!
Joanna
wanted to go home with Suzanne! No! Grumpy!
Kyle
thought he'd like his own bed for one night! No! Grumpy!
So
they were a grumpy lot! I was tired, they wanted a bonfire, but it was too
windy, so they argued and baited each other and I was grumpy too!
They were watching adult programs on TV,
Michael Punch had stopped one before he and Donna went home, and I didn't have
the energy to confront all four.
I
put them to bed under protest at 11 PM.
This morning is sunny and breezy Michael
Yorke and Kyle are giggling and wrestling, Rachel is curled in a big chair, and
Joanna a true Olsen is still in bed.
July
22 1988 745 am
I have been up since 6 AM, tried for a
picture of the sunrise not very colorful this morning. Everyone but me moved in
last night. Today is cleaning day, John has already taken in two truckloads,
bicycles, boats etc.
The past two days were restless ones. Joanna
was lonesome for her cat and her hamsters and her birds and her house. Kyle
said he hadn't slept in his own bed since the last day of school, so three
weeks is long enough, but they will be bored at home in two days.
Last evening after everyone left for home I
had a lovely time. The sun sunset was as usual gorgeous; the two huge Sand Crane’s
put on a flypast for me! One stood like a statue in front of the cottage just
off the sandbar, one was feeding two cottages down, then at some signal they
both took flight and met out farther in front of the next cottage and flew past
our cottage, circled and flew east out of sight! Huge birds! We thought at
first that they were great blue heron's but I didn't see the turned up proof of
feathers on the head. I have to look up the bird and young ones that have
paraded past when I get home.
I hate to leave! It is beautiful here but Peter
Donnelly will rent to us next year three weeks plus. We will be back here the
last two weeks of July and the first two weeks in August next year!
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