The Old and the Restless

 Gisele and Jean-Louis (Hervé's parents), Hervé and Alicia before the meal. Brandon, Bryn, Sandra and Paul Paul's chevreuil with  Spätzle  arrived Brandon ordered the extra large piece of venison. ( He had been at the swimming competition all day.) He had no problem finishing everything.

Waiting for his turn. Finishing 3rd in the 50 metre butterfly. After the race. "Warming up" with Isabel before the 100 metre free-style race.

To go riding, Alicia and Bryn first had to get the ponies from the field. Then, the pony needed to be groomed. Note that his ears were back. Apache was objecting to Grandma combing his mane. Alicia cleaned his hooves with a pick. Bryn held the tether while Alicia practised voltige (trick riding). Note that she is not wearing a helmet.  In Switzerland, helmets are not used in voltige. Aunt Sharon is VERY concerned about that. After practising voltige, Alicia wore her helmet and safety vest to go for a bareback ride with Bryn. Bryn rode Billy while Alicia rode Apache.

Great use was made of the cottage at Rice Lake by the family, starting with Megan Tom and Maggie on the July long weekend. Tom and Megan finish their first swim of the season as Paul installs a new security device on the outboard motor.     Paul and Megan ready to launch the canoe for its maiden voyage of 2015. The grandkids are not quite coordinated as Megan backs the canoe away from the dock. Still, in spite of the eager assistants, Megan was able to steer the canoe into the bay. Megan looks back at the end of the bay to see Maggie jump in the swamp to try to get out to the canoe! Every grandchild claimed to know how to swim; but the “house rule” was that everyone had to wear either a life preserver or a flotation device or both. Ella did not like the idea of jumping into the lake from the dock, so she walked down to the lake through the flowers and weeds to start her swi...

On the Victoria Day long weekend Paul and I drove to Ottawa to test rides that we will be leading on the August 1st weekend at Cyclon. We stayed at the University of Ottawa residence which is where the rides will begin. Saturday was cool, overcast and threatening rain but a fiddling group played toe-tapping songs beside the Ottawa River. The crabapple trees were in full bloom. The flowering trees and lilacs were along the Rideau Canal. While it was "Tulip Festival" weekend, there were thousands of people among the tulips, too many for us to join... so we took photos of the crabapple blossoms instead.

Towards the end of March, Carole and Roy drove to Florida to visit us. I was able to reserve a bird watching tour at Merritt Island. Outside the office, the Indigo buntings were at the feeder. The volunteer organization who does these tours has acquired a bus, and the driver of the bus was Betty, who was our guide 5 years ago when we did this tour with Maureen and Ramsay. The anhinga above is drying its wings. Since Anhingas do not have oil in their wings, they need to dry them. In the bush behind this Little Green Heron is its nest. Carole and Roy did two rides with us each over 42 km. The first one was down to Canaveral Seashore to see the rocket take off. It was so foggy that we heard it but did not see it. The second ride was on the Seminole Wekiva Trail. Considering that they had not been riding since last fall, and that Carole had a partially torn rotator cuff, and Roy had neck problems, they did very well. So that we don't have to cross a busy r...