May 24 weekend...Huntsville comes alive!

This is our first May long weekend in Huntsville.  This past week, we could see the Town coming to life bit by bit. Some cottagers and tourists obviously decided to get a head start early.  There were line ups at the stores, the traffic was "heavier" downtown and the gas stations increased their prices twice in one day.  Yesterday, being Saturday, was the craziest day at Robinson's Independent Grocer (aka Loblaws). I must say that I am not used to having to wait in line ...... Now that we are local residents in Huntsville, it is actually fun to watch the cottagers and tourists come through our Town and get ready for the season.

The local garden centres are also busy but nothing like the ones in the GTA so that is good.  Yesterday, I decided to bite the bullet and get some planting done.  We bought 9 purpleleaf sand cherry trees and I planted them in the back, just below our deck.  It was a nice little workout, especially for my lower back.  I woke up this morning barely able to get out of bed.....but I have lots more planting to do.   Given that it is cloudy today, we decided to go to the Bradford Greenhouse in Barrie.  Wow, that place is huge, even bigger than Terra Greenhouse and the selection of plants is amazing. We were looking for ornamental grasses for the front of our house and we found them.  We bought 12 plants in total, two different kinds.  We also bought two beautiful hanging baskets for the front porch. So, I have my work cut out for me this week ......  That's OK because I  love gardening and getting all dirty.  I find it very relaxing even though it can be hard work sometimes. We took Cooper with us to the garden centre and he was, literally, the star of the place.  Every person wanted to pat him and thought he was such a good looking dog.  At some point, we had him sitting in the cart and he was having a great time!

This past week brought two special events: on Thursday, we launched our pontoon boat,  "The COOP".  We met Chris, from Mobile Marine, at the dock and he showed us, or rather Russell, how to operate the boat.  We all went for a nice ride with him as shown on the attached video.  In our excitement, we forgot to put Cooper's life jacket on......but we did put it on when we went back on Friday.  The second big event was Cooper's second birthday on Friday. I attach a picture that we took of him.  For Cooper, I suppose it was just an ordinary day....although he did get a few special treats and he didn't have to work for them. As for us, we had fun calling him the birthday boy all day and doing all kinds of silly things with him.

Although I had two piano lessons left, I decided that last Thursday was my last lesson.  I will resume later in the Fall or Winter.  Taking these lessons was the right thing to do and I now have a good base.

That's about it for my blog this week.  Take a look at the attached video that Russell put together this morning.  He is very creative when it comes to adding music to the video. You will be able to see our house up on the hill. I hope you enjoy it.  Next week's blog will be posted on Saturday for a change.....I wish you all a great week ahead!

Cooper all decked out for his 2nd birthday !

Cooper was the perfect 'watch dog' as he surveyed the stern wake !