May 31 -- it's almost summer

It's hot out there and almost no wind. Right now weather.ca shows 24C which is 75.2F and the outside thermometer shows 82F. Interestingly enough, that is the same temperature that weather.com is showing for New Smyrna Beach, 1500 miles south of here. They are calling for thundershowers for this afternoon but we have not seen anything yet.

I worked the a.m. updating the garden water system and then ran the snowblower and generator for a while. The snowblower had not even run this year because it never snowed while we were here. I start the generator on a regular basis to keep it in good running order. I really need to change the oil is all these 4-cycle small engines soon -- generator; lawnmowers; snowblower; perhaps I'm missing something.

Sandy did some lawn mowing in front and after getting these other engines running I got out the other lawnmower and worked around the parking area. It was not done at all last year. After a couple of hours of mowing 18" tall grass and weeds I was hot, filthy and hungry.

We got an email and a voicemail from Rob Ruppel -- the email to give us info on his new Real Estate firm and a link to his website and a virtual tour of his New Hampshire home. It looks beautiful ... we'll have to get down there soon (winter would be a great time !). His voicemail was responding to our emails regarding coming up to visit -- it seems that he comes to Toronto and Barrie quite often so we may see him this summer. For those of you who don't know him, Rob and I go way back -- he and Alnasir Samji and I have always been good friends from our working days at TA Associates to Towers Perrin where we all ended up. Rob retired from TP last year too and moved to NH to be a Real Estate agent and ski instructor.

I've had lunch now, perhaps I'll take Abby for a boat ride ...

The water temperature is now showing 68/69 -- up 3-5 degrees in a couple of days. I see that the post supporting the deck at the cottage at the lodge has been fixed ... no thunderstorms today. The black flies are still active; it seems that the heat has not quite burned them off yet.

Sandy went into town (Loring) and picked up the mail and coffee which had been delivered to Buchanan's garage. The mail included a package from Florida sent by Trish Hinton who looks after our house there -- and included the Star Choice remote control that I forgot when I brought the satellite receiver north at the end of the winter. There was also a letter from the property appraiser in NSB rejecting our application for the resident homestead exemption ... what !?! -- so I got hold of them and all they wanted was confirmation that we sold the house in PA (long before I made this application, not sure why this is dragging on) and Sandy's SSN. I supplied the SSN and they were ok ... hmmm.

Also included in today's mail was a newpaper article from my cousin Sue regarding three bike riders who are following the underground railroad path from Alabama to Canada -- the same three riders that we encountered at the PA border when we were riding. We had figured that they would go through Buffalo and hit the border the next day or so -- seems that they did. They made the news ... we didn't ... no surprise.

I spent a fair amount of time researching the flooring products on the web this a.m. and am satisfied that this is the way to go. I also found that the Ditra was 1/2 price if purchased in the U.S. so I'm going to order some for delivery to Stef's and bring as much as possible north when I'm down there in two weeks time. Jason wants some too ... he is coming up this weekend so we'll square away the overall order at that time.

I expect a quiet evening, so will close this blog out. It's time to start the barbecue.