Saturday

Saturday May 9th was my last full day at the cottage....  I have been here something like 17 days, with a brief interruption to blast over to East Coulee.  On this day I managed to wrap up a bunch of stuff before my return to the city.

I booked a tee time at the golf course at 11:30 and played another round.  This time around I lost two golf balls, and broke a bunch of tees, but I still found nine balls.  And my score improved considerably from the day before.  On Friday when I was out with my neighbor Rob I shot a somewhat disgraceful 51.  Today I brought that down by nine strokes to a more respectable 42.

After that I spent a bunch of time catching up on some lingering chores.  I checked the porch light that wasn't working over at the guest cottage only to find that the breaker had been tripped... an easy fix.

Then I did the best I could to clean the Rockola Jukebox.  It turned out pretty well and I went through all the records that are in it.  It holds something like eighty 45rpm singles, and there were nearly 30 in it.  A couple were cracked and others are just songs that I really don't care for.  But there are probably about 18 or so that I would like to keep.  But they need a really thorough cleaning.  I will clean these and add to them the ones that I have back at home from my days of buying singles... back in the late 1970's.  I don't know exactly how many I have.... probably 40 or so.... but I don't think I want to include them all.  So I will need to hit antique shops and record stores to try to gather a few more.  The coin mechanism doesn't seem to always work, but there is a free play button that allows me to bypass it.  This may be one of those situations that was common back in the day, to those of us who are old and remember it.  Canadian coins just don't work in some vending machines, and American coins were necessary.  I suppose I will have to gather a few of the Yankee ones and see if they work better.

I also dug out my air compressor and pumped up the tires on both side-by-sides.  They seem to have lost a little pressure over the winter.... so now they are good to go whenever anyone wants to go for a ride.  I pulled the table saw out of the garage and cut a slab of puckboard to size, to put on the floor under the jukebox.  I could easily find stuff to keep me busy for days or even weeks, and didn't cut and split nearly as much wood as I would have liked to.  But all the same it was a great stay, and I look forward to returning very soon.

Just before heading home on Sunday I made a run to the dump to get rid of some garbage and recycling.  Once again I saw the herd of wild horses.  They were hanging around by the Trunk Road, mostly around the old Forestry Staff Houses that are no longer used.

I'll be stuck at home for ten days or so while most of the family is over in Austria.  But then as soon as they get home Hailey will be coming back out to return to her summer job.  I'm hoping that I can make it back out around the same time and pick up where I left off with my chores.  It really doesn't seem like work when I'm out here.... enjoying nature and the peace and quiet.