Another warn sunny day, and this time the wind is very light. It was so pleasant, in fact, that we went out in the boat, shut it down in the middle of the lake, and had our lunch. Heavenly!

Jenny came out, so we went for another boat ride in the afternoon. We viewed the pelicans at the southwest  corner, the osprey on an old nest that hasn’t been used in recent years, a loon stretched out flat over its nest of floating weeds, and some large bird sitting on a nest nearby that we weren’t able to identify.

We just got home from a bus tour to The Pas, Flin Flon, Prince Albert, and Batoche. It was an anniversary gift from our family. Wynyard Travel, a ten-year-old business owned and operated by Irene Coderre and Alice McCaw, put on the tour. It started early Tuesday morning from Wynyard and we got back there about 6:30 Friday evening. Despite unfavorable forecasts, which had us packing some winter gear, the weather was as fine as one could want, the whole time. Even the mosquitoes were gentle!

High points of the trip were a tour of the Clearwater Lake country near The Pas, including a hike to what are called The Caves, actually a fifty-foot-deep fissure in the rock; a visit to the Baker’s Narrows Lookout Tower just south of Flin Flon, 165 steps up, which we handled just fine, and a boat tour on Amisk Lake at Denare Beach, on a 20’ x 60’ brand-new pontoon boat. It was a beauty; it had a cabin about 14’ x 40’ with all facilities, and seating room on top. It was powered by two 80HP four-stroke outboards that were quiet as could be. I don’t know what its capacity would be but there were fifty of us, including the boat driver and attendant, and we weren’t crowded.

The best part of the whole trip, though, was getting on the bus and finding that a whole bunch of  friends from our Wynyard days were going on the tour. We had a wonderful time!

Drought is on everyone’s mind these days. We have had 4/10^th inch May 8^th, 2/10^th May 30 and another tenth June 9^th. It made for a good seeding season and there seemed enough moisture in the soil for good germination, but if we don’t get some rain soon the good-looking crops won’t look so good. Our lake is even lower than it was in the spring, and it will take some pretty heavy rains to just keep up with evaporation.

We had the annual year-end outing of the Parkland Photography Club here yesterday. We wander around, taking pictures of bugs, flowers and each other. We went out in the boat a couple of times despite the high winds, and members with telephoto lenses were able to get photos of osprey, loons, especially one sitting on its nest, grebes, and pelicans. Nobody seemed to mind getting splashed when we hit a big wave. Afterwards, we had a picnic out on the deck and made plans for next year.