May 7, 2006:

A lovely day; up to +24°, lots of sun and wind. Good drying weather, and great for working in the yard. Doreen is enjoying it.

The maintenance crew came back from layoff last Monday and have been busy getting the Park ready for the tourist season. First chore they had was to rescue the rental docks in the Marina and put them back in their places. I think one of them floated by our place when the ice was breaking up; don’t know if they found it or not.

The water was turned on last week. That means we don’t have to haul water any more. We can just run a hose over to the nearest standpipe and fill our storage tanks. The garbage sheds that were in our neighborhood and in Uskatik are gone too, so they must be starting to pick up garbage from the cottages next week.

Greenwater Creek is barely running now, and the lake level has settled down a bit. The fixed dock at the Boat House is no longer flooded. The beach is mighty narrow, but as the water recedes, it will grow.

We had an awful day on Wednesday with temperatures around the freezing point and a very strong north wind. We haven’t put our dock out, but I tied a rope around the sections so they don’t float away. Doreen went down to check on it, and says the docks can’t float away - they’re buried under a ton of seaweed and driftwood! There’s a little indentation in the shoreline where we have our dock and it does tend to catch floating garbage.

Thursday morning, there was an inch of snow on everything, but the sun was out, it warmed up a bit, and the snow didn’t last long.

Last winter, Sask Power had a Cat clear some brush under the power lines in Uskatik, to the great consternation of the cottage owners. It left an awful mess in what the cottage owners consider their back yards. Some cottagers have been working away at the trash piles, gradually cleaning them up, but some piles are just too big. A lot of spruce were hand planted there years ago, and they are bulldozed too. I’m not sure what was accomplished, since within a few feet uphill of the power line are many huge, old poplar trees.

We went to Kelvington, that friendliest of friendly towns, on Saturday. SARBI was putting on a White Elephant Sale in the old abattoir, plus a chilli lunch. Linda Donais said at the last minute they couldn’t find any white elephants, but they had lots of other stuff. The chilli was great! And there was a good choice of desserts (I had two, but don’t tell anyone!). Best of all we got in some quality visiting with some good friends.

After lunch, we went down to Debbie & Kevin O’Neill’s TLC Greenhouse and checked out their plants. It’s a bit early to buy anything, so we just looked. Had a very nice visit there, too. We have known Debbie & Kevin for over twenty years.

We’re very sorry to hear of the death of Gordon Foster on Friday. Gordon and Norma and their family used to live south of Marean Lake; Gordon worked at the Park for years, and it was Norma and Doreen that started up Greenwater Crafts and Tea Room. We had been friends before we moved up here. They moved away in the early nineties and we didn’t see them often after that. No word yet on funeral arrangements.

Chase Place – The Tackle Box has been sold! I walked around there yesterday and met the new owner, Orrin Hergott. He plays hockey in Columbus, GA in the winter and will spend his summers running The Tackle Box, with help from his brother and sister. He has two sets of grandparents with cottages at Greenwater, the Hergotts and the Timmermans, so should be able to find a place to stay. He says the Tackle Box will open the Thursday before the long weekend, which I think is the 18^th of May.

We met the new pro/manager at Greenhills Golf & Country Club, too - Frank Fowler from North Battleford. He says the back nine have been open for a couple of weeks, but the front 9 have some wet spots and will be closed for awhile.

We drove out to Birch Beach; the water is definitely up to the point where one should be able to launch a boat there, but it doesn’t look as high as Greenwater.