September 16, 2007:

Finally, the weather turned summery again. Yesterday and today were all one could wish for, sunny, not too windy, and warm. If we could just get another four weeks of it, I wouldn’t care if it snowed.

Last week’s Report was sent from Souris , Manitoba . From Souris , we went to Hartney where we found gravestones of some of our ancestors. Then over to Turtle Mountain Prov. Park where we visited the Peace Gardens . We were amazed that the flowers were in full bloom, a sign that they haven’t had any serious frost.

We visited Boissevain where there is an impressive wildlife museum, and took some pics of the famous Boissevain Turtle. Boissevain is famous for its murals, too.

From there to Killarney, where we spent the night. It is a nice, bustling town with a big lake right in the middle of it. A popular resort town.

Then to Glenboro, where we took some pictures of Sara the Camel, a twice-life-sized sculpture on Highway 2. It is a symbol of Manitoba ’s only desert, Spirit Sands in Spruce Woods Provincial Park north of Glenboro.

We stopped at the Spirit Sands on our way north; Cathy and I and Freckles made the trek in to the dune face, about a kilometer and a half on sand paths, and played ourselves out. What we saw of it was very impressive but we could have hiked for miles. We met a girl who had just come out of the dunes with her mother; she showed us some excellent pictures of burrowing owls, but we weren’t told where to find them. She works in Saskatoon for the Meewasin Valley Authority so maybe sometime she will show the pictures to the Saskatoon Camera Club.

Harvesting was all but finished in the south-west of Manitoba . Around Souris , crops were very heavy. A lady at the campground said they had taken off an oat field that ran 168 bushels per acre, and she knew of some irrigated oats than ran over 200. I mentioned that to my uncle, Harry, and he said that sounded reasonable according to what he has heard.

Between Ninette and Glenboro we saw a few fields of unharvested swaths, mostly wheat but one or two of canola. Around Minnedosa there was more crop out, and more and more the farther north we got, much of it not even swathed. Crops looked good, though, until we got north of Dauphin and into Saskatchewan .

We drove right through Riding Mountain National park without stopping and spent the night in Dauphin. There we had a visit with Ryan and Telena – Ryan is our grandson and works as a conservation officer in Manitoba .

On Thursday we drove right through to Hudson Bay with a short stop at Swan River , our heaviest day by far. We stayed at Hudson Bay overnight and visited with Mike and Marg, coming on home on Friday. It was a pretty nice holiday, relaxing except for Thursday when we battled strong winds. The wind doesn’t bother our new motor home very much, likely because it has a longer wheelbase.

One little irritation – about three AM Friday, when it was -4° outside, our furnace blew a fuse. We piled on some more covers for awhile, but finally, at four AM, I got up to look for the problem. Cold! Doreen was nice and warm when I crawled back into bed, but she didn’t welcome me.

Not much had changed here while we were away. There was an inch of rain in the gauge and apparently there had been a few flakes of snow. Lenard Teale said they got an inch of it at his place, but for the most part it was just a few flakes that didn’t linger.

Coffee row was back at the Cove and it’s a real treat. Usually there are at least fifteen there, sometimes more. Still no word on when they hope to get the restaurant up and running but at least in the meantime we have our coffee spot.