At home

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Is a little village by a bend of Kemptville creek. There’s not much there, really: the general store & post office, public school, and a fancy restaurant (the Brigadoon). Seems to me that the establishment is known as much for it’s tolerance of smoking as for it’s food — because of municipal bylaws, it’s legal to light up on the premises (as opposed to smoke-free establishments in nearby Kemptville and Ottawa).

 

Oxford Mills

So, the overall impression is that it’s not a bad place for a bit of ice cream and minnow watching down by the dam. Some folks were fishing, but we didn’t see them reel anything in. Other times though, we’ve seen pike in the shallows below the dam. Mudpuppies, too, in the cooler months. On the way home, we pulled into the village cemetery, looking for some Oxfords. Nothing turned up.

 

Later on, we ended up picking black raspberries. Now, you might be inclined to pick them while they’re red, but they’d be some sour if you ate them that way. Plus, they’d be tough picking; when they’re ripe and black they almost fall off the bush by themselves. Anyhow, between mosquitoes and thorny branches, it was a prickly affair. While the bushes have been there for years, this harvest is the largest in recent memory. Lots of rain this season.

 

Black raspberries

El Bolero

So I’ve been sleeping in a trailer. At night, you can hear the mosquitoes; they hum together, like locusts or lawnmowers. But the screens are good, and the bugs mostly stay outside.

Boler

It’s a Boler, built around 1980. It looks like an egg, and rocks like a boat. You can stand up in it okay, except for beneath the little sunroof — which has a handle that is pointy and made of metal. The lights don’t work; something’s wrong with the wiring. I haven’t tried to stove yet, and being summer and all I haven’t tried the heater either. All this aside, it’s a fine rig. Bolers are lightweight (made out of fibreglass), which means you can pull them with just about anything. They don’t have problems with rot or rust, unlike wood/aluminum trailers. Plus they look neat, and are made in Canada.

Visit Bolerama for information about upcoming Boler events (such as the “Prairie Egg Gathering”), an account of the company’s history, and scans of Boler manuals & brochures (“In the 80’s, all of us are searching for the ideal trailer” — I know that’s how I spent the 80’s…).

Saplings

Lilac Sapling

It’s a wonder to see how well the lilac cuttings are taking. Passed along by Fred, they were a sorry-looking bunch of muddy twigs and roots – whose fate it was to be double-bagged, stuffed into a suitcase, and carted home (500km worth) on a Greyhound bus. Now that they’re in the ground, they are taking off and budding nicely (though one had a brush with the lawnmower). They are each planted within shooting distance of well-established lilac bushes… I guess the thought is to give the little guys somebody to look up to.

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