Sayonara, snow

What a long, strange winter it was...

We're over a month into spring now, yet blizzards were still raging last week.  The remaining ice on the lake went out yesterday.  The robins are back though, more spring migrants are showing up every day, and I've even seen a few crocuses blooming.  So I think (hope!) it's safe to say the snow is gone for good.

Our first snow season on the island was an exercise in quiet patience (really quiet!).  It felt lonely at times, the three of us holed up in our lakeside cottage, wind howling and snow flying, no neighbours on either side for quite a ways.  My folks are the closest people on one side even though they're several properties away.  With Mom tasting the snowbird life this winter though, it was even quieter.

So we were afflicted, at times, by isolation, culture shock (having recently moved provinces, 'languages', urban to rural, and become parents), cabin fever, and the plain ol' winter blahs.  Those quite months were a great incentive to make some new friends.  We've been hanging out a lot with another family in town with two young boys, taking turns "playing" at each others' houses.

Another remedy for stir-craziness was escaping to a warmer clime—

After much daydreaming we booked a getaway to Cuba.  We chose a quiet resort in Cayo Guillermo, part of an archipelago of coral islands off the country's north shore.  It was a perfect spot for our little guy: having recently learned to walk, he was thrilled to run along the flat sand bars at low tide.  The week was spent swimming in the pool, the sea, eating, walking, reading, and that's about it.  Just the boost we needed to get through the many remaining weeks of snow awaiting us at home.

 

Rob managed to work on some winter building projects, despite the temperature hovering around -30C much of the time.  The most interesting was an observation blind for a program that invites people to observe an interesting bird that nests here, the Sharp-tailed Grouse.

This critter performs a fascinating mating dance on a "lek", a mating arena where the males compete for female attention.  In the month of April, I led dawn hikes out to the blind so that birders could witness the displays.  The shelter worked well, and it's especially cool because he built it entirely from recycled/left over materials.

 

 

After selling our Lac-Beauport place in early winter, we'd given up house-hunting here til the spring, because we'd pretty much looked over everything we could afford.  Then soon after our quick trip to Quebec for the closing, a little ranch house came on the market here, right in the area we most wanted.  We took possession at the end of March, and are now prettying it up before we have to move in June.  The house is in great shape, just touching it up with some new paint.

So, we're excited about all forms of life returning to the island, the sunshine to come, and nesting in our new place.  Happy spring!