Back and Forth!

Hi, everyone!

This time of year, Grandma and Grandpa and I are back and forth between Fairport and the bay a lot!  I’m never sure when I get up where I’ll be when I go to bed!  On the Tuesday after Memorial Day, we were back at the bay.  We had another hazy sunset because of wildfires in western Canada.  It was very pretty!  Then, Wednesday morning, Grandma took me on my first kayak paddle for the year.  We paddled all the way around our part of the bay, then we went up Clark Creek.

We had a big surprise on Clark Creek!  There was a new beaver lodge at a bend in the creek downstream from the beaver dam.  When we got to the dam, there was a big hole in it we could paddle through!  I had never been upstream from the dam before!  There were lots of carp spawning and six great blue herons flying around!  We paddled all the way to the end of the creek.

I was happy to see all the shrubs in the south planting in bloom at the same time!  I made sure to say hello to all of them before we went back to Fairport.  When we got there, Grandma and I baked an AWACS cheesecake.  Grandma, Uncle Steven and Grandpa all had birthdays since I last wrote, and the cheesecake went into the freezer until Uncle Steven’s birthday.

On Friday, we went back to the bay again.  It was time to plant annuals!  Saturday morning was windy and too rough to go kayaking, so we went to the local nursery, instead.   We bought basil and rosemary plants and planted them in the herb bed.  On our way back to Fairport, we bought impatiens plants for the front window planter.  I watched from inside to make sure Grandma got them in the right places!

Sunday evening, we were back at the bay in time to watch sunset at the Point.  There was a pretty sunrise Monday morning, too!  While we were eating breakfast, a raccoon walked across the lawn and started climbing one of our maple trees.  Then he used the branches to cross to the next tree and climbed down that one!  Grandma kayaked south of Grass Point and discovered it was time to start weeding water chestnuts.  Of course I thought about Moose-san when I saw the pile she brought back!

We came back into town Monday afternoon to get ready for Uncle Steven’s birthday dinner on Tuesday.  Grandma and I made him a batch of his favorite cookies as a birthday present!

Last Wednesday, the air was very smoky and smelled like ashes.  The smoke from forest fires in Quebec was so bad the sky wasn’t even blue!  Everybody was warned to stay inside because the outside air wasn’t healthy to breathe!  I saw my groundhog friend for the first time this year and he was working harder to breathe than usual.  By Friday, the smoke had blown away.  We hadn’t had rain in two weeks, so all the outside surfaces had pollen and smoke dust on them.  I was happy to see my groundhog friend relaxing in a sunny spot on the deck!

We went to the bay Friday evening and came back after lunch on Saturday.  Grandma did more water chestnut weeding and Grandpa trimmed around the edges of the lawn.  Grandpa asked Grandma to make a special cake for him as a birthday present, so that’s what we did on Saturday afternoon in town.  The recipe had a lot of steps to follow and called for two different kinds of chocolate!  We celebrated Grandpa’s birthday at Uncle Steven’s house on Sunday.  It’s a good thing we celebrated a day early, because we finally got rain on Monday.  It rained steadily all day and evening!  Grandma did make one trip out to get our first local strawberries of the season.  So Grandpa had birthday cake on Sunday and strawberry shortcake for his actual birthday!

Today it’s sunny and a little bit cool.  Yesterday’s rain has washed away all the pollen and smoke dust.  Everything outside looks happier!  My newest blossoming friends are the kousa dogwood in the front yard and the mock orange by the back deck.

Love,

Lion-san