Canada Day-rainbows, reading, water and knitting.

This is where I was this weekend. We found ourselves with the Canada Day long weekend off so we headed up to the cottage for a few days. The weather was hot and sunny and I think we spent most our time either in the lake or eating. 

I also spent a fair amount of time here staring out at the lake or the kids. Both equally interesting for different reasons.

I finished We Took to the Woods by Louise Dickenson-Rich on the weekend and found a couple of other books lurking on our bookshelves that I began. Underneath the old book is one by Sharon Butala, a woman who finds herself in the middle of the prairie of south-western Saskatchewan on a ranch with her new husband and not much required of her. I've only read about 2 or 3 chapters but it sounds like it's about her observations of nature and her place in it. As a family, our happy place is our cottage and I find myself drawn to all these stories about people living the simple life surrounded by one form or nature of another. It was hard to leave the book behind when it was time to go home but when one has to carry everything in and out of the cottage on one's back these choices have to made.
The wool is the scratchy dutch wool that I've been trying to find a pattern for. I realized there was no way I had enough to knit what I had in mind for the Herne rustic recipe pattern sweater and as we drove towards the cottage on Saturday morning I desperately scrolled through all the knitting patterns stored on my ipod Touch and stumbled across the Green Tea Raglan. It's a very simple, moss-stitched sweater intended for summery bamboo wool but I think made a bit bigger would be good as a vest-affair over a long-sleeved t-shirt. It may have been desperation at the prospect of 3 days without a knitting project that made me even begin this or maybe my love for anything moss-stitched, I don't know. I'm an eternal optimist though and my vision may just work. This might explain why I have 3 sweaters laying around my house that just don't work for one reason or another. Patient I am not.

We had a big thunderstorm during dinner on Sunday night and when it was all over, there was the obligatory rainbow.

On Monday we left, sadly, and drove as far as my parents who are sort of half way between the cottage and home. They live near Lake Rosseau in Muskoka. We promised the kids a swim after dinner and here is the beach on Lake Rosseau. It's a very different kind of cottaging, this Muskoka cottaging. There were lots of big boats and teenagers hanging out on the docks. Tourists everywhere. But the beach was nice and it was a great way to wrap up a busy day. This morning we left right after breakfast and drove through more rain to get home.
So, happy Canada Day to the Canadians and happy July 1st to everyone else.