Update on the Crazy Cat lady Front

Pemberley cuddles with Indigo in a sunbeam

For those of our guests who are following the latest adventures of our indoor animals, here are a few kitten photos...

 

Phoebe.

They grow, as kittens do, practically while you watch.   

Phoebe, hiding in the jasmine

sprawsled kittens

Pemberley - yes he's as much trouble as he looks... :)

The calico, Phoebe, is still a little shy, but has started to come out of herself more. Tonight she pushed Taffy away from her dog dinner bowl because there were some tasty treats in there. Taffy is very tolerant, and I'm thinking that if Phoebe is no longer afraid to share a dish with the dog, then she is becoming far less fearful of that same dog!

Taffy had a party of her own at the stable with visits from
two of the riders who brought their dogs for a visit.

and Squeegee made a new friend, with 2 year old Ox the Great Dane.

Pemberley, in his little black and white tuxedo fur coat, is a hellion and a pawful, and into everything. Good thing he is adorable...

And the big cat, Indigo (sometimes called Indi-ghost for her ability to completely vanish and then reappear...) is a lovely mellow thing, keeping both the 'little kids' in line.

Up at the stable, Taffy was able to host a party when two of the horses' riders came for the afternoon and brought their dogs with them (to go out walking in the back fields.)

Squeegee the pony made friends with the enormous Great Dane.

And Taffy sang the song of her people to her new friends...

Ice. Out. Ducks. In.

The ice left our bay on April 22. Just like that, gone.

The mallards are delighted.  So,it seems is the muskrat.

In a shining moment this afternoon, while putting up a birdhouse near Beaver cottage, several events overtook me in rapid succession:  I saw the muskrat swim past, dropped my cordless electric drill, watched it bounce off my foot and cartwheel down the hill and vanish into eight inches or so of clear, cold water.   I only had boots that were four inches deep...   

and the muskrat was no help at all.     But the ducks thought it was very funny.

Moose in Mist

 Brian and I were at the Red Leaves Marriott hotel on April 21, for a meeting with the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Ontario. All interesting stuff.


 On the way there, and on the way home, we met moose along the Aspdin Road.  Which were even more interesting.







They are wonderfully shaggy, as they start to shed their thick winter coats. And they are very close to the road, enjoying the brackish plants growing there.

 Coming home, it was raining, so the moose is all misty and distant, and moody... Still, we enjoy seeing moose -- but remind everyone that this is the time of year they are close to the highways, and to drive with extra vigilance.

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Spring Song Cheat Sheet

at this time of the year, so many birds are returning that the air is loud with their songs. 

This is a little Junco who got stuck in my porch and needed to be rescued.  Check out those tiny little toes!

everyone knows what these bad boys sound like! Our
young mallards are in full breeding colours, and
look magnificent.

It can be really hard to tell just who it is you are listening to, but this wonderful 'thingy' will solve your issues.  Just click on this link:  it will open to a magical page where when you click on the bird's picture, the bird will sing for you. 

 Magic.

and this chap you won't hear -- he is a turkey buzzard, the
give away is those long 'fingertips' at the end of the wing.
Today there were two of them just hanging on the air currents over the
lookout, gliding for ages.

Bondi Maintenance Dept. in action as Ice Breakers

Who can resist making like an Arctic explorer in the pack ice come spring on the Lake of Bays? Not us. Certainly not the BMD.





Watching the ice leave (and sometimes helping it go) is an annual tradition here at Bondi Village Resort.

Brian, David and Mike headed out with one of our boats to make some tracks through the thin ice remaining on the bay. Breaking off a huge floe, they then cruised past it at speed, letting the waves lift and shiver the ice crystals -- and hastening the melt.\



You can watch them make their way across the bay and forge through the ice.

Wild About Bondi Village

We never have to go very far in order to enjoy interactions with the local wildlife.  It is one of the wonderful things about living here at Bondi Village Resort, on the edge of Algonquin Park.

The deer were right at the door of the big LODGE today.  

And the geese were looking beautiful at the shore.

Meanwhile, we can hear the wild turkeys gobbling like crazy up on the hillside.

And -- and this is the headline -- THE FROGS ARE SINGING!  Our evenings are now full of song.

A Whole New Meaning to Green Energy

Energy efficient? We leave 'em in the dust...

As Brian says, "Greenleaf ratings are for amateurs."  (but he says it tongue in cheek.)

Here we are on April 17, cooking eggs on our solar cooker.

It unfolds and assembles into a lightweight saucer, reminiscent of those used by SETI for searching  for radio signals, only smaller. Easy to carry. Set up on the lawn, the little gadget focuses the sun's rays to an element, which is in truth nothing more than a metal ring where you can set a pot. Or a frying pan. Sun comes out from behind a cloud, and voila, Le Chef de BBQ is in business. And how.

This will boil a litre of water in one minute.  Cooking eggs is a snap.

The engineers figure that this simple device produces 1500 watts of power. Green power. Free, renewable, zero emissions. They are used extensively in China, Mongolia, remote areas where they are so far off the grid they don't know what the 'grid' is. With no emissions except the tasty smell of cooking food, no demands on hydro, coal, propane or oil, this little gadget gives new meaning to the phrase Green Eggs.

It seems impervious to breezes blowing across it, and we can hardly wait to get it to the beach for the next Wiener Roast, where it can join the Potato Cannon as a conversation piece. And, come the next hydro failure up here - which happens whenever we get a storm - we'll be able to make coffee for the masses. Not to mention omelettes.

Squeegee gets ready for the summer

first, he has to get rid of that heavy winter coat!
Thanks Island for helping with that!

  Many of our guests know our Shetland pony, Squeegee, who offers pony rides to our younger guests throughout the year at Bondi Village Resort.

Many of those same guests don't know, however, what shenanigans the pony gets up to when he's NOT being brushed and admired by his young fans!

He meets new friends. This is Ox...  Almost as tall as the pony!

and he tries to get all the dogs to work together. Although none of them
are willing to be in harness with him...

it is important to enjoy the water when you live at Bondi Village Resort

fitness work can include climbing slopes, and walking in deep water

but there should always be time to stop and chat

Varying a routine keeps exercise fun

Happy Kitty

Nancy has new kittens this Spring.  Phoebe, the little calico, is a shy thing still, just starting to come out of her shell and be a little more brave...





But Pemberley... well, it seems Pemberley likes nothing more than to be hugged and hung onto and carried about.



He had visits recently from two little angels -- and he got a gold star both times.  When Lucy was here, we honestly don't think Pemberley's paws touched the ground once during her visit.


And it was pretty much the same when Island came to call.     It is a wonderful thing to have a kitty like this... and at a resort, it is a truly wonderful thing, since our pets get called on to interact with a lot of people!!

We haven't introduced Pemberley to paints yet -- but who knows? Perhaps this very curious kitty will follow in the famous Napster's artistic paw prints here at Bondi Village Resort!

Bondi from the Air

As the ice loosens its grip on the lake, our thoughts turn to the next seasons here at Bondi Village.

 Summer is the jewel in the crown, and the spirit of summer here was beautifully captured last summer by our long-time guest and good friend Rob Williams, with footage he took with his drone while he was staying here.

Check it out.

Where our Chairs spend their Winter

It is not quite time to get the Muskoka chairs out of storage and distributed to all our cottages here at Bondi Village Resort.

For now, they are still upstairs in our big Rec Hall.  Come summer, this will be where the ping pong table and games tables are, a little haven where the kids come to hang out, jam with their music and have a place of their own.  There is a laundromat and a library in this building as well.  But in winter, it is full - and we do mean full! -- of chairs just waiting for lazy summer days.

A choir of Sparrows

This song sparrow managed to get himself stuck in my porch. He was quite happy to be rescued.

I never fail to marvel at how much life and beauty is in these tiny little fragile packages.

A grouping of song sparrows is called a 'choir', and if you have ever heard them sing, you will understand absolutely.

We love that at this time of year, the air is full of bird song.   It is just one of the many benefits of being here at Bondi Village Resort...

Strutting their Stuff

The wild turkeys can be heard most days now, gobbling among themselves up on our Lookout Hill.

Meredith and Christine came back from hacking out the horses to report that there were "a crazy amount of tracks" along Brian's Ridge Road.

It is the mating season.  So the tom turkeys are out putting their best foot forward, dressed in their finest clothes, and demonstrating what is really meant by the phrase "strutting your stuff."

And the gals are impressed, it seems.

Friends of ours took this video, along Highway 35, of the turkeys on display.  It is wonderful what you can see along the road at this time of year, here at Bondi Village Resort.  

Spring Sun

Here are three photos I took today along our shoreline here at Bondi Village Resort.

The Canada geese are truly beautiful birds.  We'd get along with them just fine IF they would promise to stay off our docks...  But they won't, so while we admire them, we do take 'disruption' measures (including Taffy) to keep them away from our lawns and beach areas.   But this time of year, the lake is theirs...

It was a day soaked in sunlight. This is what sunlight looks like shining through cedar...

Meanwhile, along the beach, we found this lovely showing of dried leaves, set against the cloudless blue.  

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but we are very lucky to be here at Bondi Village Resort where we can behold this...

Come join us this Spring (or summer?) and find beautiful places of your own.

Swallows Return

On April 14th, our tree swallows returned.  All at once.  One moment, the sky is quiet. The next, it is full of sweeping flight and swallow songs.  

Which triggered me to get the bird houses out of their winter storage, cleaned, and back up on the fence line.

David got busy to build some new boxes designed for the bluebirds but also favoured by the swallows.

The birds quite literally followed me along the

fenceline, checking out each house as I put it up.

And then, today, the 17th, I spotted the bluebird down the pasture. All of which makes my heart sing.

April by the Years

Taffy, a puppy, April 21, 2011, exulting in the snow

April really can be the cruellest month. After the deep cold of February and March, in she comes, teasing with hot sunny days, warm breezes, snow melting away...

canoes at the main dock, April 26, 2012

and then, BAM... it's baaaaackkk...

The BMD, in action, April 13, 2013

Everyone seems to be moaning about the April weather, but honestly, this is nothing unusual.  This, too, shall melt. And swiftly.  Spring IS here. You can be reassured by the birds returning daily. The tracks in the snow of animals who have been sleeping away the winter.

the Lodge, from the lake, April 15, 2014

These photos are from this Blog, taken here at Bondi Village over the past five years.

They illustrate how normal this actually is... and reassure that the melt is on the way.  We'll be swimming by the middle of May...

 

April 18, 2015, Taffy watching the melt

Really.  Be of good cheer.  And don't hesitate to book your cottage with us for May, June, July or August! 

 

 

Making Friends

 Pemberley had a visit from a lovely young lady this week.


For about an hour, his little white paws never touched the floor. He let her carry him around, limp as a rag, purring his little furry heart out.


What a good little kitty!






























Mind you, after she left, he found the nearest sunbeam, and plugged in to recharge his batteries.

A Trembling of Finches

The birds at the feeders are, to understate the issue, plentiful.


We have been invaded by pine siskins. This nomadic finch ranges widely and erratically across the continent each winter in response to seed crops. Better suited to clinging to branch tips than to hopping along the ground, these brown-streaked acrobats flash yellow wing markings as they flutter while feeding or as they explode into flight. Flocks are gregarious, and you may hear their insistent wheezy twitters before you see them.


They fill the feeder. They fill the air. They fill all the trees around the house.  They are enchanting, and I can spend endless hours just watching them.

They are joined by bluejays, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, red polls, purple finches, song sparrows, starlings, cowbirds and grackles -- all jostling with the squirrels for the best seats in the seed 'restaurant' along the front porch of my house.  (I do not want to know what I have spent this spring to buy Nyger seed, sunflowers, and mixed seeds...)


I am told that the collective noun is a "trembling of finches" and I can understand that! 

Down, it is a Relative Term

 April 9th, after a few days of seriously chilly weather, saw the dock trying to emerge like Atlantis from the waves.
















At least the decking was visible... but don't get too fond of that view... it's all going to melt, and melt fairly fast, and we are predicting that the dock will sink beneath the waves at least once more before we're done with this Melting Season.

Looking back towards Clover along the shore you get a good sense of how hard it froze in over the past two days.  You COULD walk on that ice, if you could get out far enough to be past the fragile shore ice and if you had a death wish.

Taffy wanted no part of the ice-walk.  

Taffy opted for the better safe than sorry approach.  So did I...

Ours were not the only tracks.  A muskrat had been exploring around the docks.  They have a distinctive track.

 

 

you can almost see all of the deck in front of Anchor

The robin is definitely NOT IMPRESSED with the snowfall. He was
hunting along the shore, where the grass is still  findable, but wouldn't
pose for the photo...