Vacation Event 3 – A Day at the Richards

Our last day of vacation took us to Tara’s folks. There we went from ultra relaxed, laissez-faire to “lets see how much we can pack into 24 hours”.

After a quick shower and shave, we headed to Joan and Fritz’s for the afternoon. Joan’s kin from England were there for their vacation and we had a lovely chat (although there were no cucumber sandwiches). We just finished the tour of Fritz’s garden (you should plant some basil Fritz) when Chuck and Shirley showed up with some monster zucchini. It was a grand ol’ time!

We then headed back to the house only to find the group (Linda, Laura and Tim B) heading out to pick blackberries on the side of the road (ie in the ditches). For those of you who didn't grow up in the wilderness, this is apparently an acceptable practice. You just need to make sure they berries are well washed, the horses don't nip your butt and the you stay out of the farmers fields with the bulls. :)

We all joined in and there are many snapshots of bums in the air (which I have graciously chosen not to post). We ended up with about 8 cups of blackberries (from about 75 minutes of picking). We also ended up with several grass cuts, thorn pricks and a couple of hornet scares). A good time was had by all.






After the picking, we had diner with Dave and then put the new boat into the lake for a quick tour around the bay (Callander Bay – home of the Dionne Quints). We had to do this so Dave could start racking up the 15 hours on the boat before he can fully open up the throttle.

When we got back, some of us had the bright idea to lay down outside and watch the Perseids meteor shower. It was fun, but a bit chilly. We saw a number of meteors, but not as much as we could have if we stayed up to the wee hours of the morning.

We were out on the boat early-ish next morning for one final stab at catching some fish. We ended up with nothing; not exactly true I guess – I caught and released a perch that was keepable (but small) and Dave had some real excitement when he brought something large near the boat (probably a pickerel). The fish jumped off the hook at the last second, never to be seen again.

It was then to the in-laws for a lazy lunch of crepes and blackberries. Hmmmm. Finally we tore ourselves away from Callandar and headed back to reality.

Sigh. Why did we wait so long to have a vacation?