Official Notice; Summer is here.

The Boat master showing off his nice new 19 footer.

It's official. Summer has arrived in Eastern Ontario. And here are the reasons I know this.
1.) Today the temperature reached 30ºC.
2.) I got my first basket of real, luscious, red-all-the-way-through local strawberries. Tender enough to clean with a spoon. Sweet, deep red and firm. I have just consumed a soup bowl full of these glowing gems, with yogurt on top. Aaah.
3.) Today I got my first sunburn.

Although covered in SP 30 sunscreen, I neglected the area around my watch and did not spread the goop far enough on my shoulders and so I have a red strip on either side of the white strip covered by my watch and a red crescent on the top of my shoulder. I do this every year, silly person that I am. The most annoying job I ever did on myself by far, however, was the burned on red crescent I ended up with while planting my garden in jeans that pulled down and a shirt that pulled up. It was only a few inches wide but, ow!, did it hurt.

We finally got the boat out for its inaugural spin. We live close enough to the Rideau Canal system to tow our boat to one of the locks and launch it there. This gives us access to Big Rideau, Upper Rideau and the lock and river systems north to Ottawa and south to Kingston. We drive a 19' outboard, big enough to withstand the waves that even a moderate breeze whips up on BigRideau and small enough that I can wind it up onto its trailer myself while The Boat master, aka JG, sits in glorious ease inside -- after having driven it up the launch and onto the trailer, that is. Today he made a perfect landing on the first try. And most of the trip was lovely.

The launch was not without its problems. Specifically, neither of us put the plug into the drain hole before we launched. The Boat master remembered this just as I was pulling the boat up to the dock at the lock and we had to reverse everything, turn the boat around and push it back up the ramp. Then I had to crawl around in two feet of water, insert the plug by feel and screw it in. It is a Good Thing that it was hot; I was completely soaked by the time I got the wretched plug in place. It is much easier to put it in when the boat is still on the trailer. Then we had to pump out the well. Luckily the lock was deserted and no one saw this debacle. We once did this with guests in the boat.

We played up and down Big Rideau for a while and had lunch at Narrows Lock. There always seems to be a breeze there, there's lots of shade and picnic tables and, on a weekday, few people around. It was lovely. Then we crept home around the south shore, looking at the cottages, the loons, and one intrepid water skier. Water's still pretty cold; you would have to be a teenager to enjoy it today. Our motor is almost silent at slow ahead and so we were able to hear the birds on the shore singing away -- there were a lot of them. It was lovely! And the loon babies are out. They are at the stage where they ride on their parents' backs and this makes a pretty strange silhouette seen at a distance.

Then we came home, threw a steak on the BBQ and had steak and salad and the aforementioned piggish bowls of berries. Lovely.

And I am so stunned with wind and sun and water and strawberries that this is the best I can come up with for a post.