Sewing Wilde: Break Time

Two weeks this July we packed up the fishing gear, the puppies and headed to Rice Lake, Ontario Canada. This means take what you need to be comfortable but not the whole house. For me it was magazines, my iPad and lots of sunscreen. What it also means is no sewing or quilting for those 2 weeks, so in the shop went my machine for its annual cleaning and maintenance checkup and putting my ETSY Shop on vacation mode as I wouldn't be here to do any shipping. I am fanatical about shipping as soon as a purchase is made and especially about returning emails when I read them, I check my phone often. No phone access in Canada, it's a foreign country with big roaming charges so I turn off data.

Rice Lake is a special place for my husband’s family. From the time he was little he went to Rice Lake to stay with his beloved Grandpa Dutch for the summer. Grandpa worked at Bethlehem Steel and once he retired summered in Canada for 10 weeks every summer. What he paid for those 10 weeks is less than we now pay for a week at another location. Now we're not talking Marriott accommodations here, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, water is from a well and the fishing boat was a canoe size vessel without a motor.

Dave and Grandpa Dutch

Grandpa loved it and so did my husband from all the stories he has shared. He stayed at a cottage on what is called Elm Point on the Trent, at that time there were 4 cottages and a main house. Now the same location consist of only 2 cottages, the main house was sold to an individual and a new very large home was constructed just a few years ago behind them all. The cottages are in disrepair and not used but the fishing at this part of the lake is my personal favorite. The water is not deep about 8-10' full of weeds you can see and when I drop my line down carefully between them it doesn’t take long to hit my licenses limit on large mouth bass. When we want fish for dinner that night this is the spot we go and thank Grandpa Dutch for the best fishing spot.

Over the many years Dutch vacationed in Canada all of his family spent time there, my husband seemed to be the one that enjoyed it most. I have shared it with both my children, my sister, her husband and a very good friend and her daughter. It's not the same place it was 20 years ago but it is not overtaken with cottages or over fished.

Dutch and Magoo

Not far from Hastings or Peterbough we go into town to do shopping, grab ice cream at a local stand or into Cobourg to get Swiss Chalet. (No longer available in Buffalo, so sad)