We survived a long cold winter with plenty of snow giving our snowblower a good workout.   Here’s a picture of our front yard in March

and our backyard on April 14^th,

we had one more dump of snow a few days later during the Easter weekend.    To melt the huge piles of snow we had about 5 or 6 really nice days, but the weather has gone downhill from there.  We’ve been in a cycle where we may have one nice day a week, followed by 4 or 5 days of rain. A great deal of the farm land in Manitoba is under water, or too wet to take any heavy equipment on it.     Early in March I planted some tomatoes (about 50 of 7 different varieties) and peppers for my garden, but the half I didn’t give away are still residing in my living room.

  I attempted to till my garden on one of the “nice” days a week ago, however I got the tiller stuck, and needed my neighbor to help me get it out.  I tried tilling in another spot and got it stuck again, as well as myself—I was knee deep in mud and couldn’t move my feet, I had to take my shoes off and then use a shovel to find my shoes in the mud.  Not a pretty sight! 

Here’s what my garden and the newly formed lake in the back of my yard looks like…

There is a bright side, the fish in our pond appear to love the rain.

I will have a meal or two of asparagus in the next few days, as it doesn’t seem to be affected by all the rain. This spring has been very different from the drought we had a year ago, the grass is very green and long, as it is too wet to cut with the lawn mower.

Andy has had a number of doctors appointments in the past couple months, and a hip replacement followed by both knees are in the near future– likely later this fall.   We made the decision to sell our house and move into a single level living space.  We have put down a deposit on an apartment in a 50+ building that is under construction located on the corner of Bishop Grandin and River Road called The Pearl.

 Occupancy is expected sometime in late April 2023. We are moving from a 1700 sq ft house with a basement to an 1100 sq ft apartment, so I have started to seriously purge some of our possessions over the past couple of months.  It was give-away weekend in Winnipeg recently and a lot of stuff was left on the curb. 

On May 20^th, we both got our second Covid booster shots, Andy had an appt scheduled for that day as the eligibility was for 70 plus and the shot had to be 6 months after your last shot.  It was announced the morning of the 20^th, that eligibility was being changed to 50 plus and the shot could be given 4 months after the last shot.  I called the same pharmacy that Andy was going to and whined a little and was able to get a shot as well.  This made me extremely happy, I had checked into booking an appointment in Ontario, and it seemed pretty flawless, but now will not be necessary.

So, with our vaccines taken care of we plan to leave for Ontario early next week, as we would rather be ON the water than IN the water here in Manitoba.  We have neighbors checking our house and watering the garden- should it get planted and need water.  Andy was in touch with Buckhorn Marina and the boat will be launched on May 27^th. The marina has a few jobs to complete including upgrade to the propane system for the stove, rebuild the hydraulic steering seal and the mounting of the 2 solar panels that I got for my birthday. We have also booked someone to take another look at our electronics installation from 2019, as some of the equipment still doesn’t work as expected.

  As for where we are going this summer- who knows…  We tentatively would like to take our time going down the Trent and then explore the Rideau canal to Ottawa.  We can either come back the same way, as we did in 2016 or go down the Ottawa River to Montreal and then come back via the St. Lawrence.  We are in no hurry and don’t plan to come back to Winnipeg until late September or early October. Alternatively Georgian Bay and the North Channel could be another boating option.  With the borders fully open this year, I would expect that we will see a lot more American boaters on the Loop.

Our travels can be followed using our in-reach tracks on Map share using this link: https://us0-share.inreach.garmin.com/share/BYK46

and password is still: T&A2019.   I will attempt to blog on a weekly basis or whenever something exciting happens. My blog site name has changed slightly as I finally ran out of free space on the WordPress site, which I’ve used since 2015.  My site is now    https://cruisingonbusiness.ca