Saturday - September 13

Bob: Awoke to RAIN, again. Didn't quit till after noon. We drove towards Gowganda and checked out a couple for camps this afternoon. Got home about 4:30 and the weather still didn't look good. Decided we would not try fishing this evening as everything in the boat was wet, the temperature was about 50, and it looked like rain. Spent the evening watching 'War Horse' (one of my favorite movies! Bonnie)

Friday - September 12

Bob: No rain today!! We spent most of the day visiting fishing camps south of New Liskeard. Our plans are to come back to Canada in the summer of 2017 and we want an alternative to Elk Cabins in case something happens to Elk Cabins. Some of the ones we looked at we wouldn't want to have, but some were okay. However, none of them have everything we have here and they are farther from church. So we are hoping everything works out and we can come back here.
Got home and ate supper. Went to town to see if Karl is available for fishing on Tuesday. When we got ready to leave Karl said it would be nice if both of us spoke in Sacrament Meeting the last Sunday we are here. Bonnie is not real thrilled about this. But we'll only have 10 minutes each. Shouldn't be too hard!!
Think I'll go fishing tomorrow morning with Isaac if it isn't too cold. The high tomorrow is predicted to be 47, so we will see when we get up.

Bonnie:  Some of the cabins were very "rustic", hardly any counter space in the kitchen, one without an oven, no closets or storage, and looking like they were falling apart. None of the six places we looked at had a washer/dryer unit on the property.  The renters go into town to do their wash.  Others had much better facilities with fun play-places for grand kids and actual lace curtains in the windows and delightful bedspreads. But as Bob has said the cabins here, though not having the feminine touch and being older, have everything else we need and the price is better.
I am not excited about speaking again.  I thought I was done with that and it will be a challenge for me.  I guess I need to learn something from this!

Thursday - September 11

Bob: Not much happening today. Weather is really cool. Probably didn't get into the 50s today. Did not have any rain however. Spent most of the day reading. Did bail out my boat and 3 others that belong to the camp. Took about an hour as they all had a lot of water in them. Bonnie swept the cabin and cleaned up. Had fish for dinner. Had another visitor tonight as Brother Voterro stopped for a few minutes. He is the mayor of Thornloe and he was attending a mayor's meeting in Elk Lake. Watching the BYU game right now. Game started great as BYU went up 23-0, but it is 23-15 at halftime.

Wednesday September 10

Bonnie:  We had another late day today, getting home about 9:35 tonight. We started about noon for New Liskeard where we first picked up some brush at a sister's home.  Then, we picked up a used TV and two office dividers to dispose of from another sister.  We took the brush to Jack's house where he will burn it, and then the other things to a store in town that allows people to leave their used stuff.  After getting some ice cream to eat with our dinner tonight, we returned to the house of the first sister.  She fed us a turkey dinner, complete with stuffing and delicious gravy.  We had a raspberry cobbler for dessert with the ice cream.  After doing the dishes, we had to do some shopping for food this week.  It started to rain hard just as we left after dinner.  By the time we got home, two cereal boxes and a box of rice were quite wet.  Oh, well.  We should be able to use the food.  Thank goodness for portable heaters!  Tomorrow we expect more rain, so I will be inside most of the day. Maybe I will be able to finish another one of my library books.

Bob: Not much to add. Weather wasn't too bad today until it started raining while we were having dinner. It's still raining at 11:02. Temperature got up into the high 60s today. We had our hosts light our furnace yesterday, but I'm not sure the blower is working. Turned the thermostat up and the flame kicked on. But I didn't hear the blower kick on afterwards. Flame is off now and only the pilot light is burning. Guess I'll move the temperature up another notch and sit next to the thing and see if the blower kicks on. --Everything seems to be working. The flame kicked on and after 2 to 3 minutes the blower started. Flame is now off and blower is still blowing hot air. Should kick off shortly.
Quite surprised the internet is still up and running because of past bad experience when it rains.

Tuesday September 9

Bonnie:  Since Bob is deep into his Tom Clancy novel I will begin the blog tonight.  There is not much to report for me today.  I finished a book on Joseph Smith by Truman Madsen today.  It is a wonderful book because there are some rare paintings included in it and some fascinating information on the prophet.  Other than that, it was a "normal" day.  Thankfully, Isaac came over to turn the heater on, because tomorrow it is supposed to be cold.
When Bob got home late afternoon today he excitedly called for me to come look at the fish Isaac caught.  Two of them were huge.  In fact, they were so big they will be stuffed and mounted to hang on the wall of the office at Elk Cabins!!  I'll let Bob tell you more about that.  Then, he wanted to clean the truck.  It was about 6 when we finally ate dinner. As I was doing the dishes I looked over at Bob.  See the picture below. Bob was so tired from his fishing expedition he had to have a nap! (If women only understood how hard it is to fish for 7 hours after getting up in the middle of the night because you can't sleep!)

Bonnie's Mischief

(She would never, ever, let me do this to her)

Bob: As I said above, I awoke in the middle of the night and did not go back to sleep. Isaac and I left about 7:50 for Hubert Lake. It's about 3/4's of a mile back to the where we launch the boat. You don't travel much faster than an idle speed to get there. Have to lift the boat off the truck and drag it a few feet across rocks, wet ground, etc. Anyway, we set off in the water around 8:40. Isaac said he had been to Hubert once before and caught a 22 inch walleye. Said it was off "that point, over there." Told him I usually didn't fish that area because it is pretty shallow, but we'd go try it out. We were going straight across the lake and were about half way there when he said, "I got one on the line. Feels like a nice one." I was reeling my line in when he yelled, "Holy ****. It's a big walleye. Get the net!" He finally got it to the boat and I netted it for him. Had to cut some rope off the anchor to make a stringer as we had forgotten to bring one. See picture below. That is one really nice fish.

Isaac with 24 inch walleye

We fished most of the lake. We were using Karl Jakob's boat and my electric motor. Weren't moving fast, but we were moving most of the day. Sometime after 3 we were close to calling it a day. I suggested to Isaac that we troll back across the the water where we got the walleye. "Sounds like a plan," he said. So he began trolling with the same lure he had used earlier hoping to catch another walleye. That is the only type of fish we were going to bring back. I was fishing on one side of the boat and Isaac was fishing on the other side of the boat, so we weren't looking at each other's fishing line. I heard the water boil (that's when a fish comes barely out of the water and tries to grab your lure, but misses it). Isaac yelled, "Did you see the size of that pike?" "Didn't see him," I said. "He was huge" said Isaac as he threw his lure back into the water. About 10 seconds later he said, "I got him!" Took a little time, but we got him in the boat. The pike was just under 34 inches. Another fine fish. See picture below.

Isaac with pike

After landing the pike we headed to shore and the trip home. Had to unload the boat, then lift the boat into the truck. Next we had to load everything back into the boat now that it was on the truck. Drove out of bush and stopped in Elk Lake to give the boat back to Karl. Had to unload the boat, then take the boat off the truck. Karl drug the boat back into the water. Then we had to load everything back into the truck.

Got home and unloaded everything again. Washed the truck because of the mud that Bonnie and I got on it yesterday driving back to Sydney Lake. Ate supper, and then innocently decided to take a nap as I had been up since shortly after 3 AM. A sleeping captain can't trust his first mate!! (I don't care for this "captain" and "first-mate" business.  Bob just needs to learn that all's fair in love and Canada, and that's he's only captain when we're in the boat!)

Monday September 8

Bonnie:  We looked at a new camp called the Golden Eagle.  It has some nice features such as a water trampoline and a long slide into the lake.  But it is more expensive.  We most likely will return to this camp in the future, even though it is old.  Sometimes old is good!!! (Especially us.) Bob is going fishing tomorrow with Isaac, the son of the owners, to Hubert Lake.  This means borrowing Karl's boat.  It was no small task loading it into the back of our truck, with "weak" little old me!  But, we did it, (or really Bob did it!)  It looks like I will be cleaning the cabin and working on my personal history tomorrow.  Oh, and I must make a dessert for Wednesday to take with us on our visits in New Liskeard.  We've been invited out to dinner again!  Sometimes there are nice benefits to being Branch Missionaries.
Tonight Bob is reading a 600 page Tom Clancy book that he wants to finish before we leave.  He's about half way through it.  I'm reading a book on the prophet Joseph Smith.

Bob:  Judging by what we are reading you can figure out who is the serious one in the cabin tonight! Brought 2 Tom Clancy books with me, but the one I'm reading was written before the 2 I have. It's a Jack Ryan novel. The title is Red Rabbit.
Bonnie and I went fishing about 4:00 this evening and stayed out till after 6:30. We got 2 bites. I hope Hubert Lake isn't dead tomorrow.
Started the monthly ritual today of balancing the checking account. In checking off the cancelled checks I found 2 that were not recorded in the check register. One of them was over a year old and I had added it back into our account this past June. Looks like we may have some problems getting things to balance this month. It hasn't been easy in Canada because of the currency exchange rate and fee charged for credit card usage. Through July we are good though.
And I am half way plus 2 pages through Red Rabbit.
On the way back from Golden Eagle we drove 3 kilometers into the bush to Sydney Lake. It has a nice ramp to put a boat in. Might take my boat out there if the weather doesn't get too cold. We are turning the heat on tomorrow. Temperature is dropping beginning Wednesday.

To the left of the boat ramp on Sydney Lake

To the right of the boat ramp on Sydney Lake

The road we drove on to Sydney Lake

Sunday - September 7

Bob: Up early this morning for exercise. Today is Fast Sunday so no breakfast today. Heading for church at 9:00. Going to ask the brethren in Priesthood Class what they would do if someone asked them to tell them about the church. Should lead to some interesting discussion.

CONGRATULATIONS TO BYU FOOTBALL. WENT TO TEXAS AND PASTED THE LONGHORNS 41 - 7. LOOKS LIKE UTAH IS ALSO OFF AND RUNNING AS THEY ARE NOW 2 - 0.

Bonnie:  Now I can say I've had an authentic English dinner!  Sister Margetson, who we've mentioned before, is from England.  She is a very classy lady.  She just turned 80 years old and is the chorister in Church including the Primary.  She is the Poet Laureate of  Cobalt, Ontario, is on the Museum Board, and the Theatre Board of that community.  When I say theatre, I mean plays, concerts and musical productions put on by the community. Last year she performed in a production of Les Miserables. She has been a Stake Relief Society President and a temple worker for several years.  As we've mentioned, we took her with us the two times we went to the Toronto temple.  This beautiful sister invited us to have dinner today. To start out, Ann showed me how to "fold" the napkins.  I'll have to ask her again what they are called...lily somethings.  She was taught to do this by her grandmother!  They look like flowers when you're done and are put under the glasses of water at each place setting. It was a three course meal.  Our first course was beef onion soup, with cheese to put on top.  That was followed with a well seasoned beef roast, potatoes, peas and carrots and dark delicious gravy.  But the high-light was the yorkshire pudding!  If you've never had it you've missed a treat.  It turns out that they are like rolls, but puffy and hollowed out in the middle.  This is where you put the gravy.  They can be eaten with a knife and fork or in your hands.  Absolutely heavenly.  The last course was trifle for dessert.  Jello with lady fingers was the bottom layer, a layer of pudding, ( I think,) topped with another color of jello with fruit in it, topped with pudding, then real whipped cream on top of that.  She was out of sprinkles and cherries which is what she usually puts on top of the cream to finish it off.  She must have worked all day yesterday to prepare all of this.  Then, she gave us a gift, a little hand-made decorative vase that can be used for lotion or flowers without the stopper, of course.  We were very full, needless to say, and so appreciative of all the work she did.  We insisted on doing the dishes for her.
After we waddled out from her place, we stopped by the church to make some calls.  Then, we delivered a Book of Mormon to a lady in New Liskeard.  It was a media referral.  She and her son had seen the "Book of Mormon" musical in Toronto and she wanted a Book of Mormon to give her son as a memento.  We wrote our testimonies inside the front cover, asking her and her son to read Moroni's promise in Moroni 10: 4-5.  We'll see what happens!  Then, we visited another single sister with whom we enjoyed a long conversation.  She asked Bob to pray before we left.  We got home about 7:15 pm or so, another long Sabbath day, but very enjoyable.