I woke up early this morning, at least early for me. It is 6:30 AM and it is another beautiful day in Lac La Biche. "As I sit here alone in my cabin", I don’t care about, "your mansion on the hill." (Italics by Hank Williams)
Good morning, good morning, good morning! It is a lovely morning. I wish every morning could be like this morning. "Yeah, yeah and the same to you", said Alistair McPherson. The weather is great; the temperate already sits at 16 degrees and is rising to a possible 23 degrees. Lovely, it is just lovely.
Is it the cabin or is it the cottage? I am never sure. Maybe cabin is for men and cottage is for women. You know, the men have gone hunting and fishing and all six of them are bunking in the cabin. The women are going to the cottage for some much needed rest and relaxation. Maybe it is a French language thing, La cabin for men, masculine in gender; Le cottage for women, feminine in gender. I don’t know. Maybe it is an eastern, western thing. The easterners say cottage and the westerners say cabin. Okay, okay. I won’t confuse you any further. Let’s look it up in our Webster’s.
On of the meanings of "cabin" is – "a small one-story dwelling usually of simple construction". One of the meanings of "cottage" is – "a small house for vacation use". Oh, darn! Now what do I call my abode? I think I am still going to call it a cabin. It comes equipped with an outhouse for Pete sake. It also has a veranda or is it called a porch? Let’s not start this again!
The cabin is on the flight path of overseas flights. The 747’s fly high above on destinations to London, Paris, Germany, Rome and Imperial Mills? There are not going to any of the places I want to see, unless it’s my birthplace, Holland. I like it here in Lac La Biche, my dear.
The scene at the lot this morning is a quite one, except for several birds that are constantly chirping. It won’t be quiet for long though. It is Thursday today. I expect many visitors for the weekend. Most visitors will not be coming to the cabin but will be seen along the road. The usual traffic is the morning and afternoon school bus, the after school quads, driven by a couple of young kids. The kids have more protective gear on them than astronauts out of NASA. That’s okay by me, for it is better to be safe than sorry!
We built a horseshoe pit in the dry ditch on the roadside of the cabin. I think it needs my attention. Each year we dig up the area around the stakes to get it ready for some absolute awesome games of horseshoes. A loonie or two at most is what is on the line. Of course, there are bragging rights that go on forever. We have had tournaments over the years that have gone on for entire long-weekends.
see also www.laclabichepost.com
….later, dudes and dudettes
from the cabin – fire pits …
What would a lake lot be without a fire pit in Lac La Biche? Since the caveman first invented fire, we have been fascinated with it and afraid of it.
We are fascinated by it because of its colours, its ability to warm, its magnetic flickering and the sheer magnitude of its power. We are afraid of its destructive power. The damage it can do to home, life and limb is truly frightening.
In the case of a campfire, we sometimes are a silly people. We grow trees in the wild or on a farm, nurture them till they are full grown, then we chop them down, strip them of their skin, saw them into pieces, and split them. We then stack the sawn pieces into neat piles, the larger ones in one area and the smaller ones and kindling in another area. All of this is done before the burning. Yes, my dear, tonight we are going to bar-be-que a tree. Right Alistair? Yah, Whatever.
I wonder what our ancestors are thinking. Our forefathers and ‘four mothers’ are probably in shock. In the days of OLD, the true pioneer or homesteader started a fire for cooking meals, (no, not Kraft dinners), heating water or simply heating themselves. I can almost hear my granddad say, "Look at all those crazy people down there Martha. They’re sitting in a large circle just watching the fire, for hours on end. Nobody is cooking anything except one young fellow who is roasting his weenie and warming his buns. Oh my goodness, what will they do next?"
A group of us gathered at a friends place and boy does he have a unique fire pit. It is the bowl part of an old rock crusher and looks like an oriental wok. It sits on its own pedestals and is approximately three feet high. This fire pit is huge. It measures exactly 46 inches in diameter. While we were having a few Don Cherry’s pops our host loaded up the fire pit with a lot of brush, some three and four inch limbs and then an arm full of split logs. When the fire needed to be stirred, he used a pitchfork as a poker. Now, I’ve seen people use old wooden poles, such as the handle of an old rake or spade, or steel rods or even store-bought pokers but never a pitchfork to stir a fire. So now, when the fire needs a little adjustment, we shout, "Clyde, the fire needs to be forked."
Now, if that wasn’t entertaining enough here is what else he did. When the fire was making a little too much smoke and needed some air, he gave it a blast from the 3-inch blowpipe of a master-vac.
Another friend, this one from Beaver Lake has his fire pit in business all year long. When the weather turns to cold, he stokes up an adjoining small wood stove and when the weather really gets cold, he fires up stove number two. I can just see him in December or January, four inches of snow resting on his shoulders but his feet and hands are warm.
see also www.laclabichepost.com
…. later, dudes and dudettes |
