Saturday Morning at Lake bernard

I would like to share with you an atypical Saturday morning on Lake Bernard. Atypical as the sun is shining today and there has been some light snow over the last few (more than a few) cloudy dull days. Other than that it is a typical Saturday as there are lots of things to do and an enjoy and appreciate the fact that there is time to do some of those things. The photo I have embedded here is out the upstairs window and shows the lake in the morning sun. It also features the great Olympic style rink that our neighbours have laboured over during the winter. Actually, it has been an effort of a couple of neighbours as there has been a motorized vehicle used for snow removal. The nice thing about the rink is that is being used by many families and provides an opportunity to skate on the lake on a day like today. I am sure there will be many groups out today.
The lake provides a daily study of changes. Every morning I look out over the lake and see something different. In the summer it is loons, water direction, shades of blue, clouds (or not), tree colour and of course the traffic of canoes, kayaks, fishing boats, cruising boats and the plentiful “party boats”. In the winter it is quite different as we see shades of snow, tracks in the snow, folks walking on the ice, snowmobiles and the transient population ice fisherman. Sometime we see groups of deer moving from one island to the next in search of fresh cedar bows to remove all young green growth up to the 7.5 foot mark. We had a group of deer enjoy a smorgasbord on my immediate neighbours property as they enjoyed the freshly planted small cedars that were planetd to separate our properties. They managed to clear the table of anything that was green and then wandered all over our property in search of anything else they could eat. We saw many tracks that day. But I digress.....
The day ahead is fresh and my thoughts are leaning towards getting prepared to travel out west for our adventure. There seems to be an endless number of things to do – plan for clothes for outdoor activities, get the skis ready for travel, finish the set-up of my new computer, tidy up the camera bag for travel, charge the ipod and headphones, remember all the things we said we would take to the kids, collect all my VANOC papers in one place, tidy the shop (unlikely), and generally get organized to shut down the house for 5 weeks. That all sounds so easy and organized but do not underestimate the impact of distractions that make getting most of these things done very difficult. We shall see at the end of the day what has been accomplished.
We are travelling on Thursday to Vancouver where we will spend the afternoon with Tara-Lee (daughter) and Bree (daughter-in-law) moving about Vancouver and visiting with Bree’s folks (Mary and Larry). WE are staying in town as I have my first official task for the Olympic events later that day. I am scheduled to do my Accreditation and Uniform meeting with VANOC where I will receive my badge and uniform and prove that I am me. That is a one hour evening meeting at the Pacific Centre where all of the Vancouver activities will be happening. It will be interesting to see how the city centre has changed in preparation for the Olympic events. After obtaining my goods we will stay the night with May and Larry and the girls and head up to Whistler the following morning. Freddi has her first Training event on the Friday afternoon.
Off to get some of the things done and will be back tomorrow sometime. By the way, I just returned form a half hour diversion to try to fix Freddi’s malfunctioning computer.
Thought of the day: Do not ever under estimate the time consumed by unplanned activities…….