Anniversary #53

Well, a couple of days ago, on September 5th to be precise, here at Crow Lake Ruth and I celebrated our 53rd wedding anniversary! Who can believe it? Fifty-three years since that sunny Fall-like wedding day in Regina, followed by a long-weekend "honeymoon" during which we established ourselves in a basement apartment on University Avenue in Saskatoon.

Including that first home we have lived in 16 different apartments or houses in 9 different cities: 4 in Saskatoon, 2 in Salem, Massachusetts, 1 in Boston, 2 in Minneapolis, 1 in Silver Spring, MD, 2 in Delmar, N.Y., 2 in Halifax, 1 in Albany, N.Y and 1 in Dundas.

We have now resided in Dundas for just under half of our 53 years together.

Of course, if we count Crow Lake, we have had a "home" in 17 locations.

(A couple of images of Crow Lake where we have been for
almost 6 weeks so far this summer; and we look forward to another 10 days.)

Remember to click on any image to see a larger version.


Back to our history.

Over the course of our years together we managed to work through the complexities of each of us establishing and maintaining professional careers in medicine in several institutions in two countries.

We have engendered and raised two amazing children and are fortunate to have two wonderful grand-children and an exceptionally fine son-in-law.

And, to add to all of our good fortune, several years ago we discovered my son, from a previous relationship, and his family, so adding a second son, a daughter in-law, 3 terrific adult grand-children, a grand daughter-in-law and one great-grand daughter to our family! Followed, more recently, by the addition of a second grand daughter-in-law.

Family doesn't get better than this.

Along the way we have found so many good friends who have enriched our lives enormously. In our numerous moves we have left many behind but, thankfully, we still live close to several.

And, while in recent years we have managed to develop a few aches and pains, we are both, gratefully, in very good health.

Healthy enough, in fact, to celebrate this anniversary by hiking in Frontenac Provincial Park! And here is where we spent most of our day.

As usual, I include far too many details in my blogs for most but, as we spent our day learning about the environment in this park, some bits are duly recorded for those who might be interested.

One of the things one learns in 53 years is that if someone doesn't want to be in a photo, this is as close as it is reasonable to get.







These photos were taken in Arab Lake Gorge very near the park entrance.This trail is about half boardwalk through a swamp area filled with plants like Button Bush, Winterberry and Silky Dogwood, which are adapted to wet living.

As one moves further up the gorge where it is slightly drier the wetland plants give way to plants like ferns, mosses and jewelweed which seem to thrive in the rich sediment of this part of the gorge.

I believe the plant spilling over onto the boardwalk in this photo is jewelweed.

Our other hike was a 3 Km walk around a small lake, Doe Lake. This one, though not really difficult, required a bit more energy expenditure than the Arab Lake Gorge trail, enough that we were pretty tired at the end of it. But it was an enjoyable walk with lots of ups and downs, through a mix of rocky terrain, some wetland areas as well as woodland open enough for the sunlight to stream through the trees, and lots of shoreline as shown in the images above and just below.

I think the area shown on the right qualifies as a swamp, one of 4 or 5 different types of wetland. A swamp, apparently, is a wetland associated with streams, rivers or lakes which has water flowing through it. Swamps are distinguished by the presence of trees and shrubs and are flooded for most if not all of the growing season. So, I think this looks like a swamp.



Well, there you have a bit of our day. It was a very good day followed by an evening of pizza and a movie (interestingly, "Four Weddings and a Funeral", shown on my 11 inch Macbook Air screen! ) at our cabin on Crow Lake. A great way to end the day!