Island Girl Talk

water level comparison – the beach

Sadie — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:53:22 +0000

Here’s one more comparison picture that I took a couple of weeks ago. Unlike the picture of the baby’s bathtub, where all I had to do is walk down to it and get the right angle for the correct vantage point, for this beach picture I first had to find the rock. I know that might sound goofy, but I actually had to do some looking because our current beach doesn’t have any rocks. The water level has been down for so long that trees, alder and raspberry bushes cover the old beach area. Forgetting how small the beach used to be, I started search for the rock much further out on the beach than where it actually was. I did find it finally though. There’s a decent sized tree really close to it and I had to bend some of the branches out of the way so I could take this picture. Trees and large bushes don’t grow overnight – it takes years of low water for this to happen.

Do the lowering water levels worry you too? There’s something that can be done. The main factor in the lowering water level is the erosion and dredging in the St. Clair River. The upper Great Lakes are losing 10 billion gallons per day because of it. It can be stopped though. Installing submerged sills or speed bumps in the St. Clair River would slow down this increased water flow and it wouldn’t disrupt the traffic of shipping boats or create issues with the river’s wildlife. Think these submerged sills are a good idea? Please sign the petition to let President Obama and Prime Minister Harper how you feel. Here’s a link to it:

http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/restore-our-water-2

Water level comparison – the baby’s bathtub

Sadie — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 19:04:28 +0000

When I went up to the cottage to open it a couple of weeks ago, I brought along my camera and a couple of old pictures where you can see the old water level. I then tried to take pictures from the exact same vantage points so you could see a side-by-side comparison of what the water level used to be and what it is now.

This is what we used to call the baby’s bathtub. That’s my grandmother giving me a bath in the picture. I used to bathe here all the time when I was growing up on the island. It was deep enough to be a bathtub for a much younger version of me, but small enough that I wouldn’t float off either. It was a great bathtub also because every time a wave came in, it would flush the old water out of the bathtub and new water would come in. The water started to lower when I was a little older, but when we had storms or north winds (which would raise the water), the waves would still crash into the bathtub. It became a great home for frogs and tadpoles.

The water hasn’t reached the baby’s bathtub for a long time now though. Bushes and trees now grow between the bathtub and the shore. There’s barely any water in the bathtub and the little water that is in it is so stagnant that not even the frogs live there anymore.

http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/restore-our-water-2

The shoes – becoming one with nature

Sadie — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 04:56:03 +0000

For the past few years, I have been keeping track and taking photographs of the pairs of shoes that are on the end of the island. The shoes have been there longer than we have been. My family bought our island in the early 1960s and the shoes were there when they initially looked at the property. No one knows who the shoes belonged to, but there are three pairs of them – one being large guy sized, one being more the size of a woman’s pair of shoes and one pair was child sized. We’ve kept the shoes there as part of our own informal science experiment so we could find out how long it takes for shoes to completely fall apart and degrade.

Over the years I’ve watched the leather wither and fall apart and for years now, all that’s been there are the shoes’ rubber soles. I noticed this past weekend that the shoes are becoming one with nature though. Lichen is starting to grow on the one. It will be neat to see how this progresses throughout the years. You can find previous pictures of the shoes here.

This year’s photo of the shoes:

Open for the season

Sadie — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 04:36:18 +0000

Last weekend we opened up the cottage on Action Island for the summer. It was a cold and windy weekend and though we didn’t manage to get everything done, we did get the water line and dock in, get the shutters off and tidy a bit. It was a working weekend for us, but Morgan had lots of time to relax and sun himself on the beach. I hope everyone has a great cottaging season!

A young windswept pine

Sadie — Sun, 26 May 2013 18:21:10 +0000

I’ve always wondered what makes some pine trees turn into beautiful windswept pines when other trees that are in close proximity grow straight. This young pine is at the end of our island in an area that gets a lot of wind. It will be interesting to watch how this pine grows in the upcoming years.

More bizarre outhouse “art” – the birdhouse

Sadie — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:40:56 +0000

When I started posting about odd outhouse related art and decor a few years ago, I never expected that “outhouse” would become one of my most used tags on the blog. Victoria recently sent me this picture. She found this weird birdhouse at a store in Lake Tahoe. I was relieved when she said that she didn’t buy it. Just having a real outhouse of my own is good enough for me. I don’t need a birdhouse that looks like one too.

Little islands

Sadie — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 02:12:03 +0000

This is my favorite picture that I’ve taken this winter. My island sisters and I would canoe out to these islands to picnic all of the time when we were younger. They look so different under a blanket of snow.

Cold shower

Sadie — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 02:01:32 +0000

The shower might be frozen now, but we just got a tankless propane water heater that will work wonderfully come spring. I’m definitely looking forward to taking a shower whenever I want, instead of having to wait until the late afternoon when the water is warm from sitting in the water line with the sun shining on it all day.

Problem solved!

Cold shower this February:

How it normally looks:

Four seasons – the outhouse

Sadie — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 03:48:57 +0000

I’ve had this idea that it would be neat to take a picture of the outhouse each season and to make some sort of collage of it. I took the winter picture this past weekend. I’ll take the rest from the same angle.

Winter – I have a feeling I’ll be painting it in the spring:

And one more neat outhouse shot. The rest won’t be able to be taken from this angle because the leaves will block the view.

Shepherd Gnome, you’re international

Sadie — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 03:48:14 +0000

A few years ago, there was a problem with gnome theft in town. All of the lawn gnomes in town were being stolen and no one seemed to know where they were going. Long after the gnomes went missing, a hiker found them. They were all frolicking in a clearing in the woods outside of town. Finding a random clearing in the woods with a ton of lawn gnomes in it had to be quite a sight to see.

Since then, I’ve loved the idea of having random lawn gnomes on Action Island. A few years ago, I found two of them at the dump, so I got them and I’m now using them as path markers.

Around the holidays, I got this shepherd gnome in an awful gift exchange from my brother. It still had dirt on the bottom from when he pulled it out of his garden to box it and wrap it up. When I opened the gift, I laughed and said that I was going to take it to the island because I had the perfect place for it. I don’t think he believed me, so I took pictures of the shepherd’s trek to its new home.

Here is the gnome on its journey. It’s in the black and white bag getting pulled along on a sled. We pulled the gnome for over two miles along the ice until it reached its destination.

And here it is in its new home – pointing the way to the outhouse.