One quickly learns that retail is not a "nice" business. Already one other area retailer has put the screws to one of my suppliers and they have discontinued providing me with their wares. My aim had always been to complement and not compete with other village businesses. I thought that if I stayed away from the items other shops sold, I would find my own niche. It seems the retailer now sees my niche would do well in her store. Some of her wares will do equally well in mine. I will now fight fire with fire.

Well, just when things were settling into comfortable normalcy, with gentle and predicable country semi-retirement, I happened to get the idea to open a shop. At 36 it may have been understandable; at 56 it is more than a challenge. Still, predictability can be tiresome and the notion of gliding into old age did not sit well with me. Even if the lifting and grunting is more befitting a younger frame with greater agility and strength, and the standing for hours on end is something made for youthful feet, I shall be glad I have undertaken this venture, if only for a while.
Mill Creek Lodge, rustic accents is my concept but has only been made possible with the support of a life partner.

Well summer has come and, apparently, gone. We had a wonderful time at our cabin and now life has become hectic again. Here's what I have been up to:
An exciting new shop will open on Main Street, Warkworth on 1 November 2006 in the beautifully restored former Orange Lodge (c. 1860) across from the village bank and Town Hall. Seeing its potential, the building was purchased by its present owners, John Saynor and Paul Rapsey, in 2003 in the midst of its complete restoration by Mark Keiffer of Keiffer Homes.

"Mill Creek Lodge, rustic accents" will sell primitive wooden furniture, rustic furnishing accessories and some apparel.

New business owner, Paul Rapsey, says the idea of opening a retail store has been "milling about" in his head for some time. However, it was only this summer, while sitting reading on his dock on a wilderness lake, that he was catapulted into action. The book, says Paul was a dry tome of 600 pages by Thomas Friedman, an award winning American journalist. It was not usual cottage reading. However, one brief part of the book caught his attention. This was written in the context of countries and corporations resting on their laurels. In particular one sentence stated: "When our memories out-number our dreams, the end is near." Paul took this as a personal call to action. He decided it was time to re-invent himself at 56. Now or never. The concept of adding a new career to his accumulated list of careers including caterer, professional actor, social worker and lawyer was not a new one.
With the guidance of a number of established retail outlets, Mill Creek Lodge hopes to compliment rather than compete with the other vibrant businesses in Warkworth.
So Paul invites the public to start with admiring the view on a bench at Mill Pond and then to browse the busy commercial main street ending with a leisurely stroll on the wonderful Mill Creek Trail. To adopt and adapt a well-known catch phrase of the Hyde House in Acton, Ontario: "Its worth the walk in Warkworth".

Some things do change. In the 1980s I had stopped wanting to go to Quebec. People were rude and unwilling to speak with you unless your French was impeccable in a Quebecoise way. That was not what we found at all on this visit. People, especially young people, were almost too willing to speak with us in English once they determined we were not francophone. And they were extremely welcoming. Nevertheless we attempted our rusty French as much as we could.
Our apartment was in the old City and within the walls. Not only that, it is was only a few steps from the ancient street where my Quebec friends had lived in the 1960s - I shudder to think that was now almost 40 years ago! We had a marvellous time walking and pretending this was our City. And the food!

A City with History: Tomorrow we drive off to la vieille Ville de Quebec for a conference. This is a City with a large history of its own and which has also played a big part in my personal history. At 18 years of age I had headed off alone to a grand old hotel on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River to work during my summer break. I was about to enter my senior year of high school - grade 13.
It was on the train heading east out of Quebec City that I met the man from Montreal with whom I would have my first sexual encounters. It was with young vibrant Quebecois working with me that I spent a great deal of time-off in the old walled City.
This was the summer of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and of the Quebec separatist flourish. We were all would-be freedom fighters, dreamers and laughing, intense philosophising youth. It was a summer of happy love and induced shame that would keep me closetted for a number of years yet. But six years later it was a Quebec City, Roman monk who would bring me joyfully out again and encourage me to live my life with integrity.
I have not visited this walled City for over 27 years and I go now with my lover of almost 25 years with vivid, lingering memories of anything is possible.

Well, another birthday has come and gone - but, since we tend to celebrate birth-months, I still have a few more days left to be pampered.
We are about to head into the garden to see if we can't get the major weeds under control. The gardens are lush and all the blossoming trees and shrubs have and continue to put on a banner performance this year.
Everything has grown exponentially... except for the prize apple tree that the tumbling 90 foot high spruce took out in a storm this past winter and the 2 other apple trees the rabbits killed by eating the bark.
We opened the cabin for our 20th season last weekend and nearly got carried off with the black flies. The docks were much harder to deal with than usual - either because of the age of the docks or the age of ourselves. In this vein, several years ago we went to arrange for friends to stay at the German woman's B&B on the far point across the lake from our cabin. She did not seem to remember us and asked where our cottage was. We told her and she replied: "Oh yes, that was the one the two young boys used to own."
Sheesh....

More Milestones: In an hour or so we are about to head off to our cabin near Parry Sound for the opening of our 20th season at the lake. The car is almost packed and Buster is eager to hop into the space prepared for him. It will be time to put the docks in, uncover the canoe and kayaks and to prepare the outhouse!
Tomorrow, will be the 50th anniversary of my arrival in Canada via a 5-day ocean crossing on the HMS Britannic to New York City with my family and then an overnight train to Toronto:1956. Then in a further four days I will be 56!

Today is our 24th anniversary and the start of our 25th year together! Despite societal obstacles, we have fashioned our own way - and are so glad we did. We have a better, fresher, and more vital relationship because of it. We did not try to fit ourselves or each other into a pre-ordained mold.

Spring is my favourite time of year. The brown of late winter has turned an invigorating green. Each morning the robins' song wakens us and each night the peepers put us to sleep. The trees are fat with the expectancy of new leaves. The forsythia that have sparkled with vibrancy for several weeks have lost only a little of their intensity. The lilacs are already teasing us with the first hints of the flowers and rich aroma to come. Some daffodils have already faded but others are still in full bloom and the tulips are just beginning to show hints of their many rich colours. Blue birds have nested in one of our houses and swallows in others.
What I enjoy about our garden in particular is that it is made up of mostly perennials. However, I spent much of yesterday digging in the earth and planting some annuals - a variety of sunflowers that will hopefully stand from 3 to 14 feet tall this summer if the seeds do not become a feast for the birds.

All this talk of capturing critters reminds me of another incident. But, I am not the only one who is a disposer of unwanted and damaging wildlife. Now don't get me wrong, wildlife in the right places is fine with me - indeed I love nothing better than watching an abundance of nature's activity in the fields and bush around the house and outbuildings.

Buster the Beast - What is one to do when, lying on a Friday rainy evening by the fire, one hears a bang and then a crashhhh coming from some undisclosed location in the silent house? It sounds like a picture falling off the wall or perhaps the wind knocking the swing against the front porch wall. Then another bang more resonant than the first!... Perhaps the ironing board falling from it's reluctant perch on the basement stair wall.
Rising from my reclining position I make a hasty tour of the house, room by room, floor by floor and not a thing seems amiss. Then back to the couch - had I dropped off, was I dreaming.... Craaaashhhhhhhh! The Garden Cottage!
What burglar had entered while I dozed? Why are the cat and dog so somnolent? I enter the adjacent wing timidly. Sooty footprints are everywhere as are little black droppings of apparent excrement. The clock has been knocked off the desk and is lying in the middle of the floor. A crystal is lying next to the lamp from which it once hung .... the dried hydrangea has crumbled... a sterling inlaid glass dish is lying in a thousand pieces like tiny diamonds next to the fire place. The fireplace door is ajar.
Suddenly, taking me aback with a silently uttered scream, a small, black, furry creature flies around the corner and tears by a cowering me into the bedroom where it tries to climb the newly painted wall and pass through the closed window. Slam! I close it in the bedroom, fearing that it might jump up into the loft to escape further detection.
"Buster!", I call.
"Where are you when I need you? And Charlie, where is your feline hunter instinct? Are you too well fed? Buster, come here, Buster, come..."
I hear the click, click of his long nails against the wooden floor in the room next door... Once in the bedroom, Buster's hair bristles. No more the domestic, sleepy dog. No more sloppy, playful pup. Frozen, he stands - Majestic! The Beast emerges! I quickly close the bedroom door again. I leave the two black creatures to face each other as if the room were a primaeval forest. I go in search of a broom. Yes, a broom!
Returning not more than a minute later, I hear.... nothing... -- no thing.... -- nought! I slowly open the barrier between cottage and woods, and there stands the black brute, squirrel clutched in his mighty jaws, hair bristling on his noble back, shaking it viciously from side to side to side. He bounds past me, lest I scold him or worse - take his toy, out of the bedroom he races with his catch. He bounds further, out of the Garden Cottage and into the main house. I bound after him , much less gracefully, and head directly to the back porch door. I open it quickly and he runs out before I can catch my breathe - black with black disappearing in the black rainy night...
Time passes. I hear the rain on the roof. Later, I wonder where is my dog? I peer out through the rain drenched window across the drive to the distant lawn... There lies the shadow of a dog, who does not like the rain, just a dark shape in the dreary night, soaked, proud, stretched full out, playing gently with his prize, now presumed long dead.
Still later, I go out to see if I can coax him inside so that I can go to bed... He stands. He nuzzles the ground. He holds his head high. I hear the crunching of tiny bones... crunch, crunch, crunch. He stops. I hear the smack of contently licked lips. He looks at me not knowing if he has been bad or good. Buster wags his tale and gives a frisky wiggle of his whole body and comes obediently into the house. A very exhausted hunter is soon snoring.
Next morning I returned to the scene and found only a very wet and motley tail.

Well, life in the country continues to be wonderful. Last Sunday we burned a very large pile of lumber debris from the construction work that is going on here right now. Our lower field is where we usually do this sort of burning and it is usually brush from our property. I like to do it in February when there is snow on the ground. However, we had had plenty of rain and the hay field was not yet too long. It was a perfect day - cool and sunny. And while we were at our task, a group of horsemen in full English Hunt regalia and a pack of well behaved hounds rounded the corner and trooped by. This is not an everyday event but it does happen from time to time. In its way, it was as wonderful as seeing the deer in the fields, or a majestic loan wolf bound along the fence line or even the flock of very large wild turkeys strut on the far hill.

Happy 80th Birthday to a great lady! Great hat too!

Masked Marauders: The recent skunk story reminds me of another story that took place here shortly after we had moved from the City. At that time our outbuildings were in much need of tender loving care. The former horse barn, which is now our office, had recently become the cat house for our two kittens, acquired to keep the rodent population at bay. Soon however, we noticed that the young cats would look in terror at the building and would not go near. We discovered an infestation of racoons that had become aggressive squatters. It was then that we acquired the live trap. And the more we set it, the more we caught – nine in all!
Racoons are not like skunks and could be easily transported in the back of our then still urban cars to distant and isolated locations and this is what we did… However, one occasion caused my heart to race. Now these live traps are rectangular in shape , just over 2 feet long and just short of a foot high and wide. They are made of a strong wire mesh and have a wire door at one end and a small door at the other end on top for dropping feed onto a tray beneath. This door is about 3 inches square and is locked with a small wire hook.
At the time I had an old manual transmission Hyundai Pony, a hatchback missing the cover between the trunk and the cabin. It was my trusty tractor and my pickup truck. I had caught what turned out to be the last of the nine marauders and set the trap in the hatch and drove down our lane to the pothole ridden concession road below. Shortly after heading onto the road I heard banging coming from the rear of the vehicle. I glanced over my shoulder, smugly knowing the banging was in vain. The banging persisted and there was a definite sense of heaving. I slowed down and looked in the rearview mirror… to my surprise a furry arm was sticking up through the small opening. I smiled, convinced that there was nothing to worry about. But, a doubting Thomas, I glanced back again. An arm and a nose. The car proceeded at a slow speed … an arm, a nose a head … I geared down further… The cage wiggled and the racoon wriggled. Two arms, a nose, a head, and a substantial portion of the body … I was sweating. Then terror! – The racoon was climbing over the back seat… By then the car was in first gear, the driver's door open and I stood dusty on the gravel road watching the car chug forward driverless and hiccupping to a desperate stop. The racoon paused, looked out the window, climbed onto the driver's seat and then out the door and scuttled past me contemptuously up the road back to our lane, up the lane and back to the horse barn. Fortunately no one was about to see my bewilderment and frustration.

Rural Life: I am suffering from a lingering cold. It is the fault of at least one skunk. But it turns out there were at least two of them. And together they made an amorous smell under the Garden Cottage sunroom. Many attempts to scared them out with loud rock music, or blocking holes failed. If you have ever lived with a skunk you will know why they are not a good thing to have around – especially if you have an inquisitive and stubborn dog. An attempt at live trapping the beast(s) made for well-fed beasts but empty traps. Therefore we called in the pest control – not a very well organized one. But they did have the magic trick – marshmallows! Yes skunks love marshmallows. They caught the critter, but were not wise enough to think to cover the trap. Skunks are docile in traps unless they can see you. So the pest control officer got sprayed and so did the wall of the house. But they took away the cute little thing and that cost us $160. The next day they returned to secure the premises with buried chicken wire… To our surprise, that cost us another $160! I think we were taken to the cleaners, only it did not get rid of the skink smell. The next day I discovered there was another hole. I covered it. It was uncovered and the hole got bigger. Not to be short another $320, I bought marshmallows myself and got out our own trap. One needs such a trap when living in the country. Being wise I set the trap away from the house and planted a trail of marshmallows right into the cage. The skunk loved the marshmallows but did not set off the trap, I presume because it merely reached through the wire for its after dinner treat. So I moved the trap back close to the house and too close to a stone wall for it to reach in from the sides. I then covered the trap with a blanket and re-planted the bait… Alas, the next early dawn, I snuck around and found the door closed. The captive was docile and heavy. I carried the covered cage carefully away from the house and out into the paddock. I had lain awake much of the night plotting my course of action… I would affixiate it! I moved the car into the paddock and found a very long eaves down spout that I attached to the tail pipe. I then placed the open end of the pipe into the cage under the cover and went somewhat guiltily in for breakfast. An hour latter I returned to find bemused contractors (who were working on barn renovations) scratching their heads and wondering what I was up to. I knocked the cage. Not a whimper. They were truly impressed. I then started to remove the sheet and what was presumed dead arose again! A truly Easter event. The sheet was hastily returned to its former place. There was but one thing to do. Letting it go within miles of the place was not an option. Skunks have incredible homing instincts. Living in the country with an old well, we have an abundance of rain barrels. I half emptied one and put it on a dolly and moved it to the paddock. The cage would fit in but the water was not deep enough. I repeated the action with a second barrel and had one of the contractors assist me with emptying its contents into the first barrel. A quick heave of the cage into the icy water did the trick almost instantaneously. The poor creature is buried on the fence line not too far from the rhubarb patch. In the process I got rather wet but amazingly, through all of this there was no further spraying. The contractors have proclaimed me the "Dunk the Skunk" king. The smell permeating the Garden Cottage is slowly dissipating. I am suffering with a cough and cold and a somewhat guilty conscience.

2006 is our 20th season at Woodhead Cottage, a rustic cabin (no hydro, no plumbing) on a pristine point of land on a small lake in the Parry Sound region of Ontario. It is a wonderful retreat from the encroachment of constant communication, although over the years we have developed quite an enjoyable social life there.

Our decision to leave Toronto in 1994 and move to the country was the best decision we could possibly have made. The Croft on Wind's-E'e is an 1860 Ontario farm house situated on a hill with endless views of mixed forest and farmland in all directions.