Here I am in September of 2026, haven’t made an update since April. But then again, not a lot happened in Summer 2026.

I played a fair bit of golf, Christy played tennis and pickleball I didn’t play pickleball very much.

A wild day happened May 23 when we had a major wind storm. I was alone at home and moving firewood around when I looked down at the lake and saw a roof on our shoreline. I thought “are they moving Juergen’s dock today? In a hurricane?” No, it is actually Mike Brent’s dock AND 40 feet of shoreline dock and two boats!

There were 3 x 1300 lb anchors on the dock but the rise in the lake level must have lifted them off the bottom and floated it over to our place. Somehow it missed Marcel’s dock and thankfully neither Juergen or I had our docks in place or it would have destroyed all. Somehow it grounded out a foot from our cabana. We had a bunch of neighbours – Marcel, Tracey, Jack, Mike and Janice over trying to help. Tracey had the great idea of putting a scrap tire between their dock and ours which provided the needed buffer. That saved both buildings and thankfully it grounded out – otherwise there was nothing stopping it.

Rick Kevil and his son came over to try and get it away. Luckily the wind died, they were able to unhook the anchors and tow the whole thing away in a big tin boat. Three days later they came back with a barge and backhoe to pull up the sunken anchors. We are missing one of our anchors, I still haven’t found it.

I was a bit beat up in the spring so didn’t do much riding to the golf course. Eventually manage to do it a couple times before the weather started to uncooperate.

Scott Doyle and I did a fun little ride this past Thursday, September 17th, a trip I’ve been wanting to do for a while. We dropped his Toyota at Dale Maw’s house in Novar then drove our bikes in my truck up to the top of the hill in Williamsport. Parked there and then found the trail down to Novar through the bush. Great fun, much muck, tons of moose prints.

Next time we will go the extra 5 km to North Waseosa Rd. in Melissa, there is an easy dirt track that follows the highway/railway.

Christy and I did not do too many adventurous adventures this summer, despite plans to do another canoe trip. We eventually did do a short canoe trip to Brent in Algonquin Park. My customer, Algonquin Outfitters was having phone problems out there so I offered to go and check it out, they would give me a free canoe + paddles in exchange.

I had the idea back in August and Christy and I would go for a couple of days but they didn’t take me up on it so I thought they had solved their problems. Nope. So on September 22nd we set off from Huntsville at 6 am to get there by around 9 am (3 hour drive into Brent from Huntsville).

Of course driving 3 hours to Brent makes no sense from a business or even camping sense but I had secondary motives. 48 years ago (!) I worked in Brent for CN Rail at the station there. I had fond memories of the place and wanted to see it again.

We arrived shortly after 9 am, by then it had warmed up from -1C to about 2C. Very cold, it was going to be cold overnight but the forecast was a little better for today and we were pretty prepared. We met Bonnie and Jake and spent a little over an hour discussing their network issues and reminiscing about Brent. They arrived in 1980, 2 years after I was there and about 5 years before the trains stopped running.

Not too surprisingly, the station part of Brent is unrecognizable – the tracks and station is gone, the house where I stayed appears to be gone and there are no more permanent residents. Apparently Lenny moved back to an apartment in North Bay where he passed some time ago.

By 10:30 am or so Christy and I are paddling due south across the now fairly rough Cedar Lake towards where the Petawawa River empties into Brent. (It flows south east out of the lake towards Ottawa.) The first portage landing is small rocks but very gentle and easy. It’s a 700 m portage and since we’re not in too much of a hurry we decide to do it in two trips. We have one barrel and, stupid us, one large waterproof sack that is hard to carry for Christy. Why didn’t we bring the other barrel? We meet a couple of fishermen brothers and chat them up on our return trip. They have been coming to Brent from Guelph for 30 years, staying in one of Jake’s cabins. Two guys bailed on them so just the two this year.

Pretty soon we’re on the next section of the Pet and it’s a fairly short paddle to the next waterfall portage. The waterfalls are very pretty and the colours are awesome. We’re in full sun, no wind, no bugs, it is very comfortable.

The next portage is much shorter, only 300m, but also much steeper and rougher. We do it in two trips also. The camp site on the portage side of the river sucks so we paddle across the short section of the river to the other portage. It is very nice so we set up camp before exploring this section of the river up to Stacks Rapids which is at the foot of the 2370 m portage up to Narrowbag Lake. There is also a campsite there which we wanted to take a look at, though Jake said “don’t go there”. He was right. That portage is for emergencies only. Very small and right on the portage path. Would be fine today as there is no one around but would be like camping in the middle of the 401 during the summer.

We paddle back to our campsite where, after collecting enough firewood to last the evening, I make us some ramen soup and we relax on the riverbank in the sun. It is awesome.

The other major event in our lives was the pursuit of a new property. In the spring we figured it was cheaper to buy than to build so we started looking. 25 properties later we found our dream in Kearney (well pretty close to a dream). Put our place on the market with not much action for the month of August and a bit of September. The listing closed on Friday of Labour Day weekend and so we resigned ourselves to waiting for 2027.

But wait, don’t go yet! We had 2 last minute showings on the Monday and one of them placed a low-ball offer. We said “go away” and they came back with a very good offer. Bottom line is we accepted it, then offered and eventually agreed on a price for 200 Riverside Drive in Kearney.

The listing is here, though I don’t know how long it will stay alive. Forever?

I am writing this on Tuesday, September 29th, we just had our inspection and everything was great so we’re going to firm up the APS on Thursday, after we check out bridge financing.

Today is October 8th and after much stickhandling we went firm on both properties last night. Had to transfer 29 IVL from holdco to personal, then amend the APS (reassign from holdco) so there was legal and paperwork involved, and of course $18K in land transfer tax. Might as well take $18K and throw it in the garbage for all the value from that.

We’re very excited about the move to Kearney.

Our buyers have requested a visitation on Saturday this weekend which is Thanksgiving (!) and want to come in the house. We’ve said yes to the 2 hour (!) visit but no to coming in the house. We’ll have up to 13 other people here, including 2 camper trailers.

Last night was an OAM reunion, had it at Joey’s in Yorkdale.

Back L-R: Jonathan Wickes, Marc Wayne, Patrick Power, me.

Front L-R: Giovanni Morelli, Marian Dan, Frederick Martin, Duncan Boucher