Making a collection

Zebra rocks, polkadot rocks, tiger rocks and more!

Two is such a wonderful age. It takes so little to be amused. The whole world is waiting to be discovered and everything is an adventure. At home Abby's favourite adventure is a walk up the hill beside Grandma and Grandpa's house to sit on a big rock that overlooks the houseboats and the lake. She would go on that adventure several times a day if someone would take her. I was looking forward to seeing what adventures would be her favourites while we were on our houseboat vacation.

We had a lovely ride to our first campsite on the houseboat. Abby has a sticker book she’s been working through that kept her busy for a long time. There was a lot to see on the way out: green and red buoys had to be watched for; boats had to be waved at as they passed by. She helped Daddy drive and enjoyed a few snacks along the way.

'Stonehenge'

Our first stop was Sand Point. Abby was so excited to have arrived she was taking her clothes off to put her swimming suit on before we were even tied up. We spent a fun couple of hours digging in the sand and exploring the shoreline. We began by digging for treasure and finding lots of interesting rocks in the sand. Mike came out to play while I got my swimming suit on and he showed her how to make 'Stonehenges' with her treasure rocks.

Then we began to make collections. Abby was collecting orange rocks and I was collecting white rocks. There were a lot more orange rocks to be found than white as we wandered up and down the shore. Abby’s bucket was quickly filled and emptied into a pile at the water’s edge. She soon turned to collecting interesting rocks as she sang about her collection. We found zebra rocks, tiger rocks, polka dot rocks and just plain cool rocks. There were also lots of big pine cones to add to the collection.

Rocks, exploring, swimming, pine cones... Sometimes we feel the need to plan a multitude of activities that must happen before our family vacation can be complete. But two years old doesn't require every moment of the day to be organized. It only requires some water, some rocks and someone to share it with.

Another great rock for the collection

Steak and potatoes

Honestly, I don’t think this meal is all that interesting. In fact I think it’s quite common but Mike asked if I wanted pictures taken because he was so excited to enjoy it. 
Now we don’t have steak every day. That’s not why I think it’s common. It’s just that there’s no recipe. Anyone could make it. Lots of people do make it. But apparently steak, foil potatoes with bacon, onion and Italian seasoning and skewered mushrooms are worth writing about. This spring beef loins were on sale for less than half price so I picked one up and cut it into steaks and froze them. Every time we have steak Mike tells me I should have bought more. But I’m still learning how to buy meat and can never remember what is tender and what isn’t. Growing up on a farm has lots of advantages and eating the meat you raise is certainly one of them. The disadvantage is that you eat what’s in the freezer. You don’t think about what kind of steak it is. You don’t check to see if you’re buying one that’s nicely marbled. It’s just there. You thaw it and you eat it. This is not a complaint. I am so thankful to have been raised on a farm. It’s just that now I need to buy meat and it always seems so expensive and I’m still learning how to choose a good cut.

The more interesting part of this meal is that we baked cookies on the barbecue to finish it off. We don’t eat a lot of dessert but I want to try a few different things on the barbecue while we’re on vacation so we will be eating dessert most nights much to everyone’s excitement. Before I got pregnant with Abby I pretty much cut sugar out of my diet and I felt sooo much better. I’m careful about how much sugar Abby has too. What this means is that my choice of cookie may not be terribly appealing to anyone who eats Oreos on a regular basis. There is a recipe called healthy cookies going around Facebook and Pinterest. I tried one version that called for mashed banana, oats and chocolate chips and it was surprisingly good. I used quinoa flakes in that recipe and the substitution worked very well.

Today’s recipe has a bit more to it but still has no oil, gluten, sugar, eggs or raising agents. I bought some gluten free oats to try. Abby and I had lots of fun mixing them up. Abby had even more fun ‘having a good taste’.

My cookie sheet is really a bit big for this barbecue so I turned it halfway through cooking and they didn’t seem to get burnt. I preheated the barbecue to 350 using the burner on only one side. I lined the sheet with parchment paper instead of oil because I thought oil might make the cookies more likely to burn. Everyone seemed to think they turned out very well and quite a few of them disappeared before the night was over. I found this was a very forgiving recipe to make on the barbecue. It handled some variation in the temperature without burning or drying out. I had hoped to use my insulated cookie sheet but it ended up being much too big for the houseboat barbecue.

Healthy Cookie

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/3 cup apple sauce

1 tsp. vanilla

3 cups of rolled oats

1/4 cup almond milk

1/2 cup raisins

1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix all the ingredients together and drop them by tablespoonful onto greased or parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

Beer can chicken and other yummy things

Tonight’s meal consisted of beer can chicken, barbecued cabbage with bacon, squash and bean salad. I always love squash with my roasted chicken and tonight was no exception. I didn’t do as well at having everything ready at the same time and Abby and I were both feeling very tired and a bit grumpy so we ate things as they were cooked since Mike was out fishing and had said not to wait for him.

Carefully measuring the spices.

The beer can chicken turned out great. We borrowed a chicken roaster and a can of beer from Mike’s parents. This is not your traditional roasting pan but something that props the chicken up in a ‘standing’ position. It has a tray for catching the drips and holds a beer can. I had one little problem in cooking with it - the chicken was too tall for the barbecue. Being tired and not having my problem solving husband here to help me I put a metal bowl in the barbecue to prop the lid up a bit and tried a couple of things to keep the heat from escaping but none of them worked well. The chicken roaster's instructions actually say to make sure the lid on the barbecue is fully closed. As best as I can tell the only side effect was that it took extra propane to cook supper. I asked Mike about it when he came in and he thought he had taken the rack out of the barbecue on one side and set the chicken directly on the flavour wave plate when he'd done it before. I'm sure that would have worked perfectly.

Beer Roasted Chicken

1 whole chicken 2-4 lbs

1 can of beer

2-3 cloves of fresh garlic

poultry seasoning, fresh or dried rosemary, salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the grill on medium heat.

Rub the outside of the skin with poultry seasoning, lightly covering the entire bird. Add pepper and salt to taste.

Empty 1/2 of the can of beer into a glass or measuring cup.

Place 2-3 small cloves of garlic in beer can along with 2-3 sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Place the beer can on the base and assemble the large holders around the can of beer.

Place the chicken on the assembled roaster and if desired add the leftover beer and any additional garlic and rosemary to suit to the pan of the roaster.

Place the roaster on the grill. Cook the bird 18-20 minutes per pound or until the breast meat has reached an internal temperature of 170C.

The chicken turned out very moist and tender with lots of great flavour. Definitely another make again recipe.

Dinner time!

I cooked the squash in a metal bowl covered with foil but next time I would just wrap it in foil. The bowl seemed to make it take a lot longer to cook. It was the last thing ready to be eaten.

I have made this cabbage recipe once before but with a larger cabbage. The flavour is great and this time it was more thoroughly cooked.

Barbecued Cabbage

1 head cabbage

4 slices bacon

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp. pepper

4 tsp. butter (I didn’t bother with this - there’s enough fat in the bacon in my opinion)

Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage. Divide into four sections, removing the core. Place each on a piece of foil big enough to wrap them in. Add 1 slice of bacon, 1/4 of seasoning mix and 1 tsp. butter if desired.

Preheat oven to medium heat and bake 40 minutes, turning twice.

I let Abby have a real treat and we made S’mores on the barbecue. I know you’re supposed to have a campfire to do that but we just never seem to get around to making one. She loves all of the ingredients and was excited to watch the marshmallows puff up on the barbecue. I set the crackers directly on the grill but it would probably be better if they were on a tray or foil as we almost lost Abby’s marshmallows on the grill and some of my chocolate melted onto the grill. It seemed like such a shame to not be able to lick it off.

Mmmm... chocolatey, marshmallowy goodness.

Adventures while Kayaking Eye Lake - July 9/13

Today was a busy day but a fun day. We camped at an unmarked but very well used campsite at the entrance to Eye Lake. Abby was up early so she and I explored our new campsite despite the hordes of mosquitoes. There is a lot of space that has been cleared under the trees and several trails to explore and there's nothing Abby loves more than to go on an adventure. Then I taught her how to play tag and we ran around until 8:30 when I decided we must have some breakfast.

After we had eaten and cleaned up I packed a picnic lunch and some snacks for our kayaking adventure. We had 'camped' here because I was interested in exploring Eye Lake with Abby and more than an hour and a half in the kayak gets to be a bit long for her. I also wanted to hike the portage trail into Devil Bay. My plan was to have our picnic there and I hoped that it might be a nice spot to swim because our campsite had a pretty dirty bottom for wading and splashing in.

We had a nice paddle and I continue to be amazed at how well Abby sits in the kayak. She must really like it since she doesn’t complain at all when she gets the occasional bonk on the head. Of course I can’t see her face either so maybe it bothers her more than I think but she really doesn’t fuss about it all.

Eye Lake isn’t very big and I was surprised to find a cottage hidden on one of the islands. Abby wanted to check out all of the beaver huts along the way to see if there were any minnows at them so that took our adventure to several little bays we might not have explored so closely. There were at least five beaver huts along the way but only one of them seemed to be in use right now.

Some of the giants' stepping stones

Mike wanted us to make sure we saw the giants' stepping stones across the back bay of Eye Lake and they really were quite interesting. The ‘grain’ of the rock is on an angle and it looks as if they were placed in a row by a giant long ago.

We found a bed of white water lilies which was beautiful. They bloom later than the yellow water lilies and these are the first I have seen this year. That may be because the water is warmer in Eye Lake than in the larger, deeper Lake Temagami.

In a sea of water lilies

Abby was fascinated by the wild rice and wanted to paddle through it whenever we could. I saw something unusual flying around as we glided through the rice but didn’t get a good look at it until we were almost back to our houseboat. As we paddled through one last patch of rice I finally saw one at rest on top of a green stalk of rice. It was the most beautiful ruby red dragonfly I’ve ever seen. Once we’d seen one we saw many many more and we spent a while hunting  them down just so we could get a good look at them. Of course Abby wanted to pet them but we were never that close. Unfortunately the Gopro wasn't on anymore when we were dragonfly chasing or I would definitely share pictures of our discovery.

Devil Bay in the background looked beautiful and made me want to explore the lake here too.

Our hike to Devil Bay was nice. It’s a well used trail and the first half of it has no rocks. It’s an easy hike with no steep inclines We saw several groups of canoeists head that way in the short while we camped here. However, I learned a valuable lesson. Don't bring more than can be put into a backpack when hiking with a two year old. I had way too much stuff with me and only a small backpack which contained our long pants in case the bugs tried to carry us away. I also had our small cooler with our picnic in it and a largish waterproof camera case. The portage trail is just over 500 meters long so it wasn’t too long with a two and a half year old Abby except that she had a little tumble early on and was tired and hungry. Soon I was carrying a little girl on my shoulders and had hands full of cases to carry. I will definitely do things differently if we go hiking like that again.

If you just want a trail to hike on to burn some energy this is a nice length for younger kids and not too difficult. Unfortunately there is no clearing at the other end. The bush was hot and buggy and my hopes of swimming once we reached our destination were not realized because the trail ended in a pile of smelly pollen. A bit later in the season or with the wind in a different direction the pollen would not have been an issue and we may have been able to get cooled off a bit. As it was we went just a little way off the trail and had a bit of a picnic lunch because we needed to eat. The bugs knew they were in for a treat as well and feasted on any part of us that wasn’t covered. Abby’s bug jacket worked great. I unzipped it and put it on top of her head so her neck and most of her head were still protected but she could have some food to fill her little tummy . Her ankles and hands didn’t fare so well but she barely complained about her bug bites she was having so much fun.

Getting cooled off!

We had a little splash when we returned to the kayak because we were so hot but there was lots of tree and leaf matter on the bottom that stirred up as soon as you disturbed the water so we didn’t play there long. We had a better swim at our campsite but then needed a ‘bath’ on the back of the houseboat to get really clean. All in all we had a fun day and it was definitely an adventure to remember.