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

Maybe my favourite lake trout recipe ever...

My adventures in cooking on our third night houseboating were going to include beer can chicken but the chicken wasn’t quite thawed and Mike caught a beautiful lake trout just after lunch. We had been hoping to cook some trout on a cedar plank on the barbecue so I happily saved the chicken for the next day.

It was my first time cooking with the cedar plank and I learned a few things. The plank really needs to be on the barbecue for a while before you start cooking the fish. The instructions with the plank I bought said nothing about this but I don’t really feel that we got a lot of that cedar smoke taste into the fish. The other thing about cooking on a plank is that it needs to soak for two hours before you start so I needed to plan this part of supper ahead a bit more. I soaked it in one of our water pails while we were moving which worked okay but soaking it in the lake would have been better as the plank was a bit too long for the pail.

We had some leftover baby potatoes that I fried up with garlic and onion and cooked one of Abby’s favourites, parsnips. If I hadn’t had so many other things going on on the barbecue I would have roasted them in foil with a bit of oil and honey. Roasting really brings out the parsnip flavour. We also had individual garden salads topped with the things we each like best. 

I had hoped to have fresh bread ready for Mike to have with supper but in the end, it made a great dessert with homemade strawberry jam.

Here’s the trout recipe. Mike and I both agreed that it was a make-again recipe. It has a nice sweet, mild flavour that still lets you taste the fish.

Maple-Soy Glazed Trout

A filet and steak of lake trout looking delicious.

2 1/2 lb fish (I think you could make more than this with this amount of glaze.)

1 tsp. coarse salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/4 c. maple syrup
2 TB soy sauce

2 TB melted butter (I omitted this)

2 TB. lime juice

1/2 tsp. lime zest - this will take at least two limes. I didn’t quite have enough.

2 TB fresh chives

lemon wedges

I marinated the trout in this mixture for about an hour but the recipe says just to glaze it as it cooks. 

Preheat the barbecue to 350. Place the cedar plank on the barbecue as it heats. Place the trout on the plank skin side down. Baste the trout throughout the cooking time. The recipe says this should only take 10 minutes to cook but I found that it took quite a bit longer, probably closer to 20 minutes. That may be because the plank wasn’t heated enough ahead of time. I’m not sure. You’ll know it’s done when the fish flakes easily with a fork.

Serve trout with chives and lemon wedges. I cut the lemon but forgot to bring chives. We found it tasted great as is and didn’t even use the lemon.