The ‘afters’ on the minor renos

If I don’t mention the weather maybe it will just go away. I can always hope. I am mentally preparing myself right now to take Haylie out to the bus. On a nice day it is an enjoyable walk, days like today – not so much. It actually seemed warmer than it has been the last few days. I didn’t hit that ‘wall’ of cold when we walked out the door.

Now here’s an exciting picture…

New Shower

New Shower

 

Yes it is a shower. We now have 3 showers for the hens and 3 for the drakes.

Wait it gets more exciting

The new floor

The new floor

Yup it’s a bathroom floor. But, it looks all shiny and new right now. It’s even still got that new paint smell, not to be confused with the new car smell.

Next up is room #3. It has gotten a bit of a makeover as well.

The dolphin room

The dolphin room

 

You would not believe how long it took me to paint that back wall.

dscf1721

Without the picture on the wall the room appeared very, very blue. The fishies seem to distract the eye and it looks pretty good (if I do say so myself). I do however have to change up the bedding though as I notice that it really stands out and doesn’t match.

They have been working on the cabin as well. It now has electricity and beds. I have not gone to take pictures and do not intend to until I can walk back there without getting hypothermia. Should be about March maybe. The cabin will be ready to rent on New Year’s if anyone is interested.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Maybe we should try this at the Duck?

Competing to Be Top Claus
Competing to Be Top Claus

Or not!!!

There will be lots of Santa sightings around the area this weekend. The Santa breakfast happens at the Warren hall Saturday morning and Santa will also be at the Marquette Coop from 10:00-12:00. Also on the agenda is the Christmas open house at Keystone Quality Meats running all day from 9:00am-4:30pm. After breakfast you can head out there and sample some sausage, burgers etc for lunch. If you plan your day right you may not even have to cook at all.

I think that you will also see quite a few snowmobilers out and about this weekend as well. They are still calling for some more snow today and even more on the weekend.  Should be getting just about enough to make for some good riding.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Friday afternoon was looking like a good day for a parade and then that Manitoba north wind started to howl. We were parked towards the north end of Main Street and it was very cold blowing across from Quarry Park. There seemed to be a good turnout of people regardless of the cold weather. There are lots of die hard parade fans around for sure. I’m not one of them as I was happy to be warm inside the truck.

Santa Parade Float

Santa Parade Float

Santa Parade Float

Santa Parade Float

It is hard to see in the pictures but you may notice my new car on the float. It will perfect for the quick trips to Stonewall. OK I may be stretching the truth a little – a lot. It is the race car that Rubber Ducky sponsor’s. It belongs to a friend of ours and he takes it to the Gimli drag races during the summer. So, if you have ever seen our truck pulling a purple race car and wondered what was going on, that is the story.
These are some pictures of some of the other floats that were around us.
First is Don’s Mechanical. They did a great decorating jobs with lots of lights, looked impressive.
Don's Mechanical Float
This is the Remax float. They were trying to warm things up a little. If you know our duck, you won’t be surprised that he has his beak in there checking things out.
Remax Float

Remax Float

It was a fun night as always. We also had the sound system set up with Rubber Ducky playing over and over and over. The girls got to see some familiar faces from school and the duck found some campground friends who came back for a visit after.

Sunday evening the Prime Meridian Trail held their annual meeting in our Rec Building. That included supper for about 30 people. Everything went well with fortunately not a huge amount of leftovers. They had a slide show presentation from one of the members of a trail near Headingley.  I missed a good portion of the details as I was in the kitchen, but I will try to find out more. I didn’t even realize there was another trail over there. There is access from near the Perimter and he mentioned that they do get lots of people coming out from Winnipeg to go for a walk.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Santa parade tomorrow

You can tell it is time for the Stonewall Santa parade when the temperature start dropping drastically. It always seems to be very, very cold on that day and tomorrow is no exception. We still have to put the finishing touches on our float tomorrow, but it is pretty close to done. I will of course post pictures later on for those that don’t brave the cold.

Did you ever notice how you can go for weeks with nothing much going on and then one weekend you seem to have tons of stuff going on? That seems to be our weekend. Friday of course is the parade. In Dennis’ other life with Investment Planning Counsel we are going to a family party at Imax put on by Mckenzie funds on Saturday. Then on Sunday we have a function here that we are catering the supper for. Before you know it it will be Monday again.

Dennis has the showers pretty much done in the rec building. He just has a few little things to hook up and then we need to do some touch up painting. He is also picking up some paint to repaint the floors in both bathrooms since they desparately need a darker colour. Should be done next week sometime.

I just got an email about an upcoming swimming instructor course being offered through Selkirk Continuing Ed

Dec 22 & 23, 29 & 30

8:00am to 3:00pm

Registration would take place at www.selkirkconed.com

 Thought I should circulate this around since there seems to be a shortage of instructors around right now. As a matter of fact anyone that does become or is an instructor can talk to me about a job next summer. I am always looking. Seems funny to think about next summer swimming outside when it is -20C outside. Oh well such is life in Manitoba.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Who let the duck out? Quack, Quack.

 Our duck went astray and seems to have had a night on the town.

 http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/wWyJBpKWC7JK8W1Rsrb4lw.

At least none of these pictures are mug shots so he must have been fairly well behaved.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

December already?

 

I think many people will agree that it is hard to believe that December is here already. It would be nice if the rest of the winter went as fast as November seemed to. Don’t forget

We got all the Christmas decorations up in the rec building yesterday. So it is all ready for Christmas to come. Today has been a boring day of scrubbing the floor over there and setting up for the Northern Lites meeting tonight. I think of all the things that are entailed in my job description scrubbing that floor has got to be the thing that I dread most. But now it is done for a while anyway. Dennis is getting started on installing more showers in the washrooms. November has been a month of painting, cleaning, and reorganizing, and we are not done yet. There are still some more things on our to-do list.

Our first snowmobilers passed through yesterday afternoon. I am sure they are all getting anxious for a big dump of snow to happen so they can get the season started. Personally I am quite happy with this amount of snow. Businessally, it would be nice to get the snowmobilers coming through however.

And a little Christmas chuckle as I depart

Top 10 Things that Sound Dirty at Christmas, But Aren’t

10. Did you get any under the tree?
 9. I think your balls are hanging too low.
 8. Check out Rudolph’s Honker!
 7. Santa’s sack is really bulging.
 6. Lift up the skirt so I can get a clean breath.
 5. Did you get a piece of the fruitcake?
 4. I love licking the end till it’s really sharp and pointy.
 3. From here you can’t tell if they’re artificial or real.
 2. Can I interest you in some dark meat?
 1. To get it to stand up straight, try propping it against the wall.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Have you heard of the local band Crossroads yet?

If not, I think that you may soon. They are a somewhat local band being from St. Laurent – For me that qualifies as local. I first heard about them this summer from one of our employees who is a friend of theirs. There was a big bash at The Narrows on September long and they were playing in the bar. Earlier this month they played at the Northern Lites social and I have heard from more than one person that they did an incredible performance. According to their facebook group they will be at The Woody on December 13 and back at The Narrows on New Years Eve. I haven’t had the opportunity to see them in person myself, but did check out the couple videos that were on facebook.  One person who was at the NL social even made the comment that they may be the next Doc Walker. I hope that is true and wish them well.  Keep your eyes out for this young band and if you have the chance to see them be sure to check them out. I know I will.

Crossroads Fan Club! ♥

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Ice Fishing Derby and Online Shopping

The date is set, the ice is freezing and the fish are swimming. The first ever Rubber Ducky Ice Fishing Derby will be on January 10, 2009. Mark your calendars now to be a part of Ducky History.Ok it may not be quite that big a deal, but it should be a lot of fun. I have actually posted the 2009 line up of events on our website http://www.rubberduckyresort.com/Events-and-Activities.page There may be some changes and additions, but that is pretty much how things will go for next year, so start making plans now.

I have also figured out how to set up online shopping on my website. I added gift certificates, shirts and misc rubber ducky stuff. http://www.rubberduckyresort.com/Gift-Certificates-Ducky-Merchandise.page It is not a very complex system, but it looks like it should serve the purpose. Haven’t sold anything yet, but maybe someday.

Has anyone else checked the calendar today. It seems to be only one month until Christmas. Interesting??!! It is coming fast and will be gone before we know it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Grey Cup this weekend

Montreal is the party place to be this weekend. It sounds like there are still tickets available or if Montreal is a little too far to travel you can always come and join us here at the Duck for our Grey Cup Party. No, we don’t have the cheerleaders, or the football players in tight pants or the guy with the fire coming out of his head, but we do have addictive hot wings, homemade burgers and a hot tub for half time. I don’t think that in Montreal you can head out for a relaxing dip during half time now can ya? That’s basically the just of Grey Cup at the Duck – the game will be on the TV; the concession will be open; the hot tub will be hot and bubbly; anyone can stop by and enjoy the game.

We have a tradeoff in the weather this morning, the sun is shining but of course it is cold cold and cold out there. Luckily they say the cold temps will not last and it will be close to zero on the weekend. Once again this is Manitoba so we will wait and see. As someone said to me last night we may get to the -1, but the wind will be howling and it will still feel cold. Global warming uh huh ya right.

Have you heard about the huge meteor sighting last night. I’m sure it is the talk of some watercoolers today. This is the story from the Winnipeg Free Press this morning http://winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/story/4252238p-4895949c.html It just seems so amazing that it was sighted all the way from Edmonton to Swan River area. It sounds like it was a once in a lifetime experience with the odds of seeing something like that pretty slim. Now the science guys start their thing to find out where it came from and etc. I am sure that later today there will be reports of people finding chunks of it. It will be interesting to see just which areas they found in.

Now I end this post with a chuckle.

F

rank was excited about his new rifle and decided to try bear hunting.

He traveled up to Alaska, spotted a small brown bear and shot it.

Soon after there was a tap on his shoulder, and he turned around to see

a big black bear.

The black bear said,

‘That was a very bad mistake. That was my cousin. I’m going to give you

two choices:

Either I maul you to death or we have sex.’

After considering briefly, Frank decided to accept the latter

alternative.

So the black bear had his way with Frank.

Even though he felt sore for two weeks, Frank soon recovered and vowed

revenge.

He headed out on another trip to Alaska where he found the black bear

and shot it dead.

Right after, there was another tap on his shoulder.

This time a huge grizzly bear stood right next to him.

The grizzly said,

‘That was a big mistake, Frank. That was my cousin and you’ve got two

choices:

Either I maul you to death or we have ‘rough sex.’

Again, Frank thought it was better to cooperate with the grizzly bear

than be mauled to death.

So the grizzly had his way with Frank.

Although he survived, it took several months before Frank fully

recovered.

Now Frank was completely outraged, so he headed back to Alaska and

managed to track down the grizzly bear and shot it.

He felt sweet revenge, but then, moments later, there was a tap on is

shoulder.

He turned around to find a giant polar bear standing there.

The polar bear looked at him and said,

‘Admit it Frank, you don’t come here for the hunting, do you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Operation Quack went down on Saturday Morning

It was a highly planned operation with all watches syncronized to the second. The final briefing occurred at approximately 8:00am then everyone went to their posts. All the agents knew the risks and were willing to make the sacrifice for the good of the ducks. Fortunately noone else was around because it would have been quite the sight to behold for a bystander I am sure.

We had someone offer to ducksit this winter, we only had to do one simple thing – catch and transport 3 little ducks. Not quite so simple. Our first attempt happened last weekend, just after the first snow. Apparently we had ducks that did not like to put their little footsies in the snow. They would not even come out of the pond for food at first. This was a first for us since when we have had ducks here in the snow before they never batted an eye at the snow. Now what?? The pond started freezing in a little bit more throughout the week and finally they at least figured out that they had to come out on the ice. If they didn’t they couldn’t reach the food since there was no way I was going out on the ice to take it to them. Then one day this week it was like somebody smacked them upside the head and said ‘get with it’. They just started strolling around the yard and coming up to the house.

Plan B was initiated, and it had to be executed quickly since it is getting colder and we were running out of time. Now that they were finally coming to the house that was to be our base of operations and a makeshift corral was set up. Using the truck, the steps and some plywood we had a trap of sorts set up and waiting. Agents Haylie and Sarah were in charge of holding the plywood, Agent Sheri was the decoy with the bread and Agent Dennis was in charge of capture. Unfortately we couldn’t find any wingcuffs so a box would have to do. We managed to coax them over to the trap, but there was one little escape hatch by the tire of the truck that we missed and they were gone. We did manage to get them herded back in, and one decided to make a break the other way and she hopped the step and the barricade. Two down, one to go and she was headed back to open water. Our herding skills were put back into action again and we finally managed to corral her against the wall and Agent Dennis was able to make the arrest. Three ducks were in custody and no injuries occurred. They were safely transported to their winter home and hopefully they figured out that they are much warmer now and it was all for their own good.

I can’t even imagine what this whole scenario would have looked like to anyone that was watching. It was rather funny just being part of it – considering that it was successful.  If it was not successful it would not have been so amusing. If we weren’t able to get them we didn’t really know what plan C was going to be. The girlies got a kick out of it too, but I think the cat thought we were crazy as he watched the whole thing from his window.

It is a relief to know that they are safe and sound for the winter.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment