Day tripper

It's a bright, sunny day at the farmette. We've had terrific weather since Thursday, when we got some much-needed rain.

The climate seems to have a grrrr on for humanity just now. Devastating floods in Manitoba. The national wildfire update two days ago had nearly 800 burning and more than 3,000 so far this year. Sixty of them involve firefighter response, and they're all out of control. The death toll of the earthquakes near the end of June in Venezuela has climbed to more than 4,300. Yikes. Humans are reflecting the wrath, too. Take the actions of the orange peril in the Middle East. Please.

Anyhow, in our corner of the world, we bump along.

On Friday we bumped ourselves right up to Wiarton, which is about an hour away on the Bruce Peninsula.

It's a lovely little town (which has a lot to offer besides Willie) where we wanted to go and get some fish from Howell's. So we packed a cooler with ice and took off.

It was a gorgeous day and after we loaded the cooler with frozen rainbow trout and fresh pickerel, we thought it would be nice to have a wee lunch picnic.

The Bluewater Park is on the shore of Colpoys Bay, an offshoot of Georgian Bay, just down the hill from where we bought lunch at the takeout adjacent to the store.

Rob had fish and chips and I had fish tacos. I managed to get a shot of Rob's lunch just before a gull decided he needed one of the fish pieces for his lunch. Honestly. Right out of the container. He swooped down and nabbed his target in a nanosecond. After that, we both ate furtively with the lids mostly closed while about 40 shithawks, as my mother called them, serenaded us with their screeches.

It wasn't all bad. I named one of the particularly bossy ones Bubba. He paraded around our picnic table squawking at the rest of the crew as though he was the only one entitled to anything that might drop.

Once we chowed down, we decided on a post prandial walk out on the pier. One of the gulls landed perfectly atop the light at its end. Maybe it was Bubba watching over us. Or not.

They really are beautiful birds with their bright white and grey colouring. In folklore, they're messengers for those lost at sea and represent a conduit between the living and the dead.

They are also highly adapted to their environment. On the water, in the sky or on land mooching for fish and chips, gulls have figured out the whole evolution thing. In spades. Cool. Until next week.

Gratuitous cat photo courtesy of Wilma, who likes to lounge on Rob's legs after an exhausting day of napping.