Little break from the homestead

A little holiday trip that almost didn't happen...life is so busy that it's easy to put off a holiday, much as it is needed.  Each year we usually try to get away on a small camping trip in early September.  It's the perfect time to go - the weather is still warm enough for swimming, the cooler nights invite cozy campfires, and we have the trails and beaches nearly all to ourselves.  So, we decided we needed to go.  We madly canned our ripe grapes into jelly and tomatoes into sauce the night before leaving, put our other to-do lists on hold, found a few friends willing to look in at our homestead while we were away, packed simple foods and warm clothes, and headed out to the Pinery (a beautiful provincial park on Lake Huron, less than 2 hours from here).  It's amazing what a short break from the everyday routines can do - we walked the forest trails, ran along the sand dunes, swam in cold water, built sand sculptures, had a birthday picnic on the beach, ate smokey food cooked over a fire - the family togetherness was wonderful and now we are back at the homestead with renewed vision for the fall projects ahead.