A Birthday, A Big Tree And It Seems We Saw The First Summer Day

April 29 is Bea’s  birthday and when friends show up in the afternoon we enjoy a big birthday cake. Most years I have made these cakes from scratch, so also this year. Since I LOVE strawberries it had to be a strawberry cake with lots of real whipped cream. (We abhor the overly sweet frosting of North American cakes) And it seemed to me that our guests enjoyed the cake. Now just hours prior to the cake eating contest, we had been invited with our neighbours for a barbequing cook-out. And did those burgers ever taste delicious. Reason for that was that I am taking out a big maple tree in their yard. It’s huge and has been threatening to drop big branches on our neighbours cars. So rather than having some damage to their property they decided that this tree was ripe to be taken away. It is easily 60ft. high, has a huge wide crown carried by 5 trunks, all of them coming out of the same root. The challenge is to take it down without letting it fall on the next house. So I brought a ladder and a long rope. Rope was tied high up around the tree with the other end around the hitch of our van. Van was taken forward to put tension on the rope. Then the cutting starts. Works like a charm. My reward is gonna be tons of nice maple firewood. After all the cake eating we decided to take a drive along the east coast of Campobello. Big houses here on high cliffs overlooking the ocean. The biggest of them all is boarded up and has been built perching on a rock. It’s simply spectacular, but hasn’t been lived in for many years.