Friday morning, fully ensconced in the cottage on the shores of the mighty St. Lawrence, whose surface at this first light of day is picture perfect: A glassy mirror shrouded in a fog, obscuring the view of Canada's shore, two geese lovers floating placidly together like drift wood bobbing in front of the dock, and to complete the scene....the intermittant blare of a ship's fog horn as it plows down-river toward the gulf of St. lawrence, past Quebec city and on to the atlantic. The sound of the foghorn and the churning deisel engine proclaim it's presence in front of the camp, but remains invisible in the mist.

A pair of ducks, a blue herron, two loons join the water crowd, while with yours truly here on the shore, the starlings, robins and woodpecker join the morning coffee/worm clatch. Piles of drift wood await the summer camp fires, while rain glistened picnic tables, tell of overnight storms.

The cedars stand vigiant, framing the scene, and the light poles on Dick and Bonnie's dock are reflected perfectly in the water by the shore. Newly potted plants placed decoratively here and there by the newly retired D. add a renewed sense of occupancy here in the pastoral summer retreat..

The ship's horn is now so loud I feel that I can touch the sound as it emerges from the fog to reach my ears on the water's edge, yet she remains hidden. The mist moves in toward shore as if rolled to the side by the advancing boat, pushing not only swells of river to the side but dividing the fog and sending it to roll up on the beach also.

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Speaking of plants; the story of the florist's tomato plant continues. I was on call Monday last but did take a brief moment to come to camp for supper before returning to spend 3/4 of the night in the OR. When I entered the porch, there in all it's glory was the previously snatched-from-my-arms tomato plant. It had been delivered by the florist delivery van early Monday morning, causing some quizzical glances from the landlord. Being the always asstute business man he has been for years, my friend Joe had reconsidered and decided to gift me the potted tomato plant. I'm positive that this was in no way precipitated by any comment from Jane, or my blog post, but just merely a display of the great business sense my good friend has used throughout his career that built such a successful business that his parents would be so proud of.

In addition he had wanted to enclose a picture with his comment on that last post but being unable to do so, he called me at work to get my e-mail addy so he could send me his photo greeting to accompany the tomato.

I'm glad to see that he captured that tomato horn worm, (that is what you're hiding, isn't it Joe?) before delivering the plant.