A Perfect Day in Haliburton

Friday I finished my first week of teaching at the Haliburton School of the Arts.  I will be blogging about the fantastic week I had with 12 eager and hard-working students very shortly.  Next week I'm teaching Surface Design.  In the mean time, I'm enjoying what the great Canadian wilderness has to offer.
Yesterday I woke up to a perfect day.  A sky that was bluer than blue, warm temperatures but no humidity.  This is the view from the deck of my cottage (I had two cottage mates last week who are also teaching here) but I have the cottage to myself for the weekend.

I've been meeting up with white-tailed deer all week, but these two ladies appeared right behind my cottage

I have more great deer pictures I'll be sharing in my report about last week.

I decided it was time to head to the Haliburton Forest and visit the Wolf Centre.  Haliburton Forest consists of 80,000 acres of privately owned forest that is protected.  It borders up with the southwest side of Algonquin Park.  At the wolf centre I learned it was my lucky day because for the first time in a month all wolves were out and visible from the observation windows.  The Wolf Centre is both a protected zone and an educational site where wolf behaviour is studied.  I captured many pictures while the wolves were lazing about in the sun and snapping at the flies that were bothering them.

I call this one "laughing wolf"!

These two wolves below are omega wolves, meaning they are at the bottom of the pecking order in the pack.  Only the alpha male and female get to breed in their lifetimes, and if anyone else tries they could very well die!  The omega wolves are outcasts, always maneuvering around the periphery of the group. On a bad day they may even be attacked and injured by more dominant males.  Nature is cruel.  However, the entire pack looks out for the kids and even helps with babysitting and feeding.

Here are some of the pups that were born this past spring.  It was hard to get good photos because they were sleeping just below the window and the angle of photography through the glass didn't work very well.

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There was a huge traffic jam in Haliburton yesterday, with folks visiting the Haliburton Arts and Crafts Festival.  By the time I returned from the Wolf Centre the traffic had subsided and I attended the Festival.  Right next to it a bunch of kids were engaging in some good clean summer fun at the swimming hole off of Head Lake.  Fun but perhaps dangerous, they were jumping off the bridge, sometimes swinging from a rope.  Can you think of a more perfect activity on a beautiful summer day?

There must have been easily 100 booths at the Festival, and they were all high quality.  If you visit the link to Rails End Gallery you can see a list of exhibitors.

I love this fountain in the centre of the park.  In fact, I painted it a few summers ago when I was taking an acrylics class here.  If I were at home I'd show you the painting.

I was just thinking about what a perfect day it was, when a monarch butterfly landed and stayed for a pretty significant photo shoot.

After that I found a pool to visit for a couple of hours.  The resorts up here are very good about letting visitors use their pools for a fee.  All in all a perfect summer day!