Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026
Hello Kal Lake Swimmers:
Next week Wednesday will be July 1st and we traditionally hold our Canada Day swim at 8:00am. We hope that many of you can make it and can wear some suitable Canadiana to the park and perhaps for the swim as well.
Every year in the past I have brought lots of cherries to feast on after the swim. However, after I spent today scouring the tree for the few cherries we had, I'm sorry to say that the swim will be "cherriless" this year. I hope that this won't affect participation.
The cause of the poor crop is the birds and the bees. Every year around the end of May I put a series of nets over the tree to keep out the birds. This year I could not cover the tree properly as I encountered a bees' nest in a hollow branch of the tree near the top. After being stung three times in the space of ten minutes and being swarmed by several more, I gave up on the netting, leaving a huge hole over the top. This is normally the area that needs to be the most heavily fortified. As the bees were pollinators, I did not want to destroy the nest. So I withdrew and simply hoped for the best. Unfortunately, the birds took over and have had four weeks of ravaging the cherries, leaving a pitiful few for me to pick in the sweltering heat today.
In spite of this, I was delighted to read the thermometer at the start of the swim today (minus my shorts). The 31 degree air temperature had warmed the water at the beach to 22 degrees, much to the pleasure of the nine of us. Only four were clad in rubber, and they couldn't get into the water fast enough in the heat. Admittedly the water was probably three or four degrees cooler on the Cosens Bay side where everyone swam to the Painted Rocks. Gary opted to continue to Dog Beach while the rest of us tried to find a watch that was lost in the deep water by a hapless jumper. We headed back after spending 15 minutes on the fruitless search. The final leg in Juniper Bay felt like a bathtub for the five of us swimming naked.
On the return walk up to the parking lot we spotted a fairly rare gopher snake just off the path, directly across from a doe that wouldn't stop staring at us. I'm informed that rattlers are more common than gopher snakes on the east side of the lake.
I hope that this does not deter anyone from plans to do this swim again at 5:30pm on Thursday. I will have to tear myself away from the Netherlands-Tunisia World Cup game. Hup Holland!
Before that, Go Canada Go at noon tomorrow!
Cheers,
Mike
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