All Roads Lead to Chickens

Well, maybe not all roads, but the roads I had access to this past weekend.

In February 2020, I signed up for the Spring Thaw writing retreat. Then we had a pandemic lockdown so the retreat was changed to the fall of 2020. Then we had another lockdown and the retreat was moved to April 2021. And then, because things were still locked down, it was finally moved to October 2021, which is just as well because I was in the hospital having my cancer surgery in April.

The retreat was held at Elmhirst’s Resort on the north side of Rice Lake, a lake that lies north of Cobourg. While it’s not far as the crow flies, it’s kind of round about if you’re taking a car. Rice Lake is positioned at about a 45 degree angle from Lake Ontario, with Cobourg well below it but kind of at the halfway point between east and west. I had a choice of going east around the upper end of the lake, taking me further north and then south, or going much further west around the lower end of the lake and then turning north. According to Google, it would take me 53 minutes one way and 54 minutes the other. It would have only taken me half an hour if I could have driven across the lake. LOL

The retreat itself was amazing. Everyone was friendly (we’re Canadians, of course we’re friendly!) and supportive of each other’s work. There were group activities, but lots of opportunities to work on your own. I learned a lot, especially about myself as a writer. I would go again in a heartbeat.

We were in shared cabins, strung along the shoreline. Every cabin had view and a fireplace – a must for any writer. I was in a three bedroom cabin, which meant I had two roomies. We shared the kitchen:

And the living room:

And the view (yes, it was raining most of the time):

But we each had our own bedroom and there were two bathrooms. Lunch and supper was provided, but we could breakfast at our leisure as the kitchens were well stocked with juice, milk, coffee, bread, and eggs. Which brings us to the chickens.

Among other activities (fishing, boating, horse-back riding, visiting the spa) there are walking/hiking trails. One afternoon one of my cabin mates followed the road and stumbled across a large enclosure of chickens. Early yesterday morning I followed the path along the shoreline (below the cabins) and . . . ended up at the chicken coup as well. So we decided all roads lead to chickens.