Long Point - Canada Day and Growing in Sand - Yuccas

For the last few years we have been unable to have our "Annual Canada Day Party" as it conflicted with the Lake Erie Interclub race. We did manage one on the August long weekend: "Too late for Canada Day Party", but sometimes didn't manage to get our act together for it at all. This year the Interclub was over early and we got our invites out before we left on the race, some by e-mail, some hand delivered in Paris, Port Dover and around Long Point.
Chris and Teri arrived on Saturday and Jason on Sunday. We had some impressive fire works displays on the beach both nights.

I had even less success capturing the beach fireworks than I did with the Dunneville display.

On Sunday night Chris said it was "overstimulating" as we were sitting outside with a fire going, watching 3 different firework displays, fireflies in the trees in front of the cottage and another group were sending aloft the little paper balloons with lighted candles.
Canada Day was grey with occasional sprinkles of rain. We stubbornly sat outside pretending it wasn't raining. George spread all the plastic chairs out to keep the "throngs at bay", even though we knew that with the weather, there would be no crowds. Lots of flags around the property.
We are never sure how many will come. One year we peaked at about 60 but that was on a lovely sunny day. People started arriving around noon. So nice to see my sister, Nicky and brother-in-law, Dave, who came early, from Guelph. People arrived gradually, filling the front deck and filling the dining room table with food contributions .

Local friends and Mum

Some of the Port Dover contingent.

Part of the Paris contingent

We talked (about work, sailing, crafting, friends who have passed away, the past, the future etc etc) drank, had a private wool felting demonstration, ate a changing array of food, walked the beach taking pictures, and BBQed off and on for about 4 hours. In total about 32 people came and the last left in the early evening. Book ended by family; my sister, one of the first to arrive, my brother and his family, one of the last. Fun time, in spite of the weather!

Growing in Sand
On a different note, I noticed today that the first yucca is in bloom. When we first bought the cottage, 13 years ago, Georges mother, Berniece, gave us a yucca from her garden, that had never bloomed. It survived the first few years of moving it around and even got bulldozed a couple of times but lives on; blooming and multiplying. Since that one I have been given a number of yuccas and even took some from a cottager who had dug them up and piled them for burning. We have a "yucca nursery" along the drip line of the garage and split those yuccas every spring.

The yucca nursery.

The only yucca I actually purchased is a veragated variety and doesn't produce
flowers or babies as well as the plain ones. 

This year we have a total of 29 yuccas flowering. The spikes start out like large asparagus spears and grow very rapidly to a height of 3 or 4 feet.

At full height and starting to branch out and bud. A couple of them, like this one,
 have a reddish tinge to the stems though most have green.

Starting to bud into flower.

Producing beautiful globular white flowers.

I don't know how many yuccas we have on the property but they seem to love the sand and put down very long, vertical roots to get the scarce water. They usually maintain some green through the winter and look quite interesting peeking their spiky leaves up through the snow.