Metal Sculptures

 On the north side of Highway 3, just outside of Dunneville, is a property I have passed 100s of times. Each time it has made me smile and a little curious and I have said "Someday I am going to stop and take a look" Beside  the road there are always a couple of  quirky metal sculptures and at the driveway has a sign that says "Visitors Welcome"

Rick and I stopped on our way back from Canal Days in Port Colborne. I found an article on line, so now know that the artist is Bob DeVries and he doesn't do this work to sell it, its a hobby and to amuse his grandkids and other kids who come to visit. This blog post is just photos of a few of the sculptures on his property (certainly not even close to all of them)

 

And now for something completely different:

My black cherry tomatoes are now turning a deep burgundy, then red

 

and the yellow ones, although not as large, are also ripening nicely.

The prolific harvest has pushed me to try some new storage options. I have frozen some as is, frozen some with garlic, basil and oregano, cooked them down into a tomato paste,  ground some up with garlic, basil and oregano then frozen the mixture for a future pasta sauce

and tried two methods of drying them (air fryer and oven). That is along with eating at least a handful every day.

Port Colborne Lighthouse.

The entrance to the Welland Canal is now in Port Colborne and sees a massive amount of traffic, pleasure crafts, cruise ships, but mostly cargo ships. The canal opened, in Port Colborne, in 1833, and the pier had a lighthouse guiding shipping from Lake Erie. The lighthouse experienced the usual difficulties of storm damage and changing uses. The current lighthouse was built in 1928 and in 2013 The Friends of The Port Colborne Lighthouse started offering tours on Canal Days. with info from lighthousefriends.com

Rick and I walked down to the Sugarloaf Marina and bought tickets for the next boat out to the lighthouse. We were fitted with life jackets and walked out on to the dock.

 

We boarded a rather decrepit pontoon boat and set out past the grain silos that anchor the end of the Welland Canal.

For the first sight of the lighthouse.

Before we started the tour The Empire Sandy came back into the canal and everything stopped while we all took photos of her.

It was hard to resist taking photo after photo as she came in.

The sails were being taken down as she came in.

Once she had passed by

we got on with the tour. The lighthouse was damp, stuffy and a little run down but its not decked out for tourists, who only get to come out here once a year.

The stairs are more like a ladder, very steep, and definitely not to code. Rick passed as he had recently had eye surgery and wasn't supposed to bend at the waist. The final door to the outside of the light had to be crawled through.

The pontoon boat had dropped off another group and taken others back.

The breakwall out to the fog horn has a tunnel that the lighthouse keeper could use to safely maintain the essential safety device.

Faintly, in the distance, the Point Abino Lighthouse, which is privately owned.

The canal entrance is to the right of the grain elevators, the entrance to the marina is to the left.

Back down the ladder stairs

and back on the pontoon boat as the last group of the day climbed to the light.

Canal Days, Port Colborne.

 I am behind in my blogging, busy summer! A couple of weeks ago, Rick and I went to Canal Days in Port Colborne. We were able to get a parking spot near the marina, where there was a children's fun area with pony rides. We walked over to the canal and up the edge into downtown.

We stopped at whatever booth took our fancy.

 

 

Most of the booths had food or clothing but one mining company was handing out little red pine saplings so Rick spent the day with a pocket full of pine.

We watched the Empire Sandy come in to dock

She was taking people out for sails throughout the day and into the evening.

There were two other, smaller, tall ships, Pathfinder and this one, St Lawrence.

We went aboard St Lawrence, interested in the traditional sailing equipment

and navigation.

In the past few years, cruise ships have been stopping in Port Colborne as they tour the Great Lakes.

We heard the lift bridge start to go up

and headed over to watch

Pearl Mist

head up the Welland Canal to Lake Ontario.

It was very hot, very crowded and very humid. Normally I would have been all for grabbing something to eat at one of the booths but I was craving some air conditioning so we had lunch inside at Canalside.

Then found an ice cream store for dessert.

 One of the booths had advertised that the Port Colborne Lighthouse was open for tours so we headed back down to the marina area to take advantage of that rare opportunity.

Out beyond the breakwall we could see that the Empire Sandy was back out on the lake and under sail.