Honey Harbour - Red/Green bedroom project

While at Aimee and Greg's we redecorated one of the bedrooms. I wish I had taken a "before" picture but I forgot. The bedroom had been a deep red. All four walls (the paint was on sale). It was too dark for a small room and the dresser was an old wood one with a dark stain and crackled varnish.

Aimee painted the bedroom while I worked on the dresser, sanding, priming, painting.
The screened in dining area became a workshop for a few days (it always takes
 longer than you think it will)

Aimee had picked this up somewhere because she loved the intricate plaster frame.

It took longer to paint the frame than any other part of the job. It took primer
and 2 coats of paint into all those little twiddles! The "modern art" took very little time.

We wanted to paint the dresser knobs the same colour as the walls and this was
Aimee's solution: attach them to an egg carton to paint them.

When I left it wasn't quite finished. Walls in "Airy Green" from Home Depot, comforter and shams
 from Winners, wall sconce spray painted white (and another lamp from Value Village,
not yet finished), frames from Dollerama will hold family pictures and be hung on the wall
to the right of the bed, a piece of driftwood varnished with coat hooks attached as the room has
 no closet will be at the end of the bed, curtains bought at Home Depot and resewn by Aimee. 

In between coats of paint I read this. Bryson is a bit hit or miss with me but I really
enjoyed this one about his walk on the Appalachian Trail.

One of the reasons we didn't get finished was a visit from Julie and Steve. It was supposed to be a break but we never got back to work.

They bought Angel (the elderly Basset Hound in the background) and Rollo (the
new, to them, Pug/Jack Russell cross)

Adorable!

Yes, you too, Angel.

They got Rollo because Angel was pining for Sammy, who passed away this year.

Sammy and the sunset.
Photo by Steve.

Honey Harbour - Project: Dinner and a Cruise

As mentioned in the previous post, there has been an explosion in the red squirrel population on the island. They are very cute but not when they try and eat their way into your cottage. Different cottagers have different solutions ranging from "leave them alone, they are natures creatures" to "shoot them". Aimee and Greg's solution is to catch them and transport them to the mainland or as Rich calls it "Dinner and a Cruise".

The first step is to load up the live trap with nuts (almonds or peanuts are on the  menu)
and then set it.

Often there is a squirrel in the tree chattering at us while we are doing this. We have been told that squirrels can swim (didn't believe it until we found a Utube video) and that they are probably just swimming back to the island. So the next step is to get some paint on them. We are using non toxic, children's paint. Basically you just have to put a dab of paint on the brush, stick it into the cage and the squirrel is so hyper it paints itself. Hopefully some ends up on the head or back (don't want it to wash off if he is swimming back).
Aimee then puts the cage in the boat and takes the squirrel across to the mainland, puts the cage on the dock and opens it. During the boat ride, she says they either cling onto the cage looking at her with frightened eyes or spread eagle themselves on the floor. I don't think they really enjoy the "cruise" part. Sometimes they don't seem to want to get out of the cage on the dock, almost as if they know they are in another squirrels territory.
So far 31 red squirrels have been "voted off the island", 7 of them with lime green paint on them.
Al and Rich say they saw one with green paint the other day, but we don't believe them. They have been known to joke around (or perhaps they were hallucinating!).

Honey Harbour - Brousseau Island Baconater Party

At an island get together, last time I was here, the decision to have a bacon only party was conceived (there was some alcohol consumed during this decision making process). I was lucky enough to be back to Aimee and Greg's on the assigned date. The rules were simple: the dish served had to include bacon. There was some discussion of a simultaneous rum tasting but that was never actually made official.

We began at Heather and Rich's with water chestnuts, wrapped in bacon, served with plum sauce.

Followed by dates stuffed with Gorgonzola cheese and wrapped in bacon. It was getting
difficult to pace myself already.

Next stop, Mark and Nicci's for

cheese and bacon twists and

cucumber and bacon salad.

We were slowing down already with only two cottages completed and two to go. Nicci and Mark swam over to Greg and Aimee's to recover from the heat in their cottage caused by having the oven on.

It was a "black tie affair" so we drew a tie on Greg with a marker and painted it with
some of the kids glitter paints.

At Aimee and Greg's we served bacon, mac and cheese potato chips with horseradish/bacon
dip on the deck. Then a cream cheese and dill spread on baguette with bacon jam.
Seriously, bacon jam!

Next was bacon lasagna and

water chestnuts wrapped in bacon.

We had cooked everything on the BBQ so as not to heat up the cottage. We were really slowing down now, lots of cheese, bacon, alcohol, feeling like we needed a nap so Doug, Greg, Aimee and I swam to the next cottage.

Next Al and Mary's for dessert.

Crepes with flambéd peaches and ice cream with bacon crumbled on top
and bacon apple cobbler.

There were jokes about the Ornge helicopter circling above with a defibrillator at the ready.

Kelsey made it around the whole route with nothing but a couple of dog biscuits.

Al didn't "get the memo", cancelling the rum part, so we were treated to a lovely,
aged rum to sip on and end the evening.

More jokes that the next progressive dinner party should be recipes including squirrel as there are an abundance on the island this year and they're becoming a problem. (Maybe it wasn't a joke).

The evening ended with a fabulous sunset and

we were in bed early, groaning with very full stomachs.

Guest Photographers - domestic and wildlife.

While I was away I received a couple of fun e-mails and, with the photographers permission, I'm posting the photographs I was sent.

"Just in case"
Photo and title by Danielle
Rasta was staying with Si, Dan and Fi while I was in Honey Harbour.

Al, who I work with on the Committee Boat, sent the following pictures from a camera that he has set up on a farm outside of Port Dover.

The night time pictures are a little harder to see but this is a buck.

I think it is a fox, difficult to tell the size, maybe it's a coyote.

While out in the garden I heard a lot of chirping (the sound that baby birds make when being fed).
This was the bird making all the noise.

This was the bird feeding it. Hard to tell from this photo but the cap was a golden colour.
May have been a Kinglet.

This shows their respective sizes. The little bird constantly found bugs on the ground and fed them
to the big baby. I'd love to know how this pairing happened.

Thanks to the "Jane Street Birders" I now know that the small bird is an American Tree Sparrow and the large one, an immature Cowbird. Cowbirds will lay their eggs in other birds nests and because they are bigger the babies will dominate and often the other babies starve to death. Ain't nature grand.

Honey Harbour - storms and amazing skies.

My visit to Aimee and Greg's cottage continues and we have had some magnificent storms over the last few days.

Shelf cloud coming in before the storm. Luckily Aimee had just got back in the boat.

Overnight it was pretty wild, strong, gusty winds, thunder, lightning and rain.

Daytime skies were still pretty impressive.

In spite of the weather, island life continued with wildlife observation;

Great blue heron on the abandoned Osprey nest. Good view but a long way down
to get ….

that frog or …...

that turtle.

We have kayaked, sung karaoke, walked around the island and visited the other inhabitants. We have been visited by other cottagers dogs (who wander around looking for treats), played cards most nights and read books and magazines.

Someone recommended this book to me (may have been Chris) so it was an obvious choice
when I saw it on the bookshelf here.  I thoroughly enjoyed it. Amusing and an interesting take on
relationships and social interaction.

There was a bell at Aimee's families cottage so now she has one here to call us
in for meal times.

And another magnificent sunset.

Beautiful evening light and long shadows.

A sunset in front of us and

a rainbow behind us.