It’s great to get some feedback. I was hoping this thread would not become a vanity blog.
ehBeth, I think of you every Friday when we pick up whitefish in town. Purvis Fisheries recently created a value added product that I think you would like – a smoked whitefish spread. It’s definitely not slimming – it’s made with mayonnaise and cream cheese – but the Mr. and I tried it and it was really good. I’ll ask if it’s available off-island next time I see them.
Hi osso! I think of you every time I battle the ants with my jumbo bag of diatomaceous earth. It traveled to my local Agromart all the way from Albuquerque.
Hello Farmerman. Our place is on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario, about 2 hours from Sudbury. The island is an alvar. The limestone is really close to the surface. We’ll be nosing around in the middle of nowhere and find what we think is pavement or an old airstrip or something, but it’s just limestone at the surface. There were no yellow or grey stripes in our test pits, just black topsoil and then brown loamy soil. There is some clay around so we hear but we don’t have any. I’ll try and take some decent photos once we start excavation.
Re: the canoe, we recently traded it for a truck cap. On the island a truck and cap is more essential than a canoe.
Joeblow our neighbours are indeed pretty great. I’ll try and post a photo of our mailbox and the cows – which I am informed are called cattle, as they are beef cattle and not milk cows. What I wonder is one animal called if not a cow?
The auction was a hoot. It was just down the road and there were 4 people’s stuff. Our go-to neighbour was assisting the auctioneer and Mr. Fix-it got deputized to help out. They spent three hours holding up items so people could see them while the auctioneer took bids. Everybody knows who Mr. Fix-it is now. (“Hey who’s the new guy who got suckered into helping?”) He was tired when we got home. We did get an old wine barrel to re-purpose as a rain barrel.
Saturday we went to a Pow Wow near Wikwemikong, famous for being the only unceded Indian territory in Canada, I think. That is to say, it is not reserve land handed over to the First Nation by the Crown but was in fact never ceded to the government in the first place. The opening ceremonies are always really moving as they are so respectful and appreciative of their elders and especially veterans. Hopefully I can post some photos of the dancers. And the food! Fry bread – so good tasting, so bad for you…And it’s a small world as two people we met at the auction were dancing at the Pow Wow.
Speaking of food, we were invited to Abby’s for brunch on Sunday by the people having the auction to thank Mr. Fix-it for his help. (I mentioned Abby’s in an earlier post and its native cuisine night menu.) The food was terrific and it was a nice gesture and great to socialize a bit even if I looked like I had been through the wars. Thanks to all the sunshine I’ve been exposed to I’d developed a hard-to-miss cold sore on my bottom lip. Then there was the giant lump on my neck from a horse fly bite, and what I think was a small spider bite on one cheek. (djjd has just snorted out loud. Not that cheek, wise guy. He knows I check under the toilet seat diligently ever since spying a rather large spider in the outhouse.) In the battle of Tai Chi vs. the Insect Kingdom I was vastly outnumbered and within days got to meet a very nice medical intern at the local clinic after the area under my left eye “blew up”. I don’t know what bit me just under my lower eyelid but the swelling was really scary and when it hadn’t gone down after 24 hours I got it checked out. Luckily there was no secondary infection. Nothing but time worked for the swelling though. (I know y’all were hoping for a photo. Tough.) So now even though it makes me look like a dweeb I wear my bug net whenever I’m clearing brush or working around and under the cedars – better than looking like an alien.
It will get busy soon. We were hoping to pick up our window order tomorrow (and post this!) but it doesn’t sound like they’ll be ready. Likely we’ll get the call the same day the cement guys arrive to start excavating for the garage. Oh yeah, best laid plans. (osso will love this…) We wanted slab on grade. Got told we’d need an engineer’s report before a permit could be issued. Told we wouldn’t need an engineer’s report if we did block on footings. Hardly anybody does block around here anymore though. Thought we’d like south-facing clerestory windows. Nobody at the truss company knew what we meant. Oh and the truss company has been sold and we can’t order direct anymore. So we talked to our building supply guy (I guess he’ll get our truss order) about buying some tentex (no idea how that’s spelled – it’s for expansion between what will now be our “floating” cement floor and the walls) and he doesn’t carry it but says we can get it from the cement guy (that would be the cement guy we’re not using…) <sigh>
Reality has set in and our dreams of a really arty space have morphed into a rather run-of-the-mill garage with studio space. Warning. There will be photos!
