Small baby puppy.

Today I saved a small, white baby puppy that looked like this, only a bit dirtier:


We were driving to the Sugar Bush to get some maple syrup and go for a wagon ride and on the way there the little puppy was standing in the middle of the highway. Luckily, my friend saw it in time and managed to stop. I was on the road-side of the car, so I checked for cars (there were several stopped in both directions), got out, and got the puppy onto the side of the road and grabbed it's leg. It bit me, but I was wearing super fuzzy alpaca mittens and it's tiny teeth couldn't get through and it didn't like the fuzziness. Then it realized (probably because of my beautiful knitwear) that I was nice person and it jumped up on my leg and wagged its tail and wanted me to help it. I noticed that the puppy had chewed through the piece of clothesline that it had been tied up with. And I also saw that its tag had a phone number, but a guy came running out of the house to collect the puppy. I hope he clues in that his dog could have gotten hit or caused a bad car accident, but based on the condition of the puppy, I don't think he really thinks about responsible things.

The time at the sugar bush was also eventful. We made taffy by rolling syrup in snow. Then we investigated the sap-collecting system. All of the blue tubes take the sap from the tree directly to the sugar shack, where it is slowly boiled down into syrup. They weren't boiling today though, since it was so cold the sap was frozen up.


We also went on a sleigh ride. The horses names are Cruiser and Cory. They are 9-years-old.

Roadtrip!

I've been staying with my friends, Chris and Mara, in Nelson for the past couple nights. I met Chris at the first research station I volunteered at. He's a Brit, but he's lived and worked and volunteered in New Zealand for the past couple years or so. Mara is his girlfriend. She lives and works in Nelson. Chris just came back to the country from Australia the other day. I met Mara in Christchurch and then we picked Chris up at the airport. We spent the next two days driving back up to Nelson.

We made several stops along the way. This is me infront of a braided river wearing a merino wool sweater and eating a toffee pop. Kiwi as. The weather was perfect.

This is actually a rushing river with snow-capped mountains in the background and huge hills on either side with a natural hotspring pool right at the edge of the river. This place was so incredible. It was warm enough out to splash around in the cold river then hop into the hot pools, but cool enough to enjoy the heat of the water. There were two big pools, one warm, one warmer. You could dig your hands and feet into the hot sand at the bottom. We spent time in both of them. What a cool place to stop. I love hanging out with the locals who know all the interesting places!

Mara and I in the big hotpool. The river is actually at the same water level of the pool, but the pool is deeper for some reason.

Driving over the mountains from the east side of the South Island where Christchurch is located, to the northwest side where Nelson is located is just incredible. The views are amazing and there are so many places to stop and see interesting things. This is one waterfall we hiked up to. It's very tall, hard to tell from this picture, unfortunately.

Chris and Mara on the bridge over the sluice near Springs Falls. We stopped and stayed at the Department of Conservation house for the night.

Another waterfall we stopped at the next day. I think this one is called Mariua Falls, something like that.

This morning I left Nelson bright and early at 7:30 am. I'm in Hokitika now. It's a cool little town on the Tasman Sea. The hostel I'm staying in is very nice. More of a hotel than a hostel. I'll write more later!

Stirling Range and Porongurups.

It's Sunday night in Western Australia and I need to get to bed, but I wanted to add a few pictures from the roadtrip Chris and I took this weekend.

Last Thursday we stayed over night in Albany. The next morning we didn't have any work to do, so we packed up and hit the road in a little Nissan rental (hired car, as they like to call them over here). We drove north out of the city on Chester Pass Road. About 100 km out of town we came to the Stirling Range. This is the highest mountain range in Western Australia. The tallest peak is over 1000 m above sea level. We decided to climb it the first day. I was feeling overwhelmed just approaching the mountain, but I knew the view at the top would be worth the 2 hour climb.

Stirling Range from a distance. The peak in the centre that is shaped like a wave is called Bluff Knoll. This was the first, and tallest, mountain we climbed over the course of the weekend.


View from the very top. We were so lucky to have nice enough weather to make this ascent. Any rain or wind makes the granite track too slippery to climb and it rained all weekend in Albany.


The little tiny carpark where we left our car.


Some of the other peaks in the range.


The track back down. Everyone we met on the way up told us that coming down is actually the harder part. No. Going up is much harder. Coming down is tougher than you might imagine, but it is no way near as hard as going up. On the way down I ran into a friend I had met at the SERI conference. She was actually starting the climb a little too close to sunset. I need to send her an e-mail to find out if they made it to the peak.



Bluff Knoll from the bottom.


After our climb we headed back to the campground. We met the Ranger, Eddie. He was a nice old guy and we lent me some wool blankets because I had forgotten ours at the hostel. I'm so glad he had some extras because it would have been one cold night without them. All of the campgrounds have these great BBQ set-ups. They have a flattop grill, two burners, and a stainless steel counter for preparing your meal. The propane is all hooked up and it's free to use. This prevents people from lighting campfires. You can also see the giant blue tent I borrowed from DEC in the background. I could stand up in it. It was great, but really didn't take the wind very well and this was not a sheltered area. The other two vehicles in this shot belong to older couples who are out traveling the country in their little pop-up campers. Once people retire in Australia this is what they do instead of buying cottages. One may refer to them as the Grey Nomads.



The next morning we went searching for wildflowers. The Stirling Range is famous for its brilliant displays of colour once the wildflowers are in bloom. Unfortunately, we visited the range about a month early and most of the shrub flowers were not in bloom. Fortunately, with some effort, we found a lot of little orchids, pea plants, and other wildflowers.

A whole bunch of pretty flowers.














We also came across some more parrots and I got some good pictures. These are ring-necked parrots on the side of the road.


This morning, we were up pretty early. We wanted to head on to visit Porongurups National Park before returning to Two People's Bay. Good thing too because we found some amazing rock structures. This is Balancing Rock. It is estimated to weigh 182 tonnes. I was scared to stand beside it.


Just behind Balancing Rock, Chris spotted two roos. This is a mother and her baby. The kid looked right at us the whole time.


Just past Balancing Rock are the Castle Rocks. We climbed up to the top on a steel ladder. This picture does not come close to conveying how high above the ground these rocks sit. I actually couldn't stand up because we were so high.

The Karri forest that we walked through was absolutely overflowing with this purple native wisteria. Karri is another eucalypt.


Once last shot I took from the top of the Porongurups. Soon after this the rain caught up. It wasn't bad though and we made it back to the carpark for lunch.


Tomorrow I'm heading back to Albany for the day. On Tuesday I'm northbound for three days to work on the numbat project. I'll be back with more next weekend!

Big Things in Australia.

Here is the wiki article about Australia's Big Things. This type of sculpture seems to be quite the phenomenon downunder. I am very excited to see what I come across during my adventures. There are apparently over 150 big things across the country. The wikipedia article gives an extremely comprehensive list of their locations and interesting features. I've also found a few articles online about the big things. Apparently several people have planned extensive roadtrips to see all of the big things across Australia.

Wolfe Island Music Festival

Last weekend Em and I went on a road trip. We had decided to squeeze in one last music festival before I left for my trip. Emily had heard about Wolfe Island Musicfest. It was on the right weekend and it was close enough to her parent's house that we had a place to stay.

We hit the road on Friday afternoon with Daphne (Emily's greyhound) in the back seat. We made it to Belleville in no time and stopped by the house to drop off Daph and have something delicious to eat. Emily's mother makes everything for us to eat and she packed us dinner too. Gillian, Em's sister, was in the process of organizing her yard sale for the next morning. She had all sorts of things out and it was going to be a high-class sale. All of the items were on special for Emily and I at a 100% discount. I picked up a copper-y silver-y scarf. It might actually come to Australia to me as it matches everything I own.

Shortly after our arrival in Belleville we were on the road to the festival. We decided to take the scenic route down across the county. It truly was a beautiful drive. The weather was fantastic and there was plenty to see. I think we drove by at least 7 historical plaques. Someday we will have to return to check out the county more thoroughly. We did make one pit stop in Bloomfield at Slickers Ice Cream Parlour. At Slickers they make really interesting ice cream flavours and use a lot of local ingredients. I had an apple pie ice cream that had whole baked apple pies stirred right into the ice cream. I also had a ginger raspberry ice cream that was so tasty. After our ice cream break we headed on through Picton. Picton is one of the bigger towns on the county island. At Picton we took the Glenory Ferry across to the mainland. The ferries in this area are all free. We had perfect ferry timing and literally drove onto the ferry right before it left the dock. We got out of our car with all of the other people and stood up near the front for the short channel crossing. On the mainland we drove along the shore of Lake Ontario to Kingston. The road along the shore is much nicer than the 401 because it is less busy (at least on the weekends) and is well maintained since there are many large industries along the shore including a quarry, a cement plant, and some other plants. Some of the plants even have their own huge docks out into Lake Ontario so that ships can pick up and drop off supplies.

In Kingston we parked near the arena where the Frontenacs play and walked down the street to the Wolfe Island Ferry. We stopped at Pan Chancho for baked goods. I had a buttermilk banana cupcake with chocolate buttermilk frosting. It was one of the softest, smoothest baked goods I have ever had. Emily had her favourite, pain au chocolat, or chocolate croissant, which was almost as good as the ones she had eaten in Paris. We boarded the ferry with a whole lot of people. These people were mainly Kingston hipsters on their way over to the festival. There were a lot of skinny jeans and vintage high-waisted shorts in the crowd. On the ride over we admired the wind turbine field that has been built across Wolfe Island. From the ferry I counted 76 wind turbines. There are many more, I'm sure. We landed at the ferry dock and walked around the town on the Island. The gates to the main part of the festival weren't open yet, so we went over to the Island Grill where the pre-festival show was being held. We ordered some ceasers that were made in a bar that was literally in a shack. Then we sat on the shore eating the dinner Em's mom had packed for us, sipping our spicy ceasers, and watching for the ferry. We had curry buns, bbq pork buns, snack mix, brownies, and apples that we decided not to eat. We had gotten enough fruits and veggies from the ceasers. yum. Em took a picture of the musician storage area which was where they kept their instruments under a tree by the dock.

When the gates had opened we went into the main festival area. This was the front parking lot for the town hall. The lighting was very cool and we watched The Bahamas as the sun went down. We also happened to be sitting next to Ron Sexsmith. That was cool. We met our friends from Guelph, Laura and Chris. We hung out and drank some beers. And we looked at the merch tent. The t-shirts for the festival were really cool. I liked the grey ones a lot.



We went back to our original spot and Ron Sexsmith dropped his half full beer. Some of it splashed on my feet. He apologized for splashing me, and I said, "no worries, it only splashed me a little bit". We watched Sarah Harmer for a bit. She opened her set with the song, Aglow, which I really enjoyed.

We decided that we needed to get a really good seat for Woodhands. They were playing down the road at the Great Wolfe Hotel. Laura had worked in the hotel one summer as a short-order cook. When we got to the hotel, there really weren't many people there at all. At the bar, I was standing right beside Dan Werb and Paul from Woodhands. We sat and had another beer. Emily had the ginger ale that her Mom had packed. Before Woodhands played we had to sit through P.S. I Love You. They were a rock duo from the Island. The lead singer wore Kiss make-up on his face. It was all very odd. They had a bit of a following, being locals. When Woodhands came on they had some technical difficulties. I suppose that's what you get when you play on 30 year old electronic instruments. The crowd liked their show, of course, but it was nothing compared to the set we had seen at Hillside. Once again, I stood just at the back of the standing crowd up on a bench. It had really spring-y cushions so I just bounced along for the whole show.

After Woodhands, we walked back to the ferry with our eardrums half blown out. It was a chilly ride across and I sat right beside Ron Sexsmith again. Not on purpose, I just came around a corner to empty seats and there he was. We took the 401 back to Belleville and went straight to bed, at 3:00 am.

The next morning we were up bright and early at 10:00 am for Gillian's yard sale. I purchased a pair of beaded deer skin and rabbit for moccasins. They are delightful to wear. I also purchased two tiny pig pencils for my sister. You press the snout and the lead comes out of the tail. Four tiny pottery mugs and a tiny mini Wade Red Rose Tea figurine of a pup. I think the story behind these figurines is very interesting and a special part of late 20th century Canadian history.

That afternoon we headed back to the festival. The main stage had been set up and all of the music was being put on in the baseball diamond outfield that day. We took a blanket and napped, and ate, and I knit mittens for a band, When An Ambulance Needs An Ambulance. Soon after we had settled in a hipster girl from Kingston came and sat directly in front of us. She just happened to be the worst dog owner in the world. Her Basset Hound, Harriet, lunged on me twice, tried to steal my food, growled at me, spilled tea on my mitten, and walked over Emily's head while she was asleep. As my Dad says, there really isn't much clearance between Basset Hounds and the ground. We were thoroughly annoyed within the first ten minutes of this behaviour, so we had to move our blanket. I hope that owner clued in that we were moving away from her because she was obviously attention starved. She told me that she would replace any of my food Harriet ate and that she had had to replace two hot dogs the previous year. Um, my sandwich was irreplaceable unless she was going to drive home to Belleville and have Ching-Bee whip up another one.

Some of the notable acts we say that night included the end of One Hundred Dollars, Ohbijou, Rural Alberta Advantage, Winter Gloves, and, of course, Holy Fuck. I was really happy to see RAA because I had missed them at Hillside and I think they are cool. We also saw Guelph locals, The D'urbervilles. I was actually quite impressed with their new stuff. It was so much more catchy than what I'm used to. Holy Fuck actually closed the show and Em and I snuck up to the very front to see their set. There was an opening between the stage and the speakers and the sound guy actually moved some stuff so we could see them really well. They put on an incredible show, as usual. Unfortunately, Em's camera had run out of batteries and we missed several good photo ops.

We made it back to Belleville around 1:00 am and once again crashed into bed. We were very tired. I'd been on the road for days at this point because I had been in St. Catharine's visiting Nat at her adorable new house the day before we left for Kingston. We got a really good sleep that night, though, and woke up to a delicious brunch of omelettes, baked tomatoes, egg-y bread, and fruit salad.

At noon, we left to return to Guelph. On the way we went through a heavy rainstorm. The sky turned black and luckily Em had stopped to fix the windshield wipers minutes before we entered the downpour. We made it through and decided to stop at the Big Apple. This is a popular tourist trap on the 401 between Belleville and Toronto. They have made over 3 million pies. We bought some dumplings, which were over-sugared. Possibly the sweetest item either of us had eaten. Ate a small portion and tried to go into the big apple. It was closed for maintenance. Em took a good picture of us on her Blackberry in the rain beside the apple. In the restaurant there were pictures of big things from around the world. We decided we would have to make note of these things and try to visit some of them. When we took a closer look we say that these pictures included the big nickel in Sudbury, the big goose in Wawa, the apple, and about 20 other big things in Australia. I'm going to have to keep my eye out for big items on my trip. There was a pineapple, a rocking horse, a really cool big lobster, and a big tangerine to name a few. We also walked through the enormous gift shop that was attached to the restaurant. It was mainly full of walls and walls of REALLY offensive t-shirts. Strange.

Once we were back in town, we headed over to Josh's house for a private show featuring the song the boys had written for me. It is an absolutely fantastic song, very catchy, Louise, Em, and I all agreed that it was our favourite of all the songs they had written. I gave them the mittens and we were headed back to town. We met Kelsey, Mike, and Andrew to go to Pete Kelly's unofficial art opening at Manhatten's and ate fantastic pizza. The night ended with the craziest lightening storm any of us had ever seen in Guelph. It was actually quite terrifying and incredible.

A day out with the Ignatius CSA Interns.

Last Monday I received a phone call from my good friend Sarah. She was calling to invite me to spend a day with the interns from the Ignatius Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) farm in Guelph. I had been a member of the CSA for the past two years, but was not able to participate this summer since I am leaving town during peak harvest time. Sarah knows that I miss the CSA a lot and had made special arrangements for me to tag along on their fieldtrip. Also, she knew this particular trip would be of special interest to me because the first destination was the Wellington Fibres Mill.

I know a little about the mill and I have knit with several of their yarns. One store carries their yarn and it happens to be my Local Yarn Store (LYS), All Strung Out. Every time I'm at All Strung Out I end up in a conversation about Wellington Fibres. I've been meaning to get up to visit, but Elora is pretty far away when you don't have a vehicle. So, of course I jumped at the opportunity to visit and tour the farm with the interns.

We set out and the drive to Elora was quick. When we first arrived at the farm we met Lorne and Donna. They showed us their Angora goats and the little goats who had all been weened from their mothers last weekend. All of the goats were inside the barn because they don't like being wet at all and it was a bit rainy outside. I learned that the goats are named Angora goats because this is the region of Turkey from which they originated. The Sultan did not let any goats out of the country for a long time. I also learned that Angora goats produce mohair fibre while Angora rabbits produce angora fibre. This was actually something I had been wondering about for awhile. The little goats were all so cute. They were all very curious, but if anyone made a quick movement they would all scatter away. Sarah took some pictures, so I will add one here once she sends them.

After meeting the goats Lorne gave us a tour of the mill. The mill produces small batches of yarns which makes every colourway unique. Donna is the dyer and with many years of experience she has her dye recipes down pat. The mill processes and dyes all of their own mohair, blends it with various amounts of wool, and processes and dyes any special orders for customers. The mill is run on solar power. This is quite amazing considering how much hot water is required in a yarn mill. I took some notes about the process of turning newly shorn mohair into knitting yarn.

First, the fibre needs to be washed. It can't be agitated because it will felt with heat and friction. So, it sits in soaker tubs full of hot water and orange oil based cleaner. The water is changed every 30 minutes until the batch of fibre has soaked 3 or 4 times, depending on the amount of dirt and organic matter that needs to be removed. It then drys on large racks until it is almost dry.

Next, the fibre goes through the picker. This fluffs up all of the fibres and removes any remaining straw. The picker blows the fibre into a little room. It comes out of the picker with the consistency of dandelion fluff and it can be very static-y since most of the natural oils have been removed in the washing process. At this point, the fibre is lubricated with a spray of oils and water.

Lorne likes to blend fibres from different animals in order to combine the favourable traits from each species. This also helps to overcome the less-favourable traits associated with each type of fibre. For example, wool from sheep is very light and lofty and has a very strong 'memory'. No matter what you do to wool it will eventually find its way back to its original state. Wool fibres have barbs that point outward. This prevents colour and light from reflecting back to our eyes so wool will appear matte. Mohair, on the other hand, has fibres that bend inward; light and colour reflect back to our eyes at a higher rate than wool so the fibre appears shiny and vibrant. Mohair is also very heavy. If you make a mohair sweater the sleeves would just continue to grow and nothing you could do would bring the sweater back to its original shape. So, Lorne combines the shiny, vibrant mohair with the light, lofty wool. This makes a nice yarn that drapes well, but also retains the garment's shape.

After the wool has been picked and gathered from the tiny room it is placed on a conveyor belt that moves it through the English-made carding machine. This machine removes all of the short, broken fibres and any remain bits and pieces that don't belong in the final product. Carding lines up the fibres and creates a roving or sliver. Sliver is a new term for me, but both terms refer to a long bundle of fibre that is ready to spin. The special carder that Lorne and Donna have is designed so that they can easily change the colour of fibre coming through the carder and it will not contaminate the next roving. On average, they probably run about three colours through the carder each day. This is an unusual trait for a carding machine, but enables them to work with very small and diverse batches of fibre.

Next the roving runs through the pin drafter three times. Drafting makes the roving uniform and smooths out all of the thick and thin areas. A needle pin combs the fibres and heavy rollers stretch out the roving by about 4.5 times. The pin drafter lays the drafted roving into a canister, forming coils with no twist because the coiler rotates one way and the canister itself rotates in the opposite direction. The yarn that is produced in this mill is worsted meaning that the fibres are combed a lot so that they all run parallel to one another in the final product. If the fibres were not combed as much and the fibres were all higedly pigedly in the roving the final product would be called a woolen yarn.

The coils of roving are very beautiful. Sarah took some pictures and I'll add them as soon as possible. Once everything is straightened out, drafted, and combed, the roving goes onto the spinning frame. This machine is set with a certain draft (length) and twist per inch. Everything is based on very concise mathematics. Lorne knows all of the numbers. For example, lace roving would give about 10 yards of yarn for every half ounce of fibre. This machine spins all of the yarn onto bobbins in single plys.

Once the required amount of roving is spun, the bobbins are transferred onto the plying machine. This is where the different types of wool are made depending on the number of plys, how different plays are put together, and the types of fibre that are plied together. The ply machine has three drive shafts (generally they only have two) and is German made. The extra drive shaft allows Lorne to make some different types of yarn, such as boucle (a yarn that has little loops down its length).

After all of this, the yarn is skeined. It must hang straight in a skein. A straight-hanging skein has the energy of the ply balanced with the energy in the twist and will make nice, straight garments. If either the twist or the ply is stronger than the other any garment produced will turn out crooked (due to the memory of the wool).

There are a few other tricks that Lorne mentioned as well. Wellington Fibres brushes most of their finished yarns. This gives it a beautiful, fluffy, puffy feel. I love that about their yarns. It is so pleasant to work with and to wear. This softens the fibres by locking the barbs of the mohair in. They also make an interesting Lopi wool. Icelandic sheep have thick guard hairs in order to survive the cold, long winters. If this guard hair is not removed, the yarn can be scratchy and heavy. This single ply, low twist yarn is a traditional Lopi wool. It is excellent for making felt or heavy, water-resistant sweaters. Lorne makes a Lopi, but replaces the sheep gaurd hair with a component of the mohair. This makes a nice, low-twist, rugged wool that is still great for felting and sweater knitting.

After all of this, we only had a few quick minutes to check out the shop. The Wellington Fibre Mill shop is bright and open. I would love to take a class there. They have all sorts of looms and spinning wheels as well. Before we headed out on the rest of the trip I managed to purchase two skeins of periwinkle blue (more of a blueberry blue) mohair/wool blend.

This picture does not do the yarn justice:


The next stop on our journey was the Elmira Produce Auction Cooperation. This organization is owned by the farming community in Elmira. It provides an outlet for local farms to sell this produce, rather than traveling to to Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto. This is very important for the rural Mennonite community who may not have the means to make the trip to Toronto each week. The entire auction process is really mind-boggling to me. I suppose participating is something you have to practice a bit. The just moved through the produce and flowers so quickly. I couldn't tell who was buying what, let alone for what price.

After being confused by the auction, we made a quick visit to Diversity Gardens. The garden was beautiful and certainly diverse. There were fat raspberries everywhere. Unfortunately, the amount of rain we have had this year has watered their flavour down a bit. The stop was nice, but the mosquitoes were out. This is something I am not used to at all this year since I've been tucked away, safe and sound, from the outdoors for such a long time. We continued our drive to visit Pfennings Farm.

Pfennings is a huge operation. Probably the biggest organic operation in Ontario. Before taking a tour we sat and had lunch. The CSA interns take turns preparing lunch each day and the food was fantastic. We ate many veggie from the farm, including roasted peppers, zucchini, and eggplants on bagels, and an incredible summer salad with tomatoes, parsley, so many other delicious ingredients. I brought the dessert: Lindt chocolate from one of my Rav pals and cookies from Saunder's bakery in Rockwood. Andrew and I had checked out my research plots the day before and had a chance to stop by. It's been awhile since I've shopped at Saunder's and it's definitely one of the things I miss about working in the field. Once lunch was finished one of the farm employees, Neville, took us on a driving tour of the five farms Pfennings operates. We saw giant cabbages, onions of every variety, rows upon rows of carrots, and all of the various machinery it takes to prepare the fields, plant, harvest, clean, sort, and package the produce. The entire tour was very impressive.

Once we returned to Ignatius, I had tea with Sarah in the sun room of the intern's house. It was really a great day and I'm so glad that I had the chance to tag along.

These are the three little guys Sarah gave to me from the CSA. They were turned into coleslaw. yum.

Manitoulin Island.

Two weekends ago, Nat and I took our second roadtrip to Manitoulin Island. We had visited the Island once last summer and had such a good time we new we wanted to return this year. Last year we had explored the eastern portion of the Island which is more densely populated. This year we planned to see the western point. We took the ferry to the Island, camped out, and drove around to see all the sights. Nat did most of the driving and I recorded our outing on a newspaper map we found at the information desk on the boat. I had done the same thing the previous year and it was really neat to compare our trips.

Here's the rundown:

Day 1 - Friday, July 17
-leave Guelph at 7:15
-arrive in Tobermory at 11:00. Apparently, if you have reservations you're supposed to arrive at the ferry one hour in advance of leaving. We were only 20 minutes early. Their website is really poorly laid out and tricky to understand, so I'm sure they have a lot of people not following the rules.
-land in South Baymouth at 1:15. There is a ton of tourist literature on the ferry and we found out that an island-wide art tour was on this weekend. We decided we would stop at any of the interesting studios as we drove by.
-snack at South Baymouth Gallery (salsa and chips), browse gallery on Given Road.
-Blue Jay Creek Art Farm and no fruit stand. Guest artist Marc Brzustowski.

One of Marc's paintings, not my favourite, but the best I could find online:


The greenhouse at Blue Jay Creek Art Farm. Made from the remains of an old stone barn and abandoned glass windows:


-Lynstudio 5 painters and a potter
-old mill Edward's Studio, post office museum and mini lighthouse



-Ravenseiyre Studio
-Life's Little Pleasures quilting and knitting store
-Twin Bluffs restaurant in Gore Bay for fish dinner
-Twilight Isle Campground. Out tent, cottages, construction workers. Camped out on the tip. Wake up to rain. Ate breakfast on the porch on on of the cottages. Couldn't start stove = PB and Nat's jam sandwiches and brie. Best showers in a looong time; hot water and good pressure, too bad about all the spiders.



Day 2 - Saturday, July 18
-Mindemoya farmer's market, lots of interesting handcrafts, lots of not-so-interesting handcrafts, no fresh produce. We need to come a little later in the season for this sort of thing on Manitoulin.
-There was a community fair down the street from the market. I bought the book, Birds of Manitoulin for a quarter. We tried to find pie, but there was none so we settled for rhubarb cake. Yum. Good alternative.
-Wool'n'things
-Roadside pseudo-alvars with huge cracks, campanula
-Luc Lachance studio, he paints on black canvas and had about 20 Art Tour signs leading to his house from all different directions. He almost drew us in twice.
-Hawberry farms, samples and preserves. I bought raspberry honey, asparagus spread, and onion chutney.
-We saw Sandhill Cranes in a field. Nat was really looking forward to this and she spotted them right away.



-Farquhar's butter and ice cream snack in Evansville
-Set up camp at the Mississagi lighthouse campground. We had a beachfront site on an alvar. It's so nice to sleep with Lake Huron crashing against the rocks in the background.



-We snacked then headed out in an attempt to find the Queen Mother Provincial Park indicated on the Ontario roadmap.
-On the road out to the main highway we found Lakeside Daisy and Coreopsis in flower on the roadside and a tiny patch of mini wild strawberries.



-Drive to find provincial park, found creepy town of Burnt Island instead. Park not functioning? Big fishery, chicken farm? Hiked into alvar with Indian Paintbrush.
-Tried to see world's largest drum, peace pipe, and dream catcher. They apparently exist only on the billboards.



-Back at the park, we visited the lighthouse museum, campfire cooked times two. Veggies and sausage for dinner. French toast and hashbrowns for breakfast.

Admiring my annual breakfast smore:



An old crochet-covered bottle in the lighthouse museum. All of the artifacts belonged to the families that lived in the house over the years:


Day 3 - Sunday, July 19
-We got up, packed up, hiked along the shoreline, then visited the town of Meldrum Bay. Cute town. Checked out the Netshed Museum, had a tour from a 17 year old local, stopped by his aunt's thriftstore (some promise, no good finds this day), snacked on popsicles and icecream at the general store (Dukes of Meldrum Bay).



-Visited Misery Bay alvars. Had a good chat with the volunteer on duty. He confirmed that the provinical park is not operating. Their interpretive centre is great. I love this place. I bought a Friends of Misery Bay membership and a Misery loves company patch for $15. This morning I received my first e-mail update. We hiked to the shoreline.



-Drove back to catch the boat at 5:40 and made it home by midnight.

We had a fantastic time and we'll definitely be going back. Perhaps we will try driving up and around through Espanola. Several of the locals told us that was the way to go; just as quick as the ferry and much less expensive. There are a few things we didn't get to this year and have on the list of things to do during our next trip:
-at the interpretive centre at Misery Bay the volunteer told us to check out the west shore of Misery Bay. You need to hike across the water to get there and we didn't have time this year.
-walk up to the base of the windtowers. They are completely massive from the road and seeing them up close would be really interesting.