Last week I looked out the window to see this girl on the front lawn!! She went down the driveway and stood on the edge of the driveway for 10 minutes at least. She was constantly looking back at the house like she was looking for someone. Hope she found whoever she was looking for! Maybe she was the baby deer’s mom? Jeff took these great photos:
Avoid the Mulberry Motel in Summerside, PEI!
I found it online a few weeks back. It has a beautiful website and is listed on a website that shows pet friendly motels. The photos looked good so I reserved it for 2 nights. (We were over on PEI for a dog show this weekend.)
Right away we knew we were in trouble. I rushed into the room to pee and there was no toilet paper. None. Not even an empty roll. And it was over 30°C in the room!! It was like a sauna in there!
It was a very old, small, ugly, motel room. It stunk. And it was hotter than hell. The heat was off. And there was no air conditioner. I didn’t even realize a hotel could still exist that didn’t have an air conditioner!
There was one little wooden window that opened. And the screen on the screen door opened at the top. There was a very wobbly ceiling fan that we fired up, but it did nothing to relieve the incredible heat. It was only about 21°C outside at the time. The entire weekend it was easily 15°C hotter in the room than outside – day and night.
We spent two nights there, not sleeping. Thankfully there was TV with a decent selection of channels. The bed was just a double and was probably older than me. No doubt the comforter on top was too.
Cars came in and out of there all day and night. They’d come in, stop for a minute, and drive back out.
The shower had great pressure, but the water suddenly would switch to scalding and then to freezing during our showers.
The final kick in the teeth to the guests? Local phone calls were $0.75 each.
The outside of the motel was very nice looking and was beautifully landscaped. So what went wrong? I don’t know. Obviously the owner didn’t care about making the experience a pleasant one. Even a cheap motel can ritz things up – how much is an air conditioner? Toilet paper? How about some local travel brochures? A kleenex box? Free local calls? A pen? Pad of paper? Need I go on?
Jeff just did another “Lisa Lisa come here” while he was at the back window.
I rushed over and he pointed out a groundhog sitting on top of our 8 cords of wood that is piled behind the house.
Ahhh how cute is that. We have a groundhog.
I went to get my camera.
He seemed to be relaxed and sunning himself.
And it then got CUTER!
There were TWOOOOOOOOOO groundhogs on top of the wood pile. I took some pictures and went and did a couple things in the house. I came back to see if they were still there.
AWK!!
Now there are FIVE groundhogs on top of our woodpile.
FIVE!!!
I want to write pages on all the things we did while Dad was here, but I just don’t have the time! So I will short form it and will expand later if I get a chance!
Dad’s Visit (Wed – Mon)
Thursday:
-Dad came to work with me for the morning
-we visited Jeff at his work
-Dad and I went to Goldenville and spent time hunting for gold deposits in the left over tailings from the old gold mine
-Dad found gold!
-8 cords of wood was delivered chopped and split to our back yard
-drove around the lake
Friday:
-Dad & I went to get supplies for putting a laundry sink in our basement
-we stopped at the water falls on the way
-ate lunch at Murphy’s in Pictou – delicious fish & chips!
-went to Truro to the Stanfield factory for discount t-shirts and underwear
-went to Timbrmart & Home Hardware
-had big yummy fresh lobsters for dinner
Saturday:
-saw a new born baby deer getting licked off by momma deer in our driveway!
-went to the Farmer’s Market. Got some fresh baking there
-hunted for wood pallets to go under the piles of wood as we stack them
-got some pallets at Walmart and filled the back of Jeff’s truck
-Dad & Jeff played plumber and installed a laundry tub in the basement – not without another trip into town for additional plumbing supplies
-drank some blueberry beer and had homemade pizza
Sunday:
-went to Cape Breton Island
-foggy
-went to the Glenora Distillery where they produce Canada’s only single malt whiskey. We took a tour and had a free sample
-toured around ’til the fog lifted, then decided to do the Cape Breton trail
-didn’t see any whales, seals, or moose today
-Dad got some good pictures
-went to the Candy Factory in Port Hastings
Here are a few photos:
Dad arrived safely last night! We served him some steak and scallops for dinner. yum!
He’s spending this morning with me at work and then this afternoon I’m off so we’re going to visit Jeff at his workplace.
8 cords of wood are arriving at our place today. If he gets bored, we’ll put him to work. hehe 
More later!
P.S. Jeff saw a huge snake beside our shed last night. Maybe it is the one that lived in the shed last summer. I guess I can’t go over there anymore.
The bugger zapper we bought last night is already dead. The ultraviolet light isn’t coming on anymore. I browsed for reviews and many people had the same problem, and they recommended the Flowtron Insect Killer.
Here it is:
Flowtron 1 1/2 Acre Insect Killer With Exclusive Mosquito Attractant
Description: Make a yard of difference and enjoy outdoor living with the Flowtron Electronic Insect Killer. Flowtron provides an environmentally friendly way of eliminating biting insects from your outdoor living area. Set up early in the spring to protect your health and comfort by attracting and killing mosquitoes, black flies, biting midges and other flying insect pests. Effective scientific attractants lure them to a killing grid with maintenance free operation. A cartridge of Octenol mosquito attractant is included and is available as an accessory. Check it out
We’re ordering this one from Home Depot tonight, and I’m taking the Stinger one back tomorrow.
Update!
I tried the Stinger one again, before I boxed it back up and now it works again! We have it set to 24 hours, rather than the sensor option to only use it at night, but maybe the black light only comes on at night? Jeff hung it back up for tonight and we’ll see. I hadn’t placed the order for the Flowtron yet.
We bought an insect killer tonight!
It’s the Stinger Ultra Insect Zapper. It has a black light in it, and some insect lure, and is supposed to work for 1 acre. The mosquitos and flying insects are supposed to be attracted to it, and ZAP! they get electrocuted. What I wouldn’t have done for one of these last summer in that mosquito-ridden back yard near Parry Sound ::shudders::
Here’s a link if you want to see what it looks like: http://www.amazon.com/Stinger-UVB45-Acre-Ultra-Zapper/dp/B000MWTOGC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=garden&qid=1213059339&sr=1-1
So far tonight it has zapped several, and Monty keeps barking at it. I think the bright purple glow of it is freaking him (me) out.
Hey! Wanna know what my husband did today? He thought it was too nice of a day to be in the office, so he went out in the boat with another one of his officers! Must be NICE! He saw 20 seals he said!
Here is a shipwreck from 1964. “The Fury”
More scenery from his day at work:
That black dot in the water is a seal he says.
OH! And a young little bobcat ran across the road in front of us when we were coming home from town – only a few kilometres from our house. At first we thought it was a cat when it started across the road, but that was no pussy cat! It’s back legs are angled different and it had a bob tail and different ears!
Have you ever forgotten the word for something, and it comes to you at the most unfortunate time?
I had something like that happen to me today. While I was crouched down peeing behind a bush today, I suddenly remembered what poison ivy looked like. Because I was peeing on it.
Still I thought… nooooo, whats the chance of that?
Until we saw this sign:
We had been walking through it.
If this is poison ivy, would anyone mind telling me how long until I’d be itchy? We delicately stripped our shoes and socks and pants off when we got home. Neither of us have ever had it before. Maybe we’re immune. How do we wash our running shoes? If it is poison ivy, it is definitely on our shoes unless the sand took the oils off.
We went to the ocean today – on the west side of Nova Scotia – so it was the Gulf. Not too far from town there are a couple of beaches so we went to explore that area. First we took a small gravel road that stopped at a sandy area near the water. We stopped the car before the sand and walked over to the water’s edge, through some big fire pits.
We walked along the coast and picked up some shells and neat looking rocks. Here are some of the photos I took. You’ll notice poison ivy in half of the photos:
Dead fish? I couldn’t help myself, it made a good photo.
The oddest things wash up on shore.
There’s my blue beauty!
We saw a couple of these guys around. Blue heron?
Here is the flag of Nova Scotia:
There were protected areas on the beaches where the piping plover bird has nesting areas. They are an endangered species. I don’t think we saw one.
There was another sign that warned of jellyfish in the hot summer weather. Ouch!
Jeff is out on the lake this morning with 2 of his co-workers. They volunteer themselves and their work boats once a year to a Big Brothers & Sisters fishing derby. Yesterday the lake was stocked with lots of fish for the children to try to catch (if they weren’t all caught over night by anyone who knows the lake was stocked!)
I’m cool and cloudy but it’s supposed to turn into a nice day. I’m going to work on sites for my clients for a few hours, and then I’ll cut the grass and tackle some more of the gardens.
There are still leaves coming out on some of the trees. We’re way behind Ontario. We have old crab apple trees along the driveway going down the hill. They have been in flower all week.
There are lupins growing all around our driveway up by our house and they are just starting to show colour. Not sure if they’ll still be around for our July house guests!
Last week we had the wood stove guy out to check-out our chimney to see if we can get the wood stove he recommended.
He said he was here to completely un-seize the pellet stove a few years ago, and he replaced the bricks in the main floor fireplace. He said our chimney was fine for the wood stove. He said it was very dirty though so he’ll have to clean it when they come back to install the new stove. A bit of wood will have to be chipped back from around the stove pipe too. He suggests that we angle the wood stove to point to the bottom of the stairs so the heat will go up the stairs, but we think that might look a little odd.
We will get the wood delivered here after we get rid of the huge piles of alder Jeff’s cut down. We’re looking at renting a chipper for half a day to mulch them up. Then we can spread them in the floor gardens and the rest can be dumped in the woods.
As for the wood stove, we’re waiting on a sale that we heard about for the wood stove that will give us the blower kit for free. I like free.