Culture at Collingwood

We have been very privileged to have access to some real culture this weekend.  Yesterday we went to Orillia to see their Beatles special (seemed to be mostly a street sale), and today we went to Collingwood, which claims to be the home of the World’s Largest Elvis Festival.  We have gone a couple of times in previous years, and it is a truly spectacular street festival for 3 days.  It is also a big competition for ETA’s.  (Elvis Tribute Artists,, NOT impersonators, for those of us in the know)

There are many things to see, and the people watching is out of this world!

Here’s a picture of the main street stage, where hundreds of people had parked their portable lawn chairs for the best view.  They probably came out at the crack of dawn to get the best spots.

You could buy Elvis memorabilia everywhere.  The part I like about the official site is that Elvis himself was checking it out.

The crowd participated with great enthusiasm.  All of the following pictures were those of strangers I approached, asking if I could get a picture of the neat gear they bought.  They enthusiastically agreed and did some great posing.  What do you think of the sunglasses?  I especially like the ones with the false side chops.

Women really got into this.  The leis are ones that Elvis would throw down to them while doing his performance.  Lots of people were sporting these.

There was also dancing in the streets.

The groupies at the base of the stage were quite awe-inspiring.  The gentleman lip-synched with the performers, and the ladies would bounce up and down shouting.  These were not the average teenage groupies.

There were a lot of street vendors, but this one was worthy of note.  People were literally getting shaken to death on these platforms, but they seemed to enjoy it.

I saved the best part to the last.  I could see the names of at least 50 ETA’s on the program I got, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there were many more.  You must understand that Elvis today comes in all sizes and shapes.  They dress the part impeccably, and have the stage mannerisms down pat.  But if you close your eyes, you would swear it’s Elvis back from the dead, performing.  The one show we saw the most of featured Joey Cundari, who had a gorgeous voice.  This is definitely a fabulous festival.

A Brief Visit with Marion in Ottawa

We made a quick trip to Ottawa for a wedding reception for Brian's niece, and managed to catch Marion for a brief one-hour visit on Saturday morning.  Her house is beautiful with all the flowers in the gardens out front.

Marion is doing well herself, as you can see.

She has a snappy red new car, a Honda Fit, which suits her extremely well.  Now Ottawa drivers will have to look out for the red bomb!

Guess who came for dinner?

We normally see Mr. Bear once in the spring, but this year has been exceptional.  Guess who showed up 2 days ago for at least 3 times during the day? (That we saw...)  That was the same day we got 55 mm rain in about 2 hours (sorry, westerners....).  All battle stations have been manned, with the bird feeders taken in at night, but hopefully life will return to normal shortly.  This is certainly MR. Bear  because  of no cubs, and this is probably the one we saw in the spring.  He is remarkable because of his size.  I had occasion to talk to the bear expert of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests, who was a bit surprised that Mr. Bear was out in April.  His opinion was a question of why Mr. Bear was still not sleeping.
Who knows?  I didn't come close enough to ask.

Brian's Career as a Lumberjack

Today’s update features Brian Bunyan, logger extraordinaire.  With our four fireplaces, it becomes mandatory to cut wood for the oncoming winter season.  One of the best burning woods is beech, of which we have a fair number.  Unfortunately, they are being decimated by beech bark disease, a combination of insect/fungi that kills the tree.  Beech nuts are an important food for wildlife, and the dead trees become high density housing complexes used by at least 40 species of birds, mammals and insects for nesting in the cavities.  We try to spare the snags as much as possible, but occasionally there will be a dead tree standing that is still intact and ideal for firewood. 

Witness one giant near the driveway that Brian took down this week—there is a lot of wood here.

You can guess the size of the tree by the width of the base.

The work just begins when the tree is felled.  Brian figures that a piece of firewood is handled at least 7 times.  You fell the tree, cut the branches into pieces, cut the trunk into sections, and then possibly cut the sections in half to then be moved by our all-terrain vehicle.  (The red one........)

The wood is moved to the splitter where it will be split into smaller pieces (maybe 8-10 pieces per trunk section).  From there it is moved to the wood shed behind (see red all-terrain vehicle) and stacked again.  When we need it, we move it to a firewood shelf in the garage, and then ultimately carry it into the house to be burned.  No wonder Brian is as fit as he is!

Since the humans are still recovering, it is far more interesting to look at the back yard, where lots of things are happening.

The turkeys are just going into moult, which means they spend hours preening in the back yard.  Lincoln, the big tom, is still trying to assert his dominance, but for most of the hens, preening is far more interesting.

When he gets tired, he walks over to the water feature for a drink, and often will step right into the middle while drinking water falling off one of the shelves.

All of the preening takes the energy away, so they will often hunker down for a little rest.  If we are sitting quietly on the patio, they continue all of their activities while ignoring us completely.

They also ignore the coons at the feeding ground as long as everyone can eat peacefully together.  Three adult coons visit the berm buffet, but last week one of them brought her kits for the first time.  One is in the tree, but she does have five in all, and they are very healthy looking.

They are also very cautious, and if Mom shows any sign of being alerted by something they are quickly up the tree.  The first time she had them out, they were really uncertain about climbing and descending the tree, chirring and crying every step of the way.  Now they are old veterans and can go down head first.

The phoebe has set up a second clutch in a new nest (they can build one in just hours, and refuse to use an old nest), so we once more have a nursery.  We’ve had to move the patio table and chairs to the other side, so she is less distressed about us sitting too close to the nest.

The male hummingbird was displaying today (he swoops up and down in a big U shape), so perhaps there will be another crop of youngsters there too.

We haven’t had any real hot weather until now, and last week one of the nights’ lows was 7.4.  So much for the hot summer they predicted.

Cheers for now!

Rare Flower Sighting at the Malloys

For some of you, this may be a common garden flower.  For us, this is the first time we have seen this in over 15 years.

Yes, indeed, a pink poppy.  This is a plant from my brother, Jim, who brought it to us when he visited at our last home, over 15 years ago.  I brought it here, and planted it in the garden by the water feature.  Also known as the Chipmunk Front Yard, which had several front doors for various chipmunk tunnels.  The chipmunks LOVED poppies.  The buds were eaten before they ever emerged into flowers.  I transplanted this last summer and voila! amazing flowers.

Last summer, I did some work in the back yard, building some small gardens for the first time.  The yard had looked like this, prior.

As all of you well know, a garden is a leap of faith, because when it is new, you really don't know what it is going to look like.  This year has been a real pleasure.

Although the gardens are small, they have added a lot to the back yard, and there are lots of flowers.  I got some magnificent iris from my friend, Norma, and have planted hollyhocks, which will be in bloom soon.  I don't think I have had hollyhocks since I left home.  The small bit of garden on the left side of the patio is an herb garden, which adds a lot to the cooking flavours.

Unfortunately, the herb garden is loved by a turkey hen, who tries to scratch it up every day.  This seems like trading one wildlife hazard for another.

The lack of posts have been due to us enjoying a month of "Walking Pneumonia".  We had never heard of it before, but several friends assure us that it is worse thank we think.  We finally visited the doctor's office a week ago, had it diagnosed, and then embarked on a course of antibiotics for 10 days which have made no difference.  Apparently, this piece of happiness can last for another 2-4 weeks.  The worst aspects of it are the worst case of lethargy/fatigue that we have ever experienced, as well as a cough that never ends.  If you think I am whining, you are absolutely right.  There is good news!  I checked the Mayo Clinic website, and found it is common in children and in adults up to 40 years old.  Yay!  We are 40 year olds!!  This is better than geritol.  More posts will come if we ever recover.

Wildlife update from the back yard

I am sorry for the paucity of posts, but Brian and I are still recovering from whatever bug we got 3 weeks ago.  Since there is nothing to say about us, and our pictures would not be pretty, I thought it might be more appropriate to give you some highlights of our nursery in the back yard.

The phoebe nest on the back wall of our garage has been busy with both Mom and Dad bringing food for the children.  I took this picture a few minutes ago, because I believe it won't be long for the chicks to fledge.  There are signs of at least 3 in the nest, which can barely contain them now.

We took down our bird feeders for a week and a half because the bear had reappeared in the back yard, and I didn't want to encourage it.  The feeders were put back up again yesterday, much to delight of all parties.  The squirrel feeder is particularly popular.

All of the rodent mothers are present and active.  I haven't seen signs of the babies yet for any of these guys, but I can hardly wait.