In the last winter or two, I’ve noticed a growing trend that completely confuses me. What is the deal with outhouse themed holiday decor? I first noticed this when I spied a rustic outhouse in the Christmas village section at Walmart a couple of years ago. I laughed about it and even purchased a couple of them as gag gifts for cottaging family members. This winter though, I’m finding more weird holiday outhouses. I’m not quite sure how this decorating trend began or why anyone thinks it’s a good idea, but it seems to be here anyway.
The other thing that’s odd about it is how every one of them has that silly crescent moon-shaped cut in the door. Living out on the islands, basically no one has running water. We all have and use outhouses regularly and that means I’ve seen and used lots of outhouses in my lifetime. Out of all real life outhouses I have seen, none of them ever had that crescent shaped cut in the door. I really think that the moon is only found in fictitious outhouses. It’s impractical to have in real ones as it would just let bugs in and give the mosquitoes a way to come in an bite you at night. Plus, if you’re so far in the wilderness that you need to make a wooden house to go to the bathroom in, it’s probably safe to say that you’re far enough away from electricity that you wouldn’t be able to use any nifty electric woodworking tools to make curved cuts like that easy to do.
Maybe I’m just reading too much into it that I’m missing the holiday message. Who knows. Though I might not be willing to decorate my house with outhouses for the holidays, I’m willing to try decorating my outhouse with garland and battery powered lights this summer. Maybe a Christmas in July theme will help the holiday cheer last for the whole year – or it will at least give everyone something to giggle about when they go down the path.
Happy holidays to all.
The Walmart Christmas village outhouse that may have started the trend:
Inside / Outside makes outhouse ornaments – I had to buy the ornament set that included it because I wanted the Muskoka chair:
A singing Santa’s outhouse that I found at Big Lots – no I didn’t buy it:
An inflatable Santa’s outhouse at Lowes – I didn’t buy this either:
Our former lumberjack of a friend, showed up at our dock on a rainy afternoon with his chainsaw, a very basic drawing that he scribbled out an hour before, and a big idea. He thought that he had figured out (on paper at least) a way to make an end table out of a solid piece of wood. Being that we’re the only ones with a freshly fallen tree in our side yard and no idea what to do with it, our friend came to our place to test out his theory. When we asked him why he didn’t wait until a day with better weather, he said that he was so excited about this theory that he wanted to test it out right away. As long as we didn’t have to stand out in the pouring rain with him, we figured we’d let him do his thing.
Needless to say, his theory was correct. He made five tables that day. We kept a couple for the cottage and he took the others. After they spend the winter drying out, we’re going to all have some awesomely unique tables.
As promised, here are some more pics from our day long boat ride.
First, we checked out the old Ojibway Hotel in Pointe Au Baril. It’s been restored and is now a local club.
After our picnic, it was off in the four foot waves to Red Rock to see the lighthouse. You’re officially out of Parry Sound and in the big water of Georgian Bay when you get to here. The lighthouse has eight foot thick cement walls to keep it safe during big storms.
Next stop – Snug Harbour
This neat old tugboat was there.
All in all in was a great boat trip. I’m already planning another day long boat adventure. 
On Monday, Colleen, husbandman, some of our island friends and I went on a 75 mile boat ride. We were gone all day and we managed to go from Parry Sound to Pointe Au Baril, Red Rock, Snug Harbour, Depot Harbour and then back to the island. Along the way, we stopped at a gorgeous public island for a picnic. It was definitely one of the most scenic picnic spots we have ever found. Below are some pics of it. I’ll post some of the other pics from the trip in another post.
We got to it by going through a narrow channel between a couple of islands:
It was ridiculously awesome here:
A rare self portrait:
Even Morgan enjoyed it:
I know I did a post on this last summer, but I am still amazed by all of the flavors of potato chips that they have in Canada. I don’t even eat potato chips, but every year it’s still amazing to see what new flavors they have introduced. Here are a few that I haven’t seen before. You definitely don’t see stuff like this in the states.
One of the cottages on the mainland is for sale, so we decided to check it out when we went to town yesterday. We weren’t able to get in the house, but this is the view from their driveway. Our island is on the right.
50+ years ago, before my family even purchased Action Island, a family forgot their shoes on the end of our island. There were a few pairs of various sizes left there on the rocks and they looked slightly weathered when my family initially looked at the island in the early 1960s. We have no idea who the shoes belonged to, or why they were left. If a family came by to picnic or swim, you wouldn’t think they’d all forget their shoes, but they all managed to somehow.
After my family purchased the island, they decided to keep the shoes there as a sort of science experiment, to see how long until they disintegrated. 50+ years later, they are still here. They are looking quite sad, but the rubber and leather soles are still there, along with a small bit of leather that has some rusty grommets that were used to lace the shoes way back in the day.
A clothesline isn’t the only good thing that came out of the fallen hammock tree. We brought in a flat 20 inch tall part of the trunk into the cottage, where we now have it as a table on the front porch. I’m planning on putting some varnish on it once it dries out some more. It has quite a rustic cottage feel to it.
Last year my roommate set up quite a hammock overlooking the water on the island. The hammock was huge and it even had a bug screen cover, so when he was up for a week, he slept outside in it every night.
Unfortunately, the tree on the left fell over during a fall windstorm. When we started cutting the limbs off of the tree though and cutting the top part of the trunk, the lower part of the truck righted itself. It looks odd, just as a tall tree stump, but the hooks for the hammock make it quite handy to hang a clothesline on windy laundry days like today.
I know that I talk about the sunsets a lot the blog, but they seriously are amazing up here. It is rare to see a truly great sunset in Ohio, but up here on Georgian Bay, it’s a regular thing. I haven’t had the time to get on the water at sunset these last few days, but I did manage to take pics of them from the rocks nonetheless.
Last night’s afterglow:
The night before that:
The night before that:
and the night before that:
Comments (2) 
Themocracy