In Northeast Ohio, there’s a magical store called Marc’s. It’s a discount store that specializes in closeouts. You never know what you’ll find at Marc’s. Their closeouts section is very random. Sometimes you’ll find an aisle of high end stereo equipment or nice outdoor furniture. This past week was an aisle of various patio umbrellas and some random lamps that were originally from Target. This was one of the lamps. Regular price at target was $50. I got it for $9.99. You gotta love Marc’s. We are planning on modifying it work on 12 volt so our solar system will be able to power it.
A couple of days ago was the big supermoon. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of the concept of a supermoon until about a week ago, but it was pretty awesome to witness nonetheless. I took the camera and the tripod outside and managed to get some neat shots of it even though it was a fairly cloudy night. The only thing that would have made for even better shots was taking them on the beach of Action Island. I’m looking forward to taking some pictures of the night sky this summer.
I went on a spring break cruise with some of my family and friends from the cottagers’ association. As we’re all avid cottagers that are used to living out on the islands, it’s no surprise that our favorite part of our trip was visiting lots of random islands. Though Trunk Bay in St. John might be a bit more pictuesque than our beaches on Georgian Bay, we do have way better sunsets.
Trunk Bay, St. John
The best sunset on the cruise wasn’t as good as our Canadian sunsets:
Over the past few years, I’ve been amazed at the amount of outhouse related home decor that’s been popping up. I’ve posted about it a couple of times before. Most of it I just happen to find at stores, but I found this collection of outhouse stuff at our friends’ mainland cottage. Considering that they’re island cottage has a real outhouse, my guess is they’re trying to create the rustic outhouse feel at their new place.
This soap dispenser is quirky, but kinda cool:
Outhouse towels:
Without the ice to wander around on, we spent most of our time hanging out an our friends’ cottage on the mainland. We spent a decent chunk of the Sunday afternoon watching this little Nuthatch.
I made my annual trip up north in February, but something was very different this year. For the first time in living memory, the bay didn’t freeze. Sometimes winters have more ice than others, but this one didn’t have any on the bay. The smaller channels had somewhat frozen water, but it still wasn’t very safe to walk on. When we go up north in the winter, we typically walk out to the island and hike sometimes for miles just wandering around on the ice. That couldn’t happen this year though. We didn’t have our kayaks with us, so kayaking to the island wasn’t an option either. Though it was so frustrating to see Action Island in all its chilly glory and not be able to get to it, we still all had a fun time hanging out with our mainland neighbors in Parry Sound.
The shore at our friends’ place:
Somewhat frozen water in a channel:
More at the shore:
The closest we could get to the island was viewing it with the zoom on my camera from the shore:
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:
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