This is NOT lawn darts!!

Would you look at this absurd thing we found in the garden shed this past weekend?

These purport to be lawn darts, but I'm not buying it.

THESE are lawn darts.

So what if the Canadian government banned them (not only banned them, but urged their destruction *gasp*) because a child was brain-injured when a dart penetrated their skull....

These are not lawn darts.

OK. I can see how lobbing a heavy, metal-tipped projectile with varying degrees of accuracy towards a small target placed on a lawn frequented by unpredictably moving children might not be the safest of cottage pass times. But gosh darn it, I loved playing lawn darts as a kid! There's something about that earthy *thock* as the dart stabs into the grass that's very satisfying. Also, you get your lawn (and possibly your skull) aerated for free. Shop around, that's a pretty good deal!

(sigh)

Cottage games just aren't what they used to be.

A Quick Change

Presto change-o, Alakabosset,

Change this faucet...

Into THIS faucet!

Do you likey?

Me likey.

Much prettier. And for $10, well worth having a redundant faucet in the garden shed. I plan to use it in the bunky when the time comes, so it's not entirely going to waste.

The best part about switching out the faucet in the bathroom? NO POO HOLE STINK.

That's right, folks. As of the time the faucet was swapped, our stink woes appear to be.... (wait for it)... behind us.

*snigger snigger*

Magic tree...

The princess came home from school on the last day, dejected because she didn't get one of the "magic crystal trees" that her teacher was giving as prizes.

She knew that her teacher bought them at Dollarama, so that day we had to make a trip to the store to look for some. They had none.

Just this past week, when we were shopping (where else?) at Dollarama for loot-bag gifts for her party guests, she stopped dead in her tracks and declared "Mom, our prayers have been answered!!!". She tends to be a bit melodramamatic, that one. Lo, there on the wall-o-crap, were multiple packages of "magic trees". We bought one for each guest, one for the princess and the lad, and a "spare" (just in case of magic tree emergencies, I guess.).

The first tree died a sudden death (all over my beige carpet *gnash*) when the princess attempted to transport it across the house to show it to me.

The second tree she started at the cottage.

It's a silly thing, really. Little more than green cardboard with die-soaked branches. She poured the "magic liquid" into the base, and waited. Don't ask me what's in the liquid because I have no idea. I tried to see if there were cautions on the packaging about it being caustic, or toxic, or otherwise nasty, but there's nothing. As far as dollarama is concerned you could sprinkle it on your cheerios (please don't sprinkle it on your cheerios).

The darned thing grew. And it grew and it grew and it grew. In under 24 hours it sprouted beautiful multi-coloured crystals.

It's the weirdest darned thing.

Not exactly a bumper crop - yet

Look at my itty bitty cucumbers!

They were about an inch to an inch and a half long when I took these photos. The kids are amazed that we're actually growing vegetables. (What a concept, right?) For them it's a great lesson in "where does my food come from?".

I just hope they'll grow big enough that we'll be able to harvest them before the cold weather hits.

We also had two radishes that were big enough to snack on. Unfortunately the smaller of the two had already been sampled by one of the local rodents. They're radishes with some pep, though, so I comfort myself imagining a frantic chipmunk running around looking for water, saying "Ahhh!!! hot! Hot! hot! it burnth! Ah!!". Maybe they'll think twice about eating any others. Heh.

We have a nearly-ripe tomato, too. It is also showing signs of nibblage. *shakes fist angrily at the chipmunks*

Penalty gifts!

The Lodge is the proud recipient of some more penalty gifts from my parents.

They brought a croquet set. This isn't just any croquet set. This is the set I used to play with at my grandparents' cottage when I was little. It's much sturdier than the junk one we bought last year, and comes with a heaping dollop of sentimental attachment.

They brought a toaster. "But you already have a toaster!" I hear you crying out. 'Tis true. We do have a 4 slice toaster, but not like this one. This one also toasts bagels, electronically raises and lowers the bread (or bagel), and goes "bing!" when your toast is ready. It's being donated because mum kept accidently bumping something against it, pushing the "start" button and toasting air.

They brought a table and 2 chairs for the deck. This is a full-circle penalty gift, because this is the old table and chairs that I had in my first apartment in university.

And lastly, they brought brown-eyed susans (and a wee bit of bleeding heart). The flowers were not happy about the warm car-ride in Dad's car, but they perked up one I got them in the ground and watered their feet.

I love how cheery they look around the bunky.

A wee toad

Because I'm sure you, like I, have had more than your fill of poo posts this week, I'm giving you a break, in the form of a wee toad.

He's cute, eh?

The captain and the kids found him up at the top of our lot when they were playing croquet. He's lucky they didn't squish him.

I'll probably check out the Turtle Tally website, because I think they've got a frog watch site, too.

Desperate times

Artist's rendering

The weekend when the cousins visited, our poo-hole went completely pear-shaped and blanketed the cottage and environs in a greenish miasma of stink (complete with stink lines). It was an unholy stench, and the island just happened to be becalmed the entire weekend with not so much as a puff of a breeze to shift the stench cloud.

We were living in the bog of eternal stench (oh, how that cracked me up as a kid). After a few hours in the poo hole, the captain was able to replace the malfunctioning fans and heater with functioning fans and heater. Slowly, the stink in the bathroom began to abate, the but the stink cloud still lingered around the property.

We left the fans and heater running while we were gone the following week (a bit of a no-no), hoping to air out and dry out the stinking mess.

When we returned the next weekend with the Captain's family, the bathroom was somewhat tolerable (still not perfect) but the cottage area still smelled awful.

Back into the poo-hole he dove to discover that, in the process of shifting the holding tank around to replace the fans, he had managed to dislodge the pipe for the vent stack. The tank was venting directly under the cottage, rather than 3 feet above the roofline, where the wind would carry the smell away. Haha! Problem solved! Again, the smell improved, but the relatives still complained (there was altogether too much complaining, IMHO). If only they had been there a week earlier, they would realize that their laments were baseless. It was much better. The whinging didn't do much for the Captain's morale.

Fast forward yet another weekend, and we returned on Friday to a cottage bathroom that smelled 100% as it should.

Calloo! Callay! It's fixed!

That lasted less than 6 hours. *face palm*

Artist's rendering

By Saturday, the bathroom smelled so bad your eyes watered just going in there. It was worse than an outhouse.

The captain was digging in his heels. He didn't want to spend another two hours in the foetid poo-hole. I suspect his nose hairs were still curled from the last incident. Thinking the heater was the problem, he shut it off. No improvement. Airflow was the problem; we weren't getting any. As a result, the stink was entering the building. When the poo-hole is working as designed, air is sucked in at the toilet seat, carrying the stink down through the tank and out the vent stack. This wasn't happening.

Saturday night I badgered and cajoled. He resisted. We tried to identifiy causes. We debated tossing in the towel and buying a whole new unit ($2500+. Ouch.) The captain was fed up.

In desperation, I gave the airflow a boost with my brand-new 12" oscillating fan (*sob*). It made using the toilet problematic, but it solved the problem of the watering eyes. At least it bought us a bit of time.

The next morning, the Captain plucked up the courage to descend once more into the pits of hell.

And once again, I had a toilet sitting in my yard. What must the neighbours think?!

We had decided that, since airflow was the problem, there were a few possible causes:
- The fans died again.
- The vent stack was blocked.
The captain figured that if he disconnected the vent stack and air was still being pushed out of the unit, we could rule out the fans, so that's where he started.

Turns out, the blower wasn't blowing. Egads, another dead fan so soon?

One he shifted the unit around, he spotted the problem. It's hard to see in this photo, but you're looking in the hole at the vent fan (the one that blows out of the unit). It has toilet paper lodged in it, preventing it from turning!

o.0

Riiiiiiight.....

Who designs a poo-hole tank with fans that can get wodged up with an errant bit of paper!?!

Oh. You.
(fwiw, we're using the prescribed TP).

Grrrrrr.

So, with a pair of needle-nosed pliers he carefully extricated the paper from the fan, and - thank heavens - it fired right up when he plugged the unit back in. I was fully expecting it to be fried.

As of the time we left, the bathroom smelled dandy fine, and the toilet was venting properly. *crosses all fingers, toes, and eyes*

Now to figure out why their prescribed "Daily Mix" that we just bought reeks of ammonia. (that ain't right). No doubt if we called, they'd tell us someone must've pee'd in the storage bucket under the sink.

Grey Poo Puns

If you have a delicate constitution, are easily offended, or, say, are eating an Oh Henry!* bar, you might want to give this blog post a miss.

Duly warned.

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In light of yesterday's delicious blog subject, I give to you today a summary of some of the better poo puns. My family really is good that way:

• Excuse me, sir, do you have any grey poo puns?
• You might get it fixed, but it's gonna be a crapshoot
• So was that #2 on your to do list?
• Gee, that's a shitty job
• That's just being fecestious!
• At least it's an impoovement
• Haha you were in the poo hole (not too punny, but funny none-the-less)
• You must feel like shit
• Poo-poo captain (poor, poor Captain)
• Maybe we should call you "Apu"?
• Now you'll be the butt of many jokes.
• Smell ya later!
• Urine the poo hole now!
• Hanky the christmas poo
• Thanks for the hospootality
• I brushed my teeth in the bathroom with my poothbrush 

All the while these zingers were flying, the poor captain was stuck in the poo-hole trying to work. It's important to note that his helpers were tripping over each other to run errands for him. Away from the poo-hole.

There were also plans hatched to get him a Fibreglass coiler hat (long story - family joke. Suffice it to say the captain once received a 3' cedar strip canoe hat from the family as a joke). Who knew they're already available!?

*shudder*








Not to be out-done, our friends (as good as family) chimed in as well.

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* it irks me that the name of this chocolate bar has been incorrectly punctuated. Have they never watched "Interjections" from School House Rock!? Yes, I am that person. And I learned most of my grammar from cartoons.

GDPH

Another Guest Post by the Captain:

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When we last left our crappy poo hole, I had determined many things:

• I had no clearance over the poo hole to do any repairs
• I needed a wiring diagram to figure out how to get the fans/heaters wired up and working
• I had a brand new fan/heater drop-in box stashed in the garden shed by the former owners

Back to the poo hole company, Envirolet, I went for information.   

I called them up from the cottage to ask them to email me a wiring diagram so I can figure out if our existing unit was wired correctly and install the new drop in unit of fans/heater. I wanted to be able to have a switch to toggle between running the unit with fans, or with fans and heater at the same time.

Two days later I had received no email, but I was going back into town for the Princess’ dance class as well as to pick up some groceries and run errands.  This was the perfect opportunity for me to go down to their "showroom" and talk to them in person so they couldn’t avoid me.  After getting into town and making a quick phone call to their office I was told they were closing in half an hour but I should drop by anyway.

I hopped in the car and was there in twenty.  To my dismay, not only did they not have the wiring diagram, but I had to endure a lecture on arriving late (they told me to come).  I asked for the wiring diagram, but all they wanted to do was to sell me a new lid with the right switch (cost: $140).  After berating them repeatedly, I finally was able to get them to show me the underside of a lid to take a picture with my cell phone so that I could reproduce the wiring.

Editor's note: I'm not going to offend you with poo photos.

Wouldn’t you know it, but not two days later, the second of our fans in the old box died and fixing the toilet was no longer a nice to have, but a necessity, and that night. The place was starting to smell. Badly. Did I mention we had guests? And that 3 more would be arrived shortly bringing the occupancy of the cottage up to 9 people?

With the photo I took and all the parts I had, I was able to easily wire up an old light switch lying around the cottage (free is less than $140) and have it so that I now had a switch to disable the heater while I was away from the cottage, but still have the fans running. The poo-hole people were aghast that I would dare wire something on my own, because it was no longer CSA approved. The poo-hole is such a franken-beast, I doubt it was ever CSA approved. It's certainly not covered by the poo company's warranty.

Once I had the new drop in box wired up and ready to go, it was back to the poo hole, this time for an extended time with nine people staying over.  After telling everyone to use the toilet or hold it in for a couple hours, I cracked that stinky thing open.  Sure enough, both fans and the heater had gone on the old unit, and the replacement unit was just what we needed. I had to bear the brunt of an endless barrage of poo jokes from my wife's family. They're good that way.

Two hours later I had a toilet which probably worked better than it had in over a decade with both fans and the heater running as designed. 

Or did I…

Junky Bunky clean up

Dad and the captain started moving some of the junk out of the "junky bunky", in preparation for hauling a lot of it off to the dump.

What a dump.

One of the couches will definitely be going, along with a mattress that may have been acquired at a closing-out sale at the local penitentiary. It weighs a metric tonne.

The uglier couch which may or may not go is a pull-out. This has me torn for two reasons:
1. Pull outs are gosh-darned handy to have and I hate disposing of an extra bed at the cottage.
2. It's damn ugly, and I can't guarantee that it's not inhabited by squirrels. Oh, you think I'm kidding.

I could slip cover it to hide the ugly upholstery, but that makes it tricky to open. I could reupholster it in my copious free time (please note, the Princess's bedroom at home still lacks proper curtains because I haven't found the time yet to sew them.). Maybe purchase a squirrel-free mattress*? Or. *ulp*. I could ditch it.

I'm looking forward to ripping this bunky apart. I like making things better and it has LOTS of room for improvement. I just hope Dr. U wasn't terribly involved in its construction.

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*while I suspect squirrels may have taken up residence, I have nothing to support this theory apart from some cleverly stashed acorns.

Looking for a place?

There's a cottage for sale three doors down from ours. As near as I can tell, it's a 2 bedroom, no well, no septic (water from the lake, either a toilet-to-nowhere *shudder* or a composting poo-hole like ours). It's a cute little place. Here's some info:

 Here's what the place looks like from the water.

And this is the view towards the water from the front porch.

This is what you see as you walk from our property towards theirs.

 And if you look from their lot, you can see our cottage (centre of the photo), so you know how far we'd be.

 The dock, with her contact phone number. (Last I heard, she was asking 190 for the place. Oooch.)

And here's the water at the shoreline. We had a lot of rain right before this, so the lake is all stirred up.

So? When are you going to move in?

Magic beans?

There may have been a bit of magic in those freaky green cucumber seeds after all. Look at the state of my garden!

This is my garden on August 6th. Isn't it cute? Still nothing to harvest, except for the herbs.

And this is the garden on 13th. Aiiieeee!!! The cucumbers have gone insane! They're climbing up the stakes, running out into the grass, and over running the radishes. Not a bloom on them though. I'm starting to doubt we'll see any fruit from them this year.

I have three good-sized green tomatoes on my plant, plus four blooms. And I expect the radishes will be ready this week or next.

Mmmm!

I'm in love with these curly cucumber tendrils, too. Cute!

Hooray! More waterskiing!

The wee lad finally got up for a bit waterskiing! This is actually his second attempt. He made it a bit further than this the first time.

He's still a little wobbly, but he's just about got it. He's nervous, and so he's holding his body really rigid. The slightest bump and he's down.

But we're getting there. I'm so proud of his determination!

We have yet to get the Princess to even put on the skis.

More Fahmilly

I almost forgot to write a post for today! I've been nutty busy with the Princess's birthday planning/execution/clean up.

What do I have for you today.... How about some photos from another family visit at the cottage!

This time it's from the Captain's side of the family. His sister, Dad, and Aunt Mary (technically the captain's first cousin, once removed - but she's always been "awnt" Mary) came to stay.

The Captain's dad wanted some group photos, but we couldn't agree on the location, so we took several. Mary struggles with the stairs to the dock, so the first few are without her.

Which one do you like better?

This one was less successful. Depth of field tripped me up. I was too lazy to swap lenses.

Then we headed up and took some with her included.

What a handsome group!

Mary taught the kids the importance of wearing your cherries on your ears. (Mmmm.. Rainier cherries. If you've never tried these, you must! They are the sweetest cherries. Mmm.)

I love Mary's joie de vivre.

It's not for everyone.












The captain's sister bought a new slalom waterski to bring with her to the cottage.

The captain dragged her around the lake behind the boat until we realized the boat couldn't pull her out of the water on one ski. Maybe if we fall into $8,000 we'll buy a more powerful motor. Not today, however.

Once we started her on two skis, she popped right up, dropped the extra ski, and went tearing around the lake.

Back and forth, and forth and back. I think she would've kept going if we had more gas!

We left the cottage in a flurry on Sunday evening as a nasty storm approached. Eeee... run!