August 04


Does your dog snore?
There is lots of dog talk over at the Bayfield Bunch tonight. No wonder, if they are looking for a new bunch-member they need to find the right one. I can just about feel their excitement. 
Well, there is some dog talk here as well. Cause I was wondering whether all dogs snore?  Molly sure does. And there is something funny about it. While I find it annoying to listen to Bea's snoring, (and she sure doesn't like me snoring) I can sleep like a baby when Molly snores. In the contrary, it is actually a soothing thing for me listening to my dog's snore. When Molly snores, I know she is content and about to sail off to dog dreams. Her dreaming is another thing I notice. Her paws start moving, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Now, she is in pursuit of something -- a rabbit most likely or wait...it could be a squirrel. Yes! Her panting is getting more excited, and she starts making noises, yammering noises, getting louder and louder, well THAT would wake me up right there.


And you know what? She even does that when we are going down the road at 60mph. How she can do that with all that noise from the engine and the wheels is anyone's guess.

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Well, this has been just another day with lots of work on the porch, and I mean ON the porch, as I literally was working on top of the roof. See, I had to start scraping the paint off the house fascia board. 


Standing on top of a ladder way up where the air gets thin holding a heat gun in the left and a scraper in the right leaves you nothing to hold onto the ladder with. Whenever the sun peeked through the clouds it got hot and the hot air from the heat gun didn't improve the situation a bit.

July 31


The Last Day
We have reached the very last day of July 2011 and tomorrow we will be starting on August. That means 2 more months to go and we are getting into departure mode. The BIG CAMPING season is over us again. In good time before departure we will be cleaning the coach inside and out, we will check our lists of what stuff to take and what not. We will be looking at tires, oil and all the technical intricacies BEFORE hitting the road. We will also have the Motor Home serviced at our Freightliner Service Center in Bangor, ME.  I discovered that place 3 years ago and was thrilled to see that only very mature personal is working there. Truckers are using that facility and that also gives me confidence in their work.


We might also have to replace 2 more tires in the rear. They are now 7 years old and showing cracks on the flanks.


When all that is done, we are looking at a 3700 mile journey until we are safely parked again in our spot in the California Desert.

Parked in the desert

I had a few days break from my work on the porch as we had a visitor from Prince Edvard Island. He left this morning on the ferry via Deer Island. If the weather has been as nice farther north as it was here, he must have had a gorgeous ride home.

The Campobello-Deer Island Ferry

We were lingering on the beach until the ferry was well underway. While we were down there, we discovered something tiny moving around in the water. At first we thought of small fish. But with a closer look we saw that it was no fish. It was KRILL. 

Krill is the reason that the giant whales are coming up here for feeding. Matter of fact KRILL is the reason that we have a marine life in the ocean at all. Only these fellows we saw seemed to plan their suicide as they were heading for the shoreline. The wavelets were washing them up on the gravel where these guys died!!! We figured that their time was up and like many species they kind of know that, and end their life by shoring up. Life is full of wonders!

Molly has discovered Krill!

After coming home I retrieved my tools and started working on the porch in the shade of the house. It was good to be busy again after those last two days. But around 2pm the sun had made it around to the front our house and I started to lose gallons of water which have a tendency to run from the top of my head into my eyes. I have even made a special hat, cause I figured baseball caps do not allow for ventilation. So I rather took an old cowboy hat and cut open the crown of it. But even with that arrangement I got "watery" eyes. And when I came close to a headache, I finally had to throw in the towel and give it up for today. I rather settled down with an ice-cold lemonade under the roof of the new-constructed porch.

July 12


Amazing what a blog can do...
We have never prepared food in a too simple way, so it is not my point to insinuate anything like that. What I am getting at is the fact that my dear wife seems to have found, not only inspiration, but the interest for cooking. And that is thanks to her blog Dinner For Two at www.dinner-fourtwo.blogspot.com  The fact that she is using the NIKON on it, and tries to get the most appetizing pictures of the dish has led to the most appetizing arrangements on my plate as well. I would be lying, if I said it doesn't please me. 


Today, we had pan-fried Pollock, with cooked potatoes and a delicate cucumber-tomato salad. No top-prized restaurant in the entire gourmet-world would have made that dish any better than Bea. 


Besides of havin' a good time at the table, I had a h...of a time outside with my porch-project. Reason for that was the merciless sun combined with high humidity (it rained last night!). The water poured off my head by the gallons, and from time to time I had to take a refill in the kitchen. But finally the last post with beam toppled over and I was standing on a bare deck.

Neighbors walking by on the road were not saving their comments. Nope, they must have been thinking I am a real maniac, which maybe closer to the truth than they know.

Everyone who is reading www.thebayfieldbunch.com knows what trouble (and fun) Al has with his squirrels. We have squirrels too!! And Molly is the one being on the hunt for them. But, of course, squirrels are faster or smarter than Molly. That, however, does not deter her from sitting guard under a tree when a squirrel has taken up position on a high enough branch. Molly does not know that the squirrel can escape her attention by jumping onto the house roof and from there going into its nest by the dormer. But funny enough the squirrel sits in the tree and seems to have fun teasing our dog.

Then in the late afternoon I had to start the convertible, 'cause the island-mechanic was to put in a new choke tomorrow and desired to have the car with a cold engine next morning. But turning the key did not produce the desired rumble from the engine. It remained absolutely quiet in the garage. No power! Flat Battery! How could it be?  
In dark anticipation I fumbled after the light switch, and sure enough it was halfway out. Darn, I had forgotten to switch off the parking lights last time I put it into the garage.


The solution was putting it into neutral and pushing it out into the open. Luckily our garage floor is sloping a bit downhill, which makes it a ton easier to move that heavy float.  
Outside, I could bring our truck close, to use our heavy-duty jumper cables. When the engine finally sprang to life, I had to keep my foot on the accelerator, as the choke is no good. After a while the engine warmed up and I could slip up my foot.
Together with the new choke we will be getting a full tune-up of the engine. I am looking forward to finally being able to fully enjoy that old boat, even if most trips are limited to tours on the island.