Bayfield, Ontario

And so we finally made it to Bayfield.  Bayfield is a picturesque small town on the coast of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada.  There are no stoplights, no malls, no movie theaters, no . . . well, instead of what there is not, it is shorter to say what there is.  There is a lovely center of town which is a park, including a gazebo, a playground, and some grass.  Around it there are a couple of lovely, quaint, churches, a small convenience grocery store, and a community center.  Just next to the center park, is "main street" which is complete with two ice cream shops (and the commercial part of main street is less than a mile long,) many boutiques, restaurants, bars, a library, a bookstore, several art studios, and an inn (oh, and a dog store too, which we were sure to patronize, several times!)  You can get internet in front of the library (in it I'm sure too) and that's about it.  A couple blocks away from this "main street" is Lake Huron, with many beach accesses, a cute public park overlooking the lake, and a marina.  On a bluff overlooking the lake, sits an adorable cottage, and that is where we were lucky enough to stay, with our two dogs!  My brother's wife's mother owns this cottage, that was passed down to her, and is a super sweet lady and was generous to let us stay for a week in their paradise.  The cottage is rustic and charming- no internet, no air conditioning, just a breeze off of the lake and some lovely sunsets!  The dogs loved the very flat, very green yard that encircles the house- they ran many laps round and round the house with their "cousins."  The first night we spent with our "mother of our sister-in-law" whatever you call her, beyond wonderful (we call her Margie,) my niece, Ava, and Margie's dog, "Missy."  It was a bit stormy, but all of the dogs had fun anyhow.

Water Wubba is Vixen's love!

The next morning, Margie headed back home to Michigan, and shortly after, my Brother, Stephen, his wife, Karen, one of my nephews, Brendon, their 1-2 year old, rescued Weimaraner, Jackson, and their brand new kitten, Ernie, joined us at the cabin.  My other nephew, Spencer, instead embarked on a boyscout adventure to Jamboree!  Anyhow, you're probably ready for some pictures by now, so here they come.  It was stormy most of the day, but we got a couple of hours to play with the dogs down by the lake (well, and in the lake too!)

Benny retrieves his "West Paw Zisc"

Vixen retrieves his Water Wubba!

My nephew, Brendon, throws the ball for Jackson, while Benny brings back the Zisc!

Jackson swam until we left, Vixen has his Wubba, and Benny has his Zisc!

The sun sets . . .

The dogs had so much fun, but eventually the sun came down, and we went up (the hill, to the cabin.)

My niece, Ava, and her dog, Jackson, in front of the sunset!

 My niece, Ava, found a new passion in photography and took many, many pictures with my camera, including this family shot in front of the cottage:

In front of the cabin, watching the sunset (from left to right): me, Jackson (look over my chair,) Stephen, Karen, and Brendon

 And so, that day ends, and I move to the next post (in the interest of keeping things from rambling on and on . . .)

Oh Canada

Once we got back to Detroit, it was back in the car and off to the main part of our vacation- Canada!  And the best way to get there (after driving a couple hours that is) is by ferry!

Benny and Vixen are officially world travelers- or at least have been out of the country!!

And, if you're interested in taking your dogs to Canada, it was easy!  We just handed over our passports and their proof of rabies vaccination (paperwork only, we don't know where Benny's tag is.)  The "Bounty woman" asked us to roll down the back windows, patted Benny on the head, and that was it!  But, we also went to a very small border entry.  You had to get there by a ferry which could hold, at max, 9 vehicles, but we rode next to a semi-truck which took up an entire row, so we had even fewer cars on our ferry, and really no wait! 

So from there, we drove about two hours through corn fields, to our somewhat main destination, Bayfield, Ontario.  And since I have tons of pictures to weed through for that part of our vacation, I will make that the next post.  (See, aren't you glad I don't do this everyday?  Or maybe if I did, the posts wouldn't be so long, but I didn't take my laptop to Canada!) 

Summer Vacation Prologue

My life is currently hurtling ahead at the speed of light, and I'm doing everything I can to not lose my sanity!  Meanwhile, the kittens are cuddling, Vixen's snoozing on the floor, and Benny's intently, but calmly, staring out the window.  They have no idea that their "work" is about to expand.  If you ask them (well, the dogs mostly, but the kittens are catching on,) if they "want to go to work," you get the most excited, enthusiastic set of wagging tails and excited eyes.  And soon, by November, there will be two places for them to "go to work," which means twice the fun for them, and a million times the work and stress for us, the people.  It also means that this is our last day off until after Christmas, except for Thanksgiving (but we won't be vegging then, we'll be roasting a turkey.)  I always love Christmas, but this year I'll be paying extra attention to the Christmas countdown.  So before I get caught up in Fall, I will share with you our summer vacation/business trip!

We left right after our "Christmas in July" sale at the store, so we loaded up with some cheap Christmas toys and hit the road.  The boys mostly don't play in the car, but with a couple new toys, they had a few minutes of fun before settling in for the long drive.




We left Raleigh, NC and drove all the way to a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, where my brother and his wife live with their three young kids, even younger Weimaraner, and brand new kitten.  We spent the night there, and the next morning they graciously let Benny and Vixen stay, while we headed to the airport. 

We boarded a plane at the Detroit airport, and flew to Omaha, Nebraska where we met up with the team from Nature's Variety (the manufacturer of not only a brand that we sell, but our dogs' and cats' primary diets.)  That night they took us to dinner where we got to wine and dine with everyone from the CEO, to the CFO, and most interestingly, the founder of the brand himself.  The next morning we awoke early and boarded a bus which drove us to Lincoln, Nebraska, Nature's Variety's HQ.  After touring the administrative parts of the building and seeing the testing labs, we donned our hairnets, white coats, goggles, and shoe covers, and went into the raw diet manufacturing plant.  

Cameras, phones, jewelry, and such were not allowed inside.  Everything was super sanitary and they probably don't want someone dropping something in the mix!  No cell phone in their dog food!  However, I took mental pictures and will always remember the experience.  Even though we put on shoe covers, as you enter the door, you walk through a puddle of sanitizer- that's how clean it is! 

So here's the best picture I can paint for you with words.  Now, we have been to a dog food manufacturing plant before, and usually, the meat is already ground up, and you see big bins full of red, meaty stuff, and read the label to know what it is.  Well, on this tour, I walked up to a big bin- imagine a barrel about shoulder height that would take probably five people to hug- and I looked in expecting to see a typical "slurry" of meat.  Instead, I saw hearts.  Literally, a bin of countless hearts.  If you ever need a basis for a horror movie, this could be it.  I'll let your imagination take you there if you want.  This was definitely not a scene for a vegetarian.  So, I looked at the label, and there it was, "Venison Hearts."  We then watched a forklift take the bin of hearts and dump it into the grinder which added them to the total mix.  It doesn't get more real than that! 

There were many more interesting parts of the tour, but, I have to remind myself, that this is a blog, not a book!  After the manufacturing side of things, we toured the spotless distribution center.  Rows and rows of dog food, and not a bug in sight!

After the tours were complete, we were bussed back to Omaha for lunch, and then to the airport to fly back to Detroit, and begin the actual vacation part of our vacation!

So, in the next post, we'll go to Canada and beyond . . .

Back on the Blog

Well, the summer has flown by and I finally have a spare moment!  Buttercup is currently slowing my progress by walking on my keyboard, chewing cords on my desk, and just being the curious kitten that she is!  She is definitely the adventurous one, while Wesley has turned out to be pretty lazy- he's probably napping near a window right now.  Benny's sleeping next to me, fully healed and recovered from his summer incident- hardly a scar to show.  I do have a picture from during the healing process (I finally figured out how to get the photos off of my new iPhone; now I just need to figure out how to blog from it!):

 

Well, that concludes my spare moment for right now.  It's time to visit Lowe's, Sherwin Williams, and eat some lunch.  I am hoping to have time later today to share the dog's summer vacation to Canada!  I have lots of fun pictures to share and to revel in how much fun it is to be a dog.

Start from the beginning.

OK, so I have just started posting this blog's link and if you have just found it, I recommend starting from the beginning.  I have been blogging about our vacation with the dogs to the NC mountains, and we had some drama in the middle, so if you don't start at the beginning it will be confusing, and some of the pictures quite shocking.  It would be like missing the first half of a new series on TV.  But that's just while we were on vacation.  From here on, I imagine each day will be able to stand alone; as long as we don't encounter any more crazy drama.  Here's to hoping for boring.

Wednesday

A day of rest (for the dogs):

And a reunion with our kittens!

Buttercup

Wesley

Kitten playtime:

Tuesday

Check-out day.  Our somewhat relaxing, somewhat stressful trip is finally over.  Here’s a look at the inside of the cabin we enjoyed our week in.

 

One last sniff for Benny:

And when we got home, this was there to greet us: