WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO, YOU ASK?

APRIL IN A NUTSHELL:

Discovered a wonderful hairstylist in Charlottetown. On 6th April, which also happens to be my birthday, I sat at the salon of my great new hair stylist and did this:

They serve wine as you sit and wait for your colour to process. How civilized is that?

Followed by this dinner at home:

We do love lobster, and look, we serve wine too.

10th April, there was an amazing moon that I attempted to take a picture of.

Sunset still but moon completely visible. 

Most of the snow is gone and Kaede keeps busy looking for moles.

11th April. Winter is gone. For good. Time to drive up to the rented house we had in Stanley Bridge and claim back our RV and bring it home to Pleasant Grove.

Getting ready to leave Bumblebee House.

Did I tell you part of our property borders on a farm that raises cattle? If you study these two photos closely you will detect the red of Kaede's collar and opposite that, on the other side of an electric fence that you cannot see, there is a cow. Kaede was mesmorised by this huge animal and stood staring it down for about thirty minutes.

April 25th started off like every other day here in Pleasant Grove, PEI. Sun was shining, snow was all gone and Kaede and Erik were outside on their usual morning ritual (the one that takes place after Kaede has her breakfast). Erik came running back in to get me outside to show me something. Under a leafless poplar was a black calf, curled up in a ball, its huge eyes blinking at us.

Erik drove over to the farmer's home and back they all came with the farmer's truck, a couple of syringes and some nasty ear piercing equipment. Seems the calf had only been born the day before and the farmer and his wife were afraid he had been taken by coyotes. The little guy did not want to get up and now I know why. The two syringes were full of his vaccines for immunities and the nasty ear piercing equipment was to, yup, pierce both ears with his number. After much grunting and groaning the farmer and his wife got the little guy to his feet, and as they were taking him to the fence his mother came running over mooing. Hearing that sound made him a bit more lively and off he went to join his mother. We've watched his progress from our side of the fence and he is growing like a weed.

28th April: The rains of April are upon us and we have little green shoots coming up in the flower beds at the front of our house. Exciting since we don't know what has been planted and also exciting because we don't actually garden. We will though, this year, promise. Even thinking about starting some vegetables in the back. We have an acre of land and it will be pretty easy to cordon off a patch and grow some tomatoes, some zucchini, some beans and lettuce. Since these pictures of green things were taken on April 28th, the green shoots have grown, some red something has poked its head through, as has something purple and the lawn has greened up beautifully.

On 29th April,  a lovely warm day, we all (me, Kaede, Erik) went to a fishing spot on the Winter River, only a ten minute drive from our house. While Erik fished Kaede and I went walking through the woods, just enjoying the beautiful scenery and being happy that spring had arrived.

The fisherman.

Kaede checking out the little frog in the water.

Part of the Winter River

Leaving Erik to his fishing Kaede and I took a walk along the unpaved and rarely travelled road that took us to the fishing spot. Our little adventure unearthed a dead fox and a few fields of potatoes that had not been harvested. I am unsure why this would be that the potatoes were not harvested in the fall, and efforts to find out on the internet gave me no clues. I resisted taking a photo of the dead fox.

There they are, the unharvested potatoes.

Erik only caught one trout that day, but being the determined fisherman he is, the next morning, bright and early, he went back to that spot and caught three more. Lunch that day was trout fried in butter and scrambled eggs. Quite lovely.


30th April, Charlottetown for the day. First, to the Confederation Centre to see what was being exhibited. Link to Confederation Centre - Press Here. One of the exhibits was Click here - This Is Really Amazing an in depth look at the PEI Ark that was built in the early seventies as a way to live in a completely self-contained environment with your own source of power, waste disposal and other necessities of life. Here is a link to a current article CBC news about The Ark in PEI about this amazing little piece of Canadian ingenuity.The Ark was used for ten years, then decommissioned and finally, demolished.

1976 Opening of the Ark with PM Trudeau and Premiere Campbell of PEI

The Ark in 1976

We strolled down to the Harbour and saw the first cruise ship in dock. Did a bit of research and found out that Charlottetown is expecting 83 cruise ships this summer, bringing about 100,000 tourists to the city and to our island. This is up from 2016 and is being attributed to the 150th Anniversary of Canada and Charlottetown being the Home of Confederation. Sounds like it could be a busy summer. The cruise ship Disney Magic, picture below, is due to arrive on 24th October 2017.

Harbour looking toward Stratford.

Ready to celebrate the 150th.

Ended up a nice day in Charlottetown by visiting a little wine bar/restaurant called Row House Lobster Co. where we sat at a beautiful long bar and had a glass of refreshing Rose wine and talked to the server. She had just returned from spending her winter backpacking across Thailand and Vietnam and told us of her many exciting adventures. After viewing some of the food being served customers, reading the menu and liking the ambience of this place, we will definitely be back for dinner.

I tried as hard as I could to get a picture of Erik and me sitting at the bar facing the mirrored shelves with their liquor displayed but just couldn't. Look closely and you will see us, barely.

Remember Burger Love? The 83 restaurants all over PEI vying for best burger and concocting some pretty amazing entries to this charity driven incentive that features PEI beef? We had another one. This time we were in the little town of Montague and stopped at their cute little pub called Main Street Pub. This one featured pesto sauce, pastrami, on a potato bun,  a fresh burger with all kinds of goodies inside. Good good good.

All in all, flowers blooming, healthy farm animals next door, snow all gone, good fun and good food, it's been a darned good month.

Erik played a gig for Easter at one of the local Senior's Homes where he is one of the regular entertainers and I continue to play tennis. Our drivers' licenses are now PEI and our truck sports a brand new PEI plate. It looks as though we're here to stay.