Year Two, Day Seventy Seven - Winkler Sausages and Strange Bunker-House

Dear all, 

Darren and I took a wonderful whistle stop tour down to Simcoe to visit Bob and Mary Lou! After stopping off at 'Len's Automotive' in Jarvis (More on this to come... http://lensauto.ca/) we arrived home to a fabulous feast of Winkler Sausages!! http://www.winklermeats.ca/home

They had the most AMAZING flavor, quite honesty, the best sausages I have ever had and fresh from Winnpeg. Such a treat! We had an absolutely lovely lovely evening with Bob and Mary Lou - I wish we could have stayed longer!

The next morning, Bob took us to the site of his new project - it was one of the most fascinating buildings I have ever laid eyes on. The story was quite tragic - the couple that owned the property died in two separate incidents and the house had been left derelict. But this was no normal house... oh no, this was INSANE! It was like a bunker in the forest... long and narrow and virtually all underground, built in the hillside. The building was made from layers and layers of cement and even had a tree growing from the roof. 

 
The inside was like something out of a horror film: mould had covered everything wall to wall and the place was chaos having been ransacked by intruders searching for treasure. The most bizarre element to all this was the rows and rows of shelves full of home made ceramics - pots, urns and figurines.. They had a professional kiln and one other kiln as well as at least 200 ceramic moulds that lined the walls of the window-less bunk house. It was surreal!

It is hidden in a beautiful wood full of bountiful walnut trees ( *see above) and these strange webs full of caterpillars. We also had to watch our footing for the dreaded Poison Ivy.. but Bob will go in soon and blast them all with a weed wacker. It was the most peculiar house I have ever seen and I am keen to see how the work will progress with it - it's the most incredible project to undertake!

Thank you Bob and Mary Lou for an absolutely lovely stay - we will be back soon!

And in other news:

1. Just a couple more pics from the cottage folks... we have been chopping a LOT of wood of late.. 

 I am building various log piles... here is Darren's 'axe-trail' ( i am useless at splitting logs..) and one of my many log piles that are springing up over the property

D dug out the fire pit in order to make room for more brush... that lasted about 10 minutes.. it just keeps on coming!