Rock Painting with Rose

 Well... this is quite the production. The dining room table has been taken over by Rose! She is going to teach us rock painting... we have paints... and rocks... and brushes and dotting tools...

Stuffies and paint would seem to be a not-great combination but... we are going to keep a watchful eye on loaded paintbrushes and stay away!

Otto would like to point out that he helped find some of these river rocks... the best ones are always under water!

Cocoa Beanie is beary excited that we are doing something "crafty" as he comes from a beary long line of crafty mice!

Just a digression to say that Rose was visiting Gramma earlier this summer and they took up rock painting with a vengeance!

They even went to the big river island and collected beautiful round rocks. We couldn't that many down here but they had tonnes at Gramma's place.

And they painted some beautiful rocks too!!

Ooohhh...

Ahhh... a cute lady bug!!

But we are going to start with a relatively easy type of rock... the mandala style that really only needs a dotting tool. Rose is going to show us how it goes... First you put a base coat on the rock...

Then... she used a dotting tool to make a centre circle and a smaller tool to put more circles around it...

We learned two things about Rose... she has a beary steady hand and excellent vision!

See... more circles/dots.

I'm a bit skeptical about how Mama is going to manage this but... 

Rose is doing a great job!

More dotting tools...

Wow... all with just a few dotting tools... and a steady hand.

Right then... we've got to try our own paw at this...

Rose says we'll do fine... hmmm...

Rose suggested we find something off of Pinterest to copy so we picked this one. It looks relatively easy (hah!).

Well... it looks not bad... but it's tricky figuring out which size of dotting tool to use!

But it's not about perfection...

Seee... that looks OK!

No, really, it does!!

Here's the two that Mama finished before Rose had to leave and took all her paints with her. We have to go and buy some now!

Mama's next project might be to do a Barbapapa family! We have lots of rocks that look blobbish...

And other people have been on Pinterest posting their photographs of Barbapapa rocks!

More Mail!

Hullo! I received another post card a few weeks ago... This one is from Isle Royale National Park.

That wolf has quite the penetrating stare...

But so do I... see... penetrating... stare!

Anyhow, the card is from Jerry & Ben! They went hiking on the island this past summer. Cool!

The island is just south of Thunderbay and if the border had taken a southern dive instead of a northern one, the island would have been in Canada!

There are other weird border divets... like the one where MB, ON and MN all meet...

Not sure who came up with that weird jiggity-jog north. Apparently it was because of faulty maps when the border was being negotiated... That whole area is called The Northwest Angle or just The Angle... strange!

And... just west of The Angle is this little bit of weirdness... Elm Point... which is part of MN while everything north of that line is Canada. And there's an even tinier bit just west of there... see... where that inlet is?

Yup, there's another little bit sticking into the USA.

And let's not event talk about Point Roberts WA which has been having absolutely no fun during this pandemic...

Apparently there's even a petition circulating in the USA to give The Angle to Canada. There aren't a lot of people there... makes sense...

There are also a couple of tiny USA enclaves in Vermont. I could only find one for Canada though - Akwesasne, QC.

Fascinating stuff! Thanks for the postcard J & B!

Paddleboarding Adventures

 Sooo... here we are... in the middle of the lake. Well... pretty close. And Otto wants to introduce us to paddleboarding.

Cocoa and I are less than enthusiastic about yet another water sport... particularly after the Stuffie Olympics waterfall barreling adventure...

But he says paddleboarding is fun... uh-huh... 

Oh dear... here we go... 

Righto - everyone is on board but... this thing is beary wobbly!! We were watching Rose and Mama practice and they ended up in the drink more often than not. Rose kept saying that Mama was tipping them over but... Mama would never do such a thing... would she? Nooooooo...

OK... where are we going? Are we going anywhere? Mama said that she could get on the paddleboard and take us places but all three of us gave her a loud, resounding "NO!"...

We'll just sit here and drift nicely... although Otto did say we should sit more in the middle as that helps the board be less tippy...

OK... middle of the board...

We paddled around a little bit in the shallows but decided that this was not for us. Let Rose take over again!

A Medley of Adventures

 Hullo! I received some mail from Jerry & Ben!

It's a post card of a train... the Soo Line... I know that Jerry and Ben LOVE trains...

They actually took a ride on a vintage Great Northern Railroad train. Cool!

We haven't ridden any vintage railways this year... but... we did have a couple of late summer adventures...

Cocoa and I went to the beach. The humans actually went swimming in the ocean a few times while Rose was here. It actually was a decent temperature... better than some of the rivers around here.

You never know what you might find washed up on the shoreline...

Ack... run!!!!

Whew... no paws got wet in that last photograph but it was touch and go. Too bad Otto wasn't here, he'd of jumped right in!

Speaking of Otto... he and Rose came back for another visit at the end of August... and we found a gazillion gnome/fair doors. We didn't have time to make an exhaustive inventory... Hey? Where'd Cocoa go?

Hah!! There he is!!! Scared us for a minute...

Cocoa would like to say "Hi!!!" to his cousin Kidney Beanie who finally made it to England and the Beanie Clan. And Cocoa wishes that this gnome door was actually a transporter box thingie so that he could go to England too!