New Biz Cards & Watercolours Sold

Here are my new business cards...yet to be printed. The photo on the left is the front of the card, and the photo below is the back. That's our Mulligan:) Our Giant Schnauzer Cinder just shows up as a big black blob in photos (might be my photography skills) They're a little blurry here because of the low resolution, but I think they'll look great printed in high gloss.

The design work was done by Monster Pilot. They have designed all my tags for my dog biscuits, as well as my promotional postcards. I just love working with Brian and his partner. They have so many great ideas, it's really difficult to choose. They also did our logo for my PAWS for Charity project. You can see all the work they've done for me under their "Archive" section.

On the personal front, I sold 2 of my little paintings on Etsy yesterday. Thanks Angelique!
I am quite honored that Angelique bought them...she is such an artistic person. You must check out her photographs as well as her Snow Angel Designs.

In Memory of Shamy

This stunning painting of Shamy was created by Kellie Oliphant-Burns of Doodle Dogs Paintings.

Shamy had a birthday party last year and collected funds for my PAWS for Charity cause. He and his mom Marie-Piere raised $200 and donated it to breast cancer research on behalf of Paws for Charity.

Shamy recently passed away. In Marie-Piere's words "great dogs make everyone feel loved". I couldn't have said it better myself.

Biz cards - your advice needed

I'm having my business cards revamped. In the past, I've had one sided cards that were admittedly rather dull.

This time, I'm having 2 sided cards done up. I'm happy with the front (which I'll show you later) but I would like your advice about the back of the card.

Question 1: does the dog look happy to you? John told me that she looks aggressive. This is a photo of our Mulligan so she certainly doesn't look aggressive to me, but I would like your unbiased opinions. I want the photo to look "happy".

Question 2: I was going to use the back of the cards to ask people to send in dog photos (I use different dog photos on my packaging). This is really a 2 part question: I'm not sure about the wording. Do you have any suggestions to improve it? In case you can't read it, it says "SEND US YOUR DOGGY PHOTOS FOR POSSIBLE USE ON OUR PACKAGING".
Second part: Should I really include this, or leave it off?

Any other thoughts? Just leave a comment, or email me with your thoughts. Thanks for your help!

Going once, going twice, sold!

Have you ever been to an auction? Let me tell you, the first time I actually bid on something at an auction my heart was racing so hard that I almost couldn't breathe by the time the bidding was over.

I go to auctions now and then. I love the country farm auctions the best...especially in the summer and fall when the weather is nice.

I like old stuff. Even if I don't have anything in mind to bid on, I enjoy watching the people and wondering where all that stuff has been and where it's going to end up.

Yesterday was a beautiful day here, so John and I played hookie from work (a bonus of being self employed) and headed out to a country auction. Look what I bought!

These are old wooden silverware boxes. (I got a third one as well but it wasn't as nice) $2!

They look pretty dingy here, but I've already cleaned them up and removed the old material from the inside. The plan for these is to paint them a solid colour and add some painted embellishments to the outside and put new fabric on the inside. The old silverware boxes will do a transformation into new treasure boxes for our grandchildren for Christmas. I'm very excited about this! I'll post pictures when the project is complete (likely sometime in September)

My second purchase...lots and lots of tinware...$5! (Mulligan is inspecting them). The 3 round tubs all have lids. One is now holding birdseed, one is a dog poop container (the lid even has air vents at the top....perfect for this purpose!), and one is going to hold outdoor toys for the grandkids. There's a tall container...that's now storing charcoal (we use a Big Green Egg bbq, which uses charcoal not propane). And there's a rectangular container that will likely get spray painted and put on my desk. What else? Oh yes, there are 3 cannisters (Flour, Coffee, Spices) that someone painted yellow. The paint is peeling badly so I'm going to try to remove the paint and take them back to their original silver colour. There's a few other odds & ends too.

And...my happiest buy of the day:

This cabinet for $5!!...already refinished and repainted in one of my favourite colours (it doesn't show well here but it's a lovely sage green). It's 3 1/2 feet high by 4 feet wide and has a nice walnut stain on the three top pieces. I haven't decided on the new home for this cabinet...it might go into my office or it might go into my new craft/hobby room after Cody leaves us for good this September.

It was definitely a good day at the auction. $12 spent, and the CRV was absolutely packed.

The pleasures of PIF

Remember the Pay It Forward I was involved with in March when I first started blogging? Well, here's the history:
It started with Mary, then went to Allyson, then to Jen in Pennsylvania, then to me, over to Angelique in Colorado, back to Ontario to Bumbershootska, and is now over in Scotland! If you want to play, check out this posting on Cut it and Pin it. It's a PIF waiting for someone!

I recently joined my second PIF. This one is a little more challenging. I found it over on Jamjar. Here's the link to her PIF. She's still waiting for some players. Here are the rules:

"I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week… LOL… but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”

Okay, well I promise I'll get out your little gift a lot sooner than 365 days. No, it won't be dog biscuits! I am going to challenge myself a little with this PIF and I think it just might be some sort of stitchery project (no promises!). So, if you want to play just leave a comment.

Don't worry if I don't respond to you right away. For some reason, I am not receiving a notice anymore from blogger when someone leaves a comment. (can anyone help me with this?) My settings are ok, and the comments aren't going to my spam box so I don't know what's happening.

More about PIF:
I practice Pay It Forward in my business life too. I have met with many people who are starting businesses to give them advice. Some of them approach me directly, and some of them hear about me and my business from a local entrepreneurship centre. It's always fun to meet with them and interesting to hear about their plans. Some will make it. Some won't. Being self employed is the big dream for many people, but in reality it's a LOT of work! You have to really love what you're doing and have a lot of determination to make your own business a success.

I've also been approached by hundreds (no kidding!) of people who say they want to start a dog biscuit business. I'm not so interested in helping them. I don't mind competition, but I certainly don't want to teach them the business! I even received an email from someone in Montreal (just 1 1/2 hours from us) asking me to email them all my dog biscuit recipes and give them advice. No thanks.

You just have to keep a sense of humour about it all...sometimes hard to do!

Happy PIFing!

Next: some awesome auction buys!

Strange Visitor in the Night

Every night for the past 5 days or so we've had an unexpected visitor....a strange little fellow:

This photo is the top portion of one of the windows in our living room. Our house is an open concept (kitchen/living room/dining room is all one open space) and the walls are mostly filled with windows. This makes it rather challenging to place furniture and to hang pictures (no wall space) but it's really nice to be able to see nature everywhere you look.

The windows go from the floor to one foot below the ceiling, which makes all the windows eight feet high. That gives you an idea of how high this little guy has climbed...he's at the top so he's about eight feet in the air.

Every night he climbs up on the outside of the window to feast on the bugs that are attracted by the floor lamp we have on the inside of the window. These photos were taken from the inside looking out while he's on the outside looking in.

A strange, but most welcome visitor!

Meet Carling & New Store News

Meet Carling. (photo by Barbara Lapointe) Carling's photo has been featured on our Say Cheese package for the past 9 months (we have others as well). But I used the last one today! So Carling's photo is officially retired. I picked Carling's photo to use on "Say Cheese" because I thought the look on his face was hilarious...it's like he's saying..."Just take the picture!" Or one of those looks that teenagers get when they're determined not to have a good time.

I did my first "Photo Search" last summer and printed the first batch of tags in September 2006. I wanted to feature as many different dogs as I could to make it fun for my customers. My idea was to print a limited run of each photo....only about 300 of each. However 2 things defeated my plan.

First of all, the printer ran 1000 of each photo by mistake. That's not so bad when you're talking about only one photo. But my first print run had 21 photos....that meant that 21,000 tags were printed instead of 6,300 tags. Yikes!

Second of all, the contact I had for 8 years at the printing company I use left. The new person told me that tags would be four times (that's 4 x!!) the cost that I had been originally quoted if I wanted only small batches printed. Double yikes!

So, the end result was that I can't feature as many dogs as I want and print a lot more tags of each photo I use. Some day maybe I'll find a way to print the tags inexpensively so that I can do small runs.

Some exciting news! Last week has been busy with four new stores being added to my retail stores list. (well, the stores aren't new but they're new to my biscuits). Here are the new locations:

Urban Paws in Kingston

Winstead All About Dogs in Bloomfield

Ornament Express in Vaughn and

Small Wonders Pet Emporium in Toronto

If you're in the area, please go to one of the stores and buy some biscuits. Tell them you read about it on the blog!

For the birds

Meet our purple finch. He visits us from time to time, but not nearly as often as I'd like to see him. I love his colouring, and feel fortunate whenever he decides to visit our feeders.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to find some wonderful fabric on Etsy supplied by Beebee Mod.

I have a "vintage" dining room set that I really don't like very much but I can't bear to part with. My parents bought the set second hand when they were young and it was in our family home for over 25 years. After my mom passed away, my dad downsized his home and gave the set to me. I've had it for 20 years. So you see, I really can't part with it.

But it was time to funk it up a bit, and this bird seed fabric was just the thing! Here's how it looks on one of the chairs now:

I love it! My son thinks I'm crazy. Well, it definitely makes a statement!

Ain't She Sweet?

Ain't she sweet?
See her walking down that street.
Yes I ask you very confidentially, ain't she sweet?
Ain't she nice?
Look her over once or twice.
Yes I ask you very confidentially,ain't she nice?
Just cast an eye in her direction.
Oh me oh my, ain't that perfection?
Oh I repeat,well, don't you think that's kinda neat?
Yes I ask you very confidentially,ain't she sweet?

Meet Darla. Isn't she a cutie? She's a relatively new addition to Sherry's home & family. Sherry adopted her from the SPCA after fostering her for a week.

If you are looking for a four legged addition to your family, please consider the dogs at your local rescue groups, shelters, human societies, and SPCA's. There are so many wonderful dogs looking for a new family.

If you're in the Ottawa area, here are a few to talk to:
B.A.R.K.
Ottawa Humane Society
L.A.W.S.
F.O.A.P.

Saying no is hard to do

I am constantly asked for product donations for various charities and fund raisers. How do I decide who to donate to? It's so difficult, because there are just so many deserving groups and obviously a small business can't donate to everyone.

I hate saying no.

However, the fact is that I am a small business and I can't always say yes. Here's how I handle it:
- I have a few key charities that I donate to each year
- I created PAWS for Charity with 3 other like minded business women and raise funds for breast cancer research
- I participate in events, and donate part of my sales to charity
- I donate part of the proceeds from some of my dog biscuits to charity
- I donate items to some groups that hold a personal interest to me

And when all else fails, and I run out of donation budget, I do something like this:

These are 2 watercolours that I painted and sent to the Maritime Greyhound Adoption Program in New Brunswick. One of the organizers is a customer of mine, so I wanted to help out in some small way. These paintings will be auctioned off at their Annual Picnic & Auction to raise money for special needs greyhounds that would otherwise be euthanized. This year the auction will take place on July 29th, and I really hope someone bids on my little paintings!

A fun fundraising calendar

I wanted to share a fundraising idea that a local animal shelter is doing. I'm sending in photos of our 2 girls and cat Phantom. Maybe you'd like to see your pets on the calendar as well. Here are the details from the Lanark Animal Welfare Society web site:

L.A.W.S. 2008 CALENDARS: L.A.W.S. is now accepting pet photo inserts for its 2nd Annual 2008 Animal Calendar. This calendar will feature your pet’s photo on a particular day, as chosen by you. Photos will be laid out in an attractive glossy format and the date you choose may represent a birthday, adoption date or other special event. Pet pictures are now being accepted for the 2008 calendar.

Application forms can be printed from the LAWS website or can be picked up at the shelter, during regular business hours. To reserve a special date, please submit a clear photo, the name of the pet, preferred date for insertion, return address and phone number plus $20.00 to: L.A.W.S. P.O. Box 156, Smiths Falls, ON K7A 4T1 (Attention Cathy Hasler). Additional spots are available for $10.00 each.

Feature pet of the month spots (one only per month) are available for 150.00. There is also the opportunity to advertise your business in a banner to be sold each month (12 spots available) for 150.00 each. Please make cheques payable to L.A.W.S. Photos will be returned upon request. Reservations for a specific date are on a first-come, first-served basis.

You may also pre-order you copy of the 2008 calendar by sending an extra $15.00 for each calendar plus $2.00 if you would like it mailed to you. For more information please call Cathy at 613-283-7768 or 613-267-7795. Cut-off date for all photo submissions is September 30th, 2007. Spots are selling out quickly, so don’t delay. Please use the order form when sending your photo insert. Click here to see the JPG version or here to see the PDF version (You'll need Adobe acrobat to view PDF)

I'm sending my photos tomorrow. Hope you send some too!

It's nice to hear "thanks"

It's so nice to hear "thank you", and to read it in print is even better!Foodsmiths is a natural food store in Perth, Ontario. They have carried our dog biscuits for years. I'm so happy to have our biscuits in their store. The store is just filled with high quality food items, and it's great to walk around and look at the variety...so many things are available there that you don't find in a regular "grocery store".

Foodsmiths hosts a "Dog Wash" every year to raise funds for LAWS (Lanark Animal Welfare Society). I wasn't able to attend this year, because we were in Newfoundland, but I donated 150 of our large 5 inch bones for Foodsmiths to give out to all the people who came to the Dog Wash.

I received a Foodsmiths flyer with our newspaper this week. Imagine my surprise and delight when I saw The Barking Biscuit in their flyer. First of all, my company was listed on the front page of the flyer with 11 other businesses under the caption "Local Flavours". On the back page of the 8 page flyer was the Thank You for the Charity Dog Wash supporters.

Usually companies have to pay to be featured in flyers like this, which is something I can't afford to do, so it was a very happy surprise!

Vacation#6: Final Installment

Our last night in Newfoundland was a bit of a disappointment. From our fantastic zodiac tour, we headed further along The Irish Loop and spent the night in Trepassey. The b&b was clean, and the hostess was very nice, but the home was not up to the spectacular standards we had in the previous few nights.

However, without stopping in Trepassey for the night, we would not have been in St. Vincent's the next morning to see the whales. In 2003, Saltscapes Magazine recommended seeing the whales on St. Vincent's Beach as one of the top things to do while visiting Newfoundland. And we were in luck. The capelin had just started "running"...capelin are fish that head into shore and onto the beaches to spawn starting in late June. The whales follow the capelin, and since the bay at St. Vincent's is so deep, the whales come quite close to shore...just meters from the shoreline.

It was cold, only 9 degrees celcius inland, so I have no idea what the temperature was on the beach. John and I were the only people actually on the beach (many people came and went while we were there, but they stayed up behind the breakwater barriers). We stayed there, sitting in our portable folding chairs, for 2 1/2 hours. It was fantastic to watch the whales. One came in quite close and lifted right out of the water. The sound of the water as he splashed down was just amazing. Such power and grace.

I didn't get many good photos. It was a little foggy and the salt spray clouded up the lens a bit. Here is one series of 3 photos of the same whale:

Another favourite memory is when I saw 2 whales at the same time...one had his back out of the water, and the other was right beside him with the tail raised above the water.

my soul has been torn from me
and i am bleeding
my heart it has been rent
and i am crying
all the beauty around me fades
and i am screaming
i'm the last of the great whales
and i am dying

last night i heard the cry
of my last companion
the roar of the harpoon gun
and then i was alone
i thought of days gone by
when we were thousands
but i know that i soon must die

next morning the sun did rise
prison in the skies
the ice was the color of blood
and the winds they did sigh
i rose for to take a breath
it was my last one
from a gun came the roar of death
and now i am done

now that we are all gone
there's no more hunting
the big fellow is no more
it's no use lamenting
what race will be next in line
for the slaughter
the elephant or the cod
or your sons and daughters

my soul has been torn from me
and i am bleeding
my heart it has been rent
and i am crying
all the beauty around me fades
and i am screaming
i'm the last of the great whales
and i am dying
from The Last of the Great Whales by The Irish Descendants

Thankfully the humpbacks are not gone yet.

They had just started to come to shore, so the next few weeks will have more and more whales coming in. It would be fantastic to see.

But, we had to get on the road again. We were headed for Argentia to catch the ferry back to the mainland.

One more stop along the way...we went to the Ecological Reserve in Cape St. Mary's. There is a 1.5 km walk along the cliffs to see one of the largest sea bird colonies in North America.

The sound was unreal. I've never heard such a thing before....tens of thousands of birds make a lot of noise! John walked most of the way with me, but didn't go right to the point "to see a lot of birds pooping and squawking". So I continued along to the cliffs
Why not go all the way?The smell was, shall I say....interesting. It was quite the experience. On the way back, I took a couple of photos of the wandering sheep (watch where you step!)

I just had to post this photo as a tribute to Lauren of Pretending to Farm. I thought of her when I took it.

From the reserve, we headed to Argentia. We arrived 6 hours early for our ferry ride (departure time 12:30 am). And let me tell you, there is absolutely not much to do in a ferry terminal for 6 hours. Finally, boarding time. We were on a waiting list for a cabin so we went to the lounge to hear some entertainment and wait for an hour. We made it! We did get a cabin to spend part of our 18 hour ferry ride. The ferry ride was actually not bad...like a mini cruise ship. Lounge complete with entertainment, gift shop, restaurants, coffee shop, pinball games room, tv lounges, movie theatre... and our 18 hour ride turned into a 14 hour ride. Seems they have a new ship that makes it in 14 hours. We landed at 2:30 pm the following day and were "mainlanders" again. We drove for several hours and stopped for the night. Next day, 11 hours of driving and we're home.

I loved the trip. But as Dorothy said "there's no place like home".

Vacation Installment#5: St.John's & YEHAW ride

This is the view from the deck of our bed & breakfast in St. John's. A little foggy this day, but you can see the harbour. The hills around the harbour are shrouded in fog.

We spent our full day in St. John's walking around the historic downtown area. I am a lover of old houses, and was in my glory with all the colours:
John Mellencamp might sing about Little Pink Houses, but there is every colour imaginable in St. John's.
We did actually look at more than just houses, but the houses were a highlight for me.
One of our stops was at an independent record store called "Fred's". We picked up a "best of" cd by The Irish Descendants, the group that we saw at Bridey Molloy's the night before. We lunched at a pub, and stayed while it poured rain outside. I took a look through some antique shops and craft stores and John tagged along. He always quickly goes outside to people watch while I browse the stores. We headed to Quidi Vidi, a local micro brewery to see if we could pick up a sweatshirt for John but they were out of his size.

Then we headed up to Signal Hill. Here is what we saw...nothing! It was so foggy, we couldn't see a thing over the wall.

We returned the next day (one of the few days of sunshine we had) and this is the view towards the St. John's harbour:

What a difference a day makes!

Sunny Sunday had us leaving St. John's and heading to Bay Bulls (no, not Bay of Bulls or Bulls Bay, but Bay Bulls...apparently the name has been shortened over the years). This was one of those days that our timing was off, but it turned out in our favour. We were in search of a boat tour. We missed the turn for Bay Bulls (hard to do, but I can navigate us to missed turn offs all the time) and kept seeing signs for boat tours "ahead". We stopped at a convenience store and John asked the woman where the boat tours were. She told us to go back to Bay Bulls. No problem, it wasn't far. So...we turned around and back tracked. When we arrived, we had just missed the 11:00 boat tour and the next one didn't leave until 2:00. This wouldn't be a big deal in most places but Bay Bulls is pretty much just O'Brien's Boat Tours and nothing else. We walked the docks, talked to a man and his son who were fishing, watched a couple of guys drinking beer in their truck on the pier, walked back to the boat tour gift shop, and overheard a conversation about a zodiac ride. I was a little reluctant at first (I mean, touring around the ocean and icebergs in a little zodiac??) but became convinced it was definitely a "must do". We had done a boat tour in the past while in Cape Breton, and had never been in a zodiac so we made the change. We were going out with just one other couple and our guide works full time for the Coast Guard, so I figured we were in safe hands.

First thing we had to do: put on survival suits. Yikes! Do we need these things? Apparently the ocean is 3 degrees celcius. Survival time is about 20 minutes without a suit. With a suit, you can add about 20 minutes. Hmmm....not sure about this trip! This is our guide, Michael (on the left) with Debbie and Wayne from Houston, Texas. Wayne is a geologist, which made touring the cliffs quite informative.

Look at the size of the boat!

It was the ride of our lives! I absolutely LOVED it. I wish I was a writer, because I'll just never be able to put into words how exciting it was. Once we got out of the harbour, Michael turned the zodiac towards the cliffs and headed to them at (what seemed like) full speed. I think my eyes were probably popping out of my head and I rarely swear but I do believe I did as we were rushing for a cave. We pulled into a cave and came to a dead stop. Wayne yelled out "YEHAW!" and that became the theme of our trip. We had lots of YEHAWS, let me tell you. Here is the view from inside the cave looking out:

I couldn't get both sides of the cave into the photo, since I had my zoom lens on my camera and couldn't get a wide shot.

We headed out of the harbour and into the ocean...with 6 foot waves. Can you imagine being in the little zodiac in 6 foot waves? It was a gas! We toured close into the cliffs where the sea birds were nesting (but after my up close puffin experience, seeing them on the cliffs seemed anti climatic). Then we headed out to see an iceberg up close.

This photo is courtesy of Wayne. All the black specks are sea birds. There were thousands of them flying around. Michael's advice: Don't look up with your mouth open! You can see the iceberg in the middle of the photo.

Another photo courtesy of Wayne. We met another tourist on our trip who told us icebergs were no big deal. He only wanted to see ice in his drinks. I think they're beautiful and awesome in their size. (don't forget that only 1/10th of the iceberg is above the water) And there's nothing like seeing one up close. I love the colours in this photo, but it just doesn't give the right perspective of the iceberg. It was huge! We didn't get really close. Michael told us they can break and/or flip without warning. Yikes.

After a wonderful 2 hour ride (and one last YEHAW as we pulled up to the dock) we were back where we started. We were disrobing from our fashionable survival suits when we heard Michael say "Hi Con". We looked up, and there was Con O'Brien from The Irish Descendants...who we saw performing a couple of nights ago in St. John's. Seems he owns O'Brien's Boat Tours. Too funny. I went to get the newly purchased cd from our car, and John asked Con to sign it for us.

This day was definitely one of the highlights of our vacation, and all because of some bad timing and missing the boat tour!

Next: whale tails and bird tales

Vacation Installment#4: Marvellous Puffins & Magnificent Icebergs

Friday June 22nd had us driving from Glovertown to St. John's (Newfoundland's capital). First, we headed out on the TransCanada Highway (the only road!) through Terra Nova National Park. Not too long into the drive John said, "Sara there's a moose!" (everyone kept telling us we'd see tons of moose on our trip. Apparently there are more moose in Newfoundland than there are people. However, we had so far only seen the cow and calf mentioned in my earlier post...just specks in the distance).

John slowed right down and I started scrambling for my camera. Oh no! I didn't have the zoom lens on. But wait...the moose was just standing there. No movement. Ha! The joke was on us. It was a life size wooden cut out sign put at the side of the road as a warning. I should have taken a photo of it, because that was the only moose we ever saw up close.

We wanted to see more than the highway, so at the first opportunity we headed for the coast and onto the Bonavista Peninsula. We stopped and watched a tour boat out on the ocean. They were following a couple of whales (from a distance). We watched through the binoculars, but I didn't take any photos. They were too far away.

I had read about a town called Elliston...they are known as the "Root Cellar capital of the World" and have 134 documented root cellars, some dating back to the 1830's. I wanted to see them. John thought I was nuts "are you sure?" "are you really sure?". Well, I am a little weird I have to admit. Yes! I wanted to see those root cellars. Here's a double decker root cellar:

All things happen for a reason. My obstinate wish to see the root cellars led us to The Atlantic Puffin Site...one of the most accessible places in Newfoundland to view the puffins. There was a little tourist information booth located next to a modest home. A quick 5 minute walk along the bluffs took us out to the cliffs where the puffins were nesting. We were so very lucky to see them! Apparently they rarely come right onto the bluffs, but they were there in full force that day. There were only 6 other people there when we arrived (3 photographers, and 3 people just watching). I went camera crazy.Puffins live out on the ocean for 10 months of the year and don't come into land during that time.
When they are ready to nest, they come into land. They burrow into the side of the cliffs to make their nests. They have at least two chambers in their nest, one to raise their young, and one to defecate in. They use their excrement to reinforce the walls of the chambers.

They fly, but they also swim under water very well. They can stay under water for a minute or more.

The yellow spot at the side of their beak (one on each side) is for secreting salt from the water they drink.

They have a 20 year life expectancy. Sea gulls are one of their predators.

They spend the first 3 years of their life at sea, and then they come into shore to mate.

They mate for life.And...they are just too darned cute for words!

During my photo session with the puffins, all the other people left. I was having the time of my life! I was crawling around on my stomach trying to get as close as I could to the edge of the cliffs without scaring the puffins. I spent almost 2 hours taking photos. (I have more puffin photos than anyone could possible want!) John is just the perfect partner for me. He loved watching me take photos, and didn't begrudge a minute of the time we spent there.

Time to move on...

We drove further up the coast and stopped in Bonavista for lunch at a tea shop. John, as is his habit, talked to most of the people there. It was at this tea shop that we discovered that native Newfoundlanders really do talk differently when they talk to each other! (faster, with heavier accents) One of the locals told us we should head out to Newman's Cove if we wanted to see some icebergs, so that's what we did.

I had to stop to take this photo...lacy doilies hanging on a laundry line with an iceberg in the background.

To get a feel for the size of some of the icebergs, compare the size of the fishing boat to the iceberg above.

There were over 25 icebergs along this little bay. How nice of the man in the tea shop to tell us about them. We never would have gone that way without talking to him.

A self portrait taken with my remote control.

We were late arriving to St. John's (I had called the B&B owner to let her know so she wasn't sitting around waiting for us). We stayed at Cantwell House in downtown St. John's...by far the best B&B on our trip.

We went down to the infamous George Street for a late dinner. George Street is closed to vehicles and is absolutely packed with people on weekend nights. Mostly young people...wow, did I feel old. More bars, bands, and people than you can imagine. It was quite cool...about 10 C, and all the young women were walking around with sleeveless dresses on! It made me cold just watching them. (but, I really don't think most of them could feel a thing) We found a quieter bar at the end of the street and had some great fish and chips. Even better was the entertainment...Con O'Brien and the Rum Demons. This is the alter ego name of The Irish Descendants...one of Newfoundland's better known groups. How lucky we were to hear them play!

What a day!

Next: the colorful houses of St. John's & a true YEHAW experience