Tally Ho 2015

Our Horse and Hound Parade took place on October 4th on an overcast Sunday, but that only made it better for taking photos.  Here's a good little write-up in our local paper, the Elora/Fergus News Express.

The parade started at the old, empty Elora Mill where the people could interact with the horses, riders and all the magnificent hounds.

And they made a grand spectacle coming down Geddes Street.  Don't they look striking?  And our house is almost in this photo:  do you see at the top of the hill a white sign and a grey car with a bit of a tilt?  Our house is right there, beside the grey car.  

Of course, you can't have an event like this without the essential poop patrol (the good boys of our local Home Hardware).  Folks just aren't used to the horse poop any more, when of course back in the day horses were the mode of transportation.

For me, it's all about the hounds, how well behaved they are and how they move as a pack.  They say the horses and hounds still run after coyotes.

And so it began...

Last weekend we had our first guests, two couples that took our Creature Comfort and our Meadow rooms.  They were fantastic guests, we're so lucky to have them as our first!  Even Willow got to say hello by request and she made her way around the dining room table after breakfast to greet each guest.  And breakfast:  after cereal and yogurt, we had a tomato- basil-feta-omelette with bacon, then almond croissants and, to finish, plum cake (with plums from the Farmers' Market).

Yes, our dining room has red walls, really red walls.  Even for me, an avid Hallowe'ener, I have to wonder what were they thinking?  I guess they weren't vegetarians, that's for sure!

(Update:  Last week a guest informed us of how common this colour is in older homes (thank you, Mr. Bailey).  It turns out dining rooms were considered "masculine" in the Victorian age and so dark, rich colours like navy blue, dark gold or (yup) deep red were used.  You can read more about this interesting tidbit by clicking here.)

  Our guests wrote lovely comments in our book:

This will become a treasure.

In other news, Willow got sprayed by a skunk, in our very own backyard.  It was last Thursday, around 8:30pm, when I let her out to go for a walk and before I saw it, Willow was nose to nose with a small skunk.  Yup, she got sprayed full in the face but this skunk must have just sprayed someone else or was very young because it wasn't so potent (not like when Russel got sprayed, we nearly died!) and after a bath of V8 (because that's all we had) and soap and water she was allowed to come into the house (but not the bedroom).  All in all, we were lucky!

This weekend, on Sunday, is the Horse and Hound Parade, you can see a very tasteful video here:


It looks wonderful and I think it even goes by our house!  And the Elora Fergus Studio Tour is on, next year I hope to take part:  http://elorafergusstudiotour.com/ .