Lorenzo headed over to Mayne Island on Thursday night and came home Saturday morning. I am thrilled by how much he managed to get done in essentially one day. As I mentioned previously, the wood stove stuck out from the wall by nearly five feet which made furniture arrangement nearly impossible. We also decided that we wanted an open fireplace. In addition, the brickwork was very ugly...

Lorenzo pulled out the stove and managed to lug all three hundred pounds of it out to the porch with the assistance of our neighbour, Neil. (thanks Neil!) Then he smashed the brick and made a stack outside to be used for a fire pit we're going to build...

I appreciate how clean his work-space is...here's another view:

After this, he framed in our new fireplace!

We decided to move it down toward the north wall and have the firebox elevated. This makes for much nicer viewing and with the hearth, you can sit down and warm yourself up...

The new fireplace will only extend two feet into the living room. What a difference! Here's another view...

Prior to Lorenzo leaving, we were both feeling discouraged about the snail-like pace of this renovation. But this new development has renewed our enthusiasm. We drank tea and talked for hours about how we're going to dress this (probably pebble tile) and how fabulously wonderful our lives will be when this cottage is done...

When Lorenzo arrived on Thursday night, a bat followed him into the cottage. It flew down the staircase as he was heading up and it came right at his head - silently. It was rather jarring, but Lorenzo said it was a fascinating encounter. It exited the cottage without any protest. Bats are wonderful for the environment - they can eat up to eight thousand insects in a single night, and they assist in seed disbursement and plant pollination. So, not only do we have frogs singing away at night, but bats swooping around as well. How cool.

While Lorenzo was gone, I refinished a sofa table I bought last year on Craigslist for fifty bucks. It's a very heavy, solid pine piece of furniture but it was a weird pinky beige colour...

I sanded it down outside, then painted it. I splurged on a small can of Benjamin Moore's Regal line. I have never used paint like this...it went on like silk. When you're painting spindles it's difficult to hide your brush-strokes, but this paint made them disappear. The table now, looks as though I sprayed it. Afterwards, I applied three coats of wipe-on polyurethane to the top portion. This prevents objects from sticking to the surface and provides some protection against spills. The colour is a soft greenish-gray and it looks very nice. Finally, I attached one my big happy knobs...

I love painting furniture!

Now I have to tell you about the most amazing garden tool ever invented. A few days ago, I noticed that my front & back lawn have become a patch-work of weeds. They are so tightly compacted that I felt despair in trying to get rid of them all. I started digging them out by hand and realized that I could spend my entire summer doing this, only to turn around to see that the weeds have returned and invited all their friends. I will never, ever put chemicals into the ground so I went on Canadian Tire's website and read about a weed puller made by Fiskar. It has rave reviews and has a 25-year warranty. I announced to Lorenzo that I intended to purchase one. He said, "Actually...we have one under the deck somewhere."

I can't say enough about this thing. It was FUN to pull weeds - they come out like butter and I de-weeded my entire back yard in about an hour. You just push down on the weed, pull it out, and eject it into the bin. Whoever invented this deserves a Nobel prize. I pulled out weeds that were so huge and deeply rooted, it would have taken all my strength to get them out. This handy-dandy invention made them slide out of the ground with ease. Yay!

Lorenzo finally took his boat out of storage today and is tootling around Indian Arm as I write, pumping pollutants into the ocean, terrifying the fish, and causing waves that will no doubt contribute to soil erosion. Why do human beings need to defile nature in order to amuse themselves?

The other day, my son was mowing the lawn. He asked if he could leave a small circle of clover...for the bumble bees! Lorenzo was watching him from the sundeck and said, "Mow the clover. I want it gone." My son said, "Dad, did you know that if the bees die off, we have three years left to survive on this planet?" Lorenzo said, "Well son, that's why we have oxygen tanks and canned chili. Now you just keep mowing over there."  He loves saying things like this.

At least the bats on Mayne Island are safe...ciao for now.