Cold and Cloudy with a Significant chance of Rain

 I woke up this morning about 8AM after Jodi and I watched movies last evening until about 11 PM. We watched a "The Big Wedding" and "Black and White" both good for different reasons.  So when I woke up  I moseyed into the living room/dining area Elisabeth was there and had coffee ready!  She served berries and yogurt with homemade granola on top and a muffin.   The Second course was Eggs Benedict with a tomato and orange juice and Carolina.  Carolina is a young woman from Panama who is staying with Elisabeth while her "exchange Mom" is gone for a few days.  She was charming and it was very fun to practice my Spanish.  What a pleasant way to pass my breakfast!  Then, Elisabeth and I chatted for quite a bit.  She showed me her kitchen and all of the back yard.  The kitchen is amazing, a vaulted ceiling with floor to ceiling widows and plenty of counter/work space ,  it gave me ( I wanted to say "it gave me itchy fingers" but when I looked it up the Urban Dictionary said it meant you either wanted to slap or shoot someone - neither of which is my truth!  So it made me) want to cook!  The back yard looks amazing She has created an oasis for herself.  It warrants photos but not today in this weather.  She suggested that we go consider the Cranberry Festival in Bala by Muskoka lakes.  It is where she was on our arrival and she said she had a great time.  What swayed me, was the info that there were cranberry Boggs to see and I thought that interesting.  Jodi agreed and so, off we went.  We found the festival without trouble, but darn, it it was raining.  We came to a tented area with booths, one of which, was wine tasting.

We tried cranberry wine - tart, (maybe delish with Sprite) Cranberry - Blueberry wine - sweet,  Blueberry wine very sweet, as lastly a Cranberry Maple dessert wine which was our winner.
A bottle is coming home!  

We bought our 2017 Cranberry Festival buttons and wandered a bit, looking at the tents of goods the vendors had set up.  I saw a new thing, at least, to me, a beaver tail, it looked like a long flat donut/pastry thing that you could decorate your way, icing, bananas, chocolate, etc.  Yet another way to get fatter and fatter.....  I did indulge in a cranberry sausage sandwich, about the size of a hot dog, it was tasty and the condiment, cranberry, maple mustard was the perfect toping.  We caught a bus to the cranberry bogs ( This little guy, Trigger, rode with us to and from the bogs)

 and it started raining, we bought tickets for the bog tour.

The line was under a tent filled with oriental people, a hoard, a bus load all piled in under this tent and it starts pouring.  I swear these folks had no sense of personal space.  And they kept pushing us out from under the tent more & more and it started raining more and more until I was soaked from the knees down.  They delayed the tour because the ran and wind were so strong.  And we stood and we stood, being shoved around by those people.

At last the tour people decided it was safe to take us out.  It was pretty interesting, cranberries have 4 air pockets in them when they are mature so they float,

the bogs are not actually water filed as the berries are growing,

but then they are mature and ready to harvest they flood the bogs and the berries that have matured enough to fall off  the bush will float with the flooding.

After the harvesting they trade the water off of the bog and use it in another one.

In the winter though they flood it back up because the bushes do better with frozen roots (hm, maybe that's why there are so many on Alaska).   When it snows they actually remove the snow from the bog as the snow insulates the plants and they want the roots to freeze and stay frozen.    SO it becomes a huge ice skating rink!
We got to see them process the berries too.

We went back to town but thing were closing up.

So I went into a bakery while Jodi took a couple of pictures she wanted.

I bought us butter tarts, plain and cranberry and a cup of maple flavored coffee for me.  The coffee was beautifully hot and when we got in the car and got to try the tarts they were awesome!

As we drove toward Parry Sound there were lakes EVERYWHWERE, you would look out one side of the car or the other and there was a lake!

We drove around this waterfront town a bit and then stopped for pizza at Pizza Hut, but I was a boob and forgot to ask for thin crust.  

So for fat crust pizza it was good.  We drove home and I took a gloriously hot bath in a tub that was almost as good as mine, MUCH better that that shallow little thing at the hotel.  And now it is movie time!