Halloween, Seaweed, and Apples

Enough about the damn house already. I can only put Rachelle's visiting dad to work for so long before doing something more interesting. Here's some of the other stuff that you can do on Hornby Island.

Halloween Community Dance

Hornby Island is big on Halloween. There must have been fully 1/3 of the residents show up in costume for the annual Halloween Dance at the hall. We all dressed up as well and Rachelle won a prize for her costume. She was either "The Garden of Eden" or "The Whole Goddamn Creation Myth" depending on how many drinks she had.

She filled her outfit with brightly coloured flowers, ferns, and plastic bugs. There was a large snake, and Eve was even there convincing Adam to eat the apple. As you can see by the photos, it was an incredible costume and pretty sexy too.

Bob was the executioner, Shirley was a wizard, and I butchered an umbrella to make a bat costume. I nearly punctured my lungs several times as the metal umbrella ribs came apart and became weapons.

Seaweed Fertilizer

While showing Bob and Shirley around the island we discovered that Shingle Spit beach had a huge concentration of washed up seaweed. Knowing that composted seaweed makes amazing fertilizer we came back with the truck and wheelbarrow and spend a hour or so loading it up.

Once we got it home, Bob helped spread it all over the future herb garden. I figure every week or so we find where the best washed up seaweed location is and pick up a truckload. In a few months the yard will be full of rotting smelly seaweed... Hmmm... I'll rethink that.


Funky Rocks and Fresh Apples

Near our house is a great collection of some of the coolest rock formations around. They're these crazy, pockmarked, alien looking sandstone sculptures that are fun to walk on and around. We spent a little while checking them out before heading back to the orchard.

The orchard is on a provincial park. The apple trees are getting pretty old and need someone to give them a good pruning, but the apples are really good. I have no idea what type they are. They're probably some sort of heritage variety that you can't get anymore. We all thought that they were pretty similar to Spartans (Tonite we dine in hell!!)