With a 100 (+) year old house, one is always in the repair, upgrade, remodel mode. The latest look in the Otter Room was posted today on the website. I love it! The paint was changed from a weird green to a beautiful light yellow thanks to a professional painter on the island named Steve Wooding. New covers for the sofa and queen bed and WA-LA! A nice coordinated look to the Otter Room in the Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast for our busy summer season.





After seeing some great Troll dolls on the Camp Smartypants blog campsmartypants.blogspot.com , I realized that my son had a Troll doll collection that he may want to give Rachel. After I dug them out of storage, I realized an important thing: there are girl Troll dolls and boy Troll dolls. How do I know? Look at the two groups and you decide...

Kind of cute, right?

Next group...

Really?? An evil Troll doll collection? Definitely gender-biased.

What girl in her right mind would play with these!

What do you do when your 19 year old cat decides to lay on the modem to get warm? Call your favorite Centurytel guy at home (which in this case is the amazing photographer, Michael Hurley, whose photos are featured on my Pinterest Board http://pinterest.com/orcasblueheron/ )

And this is what Michael says to do...

This is an old tree across the street from the Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast. I call it the 'Edgar Allen Poe" tree. It is not unusual to see Turkey Vultures (as in this picture) or Bald Eagles perched on the dead branches. It is a spooky moment to look out and see these huge birds and I get that same feeling that crept into my bones as a young girl watching Afred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds" (shiver).

I received a wonderful gift from Treena Kerr, the wife of Graham Kerr, (once known as the "Galloping Gourmet", but now chosing to be remembered as a budding gardener). Treena has led a full and fascinating life and writes her poetry from the depth of her experience. Thank you, Treena, for enriching my life with your book, Substance in Shadow.  

The Blue Heron Bed and Breakfast is pet friendly, and yes, this is a dog guest. It is hard to describe the variety of dogs that have stayed with us in the last 7 years. We consider it the most fun part of owning our bed and breakfast. Boy! Do we have the stories to tell!

This old guy, Pulaski by name, has been the Pet Host since the Blue Heron B&B opened in 2005. He has taken his responsibilities of playing with pet guests, showing them his yard, plants, trees (all by peeing on them as the other dogs follow doing the same thing), and getting them extra treats from the Dog Bone Cookie Jar.

The "let-me-smell-your-butt-to-see-if-I-like-you" first meeting ritual remains a mystery to me and all of us humans politely look away until it has been established that all is well and playtime can begin.

Innkeeper Talk

I am so impressed with Rachel Beyer's blog, Camp Smartypants http://campsmartypants.blogspot.com/ that I had to switch from a very complicated web plug-in to this seemingly simple blogspot program. Being away from our website theoretically should drive more people to our site about our bed and breakfast here on Orcas Island, right? Let's just see how it all works, shall we? www.orcasblueheron.com