THIS IS WHAT LOU REED SANG ABOUT

Australian writer Germaine Greer once said “The essence of pleasure is spontaneity.” Surely she must have experienced a weekend on Vancouver Island.

Since Andrea was planning meet up with a friend of hers in the Comox Valley and I was headed there to visit family, we grabbed the same ferry together and ended up having one of those weekends made up of memories and magic.

We met so many amazing dogs on the ferry, but this Rottweiler named Beth was the star of the show. She was really just a big cat who, the more we cuddled her, the more she rested lazily against our legs.

No doubt Jordy is a water baby just like his mama. We started Saturday early by grabbing him and Charley, a couple coffees from McDonald’s and hit the beach at the Courtenay Airpark.

The water was warm and glassy, the sun hot and bright and the sand was like wet baby powder under our feet.

It’s no secret that I’m currently engaged in a passionate love affair with Vancouver Island wines, so I made sure to bring Andrea by Beaufort Vineyard and Estate Winery.

They had some swings.

I’ve never been to the Courtenay Museum & Palaeontology Centre. I don’t think you’re supposed to snap pictures, but I grabbed this one anyways. Yes, dinosaur bones and fossils have been found all over the Comox Valley.

After Miss A’s rendez-vous, she met up with my mom and I at Atlas Cafe for some dinner. I had the veggie enchilada again.

After dinner, we didn’t head straight home. Instead we found ourselves on Headquarters Road and pulled over by Casawood Farms. The space is home to many, many cows and is one of the Island’s producers of milk for Island Farms.

I wasn’t thrilled to see their ears tagged (though how different can it be than a mom piercing her baby’s ears), but I suppose it’s important for identification purposes. I was, however, excited to see that the cows had an eating area separate from their clean, dry sleeping area.

None of the cows had docked tails, none were forced to sleep in pens, none were hooked up to milk machines and there were acres and acres of green grass for them to roam during the day. The ladies let us pick up handfuls of their muck and feed them by hand. This was a great idea until my (mom’s) camera fell into the feeding trough.

Who knew cows peed out of their bums?

Really? You feel okay knowing that such beautiful girls are callously butchered like something out of a horror movie just so you can enjoy that burger? Oooookay.

A few kilometres further down the road we found another private farm with a few horses roaming the field. All it took was a sweet whistle and they came running towards us.

Like the lovely cows, the horses also let us feed them by hand with handfuls of grass we pulled from the roadside.

I think I kinda like animals.

First discovery on the ferry: Jordy left his mark on my leg.

No, not that kind of mark.

Oops… forgot this beauty shot from Coombs.

Since it was sunny, we decided to ditch the dog area and opted for a picnic on the deck instead.

Comox Brie from Natural Pastures, BC-grown cherries and über healthy crackers.

Yummmmmmy!

We met Mitch on the way back, a one-and-a-half-year-old black labrador/mastiff cross. I couldn’t tell if he was more interested in Jordy or the brie cheese, but we didn’t mind his company either way. His tongue was bigger than two of Jordy’s paws put together!

After stuffing our bellies, all three of us laid back under the big, beautiful sun for an afternoon nap.

That’s all for now, kids.

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