A few little changes are afoot.



Sarah Allen, the proprietor of the Breakfast Cafe and Tuscany has had to close down the BC on Saturday mornings. It's only open on Sundays now. The strain was too much, and according to the circular that she sent around this week, she was having trouble finding staff, after her regulars all opted to work nights at Tuscany.



Sarah is a genius. When Tuscany opened she met the Bluewater commuter bus at the ferry dock with a couple of free pizzas. They got passed around inside, and according to a friend, hardly anyone actually got OFF the bus. They just chewed away on the pizza and asked the driver to drop them off on the way back to the Cove. God knows how much business she got from that move, but it is true that her pizzas speak for themselves. Especially the brie, pear and caramelized onion one. ESPECIALLY that one.



Other little changes: high speed internet arrived , Madame Rose's used books is going out of business leaving us without a bookstore on Bowen, a new coffee/gelato place opened up in Artisan Square (very nice one too), and just down the hill from it is Bowen's first roundabout, at the junction of Artisan Lane and Roocroft Lane. Crazy. What next? A traffic light?



The mergansers in Mannion Bay which were babies for so long have suddenly become adolescents. I tasted my first decent handful of blackberries today. It has been a great year for berries, and the blackberries will be no exception.



A new enterprise has sprung up on the island and it’s one I really love. Behind us is a tract of land called Collins Farm which is about 70 acres, currently divided into 6 2 acre lots with a bunch of common land. It was originally pre-empted by James Collins at the turn of the 19th century and he farmed it for a while. He called it Collinsia farm. His granddaughters (or they might be daughters) still live at the entrance to the land and have begun encouraging a market garden there. They have resurrected the name “Collinsia” and tonight we had our first salad with lettuce grown right over the ridge.



The Dock Dance is tonight, an annual event down in the Cove that raises money for the volunteer fire department (bless them!). Doug and the Slugs are currently rocking it up down there. Summer chugs along, and the nights are becoming just a little bit cooler. Foreshadowing the return of the storms. Even as we sit in the middle of the annual drought, it is clear that things have turned and that fall is a distinct possibility. Still a good month to go before the jetstream swing south for good and the pineapple expresses start gearing up, but living out here, it's a little easier to sense it.