A funny song full of doggerel and wit...our server Krista is holding up the lyrics so Ian can refresh his memory...the beautiful canvases by Linda Sorensen on the walls of our Red Canoe Cafe are a fitting backdrop for most of Ian's music.

By Sept 1, we hope to have a new gallery open on the lower level. Tom has been plastering and painting in between kitchen time. We always swear there will be no major building projects on the go during the summer but rarely seem to be able to stick to it.

And one of the highlights of our year is always a visit and performance by Canadian songwriter Ian Tamblyn. This year, he was on his way back from a Voyageur canoe trip on Lake Superior. We've been listening a lot to his new CD called Superior- Spirit and Light...and so it was lovely to hear some of the songs performed live. I think the reason Ian's shows always have such dynamic intensity is because he is always involved in some new creative or travel project.

And in a rare foray into the world outside the inn, we managed to take part of an evening off on the long weekend in August no less, to attend the candlit lakefront reception for my niece Diana's wedding. Here is the lovely bride.

In the midst of all the summer busyness, I still manage to squeeze in our writers group meeting...we call ourselves the WWW which is the women writers in Wilno...here is Sandra showing us the mock up for the cover of her new novel...Mistress of the Sun. Jenifer also brought us the first draft of "Death and the Virgin" a mystery set in Mexico. This is Jenifer's third novel and Sandra's fourth. Me...I just rewrite the menus and keep this blog and hopefully will be able to pick up where I left off when we retire.

A quiet Wilno sunset over the hills. The red-roofed building houses our two suites. Hard to believe you are just on the edge of the village because all you see on three sides is the forested Wilno hills. You're a three minute walk from Heritage Park and the rest of the village.

Lovely hot summer weather in late July and early August made for lots of outdoor dining. The patio is an especially popular spot on Tuesday evenings when it seems that everyone for miles around heads to Wilno for Blues Night at the Wilno Tavern. Of course, they can't all fit in there for dinner so we have lots of diners here all getting revved up for an evening of dancing at the tavern. We ourselves are happy to close at ten and go home and lie abed listening to the music through the open windows...

Here's Laura and Tom working away in the kitchen at dinner time. Laura is the third of the Burchat sisters to work here...starting way back at the beginning in the late nineties with Leah, then Lynn and even brother Mark mowed lawns for us one year....but now Laura is off to college and there's no more little Burchats at home to follow in her footsteps.

And then there's Kirby, Yates and Mazurek whose lively bluegrass entertained us on two occassions this summer. Fiddlin Zeke has a deceptively rustic appearance which does nothing to disguise the fact that he is an accomplished classical musician....and also a bit of a clown when give the opportunity!! He'll be back again in September with Sneezy Waters. In the meantime, these three guys are having fun as a trio with all sorts of great old tunes.

We kicked off our third year of "Vittles and Fiddles" with old favorites, Glen Reid and "Rev" KenRamsden. Glen is a wonderful songwriter whose Heritage River CD is always on our cafe music rotation. "Rev" Ken is now a Wilno local and can be found fiddlin all around the area. Behind the musicians, you can see the gorgeous canvas by Linda Sorensen which was sold and shipped to Fort McMurray just after we took this photo.

Our entertainment season kicked off with Ana Miura who was touring with Dave Golden. She has ties to this area as her parents met in Combermere and she still visits friends at their cottage in Kashuby. The Ottawa Citizen calls her "one of the ten young rising stars in Canada." We believe them!

Here's neighbour Pete helping with the installation. It's a classic mid-June day in the Ottawa Valley with wispy clouds, a cool breeze and lots of mosquitos! We have lots of inn bookings already for the summer and its been steadily busy with shoppers and art buyers. So much work to do at this time of year...my gardening is not going well, as we have had too much cold, too much heat and then too much rain for my poor seedlings to really acclimatize.

Part of our new look this spring is a real red canoe atop the lovely old hand-hewn beams that John Foreman gave us. The new sign will be more visible to motorists coming down the hill and will reflect our increasingly Canadian sensibility in art, food and music...

So here we are once again, back from our rejuvenating holiday in Andalucia Spain. We arrived back in early April and were greeted by two major snowstorms. It had been our plan to reopen for Easter weekend but a combination of jet lag, cold weather and post-holiday inertia combined to delay our opening until the last week of April.