The Adventures of Sunsette! (Nova Scotia again, May 8)

"Hi friends!
"For several years I've had a bloggy sort of thing about my adventures over on Dolly Market, which has included dispatches from some of the places I've been.  Mum said I could make one here too.  So we're launching a new year with it.  Yay!  
"We're kinda behind in sorting photos from our recent travels but we'll share some here now and then.  We hope you enjoy seeing my adventures!"



"We are currently house-sitting.  It's not very exciting or exotic; we're just an hour from the ferry.  My sister Scarlett and I are staying away from the cats, because these are the two that attacked her when we stayed with them in their previous house for a weekend in June.  But we did get to go on a couple of outings to some nice places."


"There seem to be several trails marked 'Bald Mountain'.  This one is kind of hidden in a ridiculous patch of logging and dirt roads."



"A very steep track up to an outcrop with cool rocks and lichens..."



"And an amazing view!"



"Wow!  You can see for miles!  And NO PEOPLE!!!  Mum said that was perfect."



"Wheee!  Look where we are!"




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"Then we went to Welsford Falls, in the same area.  It's a beautiful stretch of multiple waterfalls and rapids.  We should have gone MUCH earlier but it was a very late start because one of the cats kept Mum awake till 5 a.m. and she had to go back to bed after getting their breakfast!"









"A really bad snapshot of my little sis Scarlett because the light was almost gone.  Maybe we'll come back another time."

"Thanks for reading!
"Love, Sunsette"

Dolly Market? Oh... right! I remember that place!

Sunsette's adventures are always fun and deserve to be seen. I hope she can cultivate a new following on this new venue!

This looks like an adventure in every respect: majestic mountains, cascading watercourses, rugged trails, remote backroads... and, so I understand, even some fearsome wildlife!

The pictures are fun and inspiring; they're making me want to get outside and do something. Something interesting and fun and scenic, that is, not fixing stuff and similar drudgery.

Looks like the weather mostly cooperated! Not bad for mid-winter!

Dolly Market wouldn't let me register.
Sunsette and Scarlet make a cute team. It must have been nice to get our doors and get some solace with NO PEOPLE YAY!

CatDragonStorm wrote:Dolly Market wouldn't let me register.

The administrators of the Dolly Market site had to restrict registration because the site was being heavily spammed for a while. I don't know if they ever figured out how to limit the spam, or if they ever bothered opening up registration again.

Ah well I'll stick with here then, if they don't want me- soddem

Beautiful scenery.

Dolly Market Forum members are welcome here!

CatDragonStorm wrote:Ah well I'll stick with here then, if they don't want me- soddem

It's not about not wanting new members.... just that none of the people with the access to do anything to make the forum work care about participating anymore.

Alliecat wrote:

CatDragonStorm wrote:Ah well I'll stick with here then, if they don't want me- soddem

.... just that none of the people with the access to do anything to make the forum work care about participating anymore.

Except that they keep paying the online hosting bill (usually).

Oh I think that's even sadder when a forum gets stuck in that limbo place. I'm just always craving doll content, it's imperative for combating real life stress.
"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest (wo)men"

"Hi everyone!

"We're back with a few more photos from our Christmas housesit.  
"First of all, Mum forgot to upload one from Bald Mountain.  There was all kinds of cool lichen everywhere, so here's Scarlett checking it out on our way down."




"On our last day, we made a quick visit to the riverbank.  This 'riverfront property' comes with approximately 32 feet of its very own shoreline (LOL).  So for these pictures we were on a bit of someone else's.  There are a couple of summer houses below the one we stayed in.  Unfortunately, the weather didn't really cooperate.  So we didn't get any nice photos down there, because we went on hikes on the only 2 good-weather days."


"My sis Scarlett with a funky tree stump.  No one was home."



"Yikes Mum!  Are there wolves down here??"



"Ya, OK, the riverbank is nice and all, but it's snowing and getting dark and we're wet.  Can we go in now?"


"But guess what guess what??  Guess who we met on our trip?"


"We met Santa Claus!!"



"Scarlett's telling secrets."



"Mum clued in that we could shoot in a better location.  Santa agreed to pose with us."






"Dear Santa... Mum has a very special wish for next Christmas...."






"And this is Mocha, who loves laps and pets, even though she looks mad a lot of the time.  Mum says it's because her head is all ears and eyeballs.  Abyssinian cats are really cool and elegant."



"Happy New Year, and we wish you all Excitement, Adventure and Really Wild Things in 2024.

"Thanks for reading!
"Love, Sunsette"

The riverbank looks lovely and spooky but I especially like the picture of the two of them with santa. I'm enjoying Sunsettes adventures very much. Mocha looks like she needs lots of love an attention.

The riverbank looks like a cool place to explore.

The snow-like lichen looks really strange! It is quite "fuzzy" or "frilly" compared to lichens I have seen. Was the lichen on the mountain, at a higher elevation, or down near the river?

The riverbank looks... damp. I'm sure it is nice on a sunny day. The "gnome hole" is mysterious and fantasy-like.

Lovely photos with Old St. Nick! He is right in scale for the little ones to whisper secrets to!

This house-sitting gig looks pretty sweet! You get to stay in upscale places, play with pets that you don't have to worry about long-term, and get some travelling in. If you could schedule enough "sits" to make it a full-time gig, you could live the lifestyle of the rich and famous without bothering with the expense of a home of your own.

CatDragonStorm wrote:I'm enjoying Sunsettes adventures very much. Mocha looks like she needs lots of love an attention.

Yay!  I really need to catch up on a LOT of unsorted photos of her travels.
Mocha is indeed the cuddle-bug of the pair.

TrueFan wrote:The riverbank looks like a cool place to explore.

There's actually only a little stretch that was accessible (maybe better when the level is down) and the alleged "New Brunswick Trail" behind the house peters out about 5 minutes in either direction, and one direction is full of trash

davidd wrote:
This house-sitting gig looks pretty sweet! You get to stay in upscale places... If you could schedule enough "sits" to make it a full-time gig, you could live the lifestyle of the rich and famous without bothering with the expense of a home of your own.

Some people do, with series of long-term sits.  (Then again, if you need a sitter for many months, should you have pets in the first place?)  Full time sitting would be too unsettled & uncertain for my taste!
As for 'upscale', it's a mixed bag.  You could choose places to go based on how posh the house looks.  Mine have been chosen mostly for property recon, except for the eclipse and the NB ones.  TX was very posh.  This latest one was a major fixer with upstairs floors canted like a ship's deck in spots and a water softener on overdrive so the water was undrinkable.  I can also say I'm tired of cleaning people's kitchens.  I never claim to be a fabulous housekeeper but I wash my baking sheets before putting them away and I don't have tons of years-expired food in my fridge.

The lichens were near the top of Bald Mountain.

"Hi everybody!
   "Thanks for reading our adventures so far.  Do you guys want to hear about our Texas trip in October?  Mum got inspired to sort out some of the photos (FINALLLLY)... I guess we're working backwards on showing our travels?
   "Well anyway, here we go.  So in October Mum made this crazy last-minute decision to try to go and see the annular solar eclipse.  Long story short, she found a house-sit within the eclipse path, applied Saturday night, interviewed Sunday afternoon and got invited, and had 3 days to throw together an international trip -- flights, car, insurance, camera and eclipse-watching gear... and US!  This was Scarlett's and my second trip to see a solar eclipse -- we went to Nashville in 2017.


"We were sooooo excited to be on a plane again after over 3 years with the world being messed up.  ...I mean, how could you not love this view!!"






"Our own seat!"



   "Here we are in Toronto, our first stop.  One thing wrong with where we live is how hard it is to get anywhere else."



   "Here we are approaching San Antonio … Or was this Houston??… Houston was a disastrously un-signage'd airport and Mum nearly had a coronary trying to make the ridiculous connection.  They had to run down the corridor and yell at the aircrew to re-open the door because boarding was closed (there were NO announcements about boarding and at what gate either!)
   "Mum's suitcase did NOT make the connection.  Fortunately we were not in it."



   "This is our eclipse-watching spot, at Fischer Park in New Braunfels, just about 15 minutes from the house.  We got there reeeeeealllly early to be sure of parking.  No one else was there yet!"



   "This is the view from our spot.  Early clouds had Mum wondering if she should try to make a run for somewhere out there, which was clear.  We stayed put and >whew< it cleared."



"Here we are with our gear.  The camera and binoculars are solar-filtered."



"The projector comes from a shop in the UK called Astromedia: www.astromediashop.co.uk/JTL-Shop/ .  It has lots of cardboard scientific models you can build yourself.  This one has been assembled/disassembled/reassembled for both our trips."






   "We love seeing the clockwork motion of the cosmos.  This was an annular eclipse, which means the moon was a bit farther from Earth, so at maximum eclipse a ring of the sun showed all around it.  If you zoom in on this one you can see a sunspot."



   "Trees act like pinhole cameras and project images of eclipses through their leaves.  Wow eh?"



   "This is the last picture Mum took before annularity, when she just put the camera on video and laid back with the binoculars to watch.  We were near the edge of the path so the ring lasted just a heartbeat of a moment."



"During the four hours or so of the eclipse, I found a me-sized flower."



   "Afterward we explored the park.  This is the butterfly garden.  They were expecting Monarchs within a week or so.  It was fun to think we were at the other end of their migration route.
"Mum wants this bench.  (Mum wants a place that has a garden that could suit this bench.)"



   "At our house-sit (in a very posh house) the cats were kinda standoffish so we didn't get photos with them.  They bring bugs into the house, but this cicada had been under the couch for some time.  We wish Mum had taken time to make sure she got an in-focus photo of us!"


   "The next day, we went to the San Antonio Botanical Garden.  Mum took a million pictures."





   "We just loved the fern grotto, which was full of orchids and had a waterfall and cool tree ferns."






   "This floral dragon is 25 feet high, has 14,916 plants, and weighs 27,552 pounds.  (We wonder, is that when the soil is wet or dry??!)  There were several others including a peacock, a mermaid, Rip Van Winkle and Pegasus."


   "Pegasus is 10 feet tall, has 2282 plants, and weighs 5442 pounds."



   "There was a spectabulous palm house, in which we saw one of the world's biggest cultivated ponytail palms, 27 feet around at the base of its multiple trunks.  Its age was not stated.  It's got to be ancient.  We have one at home.  It's about 35 years old and is only about 6 1/2 feet tall."






   "There were funky little houses.  Not quite we-sized."



   "Halloween being near, there were lots of pumpkins around, and this witch crashed into a bush."



   "A chocolate plant?  Mum, we neeeed one!!"



   "It was so very cool to see such different plants everywhere from what we're used to.  And it was soooo very cool that it was so.... hot!  Mum was thrilled to be running around in shorts and t-shirt in October."



   "The light was going by now, but, this fountain wall was really pretty."



"Near the entrance were a couple of giant-storybook floral sculptures."



   "We need to find out what these are.  We think these should be our official flower.  What do you think??"

   "To be continued...!  Thank y'all for reading!
   "Love, Sunsette"

"Not quite we sized" is the cutest quote ever! The big pegasus and dragon are really cool. The little houses are adorable. Scarlett and Sunsette get to go on some really good adventures. This house sitting gig sound like a lot of fun.

I'm becoming so jaded. I used to love flying, and just watching the clouds out the window. Over time, the experience became more annoying - people would rather watch movies on their phones or on the screens in the seatbacks, and opening a window shade to glance out attracts scowls and un-subtle harrumphing. I mean, c'mon, people, we're 40,000 feet high, five or six miles up in the sky. Isn't that mind-blowing? Nah, shaddup, we wanna watch reruns of Big Gang Theory.

And the airport experience -- you know, you fly a lot. You have more tolerance than I have. I need to get some more money. I wanna go to Europe... by ship.

It's amazing to me -- seriously, I was quite surprised and impressed and envious of your travel-planning skillz when I heard about it -- that you were able to arrange a literal last minute (well, metaphorically last minute, literal as in three or four days) international expedition to catch the annular eclipse this past October.

I'm so happy for you that the skies were clear for the eclipse! It's always a dicey proposition to invest heavily (with both time and money) hoping to see an astronomical event. You were well-equipped with "gadgetry" to make the most of the opportunity.

The botanical garden looks like a top secret scientific facility, like where they communicate with extra-terrestrials or develop weapons to counteract Godzilla, disguised as a botanical garden. I very much appreciate the absence of overhead power lines.

The fern grotto looks like it would have had a nice "sound" to it, with the running water; as long as there were no screaming children nearby.

The dragon is amazing! Are the "pink bits" foliage as well? The way they achieved the different colors and textures is quite impressive. And... who counted the plants?

The way the mane is done with... I dunno, some kind of "air fern?"... on the pegasus is creative and effective.

Palm houses are spectabulous. I achieved a Life Goal when I was able to visit the iconic Palm House at Kew Gardens. Gosh, that was so long ago now it doesn't even seem real. There is a marvelous cast iron palm house in Adelaide, Australia. Your photos make this Texas palm house appear Texas-sized, aka big. But it could be the scale of your photographic models that gives that impression.

Funky little houses, indeed! I wonder what "scale" the builders had in mind when they were constructed? Dog houses is what I'm thinking. Too small to be play houses for children or "hobbit holes."

In an alternate version of the story, rather than being squashed beneath a falling house, the Wicked Witch of the East was eaten by giant spiders!

I love the view of the cactus garden casting long shadows in the late afternoon light. That scene has me wanting to visit a botanical garden. There was an interesting "arid landscape" botanical garden at the base of Koko Crater on Oahu in Hawaii.

And speaking of Hawaii -- why is it that even your photos from Texas remind me of Hawaii? -- the "chocolate plant" reminded me that one of the coffee plantations on the former sugar cane lands between Wahiawa and Hale'iwa was trying to grow cacao plants.

Interesting red flowers. I wonder what they are? It appears they are cultivated rather than being wildflowers.

Are you making plans for the April 2024 total eclipse?

CatDragonStorm wrote:This house sitting gig sound like a lot of fun.

It can be.  If anyone's interested, this link should give a 25% sign-up discount.
https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/refer/RAF277374/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=refer-a-friend&utm_campaign=refer-a-friend

davidd wrote:... people would rather watch movies on their phones or on the screens in the seatbacks, and opening a window shade to glance out attracts scowls and un-subtle harrumphing.

I wanna go to Europe... by ship.

The fern grotto looks like it would have had a nice "sound" to it,...Are the "pink bits" foliage as well?

There was an interesting "arid landscape" botanical garden at the base of Koko Crater on Oahu in Hawaii.

Are you making plans for the April 2024 total eclipse?

I firmly believe that if you are booked into a window seat you should be required to want to use the window.  I make every effort to get windows (short of paying Air Canada's extra fees for it) and it drives me nuts when people just don't look out.  I then make efforts to be annoying by obviously trying to see past them.  Maybe they'll offer to change.  On one of the flights this time, every shade was down on the plane when we boarded.  In the morning?  What the heck.  I promptly opened mine.  Even at night I want it open, to see all the lights below.

Atlantic crossing by ship, eh.  Lemme tell you about those 20-foot seas, even in balmy July...  

The fern grotto did have lovely sound, and the pink bits are supporting structure.

I remember reading about the Koko Crater garden -- how did I not manage to get there, that winter?

Oh boy.  I am in need of another house-sit.  I am not a camper.  Hotels and Airbnbs are gouging despicably on prices, and began doing so last year.  I am cross-referencing the eclipse map with the house-sit map, and trying to remind myself that "things come along when they need to" as the last one did.  I don't wanna wait to the last minute again though!!

davidd wrote:It's amazing to me -- seriously, I was quite surprised and impressed and envious of your travel-planning skillz

Ah, well... "...we always seem so much braver than we ever are..."

"Hi everyone!
"Here are some more of our Texas travels.  Mum had four things on her want-to-see list that she compiled in a big hurry and we got to see all of them.  Next up was Natural Bridge Caverns, a fabulous limestone wonderland with tours down to 180 feet below ground.  The caves go on beyond that to 230 feet.
"I am annoyed to say Scarlett and I never got out of the camera bag.  There were too many people on the first tour and just not time on the second one.  This is what it looked like.  I guess.  Because we didn't get to see it."










"This is what we got to see:  the entrance..."




"...and the limestone bridge that the place is named for."




"Next up was the Alamo, which we didn't get many pictures of us at, again."


"It was really crowded in front because everyone wants to take selfies here."



"Everyone says how small it looks in the middle of the city."



"The inside of the church, and at the end you can see where the wall at the top was broken down during the battle."



"In the museum, this was St. Joseph.  His arms are articulated but I guess he doesn't quite count as a doll..."



"We didn't know anything about the story, so we got a history lesson.  Apparently Phil Collins donated a lot of stuff in the museum, and he narrates the story around this diorama.  It's a little bit small for us -- we don't usually find things that are smaller than we-size -- but we couldn't pose here anyway cos it's all under glass."



"After we got kicked out at closing time.  They are really zealous about getting people out of there, and start shoo-ing about 20 minutes before."



"Mum was pretty tired and footsore at this point from schlepping the heavy camera bag around, so we had an abbreviated look at the very famous San Antonio Riverwalk."






"Don't these colourful critters look fun?  This was a district of artisan shops but by this time everything was closed and it was deserted."


"Next up: we went back to the Natural Bridge area because the same people own a wildlife ranch -- basically a drive-through safari.  Before you get to the safari part though, there is a collection of..."


"...dragons.  Yup, really a lot of them.  We think this part might still be in development, cos they're all just kinda sitting there and the boxes with the electronics are all exposed as are the bases.  It's a pretty dry area so maybe it's difficult to get plants established around them.  All the dragons have motion sensors and they move and roar at you when you pass."



"Also, there are dinosaurs.  They were pretty cool."



"Close to life-size?"



"Triceratops is Mum's favourite dinosaur."



"Yes, we did eventually drive through the wildlife part, and we saw tons of animals, like these oryx.  Some people reviewing the place complained that they didn't see much, but late in the afternoon everybody was active.  Many came right up to the car and we got a lot of reproachful stares because we didn't buy any food for them.
"We were the last car through and were all by ourselves for most of it, but we felt kinda rushed at the end by the guy on the ute following us and closing gates.  So Mum didn't get to sit and take pictures for long in each area, but it was well before closing time yet so we made dude wait while we got some!"



"Including -- squee -- this baby zebra!"



"These giraffes looked really, really bored.  We felt sorry for them.  We hope they get to rotate out to the meadow with the other giraffes."


"Now, this really stupid thing happened.  Lonnnnggg story short, the housesit house was way posh and utterly spotless.  The 22-page guide said, don't put hot pots on the countertop.  Mum was soooooo tired and hungry and distracted on the first day waiting for the missing suitcase to arrive, that she thought, in a moment of distraction, that she had set one down ever so briefly, when she discovered this RING that evening.  Housesit Lady seemed really meticulous and Mum thought she'd blow a gasket when she saw this (and was even packed and ready to leave the day they returned in case we got kicked out).  She spent all week worrying -- and researching countertop repair -- and trying to polish it out -- and then it turned out, IT WAS ALREADY THERE and Housesit Lady FORGOT TO POINT IT OUT."



"Annularity on the kitchen countertop!!  Kind of appropriate since we were there for an annular eclipse.
"Yeah.... it's funny NOW."


"To be continued!
"Thanks for reading.
"Love, Sunsette   "

Oh my goodness! I love seeing these little adventures!

San Antonio looks beautiful. That riverwalk area seems so colorful and fun! And who would have guessed that there would be zebras to see in Texas?!

I was at the Alamo a very long time ago, but I'm dying to go back, especially now that I know that PHIL COLLINS does the narrations!!

I let out a huge sigh of relief when you found out that the ring was already there. That's so stressful!!

The Littles really are the perfect size for traveling!

"Yep, we are the perfect travel size!  And yep also, apparently Phil Collins is quite an avid Alamo-history fan."

"Here's the last installment of our Texas adventure.  Should we dig back into previous travels for more stories?"

"As it turned out, the housesit people were really lovely, and they took us sightseeing on the last day (and Mum did not have to leave early)."


"This is Guadalupe River State Park.  Apparently crowded in the summer, it was wonderfully quiet and un-peopley."






"We never saw an armadillo up close before."



"Scarlett took a chance posing with these hungry ducks.  More reproachful stares because again, we had no food."



"Look at this.  In October.  We're definitely not in New Brunswick anymore.  And we don't want to go back."



"The house-sit people came out in their bathrobes to see us off at about 4:30 a.m.  Here we are trying to get awake as the sun comes up in San Antonio."






"And in Houston.  Less confusing this time but it's still our winner for the Airport We Hate The Most, Ever."



">sigh<  Bye bye, Texas."



"Talk to me, Goose."



"Another misadventure, and another long story.  But after the hotel people asked Mum if she had a preference 'where' in the hotel and she said definitely a quiet part, they put her next door to an idiot who was still thumping music at midnight after two complaints.  They claimed the hotel was full when Mum asked to move, but it wasn't, and when she pulled a gotcha with another phone they had to let us move.
"It being well after midnight at this point, we did not use the hot tub."



"And after far too little sleep and a far too early start again, here we are back in dreary cold Toronto.  Our travels end with crummy weather and shivers."



"Aw, Mum, WTF!  What is this??!!  Can we go back???"




"Thanks for sharing the adventure with us.
"Love, Sunsette    "

"It's my BIRTHDAY!!  Eleven years ago Mum opened an eBay box in the car at the beach and the first thing she said to me was 'Oh, you're so CUTE!!'  And so began the PTFCo adventures.  We appreciate the dolly friends we've made and the lovely community that you all are."

"Love, Sunsette   "

Happy Birthday, Sunsette!

Cute pic! Sunsette is looking quite elegant.

The painting is nice. Is that an actual miniature painting, not a print?

I think she looks quite grown-up and serious in this picture. Determination, to be awesome!

The painting is made from thin layers of polymer clay!
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057396942246

Happy Birthday Sunsette. And also "seas the day" the diorama is lovely and tiny and cute! And the picture made from polymer is really awesome.