60 Years of Marriage!

Today my parents are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary!

Sixty years of marriage and more in love than ever!

Wind, Water, Sun & Sand!

So gorgeous at the Inverhuron Provincial Park beach!

We're back from Vacation

We just got back from camping at McGregor Point Provincial Park. We'd never seen the area between Goderich and Sauble Beach so we decided to spend our vacation exploring that stretch along Lake Huron - "Ontario's West Coast".

Here are some fun things we saw along the way:

There were about six huge pumpkins under shelters in this field. Someone must be getting ready to enter contests in Port Elgin's annual Pumpkin Festival.

What?! Dog sleds in southern Ontario?!

A closer look... I've never seen a sign like this before!

A little touch of Holland at the tourist information office in Goderich. The garden behind me is maintained by a group of Dutch immigrants.


I like this!

In Kinkardine the town has built a board walk at the beach. There is a row of trees all along the walk. A strip of ground under the trees has been divided into plots and each plot has a sign with the name of the volunteer who has planted their piece full of perennials and now maintains it. I found this sign in my favourite plot.

Hiking in Humber Bay Park

Last week we explored Humber Bay Park down at the Lake Ontario waterfront early one morning, and ran across the following...

Our Family Reunion

Last weekend our family gathered to celebrate our parents' 60th wedding anniversary, 60 years since my dad was ordained as a pastor, and 50 years since we first set foot on Canadian soil! Lots of big events to celebrate! And I think it was the best reunion we've ever had! So wonderful to be with family from California, South Dakota, British Columbia, Alberta, and then all the rest of us from Ontario! What a crowd, representing four generations! And there were even 19 people unable to attend. My mother kept saying,"And to think this all started with only 2 of us!"

Married for 60 years and they are more in love than ever!

(Credit for this picture goes to my niece, Alida)

Sustainable Living Conference

Last weekend I attended a family conference on sustainable living. My friend and I camped, along with many others, in a field at Russet House Farm, an organic sustainable living farm near Lindsay. It was a great experience!

This is the laneway we walked down many times. from the campground to the farm house where the main event tent and the workshops were. What a peaceful and relaxing environment!

There was a variety of workshops to choose from.

Because I love gardening, I chose all the gardening workshops: Community Gardens, Building Cold Frames, Foraging for Weeds in the City, and Urban Gardening. But they were quite basic, and considering I've been gardening for about 50 years, I probably should have attended some of the other workshops they offered on topics that covered the bigger picture of food justice and sustainability issues. That would have given me more new food for thought. Oh well. It was still good to be with other people interested in gardening.

Just being at the farm for a few days was interesting. They operate on wind and solar power. This spring they even built this "Solar Chef". By turning the box and adjusting the reflectors they can get the temperature up to 250 degrees F. and actually cook meals in there.

Just before we left Sylvia offered a guided tour of the organic garden. That was one of the best parts of the whole experience. She told us how and what she grows. I learned a lot and got ideas that I hope to try out in my own garden.

The whole experience of socializing with new people, learning and seeing new things, and of just being there and soaking it all in was "food for the soul".

Definitely Unique!

As promised yesterday, here is a peek at the house that I think belongs to the person with the "decorated" car I showed you. It is all decorated with little pieces of wooden dowelling. It is situated right in the middle of a perfectly "normal" looking streetscape. It sure is interesting! So different!

This is located on the left side at the street end of the walkway to the front door.

And this is at the right side of the entry to the walkway.

And this is the covered walkway from the street to the front door.

When I looked up I noticed that the decorative finish goes all the way up to the roof. And as we drove away I saw that there were designs along the side wall of the house as well.

Imagine the hours of work that have gone into this! and the imagination! and creativity! Definitely unique!

Can You Believe This!?

This morning we were driving through some side streets in the Bloor/Bathurst area of downtown Toronto and came across this vehicle! All these figurines are glued to the van.

I'll show you some close-ups... the roof above the driver's seat,

along the driver's side,

the front hood,

and the dashboard inside the car.

Can you believe it!? I figured that anyone who decorates their vehicle like this is hoping that people will look at it and enjoy it, so I didn't feel bad taking all these pictures.

To be continued... Tomorrow I'll show you what I'm pretty sure is this person's home.

Employee Bike Share

Here's something interesting I ran across near Nathan Phillips Square in downtown Toronto a while back. This is the first time I ever heard of this program.

Sheep in Our Neigbourhood!

We found these sheep grazing on a front lawn one block over from our house!

A Few More Camp Pictures

Everyday we go for an early morning swim. It's usually very peaceful at the beach at that time of day, unless the tractor is out there raking the sand.

We like this beach because it's sandy and it has trees so you can sit in the shade and still be close to the water.

Then there is a second beach that we call "the rocky beach". That's where we had lots of fun jumping the waves and it's also where we go to watch the sun set.

Here are a few interesting growing things I found around our campsite.