Grandparenting, one of the greatest gifts that God has bestowed upon me.Purple Hill lavender farm.Colours of lavender and lilac, mauve, and violet. Purple, light purple, pale purple, and dark purple. Pale purple, with a hint of pink.Lavender lemonade from the Bank Cafe. Made with lavender from the Purple Hill lavender farm.Pollinators busy at work during this International Pollinators Week. Grandpa and Grandma, chilling with Cooper, and breathing in the sweet aroma of lavender fields. Photo by Cooper’s mom.
There are so many great places, so close to home, to explore and discover, in this great country of ours.
Yummy, yummy, yummy!!!!!In my tummy, tummy, tummy!Every picture tells a story…..about a little boy and his love for tractors!You take one step forward, you put one leg up, and one leg over, and sit on your …… ! You put one leg down, settle on your feet, and over the table you went!Just going shopping……..down the strawberry aisle……everything was fine…….until the last mile!Finding the best strawberry in the strawberry patch!Strawberry Fields Forever!
Our black locust trees are loaded with blossoms…..Ten years ago, on the day of our daughter’s wedding, the flowers were even more plentiful. Blossoms, beautifully white, hung over the garden beds below. Flowers and blossoms, mingling.Pea like white flowers, dripping from the boughs and the branches. Bumble bees, drawn by the sweet honey musk scent of the flower, assemble into a buzzing orchestra high in the branches above the ground.So many blossoms, so many bees, so much honey, in hives located in other trees.
After traveling down a stretch of Wylie Road, through long flooded areas, dodging springtime potholes, and smooth gravel sections, we decided to hike a length of the Sedge Wren Marsh. So very pretty and noisy with the songs of the birds that we could not see. Narrow like an old cow trail, spotted with board walks and flat rocky spots.
I didn’t photograph the poison ivy growing alongside the path.
We loved our time exploring parts of the Cardin Plain, a large limestone plain with wetlands and woods, and large grassy meadows.
Flowers everywhere…
Walking through God’s Garden.
So many colours…
Praise smoke, Labrador violets, early buttercup, and western service berries were a few that we could identify.
On Bluebird ranch, the cattle called moooo, while the Canada Geese nested and rested all the while watching you!
Bluebird Ranch, a part of the Couchiching Conservancy, is a working ranch. We witnessed several herds of cattle, all who boldly stared us down as we quietly called their names.
The birds who posed for us…
The bird songs that we listened to may or may not have been the voices of those pictured above.
By far, my favourite flower of the day…
My favourite flower of the day, the brilliantly beautiful scarlet Indianm paintbrush. With this paintbrush, God painted a garden like no other.
Belgium waffles, with blueberry and strawberry sauce straight from the farm.
Topped with a great scoop of whipped cream. Yum!
Barrie Hill Farms
This is one of my all-time favourite places.
My summer doesn’t properly begin until I have picked a heaping basket of sweet, red, luscious strawberries. I have started my summers this way for the past forty or so years.
A tradition I plan to continue for many more years.
Asparagus, fresh from the field.
The wagon rides through the fields, though, have changed in the past forty years.
There are rules now. Please remain seated, and definitely NO jumping of the wagon
The jumping off, running to get back on, jumping off, running to get back on, jumping off, running to get back on, jumping off…….days are over!
Loose, on the farm….
Udder nonsense.
Udderly ridiculous.
Udderly strange.
Udderly different.
Udderly familiar.
NO moo…………RE!!!!!
Matching sweatshirts…
A vendor find! A positive in a world that needs more positives!