June 25th, 2008 writerspice
Today is the last day of school in my neck of the woods. And what that means is that my dear husband will soon be wandering around the house, watching DVD episodes of long-cancelled TV shows in the middle of the afternoon and generally attempting to find something to do. By August, he’ll be hanging around my office – I’m b-o-o-o-red… – as I struggle to maintain my fledgling career.
If he wasn’t a Luddite, I might expect some trouble from those comments, because the truth of it (what can I say? I’m a writer, I make stuff up) is more like this: canoe to be patched in the backyard, sailboat to be painted and polished, summer course to take, solo camping trip to embark on and a whole number of other things that, really, aren’t all that bad at all… I’m sure he’ll still find some time to catch those afternoon naps, closing his eyes against the glare on the TV screen.
And more power to him, I say. After all, who can resist the pull of the season of sun, when a few short months ago the view out our front door looked like this:
Now, instead of snow-shovelling, you might find us plowing through a medium of a different sort. One more watery, more blue, more relaxing, more like this (Lake Simcoe, a couple weekends ago):
HAPPY SUMMER, EVERYONE!
Posted in Orillia, Pretty Pictures, Seasons | No Comments »
June 3rd, 2008 writerspice
Last year I spent some time chatting with a few local farmers to produce an article about the importance and ease of eating from the fields in the county I call home. Called Think Fresh, Eat Locally, the article is in the May/June issue of Simcoe Life magazine.
With my ever-burgeoning interest in growing food and using wild edibles and herbs (my newly-planted veggie garden is sprouting and a batch of mullien from a neighbour’s driveway is drying in the dehydrator as I type), I poured my heart and soul into this piece.
Unfortunately, in the print issue, it ran with the wrong byline.
Although this has never happened to me before, it is a fairly common occurrence for lots of writers (a few colleagues were quick to share their own tales of woe when I released my sorrows in a forum).
But do me a favour. Should you live somewhere within Simcoe County and come across the magazine, take out your pen, cross out the wrong name and write mine in. That would make me feel a whole lot better.
Chef Doug Porter puts together some locally-grown greens at Collingwood’s Simcoe County Restaurant (photo by Lauren Carter)
Posted in Food, Going Green, Issues, Ontario, Recommended, Seasons, Simcoe County, World, Writing Life | No Comments »
May 20th, 2008 writerspice
Here in Canada, despite our long-standing sovereignty, we continue to celebrate the birthday of royal monarch Queen Victoria. Known affectionately as May 2-4 (get it?), the long May weekend, which just passed, always reminds me of those oh-so-brief relationships that peppered the tedium of high-school.
You know the type. For weeks before actually getting together, the spirits were drenched in infatuated anticipation. A butterfly broke lose from its chrysalis every time he cast a glance your way in chemistry class. And then, the moment came. You got together with some sloppy dance-floor kisses, only to quickly discover in the coming days that he was either a) drunk, b) actually seeing someone else, or c) really, really into hockey.
We spend so much time waiting – a whole white, frigid winter – for the first weekend of summer and nine times out to ten, those three precious days are still bogged down by bad weather. This year, the annual May 2-4, proved again disappointing.
J. and I had great plans. We were going to head out into the wind for an overnight with my mom and step-dad on our co-owned sailboat. Only problem, the wind would have knocked us flat, to then be pounded by rain, to then be frozen solid by the plummeting temperatures.
Sailing plans cancelled, we were still obligated to bring the canine baby to the kennel. So, we dropped him off and ended up at what we call commerce-land to catch a matinee.
Unfortunately, everybody else in town had the same thought.
We got advance tickets for the early evening show, grabbed a disappointing bite to eat at a nearby cafe and ended up taking advantage of our dog-free time by, um, wandering the aisles of Future Shop, Home Depot, and, yes, I admit it, Walmart, where we purchased a Pyrex measuring cup, some smaller measuring cups and fish hooks. J. also romantically squired me into a Dollar Store where we cruised the craft aisle and he bought a single square of yellow foam and some beads.
After killing those couple hours, we ended up watching that new Patrick Dempsey rom-com, Made to Honor or Made of Honor, or whatever it’s called. Despite the clutch of teenage girls actively pretending they owned the place in the back row, it wasn’t all that bad. The best part? Both the stunning Scottish scenery and beer, afterwards, at a downtown pub where we talked about the movie, writing and extreme wrestling. Mostly.
Once I was stuck in a small village in Argentina with nothing at all to do. So I went to a movie. A scrawled sign on the outside gave the ticket price for something like “a man and his family.” I’m not sure what I paid for the film – that Nicolas Cage one, where he wishes he was single and wakes up into an alternate life without his family – but it was fun and gave me a break from both my solitude and my book.
Yesterday morning, lying in bed finishing up a Jane Austin novel, I realized that sometimes, no matter where you are, no matter what high hopes you have for a holiday, what exotic food is appearing on your plate or what language floats through the air around you, plans just don’t work out and life becomes, well, boring. Back before we had the privilege of easy travel, it was that way more often (especially for women who couldn’t randomly announce they were leaving the children and the spouse to go shoot something in the pastoral countryside and had to rely on needlework to vigorously stab away the time).
That’s just the way things are.
Book finished, I got up and weeded the garden and felt a bit better. And, hey, no matter how many disappointing, sloppy kisses the weekend gave us, it’s still a four-day work-week and nobody can be annoyed by that (well, except maybe Queen Victoria, who, in all her portraits, never really seems happy about anything at all. Maybe she was sick of all that needlework).
Posted in Contemplations, Orillia, Seasons | No Comments »
May 5th, 2008 writerspice
This Saturday, J. and I took advantage of a break in the rain to head out to Grant’s Woods, a 52-acre section of forest protected by the Couchiching Conservancy, a land-trust organization that oversees the maintenance of several important acreages in and around Lakes Couchiching and Simcoe.
With Ollie on leash, we wandered the 1.5 kilometre Trillium Trail, stopping at several numbered spots to learn about bittersweet vine, yellow birch, salamanders and other facts of the forest. Most of the trilliums are just about to bloom, their tightly-wrapped white flowers waiting for the sun, but we did see a few of the rarer red variety, wide open.
But what I love most about being in the woods on a wet spring day is the smell. Sweet and spicy, that heady aroma of freshly melting mud mixed with sprouting cedar and other awakening wild stuff always reminds me of the very best times in my life – living in a B.C. rain-forest, wandering through the woods behind my childhood home.
And this forest is especially special. Says the website:
“…it is the woodlands on this property that are its true value. Except for the removal of a few dead trees for firewood, this upland forest has not been touched for over a century. The result today is a fine old-growth stand with towering hard maple, white ash, red oak, white pine, and hemlock. The soils here are deep moist sands, ideal conditions to produce tall, straight, healthy trees. They also produce water – lots of small cool streams in shallow ravines, which collect together to form one of the headwaters of the North River. Indigo buntings occur along the woodland edges. In the shade of the forest, Christmas fern and spring wildflowers are abundant.”
With several more trails yet to explore and the changes of the seasons to watch, Jason and I will be back there soon. Maybe even for Mother Earth Day, this coming Saturday (May 10) when local bands will be playing in the gazebo, accompanying a native smudge ceremony by Mnjikaning First Nation elder and storyteller Mark Douglas, a spinner who works with husky fur, snake and turtle demonstrations and bird-nesting-box building for kids, alongside lots of other activities… (for more information, go to the homepage of the Couchiching Conservancy website and scroll down). A great way to celebrate mother’s day, if you’re in the area.
Photograph by Lauren Carter
Posted in Orillia, Pretty Pictures, Recommended, Seasons | 3 Comments »
April 24th, 2008 writerspice
Maple syrup season is almost over, which means that the sugar shacks will soon be closing their doors.
Luckily, this spring, the members of my family who are based near Shaw’s Sugar Bush (watch the video about how do what they do), a 104-year-old maple syrup farm down the 14th Line, near Orillia, finally followed through on what has become an on-again, off-again tradition. Last weekend, we gathered for pancakes soaked in the sweet gleaming gold from our region’s special trees.
In the barn-like restaurant, we sat at a long table beneath historical photographs and watched the staff steadily serving French toast, sausages, maple baked beans, maple tea, spiced apple cider and other tasty elements of Canadian cuisine. After committing that classic eyes-bigger-than-the-stomach sin, my nephews, my sister, her husband, my mom, my step-dad, Jason and I wattled wandered out back to leisurely work off at least a fraction of those big buttermilk pancakes.
Tall, grey maples stood over a carpet of dead leaves, spotted with bunches of pale purple, white and yellow flowers, the first colour of the season.
We stood back as a team of Percheron horses pulled a wagon past us, following a 1.6 kilometre loop through the trees, roped together by the green tubing (they don’t actually use buckets anymore) that collects the precious sap. My nephews ran ahead and, in a moment of sugar-fueled-Indiana-Jones-adrenaline that only small boys and mothers with threatened children can muster, actually jumped on the wagon…
As the morning steadily promised to be a glorious day, J. and I said goodbye to go home and work on our garden and get busy refurbishing our thirsty canoe, in preparation for other eagerly-awaited warm-weather adventures.
Shaw’s is open for one more weekend. Visit their site for a menu and more information.
Photos by Lauren Carter
Posted in Food, Ontario, Orillia, Seasons | 1 Comment »
March 17th, 2008 writerspice
A few years ago, my brother was living in Baltimore, Maryland and J. and I took the opportunity to visit. He lived in the suburbs, but showed us around the old downtown – the Inner Harbour (yes, here in Canada, we retain that old English ‘u’) and the city’s Little Italy. We learned that the Irish also had a strong presence in this city, fleeing the famine and ending up in Baltimore to work on the railroads in the mid-1800s, a history now commemorated by two museums and a walking tour through what are now some of Baltimore’s rougher areas.
But my favourite place was Fell’s Point. Tucked up against the ocean, this historic area is paved in cobblestones and still boasts an active, old market where crab soup is served with cornbread by an apron-clad waitress who calls you ‘Hon’.
The neighbourhood bars – the Cat’s Eye Pub and the Wharf Rat Tavern (the Fell’s Point location), among others – retain the dust and grime (and archaic charm) of a more rough-and-tumble time. In the Wharf Rat Tavern, we ordered the local drink, brewed by Baltimore’s Oliver Breweries. Surrounded by broad beams wrapped in thick ship’s ropes, we sipped stout alongside our meal of malt-vinegar-soaked orange roughy and succulent oysters accompanied by chips (uh, French fries).
After eating, we wandered around the corner to the Cat’s Eye, an Irish pub with nightly live music – or, as is the case today, a 2:00 pm start to Dogs Among the Bushes, a traditional Irish folk band.
On the way, we crossed Lancaster Street where William Fell started the first shipyard after arriving from England in 1730. As other shipyards opened, the harbour began to boom and the neighbourhood evolved into a crowded haunt for mariners and merchants, complete with rooming houses, plenty of pubs and the essential brothel.
Turns out the Cat’s Eye used to be the brothel. Serving spirits and ale for over a hundred years, the bar’s low ceiling and slanted floors once hosted a pretty rough crowd of sailors and, more recently, bikers. In the 1960s, Fell’s Point came close to being obliterated when the city nearly replaced the ancient rowhouses and cobblestones with an expressway. When Fell’s Point – or part of it – was added to the National Register of Historic Places, that plan thankfully came to a grinding halt.
In the bar, a cobwebbed model of a schooner hung from the ceiling and a large mural of the history of Ireland decorated one wall. Above the narrow stage, a wall light glowed red near the remnants of old-staircase, once used by sailors climbing to the brothel bedrooms, so legend and locals say.
Sipping scotch alongside a chaser of microbrew, we watched the band and felt thankful for the chance to enjoy the unpolished Fell’s Point, to sit at the worn bar and drink our grog like so many others who came before.
Photo by Lauren Carter
Posted in Seasons, United States | 4 Comments »
March 10th, 2008 writerspice
Thanks to T.S Eliot, everyone calls April the cruelest month… Well, maybe in England.
Maybe in England April is all about soggy skies and flaccid flowers but here, in Central Ontario, April is more about, um, Hope, Sun, and, ultimately, The Big Melt.
In fact, I can’t wait for April.
In this neck of the woods, March is, in fact, the cruelest month. Or at least one of them.
It makes perfect sense that it’s named after the God of War. Just when you start sniffing some odour of spring in the cool air, WHAM, the weather turns and things like this weekend happen – double-digit metric measurements of snow dumped on the landscape. A sneak attack, an invasion.
And today it’s freezing cold; the alarmingly tall snowbanks are frozen into fortresses. Walking home from the library the other day, J. and I tried to kick one over. No luck. It was solid, like stone, and our feet smashed against its hardness as if we were kicking at a mountain. They’re all over the place now – these solid sentries narrowing the streets, standing like obstacles to anyone in a comparably midget car trying to peek around the corner to see if anyone is coming.
The only remedy for all this is either to Get the Hell Out, a prescription that requires available funds which, unfortunately, are all being consumed by the sky-rocketing cost of the oil fuel that heats our house. Or, two, Daydreaming. (I know I’ve written about this before but that’s because I’m a writer who lives in the snowy part of Canada…)
As a kid, growing up in Blind River, I mastered this art while standing on the silent beach, my body wrapped mummy-style in scarves and other woolen clothing items, staring out at Lake Huron and imaging it was the Mediterranean, the Dead Sea, the Red Sea, any sort of ocean that promised the slightest inkling of Exotic Warmth.
My fantasies have changed a bit. These days, while J. plans every detail of the week-long solo canoe trip he’ll be embarking on this summer, I’ve been stuck in England. He moves his fingers along the blue routes of rivers and I flip the pages of a guidebook to walk the Coast-to-Coast Trail or Hadrian’s Wall. It’s the north I want to see – mostly, the Yorkshire Dales in August when the purple heather makes a richly-coloured rug of the landscape. We’ll walk on it all day, returning to cook up some dinner and sip some tea at a home-base a wee bit like this.
It likely won’t happen this year, but that’s okay. A large part of the process is the dreaming. It gives relief from the cold that everyone is complaining about, from the wind that seems extra biting on this last slim bridge towards summer.
Photo of the Yorkshire Dales by Stuart Hamilton
Posted in Contemplations, Seasons | No Comments »
February 26th, 2008 writerspice
A hint of spring arrived this Sunday. The sky was blue and the bright sun ate away at our – no exaggeration – six-foot snowbanks. We decided to take advantage of the weather by heading out into one of our local public forests, for a turn around a ski-trail. This plan immensely pleased a certain member of our small family who seems to be getting a bit tired of the epic winter couch naps (poor guy) and the salt-stung paws. Does he not look at least a little pleased:
It’s kind-of hard to see him, but on closer inspection, it becomes evident that his pleasure might be based on the fact that this formerly floor-bound canine has recently learned how to levitate (I think the power is in his tongue)… Now there’s a happy camper.
Posted in Orillia, Seasons, Simcoe County | No Comments »
January 22nd, 2008 writerspice
The snow keeps coming – a further ten to 20 centimeters expected today, on top of the 40 we’ve received since Saturday – and here’s what that looks like right now through my office window.
On the weekend, J. and I valiantly embraced the wintery-ness of it all by walking to the local track to strap on our skis and do a few loops. But as soon as I pressed down on the plastic clamp that keeps the boot in, crack, it broke. The sun had come out, so I stood and soaked it up while watching J. break trail and slide his way around a few times.
I must admit that this kind of weather is exciting. It’s all over the radio, a news event, as Rick Mercer has ranted about. As he oh-so-concisely puts it, “This is Canada. We have winter. Life sucks. Get a toque. And embrace it.” This attempt at, um, embracing, is likely why winter festivities abound across Ontario. Not needed so much during those balmy wintry days of late, organizers must be gleeful with as they observe this more traditional Canadian season coming down all around.
One thing’s for sure, the 1,200 square foot ice castle that’s built every year at the Port of Orillia should stay intact as long as this weather does. Home to Shivers, the mascot of the Orillia Winter Carnival, the structure will be erected on February 2 and 3 (want to help? Visit the website), in time for the grand event on February 8, 9 and 10. This shin-dig has everything you could ask for: dog sled rides, snow sculpting, a polar bear dip, a pig roast and much, much more down home fun in the sun snow.
Posted in Orillia, Seasons | 2 Comments »
December 23rd, 2007 writerspice
Yesterday, we had six foot snowbanks. Today, it’s pouring rain. On my first weekend of the two-week Christmas break I’m watching those grand piles of white stuff dwindle down to nothing while baking gluten-free shortbread and listening to Nat King Cole sing seasonal classics.
This weather is supposed to go on all day, long enough to erase any hope for a white Christmas. With the fall we’ve had – snow crazy enough to strand J. and I in Scarborough last weekend because our car couldn’t handle the two feet of unplowed snow blanketing the roads, for instance – everyone expected Santa wouldn’t have any trouble ‘dashing through the snow.’
Good joke, Global Warming.
If you’re the kind of person to say ‘rain, be damned!’, want to get back in the Christmas spirit, and are in Toronto, here’s your chance. CBC News at Six has posted a handy guide to over-the-top “holiday homes”, including address of residences from Burlington to downtown Toronto that are racking up their hydro bills for the sake of seasonal glitter (and, in some cases, charitable causes). Unknown Toronto also offers a few good suggestions for gazing at the annual glitz.
Rain on the windshield might blur the colours a bit, but it’s a good opportunity to actually earn that evening eggnog and rum.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Posted in Recommended, Seasons, Toronto | No Comments »
