Showing posts with label Ontario. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ontario. Show all posts

Sunday, March 18, 2012

My Road Trip with Bob Dylan

Posted by MAKMU ta On Sunday, March 18, 2012

William and I just got back from our March Break road trip.  I thought the road trip would be about checking out the universities.  Turns out I was wrong - it was about Bob Dylan.  


We had a lot of fun.  Our road trip went like this ...


We drove four hours the first evening and listened to a couple of Bob Dylan albums.


The next day there were huge Vs of Canada Geese flying overhead migrating north.  I wanted a picture of them so asked William to take one while I was in the washroom at the gas station.  I came back and he told me he had not been able to get a good photo of the Canada Geese, but he did get an awesome photo of a seagull eating garbage.  Impressive!  (by the way, here's his best photo of a seagull minus the garbage - I knew you would appreciate that).




I did manage to get a photo (of sorts) of the Canada Geese.  I couldn't get over how many birds there were flying together in long strings across the sky.




We drove for about five hours (listening to Bob Dylan for much of the drive) to Sherbrooke, a small city in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.   It is such a pretty city with lots of red brick buildings, a few rushing rivers going through the downtown, 




and plenty of gorgeous clapboard houses painted in an array of pastel colours.  



Do you like my rubber-necking-while-driving skills?


Bishop's University is an older university with a mix of old and new red buildings amongst groves of pine trees.





The next day we drove to Ottawa and Hull ... we listened to Bob Dylan albums and William read me some of Bob's poetry (after all this contact I'm totally on first name basis with him).


Parliament Buildings in Ottawa seen from across the river in Gatineau
I had never seen Ottawa in the winter/early spring with ice and snow around so it was fun to see it at a different time of year.


Samuel de Champlain statue in Gatineau/Hull (you can see a photo of where he left from in France in this post)


After taking a tour of Carleton University in Ottawa (sorry - no photos as it was raining and I didn't want to get my camera wet) we drove to my parent's cottage.  And as we drove we listened to Bob Dylan!  

The drive through Algonquin Park was so pretty.  I'd never been there in the winter and the frozen lakes, birch trees, deep green of the evergreens, and soft grey of the deciduous trees were beautiful.






There was still lots of snow around and ice on the lake at the cottage, but the air was warm and the snow and ice were melting rapidly.  








My Dad dug down in the snow and uncovered the daffodils that had already sprouted up several inches in my Mother's garden.  I wonder how they know it is time to start growing when they are covered in a layer of snow.



A few days later William and I drove home from the cottage listening to  - you guessed it - Bob Dylan.  After listening to his first eight albums (and most of them more than once), I have decided that my favourite is "Bringing It All Back Home".  Seems fitting for a road trip, don't you think?

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Monday, February 27, 2012

Farm Obsessed

Posted by MAKMU ta On Monday, February 27, 2012

Last weekend we visited our friend's new farm.  Both Jonathan and I were so taken with it that we have been pouring over real estate ads all week looking for a farm of our own.  We probably won't be getting one until the last chick of ours has been fully launched and is off to university, but then look out...


There were so many things that all converged to make us fall in love with a farm.  First there was the gorgeous sunset on the evening we arrived.





Then there was beautiful thick hoare frost the next morning.










There had been a snowfall a few days prior to our visit so the countryside was gorgeous.







The farm had an old barn that had lots of treasures in it - there's really nothing better than poking around in an old barn.






The company was fun - there were 6 children between us ranging in age from 6 months to 17 years old, and there were 5 adults, and 3 dogs.  And the food was fantastic (humour me while I show you my apple jelly series of photos - I couldn't help myself, the jelly was so pretty).









The farm is on a quiet country road, and it was all so pretty.  We didn't really want to come home.

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Linked to WOW Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Love the Place You Live - McMichael Gallery in Toronto

Posted by MAKMU ta On Sunday, February 26, 2012

I live on the outskirts of Toronto and love playing tourist in my own city - there are so many interesting things to do and places to visit. I've actually already written about a few of the fun things there are to do in these posts:

 Just in case you are planning a visit to our fair city I thought I would show you another of the places I really enjoy here in Toronto.  



Today I went with some friends to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinberg Ontario, just north of Toronto.  


It is a unique art gallery because it specializes in art by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, and their contemporaries.  The Group of Seven were a group of landscape painters (1920 to 1933) who formed Canada's first major art movement. I think one of the reasons the Group of Seven is truly beloved here in Canada is that they capture the wild look of Canada so well.  The pictures below are some examples of the art on display.

Tom Thomson
Tom Thomson
Arthur Lismer
J.E.H. MacDonald
A.Y. Jackson
Franklin Carmichael
Tom Thomson
Lawren Harris
The McMichael art gallery's building is a magnificent structure made of timber and stone and located in a hundred acres of conservation land.  Nothing could look more Canadian than this building set on the side of a wooded ravine.




The foyer is an enormous gathering space constructed of huge timbers with a beautiful wood paneled ceiling supported by large stone and timbered walls.




There are windows throughout the gallery looking out into the woods or across the ravine.



Unfortunately there are no photos allowed in the gallery itself, which always makes me sad.  I have a terrible memory and although I bought postcards and cards of all the pictures I could, there were many others I wanted to remember, but no cards were available.



Do you love going to the gift shop as much as I do?  I always have to have a look after visiting a museum or art gallery.



There is a sculpture garden amongst the trees near the McMichael - this carved piece of granite is my favourite.


And perched on the edge of the ravine is Tom Thomson's shack (you can see some of Tom Thomson's art above).  The shack was reconstructed from the one he used in Toronto during the coldest part of the winter - he really preferred to be up north living in the bush and out in his canoe which was where he spent most of the year.



Inside the shack is a studio at one end and a living/kitchen room with a loft bed at the other.  It looked pretty cozy to me.




I loved the McMichael art gallery's motto that they have on their entrance sign.   




This is one place I love to explore - it definitely is intriguing, inviting, and inspiring.


(the pictures of the paintings are courtesy of the McMichael's website)


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Linked to Love the Place You Live at Design Mom

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