While in Prince Edward County we had the chance to visit Waupoos Island and “help out” on a sheep farm for a couple days during lambing season. “Helping” consisted mostly of pointing and squealing “Ohhh! Sooooo cuuuuuute!!!”. The whole experience was like seeing all the realities of life contained on one island, within a herd of sheep. There was birth, there was death, there were irresponsible teen sheep moms, orphan lambs, adoptions, and lots of happy families too.

Our day consisted of riding around on ATVs and a 4×4 looking out for sheep who needed help birthing, lambs who had lost their moms, or ones whose moms had rejected them, or the saddest of all, lambs who didn’t make it. Really it was only about half a day of this, but I was exhausted for the rest of the week! I can’t imagine doing that every day for an entire season. I wonder if the cuteness of lambs ever wears off . . .

Spent last week in Prince Edward County out in the perfect weather. On the way up we stopped to check out an Airstream trailer our friends decided to buy. We laid around for a day on Sandbanks beach, watched a few sunsets, took hammock naps, and ate and ate.

For the past week I’ve been hiding out in the country with friends. We did country things like sit around by a fire, eat, drink, snowshoe, ski, have snowball fights, and make mini snowmen to put in the freezer. We also spent a day at the Scandinave Spa at Blue Mountain where you do intervals of sitting in outdoor hot baths, cold baths, sauna, steam room, and resting rooms or outdoor sitting areas around fires. So great! It was a little busier than expected due to university reading week, but still relaxing none the less. Yay for quiet time!

The first photo is my friend Johnny‘s. It looks very Canadian vintage to me. Like something you might see on an old maple syrup can from the late 70’s or 80’s. Except for the person clawing their way up a steep hill wearing new snowshoes.

Look at this place! It’s a hotel called Perivolas in Santorini. It reminds me of a Barbapapa house, but with a little swimming cave. Is it odd to want to go somewhere just to stay at a hotel?

One of my dreams is to build a cobb house one day, so I can have curved walls with built-in shelves, and windows and doorways shaped however I want, just like this place.

All photos via Perivolas Hotel

Another one of our drives in the Kawarthas led us to the amazing Highlands Cinemas where we saw Moonrise Kingdom, which I thought was very fitting. It’s a curious little theatre tucked away in a forest in the tiny town of Kinmount (population 300). In addition to being a theatre it also serves as a museum. The maze-like building is full of huge old projectors, antique film equipment, and movie memorabilia. And that’s not all! Attached to the building is a room with windows and tunnels leading to an enclosed outdoor area where numerous cats roam, called Keith’s Cat House.

I recently read that Highlands Cinemas was under threat of being closed this fall after 33 years.  The theatre has been screening movies using projectors from the 1950’s, but this year had to decide whether or not to invest in an expensive conversion to digital in order to keep operating in 2013.  The survival of the cinema will very much depend on moviegoers, so everyone with a cottage in the Kawarthas, invite all your friends to your cottages and go watch some movies! Highlands Cinemas is open from May to Thanksgiving every year. Too bad they’re not open for Halloween because it would be the perfect place to watch a scary movie and then wander out into the dark forest parking lot to find your car.

Last month during our stay at the cottage in Fenelon Falls we took little trips to check out the surrounding towns. The friends we were with are in the midst of renovating their farmhouse in Prince Edward County so we drove around looking for antiques and anything that might be useful. I love that you never know what you’re going to find when you see a sign that says “Antiques” with an arrow pointing you down a long country road. One of those signs led us to a couple of dark, cavernous barns filled with what I suppose one could call antiques. Or maybe one could also call them graveyards for neglected, damaged furniture and home to Chucky’s playmates. A little disappointing in our quest for antiques, but a part of me loves that places like this exist.

Spent last week with some friends riding out the last of the warm weather in Fenelon Falls at the most amazing cottage. It was the perfect place to be for the transition from summer to fall. The cottage itself was so beautifully moody and dark, like being on the set of a movie, especially with the fire going every night. Maybe if someone was to make a Canadian cottage version of In the Mood for Love (one of my all time favourite movies) set in the country, it could be filmed there.

What topped the list of things I liked most about this place was probably all the incredible rugs in every room and hallway. The best ones were the red, white, and black ones that ran down a long dark hallway, which I need to find a decent photo of.  I’ll have to post those in a later entry, along with all the strange and surreal things we did on this little trip to the country.

People often say they’re inspired by nature and I thought I got it, but maybe I didn’t really get it. Sure, forests are nice, but nothing really that mind blowing. Then on a recent hike through Lion’s Head Provincial Park I think I started to see it –  amazing colours, patterns, textures, and odd little things growing everywhere. Is this what people are talking about?

Just a few pics from a super last minute trip to Anguilla in February. Anguilla is an island in the Caribbean which I had actually never heard of before going. It’s a beautiful, quiet island north of St. Maarten that maybe a lot of other people haven’t heard of either, because every time I tell someone about it they think I’m saying I went to Angola.

We met all kinds of sea things and creatures on that trip, which I took pictures of with my little Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 that goes underwater. Luckily for us Garvin, the manager of the villa we rented happened to be around and showed us how to skin and gut the fish we bought for dinner one night. We had a triggerfish, snapper, and parrotfish and each one had to be prepared differently. He said if he had known we wanted fish he could have taken us spear fishing! I say that with an exclamation point because I’m imagining it to be more exciting than it actually is maybe?  I don’t know.

And a cute stray puppy! There were stray dogs and puppies everywhere.  Some of them walked with limps because they’ve often been hit by cars, but this one was unharmed. It really enjoyed eating chicken and fish. And finally, my favourite stray, the ratty one at the very bottom, which I’m not even 100% sure was a dog at all. Kind of looks like some strange otter. He and his buddy were hanging outside the local supermarket.

This happens every time.  I go away, find things I love, come back, and kick myself for not bringing back more.  These are a few of my favourites from this trip.

Alpargatas.  Before Toms there were alpargatas.  They are everywhere in Argentina and Uruguay, but I like these ones in particular because they have the jute soles and thick cotton stitches along the bottom.  And I like the faded candy colours.  And I like the one pink stitch on the green one.  Really should have got a pair in every colour . . .

Dresses.  Okay, so you can find dresses just about anywhere, and I don’t usually love dresses, but I love this one.  The fabric is a cotton silk blend so it’s super airy and light.  Found it at Ayres in Buenos Aires.

Cachafaz alfajores. I could eat these all day, every day!  A thick layer of dulce de leche sandwiched between 2 soft shortbread-like cookies, edges sprinkled with coconut.  Yum!  These ones just caught my eye because the packaging was so subtle and quiet compared to the other loud chocolate bar style wrappers.  I think it’s the frosted matte cellophane.  Gets me every time, but who knew they would be so unbelievably amazing?  I wish I had brought back 3 boxes rather than just one.

In Montevideo I picked up a kilogram of this beautiful, super soft wool from Manos del Uruguay.  No idea what I want to make with it, but I think I’m going to dye it.  Back in October I took a natural dyeing class at The Workroom and learned the basics of natural dyeing, after some very haphazard, experimental dyeing with plants in the summer.  In the second photo is a racerback tank I made with some of the dyed fabric in the colour I’d like the wool to be.  Hopefully I don’t end up with 2 giant felt balls.

We arrived at this small fishing village at midnight in the middle of a rain storm.  I won’t go into too many details, but you can probably imagine how our night unfolded in this town where the streets have no names, or if they did there were no signs, with barely a street light, and our very limited Spanish, looking for a hotel called La Posada, which literally translates to “the inn”.  When they opened 19 years ago they were probably the only inn around, but I can tell you most definitely this is no longer the case.  And in the pouring rain these were the directions we were following: “From the Prefectura de Marina, with the sea to your right, walk 120 metres.”

We woke up to the sound of crashing waves, and to my surprise I was not drowning.  What a great way to start the day.  We opened the doors to the balcony and this was our view.  After a week of hustling around Buenos Aires, and a few long nights and days traveling between places, this was perfect.  All there was to do was sleep, eat, surf, or lie around on the never ending beaches.  So that’s what we did for four days.

The antique markets and shops that went on and on and on in San Telmo were a little overwhelming, but I did find a couple of things, like this old clothing hanger, which probably isn’t an antique, and wasn’t actually for sale, but they sold it to me anyway.  On it is one of the tops I made before the trip, when I realized I didn’t have any summer clothes.  The floral print was a piece of fabric I had been holding onto for years.  There’s something I love about it even though I never wear floral prints.

This is where I had the most consecutive steak dinners, in my life.  After a few nights of eating bife de chorizo (my favourite), morcillo/blood sausage (quite good despite its disturbing name), and ribs, we would decide it was time to take a break and maybe eat a vegetable, that was not a potato.  But when ten o’clock rolled around the next night our thoughts were on where to get the next steak!  Again!  BA beef had taken a grip. Every time the plate was put down in front of us we would ravenously devour the thing before photos ever crossed our minds.  So, no photos of this infamous beef.

In Puerto Madero we saw this giant tall ship, surrounded by shiny new condos. Moving through the city sometimes felt like time traveling.  You can go from having a drink in a San Telmo bar from 1856 to a world of glass condos within a 20 minute walk.

After a quick stop in Buenos Aires we headed west to Mendoza.  Much like the cities of the west coast in North America, Mendoza was noticeably newer, more laid-back, and calmer than the east.  There was room to breathe.

In Mendoza the houses were the colours of ice cream and candy.  Out of the context of food though, I usually think of pastel colours as being more feminine or for babies.  Was this a city of just girly girls and babies?  Nope, there were definitely men there, but oddly they didn’t seem out of place or any less masculine in a sea of pale pinks, light blues, lavender, and butter yellow.  For whatever reason the pastels just worked and being surrounded by soft colours was somehow calming.  It has also made me reconsider the neutral and dark colours I always seem to surround myself with.  How hard, cold and manly of me . . .

Another great thing about Mendoza and the nearby town of Chacras de Coria is the ice cream.  I wasn’t sure what half the flavours were, but the ones I tried were amazing!  One guy even let us try his secret stash of Malbec ice cream.

On our last day in Mendoza we visited a few wineries.  The one that stood out for me was Salentein.  It was straight out of the Da Vinci Code or maybe it was like Dr. Evil’s dark lair.  Anyway, if you’re in the area, Dr. Evil makes some pretty great wine.