Lisa Stokes

Mother’s Day Ride

Trystan brought me breakfast in bed this morning, just before 7am, for Mother’s Day. He thoughtfully got it ready early so that I could head out on a 70km ride before it got too hot or too wet. As it turned out, it didn’t get up to the 30 degrees Celsius predicted a couple days ago for this afternoon, but I did get rained on three times.

Like last Sunday I headed straight north and up the Escarpment. Two thirds of the way up the second hill, that becomes steeper as you near the top, I stopped to catch my breath. I spotted two cyclists approach the bottom of the hill. Both men were older than me. One climbed past me, outwardly showing no signs of strain. Here he is about to crest the hill.

The other man also made it to the top without resting however he was quite slow and wobbly – like I would have been had I not stopped to rest. Here he is coming up to my rest location.

It was a humid, misty and occasionally, rainy day. The trees are in blossom and there were lots of this purple flower in bloom in the grass.

The dandelions are also out in full force.

Here is a view of the final hill. I did rest less today than last week.

This little guy wanted to visit with me.

However, I didn’t stop for long as I wanted to get up this final short, but steep, hill.

Just south of Highway 9 I found this handy spot to stop and have a snack.

Then I headed back south into Caledon East for lunch at Subway. After lunch I rode east, out along Old Church Road for 5 km, to extend the trip by 10km over last week’s trip. I saw this verdant scene along the way.

The sky opened up just south of Caledon East on my way back home. There is nowhere to stop between Caledon East and the Tim’s just 2km north of my house, a distance of 15km. It didn’t rain all the way, but I did arrive home quite wet.

After a cold bath to calm my legs, I got into bed with coffee and cookies, left over from lunch, and had a lazy afternoon.

What a great Mother’s Day.

No School and Trimming the Ivy

The Peel District School Board secondary school teachers went on strike on Monday May 4 which means that Megan and Alun are not in school. Mostly, they have just been doing as they please, however, I asked them to spend 30 minutes yesterday and today, and each day until we are done, cleaning up the English Ivy on our chimney.

The ivy was there when we moved in. It has generally stayed green year round. I trim it one to three times a year depending on how organized I am. The more often I trim it, the easier and quicker the job. However, that entails getting the ladder out of the basement and taking the time to trim and dispose of the trimmings. When I do it on a timely basis, it also means that it doesn’t grow up through the soffit and under the roof shingles.

I set up this picture four years ago when I got Trystan and Owen to help with the chore. I licensed the image to Getty Images and it has sold several times.

The last two winters were exceptionally cold and long. The ivy was covered in dead leaves each spring. In 2014, I just let the new growth grow through the dead stuff. This year, it is even worse, so I decided we should cut it right down to the ground. English Ivy grows like a weed, so it is unlikely that I will kill it by cutting it right down, and in future perhaps I will try to trim it before it gets to a height requiring a ladder.

When I trimmed it in the past I would just trim the top part as in the picture above to keep it away from the soffit and roof. I have never cut out the old growth in the bottom half.

Megan, Alun and I spent about 45 minutes yesterday with large bypass pruners, for cutting the branches that are thicker than my thumb, screwdrivers to pry the smaller branches away from the way, and a crowbar to pry away the larger branches. The years old branches stick to the brick with incredible tenacity.

I didn’t think to take a picture before we began so in this picture above we have already cleared the ivy that went around the corner of the porch toward the door and the ivy in front of Megan on the ladder. As much as Alun hates helping out with this type of thing I think he was enjoying wielding the crowbar.

We had to wear dust masks and safety glasses as there is a huge amount of dust when you pull the ivy away from the bricks. I have never found a dust mask/safety glass combination work without the glasses steaming up and me feeling like I am breathing in oven hot air. Ugh. Here is what it looked like when we finished working yesterday.

We filled four garbage cans.

Today we spend about 45 minutes again. I figure we are about half done getting it off the wall. Then another session or two to get all the dead stuff out of the bed.

Our new doors and windows are in. Compare this picture to the first. The final piece of work is being done tonight as I write this post. I will blog about that experience in the future.

We found a nest at the top of the chimney on the left. There were no eggs in it.

We didn’t have any more garbage cans and this stuff in hard to get into the paper bags without cutting it up into smaller pieces, so for now we just stacked it beside the full cans from yesterday.

I bet Megan and Alun would rather have been in school than helping out with this activity. It’s now been a full week since the teachers went out on strike. Durham Region teachers have now been out three weeks. I haven’t heard anything to indicate that the strike will be resolved any time soon so I will probably have them home to help again next week. Hmmm, what else needs to be done?

Trystan’s and Owen’s teachers are working to rule starting next week so for the time being, at least, they will continue going to school.

Sunday May 3 – Success Climbing the Escarpment

It was the Brampton Quilters’ Guild quilt show this weekend. Trystan and I helped with set-up on Friday afternoon. I am the photographer for the Guild and I photograph every quilt in the show. I captured about a quarter of them on Friday.

On Saturday afternoon, I returned, with Owen for my shift on mini-quilt raffle sales. Owen had a look around, bought some raffle tickets and bought a snack in the tea room. Lara and Ryan came a little later, to do the same, and took Owen home with them. After my shift I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing the photography. As usual it was a wonderful show and for the first time ever I won a mini-quilt.

On Sunday, I volunteered for take-down so I could go on a long bike ride first

Last Sunday I tried to ride up the Escarpment on Mountainview Road and failed. I had only done it once before in the middle of September last year. Last Wednesday, I tried again, stopping to rest, but not walking my bike, and got a little further, but turned back before getting to the top.

Today I made it. I had to stop and rest several times, my average speed was only 14kph, but I did it. This is look back down the second hill. It’s a killer. It’s long and gets steeper as you get closer to the top.

This is the view from the top of the third hill. It’s a great ride down, around a bend and back up again.

Another long hill, looking back south from the top. I’ve now lost track of which one this is.

I think this was the second last hill going north, looking back south from the top again.

This is the last big hill, looking south from the top. As you can see from this series, each time you go up, you give a little back, before going up again. It takes 7 km to get to the top.

Here I am at Highway 9, my turnaround point.

On the way back, the momentum from going downhill carries me almost effortlessly to the top of the next hill in some cases. In others, I still have to pedal madly up the top half.

When I got back to Caledon East, I rode over to Airport Road for lunch at Subway and then back home for a total ride of 61km.

I will be doing this ride a couple more times before Spin the Lake which has a lot more climbing and is longer. I hope to be ready for the 96km route, but might have to settle for the 50 depending on how my training goes between now and May 23.

Sunday April 26 – Failing to Climb the Escarpment

Patti and I have signed up for Spin the Lakes on May 23 near Huntsville. It starts at Hidden Valley resort, and they have a deal with the resort for participants to stay at a reduced rate, so we will drive north on Friday, stay overnight, ride and head home after the ride.

The routes offered vary in length from 20 to 172 km. We signed up for the 96 km route. After booking the hotel and paying our non-refundable registration fee, I then mapped the 96 km route using MapMyRide and was horrified to see that it has 1206 metres of climbing. The most climbing I have ever done in one day is 479 metres climbing the Escarpment last September the week before I did the Tour de Mississauga.

I have been doing physiotherapy for years for my left leg. The top of the fibula is slightly rotated towards the front of my leg. This leads to tightness and pain on the outside of my leg from my hip to ankle. I saw three different physiotherapists before the underlying issue was determined. The treatment was to use tape to hold the fibula where is should be and then to strengthen the muscles in the area to keep it there. I also had to change my running style from a heel-toe strike to just a toe strike. It all helped and I was able to get back to running again. However, whenever I get lazy and slack off on the strengthening exercises I get pain again. Over the winter I slacked off. Now I am back to physiotherapy visits every couple of weeks and strengthening at home in the evening.

On Friday, my physiotherapist worked me particularly hard. My legs were very sore by bedtime, no better on Saturday morning when I went running and worse by Saturday night. I had planned a 60km ride on Sunday, but could tell that was unlikely given how my legs felt.

The winds were from the north about 20kph with gusts to 35kpm as I set off to the northwest. I saw a truly impressive sight about 7km into my ride as I approached an intersection. Look how many bags he’s carrying! I stopped to pull out my camera to take a picture, but he turned the corner before I caught up to him.

I love this tree. I often stop to photograph it.

Here it was last fall.

When I got to Walker Road West in Caledon East I had to decide whether to go over to Airport Road to get lunch or to try to climb the Escarpment. From Walker Road to Charleston Sideroad, a distance of about 7 km, there is 180 metres of climbing up and down rolling hills as the land rises. Here I am looking back from the top of the second or third rise.

I had to walk my bike up the top part of three of the first six hills. 3 km into the 7km, I gave up, turned around and had a wild ride back down hitting my all-time maximum speed on a bike of 57kph, starting at the top of this hill.

Then I headed into Caledon East where I tried Paradise Farms Beef Bistro. I noticed it last fall while cycling to Gabe’s Bakery for a coffee. It is owned by Shane Baghai. From the website:

Shane Baghai is a successful real estate developer who purchased farmland in the rolling hills of Caledon in 2008. As an advocate of the local food movement and responsible, sustainable living, his initial intentions were simply to raise a few cattle without the use of artificial hormones.

Today, the Paradise Farm herd has grown to include thousands of Purebred Aberdeen Angus, hundreds of rare Japanese-style Wagyu (Kobe) cattle, Scottish Highland cattle and Italian Chianina. They are all grass fed and grain finished, with a zero-tolerance approach to the use of added growth hormones. The result of all this care is a more delicious, superior quality cut of beef.

The opening of Paradise Farms Prime Beef Bistro is just a natural extension of Shane Baghai’s concern for fresh and healthy eating. When you enjoy the delicious offerings at Paradise Farms Prime Beef Bistro, you do so with the knowledge that the meat was raised in Ontario with only the highest standards.

I was really in the mood for an interesting salad with some juicy steak on top, but the salads didn’t appeal to me, so I ordered an 8oz sirloin on ciabatta bread. It was a good steak, but too heavy a meal for half way through a bike ride.

The ride home was much faster being slightly downhill and with a tailwind.

I’ve got to get back up there again, once my legs are rested, to work on my climbing for Spin the Lakes.

Sunday April 19 – Riding the Humber, Again

On my second ride down the Humber this year, I invited Patti to come along. I mapped the ride from the Toronto Public Library on Humberwood Boulevard down to the lake and found it to be 50km return. We weren’t sure if we could go that far this early in the season but decided to give it a try.

Here I am ready to go.

It was a cold and windy day, about four degrees Celsius as we set off, but with the promise of a twelve degree high. It was bright and sunny.

Once we got down into the valley, the winds weren’t too bad in most places.

We were riding from the Humber College area as I had on my first ride of the Humber Valley last fall. About 9 km into the ride the path is joined by the route that comes south from the Steeles and Kipling area, the place I started on my second ride of the Humber a few weeks ago.

On my ride a few weeks ago I emerged from the valley at Fairglen Crescent, which comes off of Weston Road just south of the 401, had a tea at McDonalds and headed back to the car. This time we carried on south.

The path along the Humber from the Humberwood Boulevard is part of the Pan Am Path. The route will eventually follow the Humber Valley trail down to the lake, across the waterfront, up the Lower Don Valley, across Scarborough on the Gatineau hydro corridor and down Highland Creek to Lake Ontario’s Waterfront Trail, all off-road. Most of the trail already exists. A few connections to link the separate parts of the trail, but not all, are being completed in time for the Pan Am Games in July 2015. Once complete it will be 85 km one way.

Until last year, once one exited the trail at Fairglen Crescent and turned south on Weston Road, it was almost a kilometre until you could get off the road and back onto the trail. Last year, this staircase shown below, with bike rail, as demonstrated by Patti, was completed and reduced the travel on roads at this point to about 350 metres. It is at the corner of Weston Road and St. Phillips Road. It is still far from ideal: Weston Road is very busy, signage is poor, the staircase is hard to spot and the bike rail is not easy to use. Since I was riding my road bike, which weighs only about ten kilograms, I decided to carry, rather than roll my bike. Patti used the rail. The stairs are metal with the surface covered in 2 centimetre diametre holes. We both felt like our bike shoes were either going to slip off the surface, landing us on our behinds or clip into the holes, pitching us forward! Had I been on my much heavier hybrid, I would have used the rail. Next time I think I would just ride a little further down Weston Road and ride down the ramp between two apartment buildings, rather than use the stairs. On our return we pushed our bikes up the ramp (it’s quite steep and we were tired) and rode up Weston Road rather than using the stair rail. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of that ramp. It is also easy to miss. It is just south of 2202 Weston Road.

Further down the trail are two long pedestrian bridges under a large railway trestle. In the first picture you can see that it is a quite clever, well-thought-out design. Over the river, the bridge is wider than is needed for the path. On each side, a step up from the path, takes you to a deck with benches for enjoying the view. Cyclists are asked to walk their bikes here. It is rather narrow and bumpy.

When we got to the Old Mill just north of Bloor, we had already done almost 25 km and we were still well north of the lake. We were also getting hungry so we rode out of the valley and along Bloor Street to the Henry VIII Ale House where we had a nice lunch and live entertainment.

After lunch we decided to head back. The trail was quite busy from Bloor to Weston Road with pedestrians, cyclists and skaters, but clearer north of the 401. Next time I think I will ride my hybrid bike, as it is not really possible to take advantage of the faster ride afforded by my road bike on a trail with many other users, and my neck and shoulders were tired at the end of the day. I am sure if it had been later in the season or warmer it would have been even busier. Next time I hope to make it to the lake and one day I hope to travel the whole 85 km length of the Pan Am Path, although, perhaps I will wait until the remaining 8km or so of road connections have been replaced with off-road path. I would definitely recommend riding the portions of the trail that I have explored so far.

Sunday March 30 – Riding the Humber

Years ago, before the Humber River Trail, went under the 401, I rode a part of it with Patti. We didn’t go far. My only strong recollection is pushing our bikes along the sidewalk over the 401 and how noisy it was. Patti’s recollection is that we got ice cream at Dairy Queen on Weston Road!

Last fall I explored the path from the Humber College area to just north of the 401. Today, Alun needed a ride to a DECA event, at 9am at a banquet hall in Woodbridge, so I decided to explore another branch of the Humber River Trail, to kill time waiting for him to be finished. It was a cold day, just around freezing, when I started, so I dressed warmly in my winter coat and snow pants. I have typically been a fair weather cyclist, but I am trying to increase my riding and to not let cold weather discourage me.

After dropping Alun off I headed to Rowntree Recreation Centre, near Kipling and Steeles. The parking lot was deserted, as was the recreation centre when I went in to the bathroom before heading off.

A short ride down a steep hill into the valley and onto a bridge over the river provided me with this view.

I was protected from the wind once I got down into the valley and it was a lovely sunny day, so dressed as I was, I was quite comfortable other than my feet which got cold in my cycling shoes. There were still small slabs of ice along the edge of the river and quite large ones under the road bridges.

I was surprised to learn from people in the Cycle Toronto Facebook group that the City of Toronto doesn’t clear the paths of snow in the winter. In Brampton, they post signs stating there will be no snow clearing, but my experience has been that they do clear it irrespective of the warning signs. Most of the snow had melted by the time I was riding, however, I did have to detour around this pile just before a bridge. I don’t know if it had been pushed off the bridge onto the path or if some clearing had occurred up the the bridge but not under it.

Toronto is much better at signing its multi-use paths than Brampton is. Generally, whenever the path branches, and even occasionally when it doesn’t, there are signs showing what route you are travelling on and what streets you are approaching. These signs are easy to spot on their own posts. In Brampton, even when there are signs, they are small and attached to lampposts, often quite high up out of the line of sight of path users. Also, they only inform the user of the path name and occasionally provide an arrow indicating the direction of the main path at location where there is a branch. Brampton would do well to model its signage on Toronto’s.

I love weeping willows. They are so lovely against a blue sky when there is otherwise not much colour around.

As I neared 10 kilometres of riding I saw a familiar sight from an unfamiliar angle. Yes, that’s the 401 just west of Weston Road.

The path now goes under the 401.

I think artistic graffiti can really enliven and enhance areas like this that are otherwise barren and messy. I’ve seen the Lovebot before under a railway bridge over Parkside Drive near High Park. It’s kind of interesting seeing graffiti themes repeated around the city.

Here’s a view of the 401 I had not seen before. I’ll bet not many people have seen this angle compared to those that drive over the bridge. It was much more pleasant travelling under the 401 compared to travelling over it as I did many years ago.

Just south of the 401, the path ended at Fairglen Crescent. Apparently Toronto cyclists, unlike those in Brampton, can be trusted with a curb depression at a mid-block location. I am currently working with the Brampton Bicycle Advisory Committee to try to get Brampton to change their policy against curb depressions.

At this point I rode my bike up to Weston Road to have a hot tea at McDonald’s before returning to my car. Once back, I loaded my bike into the car, and headed to Panera Bread, which was near Alun’s meeting, for lunch. Panera Bread is one of my favourite restaurants. They have a great selection of soups, salads and sandwiches. The menu shows calories and they have something called Pick 2, which allows you to order to half size items. I had a steak salad and French onion soup. It was delicious. I plan to return to the Humber to explore more in the future.

Winter Getaway – February 1-3, 2015 – Part 1

I am almost two months late with this post and got out of the habit of blogging since late January. I am going to try to get back into it. Surprisingly, my two oldest teens both inquired why I had stopped blogging, which means they must have been reading my posts, which is as good a reason as any to continue.

Last year, while I was lying on the couch recuperating from breaking my wrist while ice skating, I had plenty of time to surf the web. While doing so I came across the 1.5 kilometre long ice trail at Arrowhead Provincial Park, just north of Huntsville.

Michael doesn’t skate. Megan and Alun are uninterested in being outdoors in the winter. Actually, Megan and Alun and uninterested in being outside of their bedrooms unless it is absolutely necessary, so they wouldn’t even take me up on my offer to take them along to just hang out at the hotel!

I did some more research to discover other activities to justify the two and a half hour drive to Huntsville and a stay in a hotel. I discovered that Arrowhead also has a tubing run. I also discovered a dog sledding business nearby. The original plan was to leave home after school on Friday, go to Arrowhead on Saturday and dog sled on Sunday, returning home Sunday evening.

However, when I called Arrowhead to ask some questions I discovered that they have become so popular that it could take up to an hour to get into the park on a Saturday and that the skating trail would not open until 3pm. I hate crowds and waiting, so we postponed our departure until Sunday night. This suited Trystan and Owen as it now meant that they would miss school.

We departed Sunday after lunch stopping for Tim’s in Orillia and arriving at the hotel at 5pm. The drive was good all the way, with no snow. We later discovered that we had driven out of the biggest storm of the winter in Brampton and Monday ended up being a snow day. Trystan and Owen felt cheated as they then only missed one day of school!

I originally thought I would stay at Deerhurst Inn, however, my brother-in-law suggested the Holiday Inn Express in Huntsville, a place he has stayed on business. It was about $30 a night cheaper and included breakfast which would have been extra at Deerhurst. We didn’t have access to Deerhurst’s grounds and activities, but to be perfectly honest, we were already planning to spend a lot of time outdoors and decided we wouldn’t take full advantage of Deerhurst’s amenities. Trystan and Owen haven’t travelled much and were quite thrilled with the Holiday Inn Express. It was clean and reasonably priced, with friendly staff, a swimming pool and exercise room. It has a deal with some local chain restaurants, including East Side Mario’s to provide 10% off to hotel guests.

Right across the street from the hotel was a Walmart, a grocery store, some restaurants and other shops. The boys wanted to eat at East Side Mario’s, a restaurant with which they were familiar. I agreed on the condition that we try something local the next night.

The food was adequate, but the service was poor. We had a long wait, of about 45 minutes, for our main course and were finally served after a large group, that arrived later than we did. The same thing happened with dessert. When I told the waitress to bring the dessert in the next two minutes, or to cancel it and bring over the bill, she instead sent over the manager who apologized and offered us a free dessert on our next visit. I told her we were from out of town and wouldn’t be back. I asked her to provide the still-anticipated dessert for free. Glancing down at the hotel coupon she told me that the computer would only allow one discount per meal. I hate it when people blame things on computers. I told her to keep her “free dessert on our next visit” coupon, give us the 10% off and bring the bill. The dessert arrived shortly thereafter, but not before the staff sang Happy Birthday – twice – to people at the next table.

Whenever I travel I always seem to forget something. Owen brought only his winter boots so we headed to Walmart after dinner where we bought a pair of Crocs knock-offs for him to wear around the hotel and pool.

We returned to the hotel for a swim and then retired to the room where the boys watched The Cartoon Network until falling asleep. We don’t have cable or satellite TV at home so it is a treat to spend the evening watching The Cartoon Network.

We awoke to this lovely view from our hotel room window which only became visible after I wiped off the thick condensation and ice from the window. It was bitterly cold at -28 degrees Celsius but looked beautiful from inside.

Breakfast was a faster meal than dinner had been and, for Owen particularly, a much better meal. He loved the pancake making machine and hot drink station.

There was a cereal station.

A sitting area with TV and fireplace was inviting.

Other drinks, a toaster and breads and hot items were set up on the other side of the room.

Here’s Owen’s breakfast. There’s hot chocolate in the coffee cup. I loved the printing on the cup. Must. Have. Coffee.

After breakfast Owen wanted to try out the exercise equipment. We were in no rush because we didn’t have to be at the dog sledding until 1:30.

We decided to take a drive a see a bit of Huntsville. There was much more snow in Huntsville than there had been in Brampton when we left.

Huntsville hosted the G8 Summit in 2010. However, the G8 has become the G7 again, since Russia annexed Crimea and was suspended from the G8. I was amused to see the Russian flag had been removed from the flag display at this small park (note the empty flag pole second from the left).

We ate lunch at the McDonald’s in Walmart. The boys were quite happy, but since they didn’t have salads, I settled for the new CBO (Chicken Bacon Onion) sandwich. The sign advertised an artisan bun, however, it was just the typical processed McDonald’s bun with some dried onions on top.

The GPS told me it would take 15 minutes to drive to North Ridge Ranch dog sledding tours. I learned that in remote places all the address are not necessarily in the GPS. It accepted the street number of 1823, but when we got to 800 it told me we were there. The numbers are quite far apart and the road was packed snow on gravel with hills and twists and turns. It was almost another 15 minutes by the time we arrived.

I dislike being late and was a bit stressed when we arrived about ten minutes past the start time of 1:30. North Ridge Ranch is owned by Brad and Leah. They run two half day tours (approximately 3 hours) on weekdays and one hour tours on weekends. Eight dogs are hitched to each sled. Adult customers are permitted to drive the sled with children sitting. We had the choice of a 9:30 start of a 1:30 start. We chose 1:30 so we could have a leisurely morning. By 1:30 it had warmed up to about -13 degrees Celsius.

As we arrived, the morning group was just returning. Apparently, there had been several mishaps – the customers became increasingly nervous and unable to handle the sled after several falls and a dragging incident – and Brad had to spend a great deal of time re-arranging the dogs so he could drive his sled and the sled of one of the customers at the same time. Unfortunately, this meant he was just returning as we arrived. He then had to un-harness all of the dogs from the morning run and re-harness fresh dogs for the afternoon run. He had no one to assist him (we saw Leah with a small baby in the house when we used the bathroom) and by the time he had switched the dogs and instructed us it was 3pm. There was one other customer who was there with her three year old son, Marshall. Trystan played with Marshall, I chatted with his mom and Owen alternated playing in the snow, petting the dogs and complaining. I learned that Marshall and his mom (who’s name I never learned) had been camping in Algonquin Park on the weekend. Overnight on Saturday the temperature dipped to -36 degrees. I cannot imagine camping in such conditions.

The dogs were kept in a fenced, wooded area dotted with dog houses.

Here’s Trystan ready to go.

We were set up with Brad in the front, with Trystan as a passenger, followed by Owen and me, followed by Marshall and his mom. Driving a dog sled in like driving a car with the accelerator stuck using the brake as the only method of control. The brake is a c-shaped piece of metal attached by bungee cords that you stand on. The ends drag in the snow and slows or stops the dogs depending on how hard you stand on it. After the instruction, just as we set off, my dogs turned 180 degrees and started off in the wrong direction. I stomped on the brake to stop the dogs. Brad had to anchor his team and come back to sort things out. He was impatient and short-tempered with me while trying to get the dogs turned around. I understand that he had a long, frustrating morning and had just spent an hour getting set up for the afternoon, however, I, the customer who had paid $500 for an afternoon of dog sledding had been very patient with the delay, and I was shocked to be addressed so rudely. At that point I was having grave misgivings.

Brad got my team turned around and we were off. I was nervous that I might tip over or fall off, especially on hills, for the first little while, but I soon started getting a feel for the activity and worries, and annoyance at the delay and poor communication, soon gave way to a feeling of freedom and joy. The dogs absolutely loved what they were doing. When I would brake to slow them down, they would yip and bark until they could start running again as fast as they could. Owen also soon became comfortable with the speed and enjoyed the trip.

It was bitterly cold. My feet were uncomfortable from the cold at times. Owen, who was wrapped in a blanket, was colder than I due to his inactivity. Had we started on time, I don’t think the cold would have been as much of an issue. We sledded for over an hour, travelling about 20km before stopping for a rest, granola bars and hot chocolate and a visit with the dogs.

These two dogs ran side by side in my team and were absolutely lovely. Owen enjoyed playing with them during the rest.

I asked Brad during the break how the dogs stay fit when there is no snow. He told me they don’t do much during the summer, but in the fall he trains them by harnessing them to his ATV to run.

Here I am, with my team, just before setting off on the return trip.

On the return trip, Brad taught Trystan how to drive the sled. Trystan is 13 and I knew when I booked the trip, that although I had to pay the adult price for him, he was not guaranteed the opportunity to drive. They began with both of them standing on the rails and then, once Trystan felt competent and Brad got a feel for his ability, Brad retired to the front of the sled to be a passenger. Trystan said Brad was a good teacher and patient with him.

It was almost 5:30 by the time we arrived back at the car. We said a quick goodbye and headed off. Dog sledding was a delightful adventure which I would definitely do again. I would probably look into using a different company next time, however, having said that, once we got going it was an excellent experience. After my return I read the North Ridge Ranch reviews on Tripadvisor. There were 32 reviews, 26 of which were excellent. The others mentioned delays, Brad’s temper and poor instruction. I definitely experienced the first two. If I had a less easy-going temperament my experience would probably have been ruined before it began. I would definitely recommend dog sledding, however, I could only recommend North Ridge Ranch with reservations.

We returned to the hotel and jumped into bed for half an hour to warm up and enjoy some more of The Cartoon Network. Then we went out to dinner at On The Docks Pub. It was a small place in Huntsville, backing on the water. The food was excellent and the service was prompt and friendly.

The boys wanted to swim after dinner but I didn’t really feel completely warmed up from our afternoon outside so we retired to the room to continue watching The Cartoon Network.

All in all it was an extremely enjoyable day.

See our second day here.

Winter Getaway – February 1-3, 2015 – Part 2

I just haven’t been feeling like blogging lately, but I do want to keep it up for the very reasons I started blogging last summer: I am hoping that by reviewing my day and writing about it, the details will stick in my mind better. Failing that, I’ll be able to refer back to the blog!

It does take a while to write the blog, process the pictures and put it all together. On longer posts I have probably spent almost two hours. That’s part of the reason I haven’t been posting lately. The other reason is that it seems like not much of note has been happening, although there are several things I could have written abou.t including our window and door replacement and visiting Fanshawe College with Megan. I do like the format of writing a blog with lots of images. Unfortunately, my camera battery died after two images during Fanshawe’s Open House. However, those posts are for another day.

My previous post was about dog sledding. Today I will tell you about the rest of the weekend which we spent at Arrowhead Provincial Park.

We had breakfast at the hotel again. Owen loved the breakfast buffet with the pancake making machine and wanted to stay forever. After breakfast we headed to the exercise room so Owen and Trystan could play on the machines again and up to the room to pack and watch a little more Teletoon before heading out to Arrowhead where the skating trail opened at 11am.

It should have been a short drive. I hadn’t put the address in the GPS, but assumed we could just follow the highway signs. The park road is very close to the highway exit, but I missed it. We drove for a while and ended up back in the north end of Huntsville. I turned around and we re-traced our route. I couldn’t believe it when I spotted the sign and saw how near it was to the highway. Note to self: put all the addresses in the GPS before leaving home. I don’t have data on my phone or iPad and my TomTom GPS didn’t have Arrowhead Park in it. I should have known better. The same thing happened to me years ago when Patti and I were driving from Ottawa to Gatineau Park. That time we ended up at Les Promenades Gatineau, the shopping mall, rather than the Park. It always surprises me when the TomTom can’t find major parks.

The park access road was beautiful and probably a kilometre or two long before arriving at the gatehouse.

The entry fee was $17 for the car. The skating and tubing was included. We started with the skating. Trystan and Owen are ready to go. They are standing on an ice covered road with their backs to the trail.

Arrowhead begins the process of building the ice trail by plowing the snow off of a circular road creating a windrow along the edges that can be used to contain water. A water truck is then repeatedly emptied as it drives along the road, building the ice up in layers until it is about four inches thick. Finally, a Zamboni is used to give the ice a smooth skating surface.

It was wonderful to be there on a Tuesday. As we arrived a school group was leaving. Once they had left we had to share the entire trail with perhaps a dozen other people. At times there was no one else in sight as we skated through the fairytale woods in the silence of falling snow, the only noise, our skates on the ice.

It has proven very popular, so much so that they have had to limit the opening hours to prevent too much damage to the ice in between times when they resurface the ice with the Zamboni. The trail is 1.5 kilometres long. It is so slightly uphill in one direction that you don’t even realize you have gone uphill until you race down the hill as you return. It was exhilarating for me, as a mediocre skater, to go so fast, so effortlessly.

We were dressed very warmly. It was another day with the temperature starting at minus 28 degrees Celsius, however, it did warm up to minus 7 as the day progressed. Trystan doesn’t feel the cold the way I do and soon shed his winter coat.

Here is a beautiful scene along the road between the skating and tubing. The are many nordic ski trails in the park as well as snow shoeing trails.

The skating trail and tubing hill are a fair distance apart so when we finished skating we drove over to the tubing hill which is adjacent to the gate house. It is also on a park road, but a steep one. The snow is machine groomed into two troughs – one for sliding down, one for climbing up. It was probably a couple hundred metres long. It took about 40 seconds to slide down. It took much longer, and was quite exhausting, climbing back up.

When we got to the tube hill, we found the school group. The hill is not supervised by park employees. All of the tubes (provided by the park, no private tubes were allowed) were in use. In the summer, we often go to Wild Water Kingdom. When all the tubes are in use, the process is for people without a tube to line up at the splash pool at the bottom of the slides and as someone comes down a lifeguard takes their tube and passes it to the first person in line. That person carries it back up, slides down, relinquishes the tube to the next person in line and then joins the end of the line. This way no one has to wait for too long. This is the way the school group was operating. We joined the end of the line. As we approached the front of the line two older couples (in their 60s) without children came up the hill with tubes, by-passed the line and prepared to descend. I called out to them that there was a line and they should pass the tubes to those at the front of the line and join the back. The line was only eight or ten people deep. The woman turned to me and said, “These are our tubes, we aren’t going to share with a bunch of children”. I was shocked at her selfishness. I explained how it should work but she became very agitated. So I told her to do as she saw fit. She and her group went down one more time and then when we encountered them again grumbled about how we had ruined their day and left. Good riddance. The school group happily shared with us and we took about five runs before getting too tired and hungry to keep climbing back up.

We drove back into Huntsville to Subway for lunch passing this fun display along the way.

After lunch we headed back to the park for a few more tube runs.

By 3pm we were exhausted and decided to head home. It started snowing heavily enough that traffic slowed to about 80kpm for the first hour.

We could have made it home in time for dinner, but the boys didn’t want the trip to end. We stopped in Barrie so I could have a quick look around MEC and fill up with gas. Then we stopped at the Vaughan service centre for the final meal of our winter getaway.

It was an awesome two days away. It felt like longer. We would like to do it again next year.

Creating a Design Wall

A design wall is very helpful for laying out quilting blocks comfortably and easily allowing the quilter to step back and evaluate the layout and quickly make adjustments. When a fabric like flannel is used the quilt blocks will cling to the wall without the need for pins. Using half inch insulation boards allows pins to be used if there is a breeze from an open window that might cause the blocks to fall off. The flannel works well and nothing has fallen off in the couple of weeks since I put some blocks on the wall.

For a couple years I have been “pinning” sewing room ideas on Pinterest. I read about lots of different ways of creating a design wall, but ended up deciding to go with one of the simplest I could find for attaching it to the wall, with some changes.

I started with the following:

– three 2×8 foot sheets of 1/2 inch blue foam insulation

– nine yards of white flannel

– spray adhesive

– duct tape

– 3M Command Strips

I bought the insulation panels a while ago and don’t recall exactly what they cost, but I think all of the items listed above cost less than $100.

I started by cutting the flannel large enough to cover the front of the insulation board and wrap around the back about three inches. Then I ironed the flannel well. The iron is the only iron I have ever owned. It belonged to my grandmother and is nice and heavy. I think it is over 50 years old. I doubt an iron purchased today would last that long.

I sprayed the adhesive on the first foot at the top of the board. Michael held the fabric up, while I positioned it and stuck it down. Once I was happy with the placement I sprayed the rest of the board and carefully smoothed the fabric down.

I then flipped the board over and duct taped the fabric to the back. Then I placed the 3M Command Strips which are marketed as “damage-free hanging solutions…with firm holding power and clean removal”. I was skeptical, but weighed my insulation panels and fabric and came well under the weight claim made by the product. I have yet to try to remove one, however, they have lived up to their claim for holding power so far. After a couple weeks they are still on the wall with just two medium size strips holding each panel of the design wall.

We followed the instructions and placed the panels on the wall, one a time, starting with the bottom one, just above the electrical outlet, so we didn’t have to cut around the outlet. Once the first one was levelled it was easy to proceed with the next.

Here they are with all three on the wall for an 8×6 foot design wall.

The low shelf next to the cubbies is a diaper change table. I plan to cut off the legs, put an ironing board top on it and add castors, so it is easy to move away from the wall to access the design wall or over to the sewing machine when I am piecing.

I still have a number of things to do to get my sewing room exactly as I want it, however, the addition of the design wall has made me very happy.

Channelling my Inner Kindergarten Student

On Saturday January 24, the Brampton Quilters’ Guild, to which I have belonged for twelve years, ran a workshop on Journal Art Quilting taught by Sheree, in which we were shown has to use paint, muslin, fusible fabric and Tyvek to create fabric to use in journal quilts. In the afternoon, we made a small quilt.

I started out by painting Heat ‘n Bond Lite fusible webbing and the result was very shiny. It would make a pretty rubber boot. That is the one at bottom left. The sample at top left is also fusible webbing but a different brand that Sharee shared with me. It has a much less rubbery finish. Once the paint dried these were fused onto muslin. Sheree made a set of stencils using a hot glue gun prior to the class. Placing the stencil on the fabric and then painting over it leaves a white pattern. I start painting the piece at top right with a brush, but the fabric was absorbing too much paint. So I used spray paint on the rest of the piece and the piece at bottom right. On the latter I then used a brush to paint the plain fabric left by the stencil.

I learned that FedEx envelopes are made from Tykek and will melt when heat is applied. I painted one rainbow colours on both sides. At the same time I painted a piece of plain muslin (below right).

I then used a paint gun to manipulate the envelope. I don’t know what I will use it for, but I felt like I was channeling my inner Kindergarten student as I played.

In the afternoon I cut scraps and arranged then on a fusible background.

Then I added organza over the top and quilted with a random pattern.

Then I drew a picture on tissue paper of the road bike I purchased last year, pinned it on the back and free-motion stitched over it. I then removed the tissue paper, flipped over the quilt and added additional stitching from the front.

My sewing room is incomplete disarray right now, holding all of the dining room furniture other than the piano. We are finally getting our dining room ceiling repaired. I blogged about why it needs to be repaired last year. Once I can get back to my sewing machine I am going to free-motion stitch the year 2014 and the distance I travelled by bike last year, thus turning this little quilt into a journal quilt.

I got my curtain wire up on the back wall to hold some of my quilts and I also got my design wall done, which reminds me that I was planning to blog about that but forgot. I’ll try to get to it soon. You can see my fabric from the class on the design wall at the right. In the middle is the quilt that Owen is making from a Jelly Roll (fabric cut into 10 inch squares and sold as a set). He has stitched the bottom two rows into pairs and is quite enjoying the process. On the left are a few blocks I started ages ago and I hope that having them on the wall will inspire me to continue.

We decided to have new drywall installed rather than patch and re-spray. Here is the ceiling drywalled and taped.

Tomorrow and Friday, the contractor will sand, prime and paint the ceiling and the walls. We had hoped to just paint to top of the walls and blend it into the old paint, since we want to keep it the same colour, but the salesman at Benjamin Moore looked up when I purchased the paint – 13 years ago – and told me we we wouldn’t be able to blend it in. We will also have the en-suite bathroom ceiling painted at the same time. The previous owners started painting it for some unknown reason and stopped half way across. One half is flat paint, the other semi-gloss. We have never fixed it up ourselves, nor have we painted a ceiling, so I am having the contractor do that. We will paint the walls ourselves.

The rink is looking great and the users have been fairly responsible since my last blog post.

On Friday January 23, I decided to try to create a secondary rink for pleasure skating during hockey hours when the main rink is full. It has some ripples in it since it is on an incline, but it’s not too bad, so I opened it today, January 28.