Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is one of those lovely, relaxed holidays that revolves around family, friends, and food - and we've been having a good dose of each of those.   


I added some autumn decorations to help us all get in the Thanksgiving mood.  You've got to love decorations you can eat - aren't these the most interesting squash.

We've also been enjoying the incredibly warm weather,

and the gorgeous fall colours.  We went for hikes on both Saturday and Sunday.

We also enjoyed our turkey dinner!  I love that it is the same meal - the exact same menu - every year.   You know that the turkey with gravy is going to be amazing, the mashed potatoes yummy, the dressing will be fantastic - love the dressing - all followed by pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  The best!

There is so much to be grateful for.  This year we are especially thankful that my father (you can see him at the end of the table) is recovering so well from his recent surgery.  

We missed having Kate home for the weekend as she is at university in Halifax and William flew down for the weekend to visit her.  Yep, we missed them both!  We are, however, grateful that Kate is enjoying her program, has met some good friends, and did well on her first paper.  William misses Kate a lot so they are having some good sibling time this weekend.

This year we had a couple of guests join us for Thanksgiving dinner.  Christie, our daughter-in-laws' sister came home with her for the weekend.  We've enjoyed getting to know her more and she was a huge help in the kitchen with the vegetable chopping and pumpkin pie making and drying the dishes - thanks Valerie!  

We also had a new friend from India join us (you can see him sitting at the left side of the table in the photo above).  I know it is going to sound strange, but I met him on the airplane coming back from India.   Trust me, I don't usually start talking to strangers and then invite them home to dinner, but this guy seemed like our kind of fellow.   He is on a four month work contract here in Toronto.  It is his first time in Canada and he is keen to see as much as he can of the rocks and trees and wild-lands.  It was fun seeing a Canadian Thanksgiving through a visitor's eyes.  He seemed to particularly like the colourful fall leaves and the pumpkin pie.

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends.

Have You Ordered Yours Yet?

I love it when someone through talent and sheer perseverance makes good things happen and that's just what Matthew Mead has done with his Holiday magazines.  

Now I'm a firm believer in no-Christmas-before-Hallowe'en talk, but I'm making an exception in this case so you can order your copy of the new Holiday with Matthew Mead 2011 magazine.  I've had several issues of Matthew Mead's magazines in the past and loved them. 

• I love the recipes, crafts, and decorating ideas.
• I love, love, love the beautiful photography.
• I love the inspiration.

Check out this video clip to see what I mean. (I love that the video starts with the photo of the lovely, talented Linda MacDonald from Restyled Home - one of the first blogs I found and still one of my favourites.)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fs08ocTDFk

I'm looking forward to getting my copy in the mail - how about you?  Have you ordered yours yet?

Log Chutes and Family Links

One of the highlights of our weekend at the cottage was going to the Hawk Lake Log Chute.  We have been there several times, but this trip was the first time we went knowing the role my husband's family had in introducing log chutes to Canada.

Back in April, my husband was reunited with his brother and sister after 50 years (which you can read more about here) and, along with meeting his siblings, my husband learned about his ancestors.  It turns out that my husband is a great-great-great-great grandson of Philemon Wright, the man who founded Ottawa and Hull.  One of Philemon Wright's sons, Ruggles Wright (you've got to love a man named Ruggles), went to Norway in the 1820s and observed how they navigated logs over rapids and falls to get them down the river.  He then modified the idea of the log chute when he returned to Canada, to allow wider timber rafts over the falls.

At the Hawk Lake Log Chute we read the historic boards with new eyes and were pleased as punch that they mentioned the log chute my husband's ancestors built over the Chaudière Falls in Ottawa.  

The log chute here in Haliburton is the last one in Ontario, so we were mighty proud to be standing near something that my husband's ancestor had introduced to Canada that had been so important to the early timber trade.

In the 19th century logs were hewn into square timbers and then joined to make cribs, which were then attached together to make large rafts.   The lumbermen lived and worked on these rafts navigating them down the river to Quebec City and then by ship to Europe.  When they came to a rapids or falls, the rafts would be broken apart and sent down the log chutes in separate cribs.  The log chutes prevented the logs from being damaged while going over the falls.

Cookery on a timber raft on the Ottawa River, 1880

Apparently it was not only timber that went down the log chutes, however. A popular activity was to ride down the slides for a small fee.  When the Prince of Wales visited Ottawa in 1860, he rode down the Chaudière Falls log chute right after laying the cornerstone for the new Parliament Building of Canada.  

The Prince of Wales going down the log chute in 1860 from A History of Canada Online

"Slowly at first, but quickly gaining speed, the crib shoots down in a wild spray of water. Riders and spectators roar their excitement, rivaling the thundering of the crib as it sways and bounces in a flurry of flying water."  (Source)

The royal party going down the Chaudiere log chute in 1901

Now does that look like fun, or what?

Leaf Photos and Leaf Art

Although our weekend started off with a rainy heavy-traffic drive up north, followed by the realization when we awoke on Saturday that there were not that many coloured leaves on the trees this year, it still turned out to be a great weekend.   


I managed to find some gorgeous trees and take a bazillion photos.

I enjoyed the last of the flowers in my Mother's garden

 and picked a bouquet to take home to my parents when we left.

I love all the different coloured leaves, but have a soft spot in my heart for the ones that just can't decide what colour to be - cause you know what - if I was a leaf that's what I would look like.

Of course I had to carry on my leaf art tradition from last year (read this post to see what we made last year) and I made two new ones this year.  I had to be fast because it was windy, so they are by no means perfect.  


First I made an arrow,

and then the Bangladeshi flag.  If you aren't up on your flags of the world, then you can add this one to your repertoire as it is one of the easier ones to remember - a red sun on a green field.

All in all a lovely weekend filled with long walks, beautiful leaves - and log chutes which I'll tell you about in my next post.

Thanks Style at Home

I never thought I would see Sense and Simplicity on the website of one of my favourite design magazines, Style at Home, but that is just what has happened.  You can see why I'm so excited in the screen shot below (which, by the way, involved me downloading and learning how to use Snagit in order to get a screen shot of the whole page so I could show you the awesomeness). 


My appearance on the Style at Home website is thanks to a very sweet (and completely thrilling) invitation from Elaine Song, the web-editor, to join in a round-up of bloggers weighing in on which fall design trend they like the most.  Style at Home identified three fall trends - wood, new neutrals, and modern global - which I used as inspiration to decorate my sideboard and blogged about here.  I then revamped my sideboard using the same fall trends as inspiration and blogged some more about about it here.  By now you are probably tired of seeing my sideboard, but just one more time - okay?

The only other blog I recognized in the list is the lovely Bright, Bold, and Beautiful, which means there are ten new blogs for me to discover.  I'm working my way down the list and finding a whole bunch more must-reads.  Hop on over and have a look at the inspiration.


Thanks Style at Home!