It’s been a particularly wet spring. The last two months have felt like one unending rainfall with an occasional sunny break. I started wondering if that is what it feels like to live in Vancouver or Great Britain. The rain has caused lots of trouble but it’s been good for some things. Lush vegetation is one of them. And waterfalls, of course. So no wonder we spent our May microadventures chasing waterfalls around Hamilton.
Author: Oleksandra Budna
Backcountry camping at Frontenac
May long weekend is an important milestone here in Canada. Many consider it the unofficial start of summer and/or the opening of the camping season. It certainly was for us until we started camping year round and May 2-4 lost its special status. So we had to rethink its purpose and for the past two years May long weekend has become the opening of the backcountry season.
Happy trails and trillium tales at the Happy Valley Forest
Last Friday, I realized it’s been a while since our last microadventure. Climate March, rainy weather, our son moving back home for his summer break – and the next thing we know three weeks have gone by without a nature outing. Add to that extremely busy times at work – and I was starting to feel the lack of Vitamin N. As another weekend rolled in, I was looking forward to getting outside and hopefully catching a glimpse of trilliums. My search for the best trillium-viewing spot rendered a place called the Happy Valley Forest. Seemed like a perfect spot to get a boost of happiness.
On transformation and hope: Easter camping at Wheatley and Point Pelee
I am way behind on my writing. It’s been two weeks since our Easter camping trip and I am only just getting to it. But before I begin, I have a confession to make: I am not a very religious person, more of a questioning agnostic, but I love Easter. Its message of rebirth and transformation lifts my spirits and brings hope. And nowhere is this message more pertinent than in nature so that’s where we choose to spend our Easter holidays. This year I welcomed Easter morning watching the yellow Easter egg of the sun roll out of Lake Erie and right into my heart, sparkling a fire akin to religious devotion, a feeling I haven’t experienced in any of the churches except for Nature’s cathedral.
Spring into microadventures: Bruce Trail and waterfalls
Getting outside in any season comes with lots of rewards but spring offers a special kind of magic. In the spring, the forest looks like a giant colouring book and every day nature fills it in with more colours. Sure spring adventures can be a messy affair, quite literally. But if you focus too much on the mud under your feet, you risk missing the fascinating transformation happening around. And as we return to the woods every Saturday, I savour the colours splattered around where nothing but grey contours were seen the week before. All to the glorious bird song reverberating through the trees.
Our last winter trip of the season at Windy Lake
Spring is officially here. And even if the temperatures took a bit of a plunge this week, the signs of nature awakening are definitely in the air. Winter, however, didn’t go away without a fight staging a magnificent comeback last week, especially in south-western Ontario and from what I heard along the east coast. So we thought even if winter this year was slightly disappointing weather-wise in our part of the world, it still brought us some memorable moments, like a New Year’s trip to Gatineau or a surprisingly warm Family Day weekend at Killarney and therefore deserved a proper send-off. Windy Lake Provincial Park seemed like a good place for our last glamping trip of the winter. The park’s northern location carried a promise of snow. Plus we’d never camped there before.
Fun day at Mountsberg Conservation Area: raptors, sheep and maple syrup
Hard to believe it’s been four weeks since our last microadventure at Terra Cotta Conservation Area. Not that the break wasn’t fun. It included a glamping trip in Killarney and a day at the Outdoor Adventure Show, where we gathered information for our summer trips and bought a new tent (can’t wait to start using it). Plus there was our son’s birthday, which we spent bouldering at Boulderz (we had a blast and it only took three days to regain the use of my arms). So all in all the time was well spent.
The power of a story — or 150 of them
Stories have power. They help us understand the world and connect with each other. They inspire, delight, heal, and bring us together. They are as old as humans and present in every culture. A universal code, a common language. Immortalized into rock, etched onto paper, passed through generations like the most cherished treasures. Stories around campfires, at the kitchen table, over a cup of coffee. Filling up libraries and more recently the blogosphere.
Winter at its best: Our Family Day weekend in Killarney
Where do I even begin?! Glorious weather, mounds and mounds of pristine, sparkling snow, a cozy cabin in the woods — it was certainly a Family Day weekend to remember!
Winter adventures at Silver Creek and Terra Cotta
Those who have been following this blog are aware of my frustrations with the extremely un-wintery behaviour of this year’s winter, at least in my part of the world, and the extent to which we’d been going to find even a little bit of snow. So you can imagine my delight when we woke up to a major snowfall this past Sunday. We knew this winter spike might no last long so we dropped all our chores and headed outside. It was magical.
Gone Camping 