Grayhaven Winery

On our way down to Williamsburg, Virginia, we took a side trip to visit Grayhaven Winery in Gum Spring, Virginia.  We bought a Groupon for a Winery Cellar Tour, Artisan Cheese Board, And Souvenir Wine Glasses For Two.

First let me say this place is in the middle of nowhere 😉 However, this isn't that strange for us to go to somewhere using the GPS and it taking us along the minor roads to a far away place!!  I will say we were relieved to discover that Grayhaven Winery did exist and what a lovely place it was, run by a very lovely couple.

As many of you know I don't drink alcohol, or at least very little alcohol, but wanted to treat dh  to a tour and as we were only 90 minutes from our destination, I knew I would have no trouble driving the rest of the way.  We got there just before 1 pm I think and we were joined by another couple shortly after who had also bought a Groupon for the same thing.  We got to taste a number of their wines; though I declined most of them, as it turns out I only liked the super sweet wine, that was called Jam Jar and their Port/Desert Wine.  I could have drunk those by the gallon............but remember I was driving!!

The owners of the winery were super friendly; I forgot their names, sorry!  The husband guided us through the wine tasting and the wife gave us a tour of the winery and explained how everything worked.  They are a small winery who make under 5,000 cases of wine per year.  They only sell through the winery, not in any retail stores and everyone is hands on in the growing, processing and distribution of their wines.  Making it a small boutique/indie type of winery.  After the tour we were treated to a cheese and cracker board that was just lovely.  Dh enjoyed his with a glass of wine.

Here are some photos from the day:

The selection of wines we tasted.

 The owner of the Winery, again sorry I forgot his name, but he is originally from South Africa.  

The lovely Jam Jar wine, which was infact the cheapest wine they sold!!! 

 A view from the patio where we sat and ate our cheese and crackers.

Another view from the patio. 

 Our yummy cheese and cracker plate, there was olives also, but neither of us like them.  See the napkin on top of dh's wine glass, the wasps were out in force as they had just harvested the grapes.

 The koi in the pond were huge.

Dh's favourite wine was the Rendezvous Cabernet Sauvignon 

" Flavors of black currant and tobacco flow smoothly over the palate in Grayhaven's Cabernet Sauvignon. While delightful on release, this medium bodied wine is supported by a healthy tannin structure, making it a great choice for home cellar aging. Serve Grayhaven Cabernet Sauvignon with zesty Italian dishes, veal with porcini cream sauce or prime rib with red wine demi-glaze. "

If you happen to be in the area, it is a worthwhile place to visit and you will be made very welcome; I know we were, and do have their cheese plate it was so, so good.

Saving Money with Groupon, Swagbucks, Coupons

I got the info below in an email.  I have bought a number of deals from Groupon as I find them good value and of interest.  For Christmas I got my dear friends snow shoeing lessons from Groupon.  We got a great deal for a trip to Johnston's Cranberry Marsh and I do believe, there is another deal for them for there.  So take a peek and maybe you might find something of interest for you in your area.  If you do sign up, could you do it under my referral link?  I would really appreciate it, please and thanks.

View this email in a browser | Unsubscribe Earn $20 in Groupon Bucks when you refer a friend* Dear Gillian, For a limited time, you can earn $20 in Groupon Bucks when you refer someone new to Groupon.* That's twice the normal reward! Your personal referral link: http://www.groupon.com/r/uu33522661 Post to Facebook Tweet this Tell your friends to click your personal referral link above to subscribe. If they buy their first Groupon deal by January 25, 2012, we'll reward you with $20 in Groupon Bucks.* Hurry—this offer is only good through January 25, 2012. Learn more here. Sincerely, Groupon Rewards www.groupon.com Need help? Have feedback? Feel free to Contact Us

For those of you who are into Swagbucks, I have found the easiest way to accumulate Swagbucks is if you have a laptop, have it on Swagbucks tv when you are sat down, reading, watching tv etc, and have it continually going.  My total is coming up nicely and you will see I am ready to cash in again for another $5 gift card.

Some of you were asking where I get coupons from.  Our local paper has flyers in them certain times of the year.

(photo credit)

I order coupons online, doesn't cost a cent and sometimes you can get really good ones.  At the moment on Websaver there is a coupon for $1.00 off two dozen eggs.  Save.ca is also a place where I order coupons from, and Go Coupons has a lot of Royale paper product coupons.   I use them when Shopper's has toilet paper on sale. 

By the way I ordered more coupons while looking up the sites!!  The cheese coupon I received as I purchased Silani's sliced cheese and there was no paper in between the slices so it was one big lump.  I called the company to tell them and they sent me a $5 money off coupon.  It doesn't hurt to call the 1-800 number on products that you use and like and ask them if they have any coupons they could send you.  Also if you do have a problem with a product call the company and tell them more often than not they will compensate you with either Free Product Coupons or money off coupons.

I also swear by a couple of sites that let you know about deals in Canada.  Smart Canucks and Mrs. January are my favourite and I subscribe to both.  Although I am not a fan of Facebook, you can find some good deals on there as well. 

I know some of these ideas are no applicable to everyone, calling companies is something everyone can do regardless of where they live.

A road trip to the cranberry marsh (lots of photos).......

Back in October I purchased a couple of Groupon deals to Johnston's Cranberry Marsh  We were supposed to go at the beginning of November when our family were here from Britain, but due to my step-father taking ill we never got.


As the weather was going to be nice we decided to go on Saturday.  We got there a little early so headed into Port Carling for lunch, which is around 15 minutes from the marsh. The "tour" was scheduled for 1pm and that was part of our deal.  There was only us and another couple and the tour very very informal because of that.  Will mention there are a lot of trails around the marshes that you can go by yourself unguided and there are plenty of information signs throughout those trails that will tell you about the area and cranberries.

The marsh was started back in 1952 and it took two years to set everything up and then another 5 years before the first crop was ready to harvest.  Cranberry bushes are evergreen and the leaves go red in the fall. This is a photo of the original marsh, they have three or four others, covering a total of 27 acres. However the property is 300 acres as it takes those extra acres to sustain the marshes.

Here is a close up of a bush, they are very close to the ground and spread along the ground rather than grow higher.

The best time to go is in October when they are harvesting the crop.  Bala the local town has a cranberry festival the weekend after Thanksgiving, so that would be a great time to visit as well.  I noticed that although that had finished the harvest there were still a lot of cranberries on the bushes.

There were signs all over the place telling you about the place and what they do.  Not sure if you will be able to read them though? This one tells you about the winery that they have.

This one explains about the harvesting, as they use rakes rather than beaters to harvest the berries, so not to damage the fruit.

They also had the original truck parked there that is a 1948 Ford.  It doesn't work but is a great reminder of the beginning of the marsh.

After the tour we went back into the store and did some wine tasting.  It's normally $3 a person and she didn't want to see our ID?  I wonder why!!!!  We got this free as part of our deal.  We also got a $20 gift certificate for the store.  We bought a couple bottles of wine, one a Cranberry Wine and one a Cranberry and Blueberry Wine to have with our Christmas Lunch.  These wines are available at the LCBO for folks in Canada. I love the art work on the bottles, so neat.

Part of our deal was a free bag of cranberries.  It was a huge bag, over 4lbs and would normally cost $12.75.  Not too sure what I am going to do with them yet.

I also picked up a bag of chocolate covered dried cranberries, they are so good, but flipping expensive at nearly $8 a small bag.

We really enjoyed ourselves and we travelled up Hwy 400 to get there and came back via Gravenhurst and down Hwy 11 to get home.  It is around an hour and a half north of Barrie, so took us nearly two hours to get there.

Its a place we are going to visit in the summer as there is so much to see and do in that area

***HAVING ISSUES WITH MY HEADER PHOTO***

Guess it had to happen at some point.........

After five days of rain it was a little cool today in the house, so we had the fire on before lunch:

We still don't have the heating on yet. Molly took advantage of the fire being on and lay down in front of it.

With it being cool and very windy I picked a number of tomatoes and peppers:

I plan on making some tomato sauce with them.

I have to travel back and forth to the city twice on Saturday, as dh was supposed to be getting work done on his work truck.  It is only a couple of months old and it is a big "L," lemon!!!!  It has to go back to the garage again, as a major electrical component in the truck needs to be replaced and of course they didn't have it in stock.  It caused all the windows to open on their own the other day....freaky or what!!!

Not sure if you are all familiar with WAGJAG it's a site where you can purchase items/services at discounts.  I took advantage of a coffee deal, but what a job I had trying to get it.  It turned out this lady had a web only business, and I was under the impression it was a cafe.  As she worked full time through the week, trying to get together for me to pick the coffee up was difficult, so this deal wasn't the best for me.  Have to say though I have had good luck with other deals. 

I purchased a couple of Groupon deals on Saturday as I have had good luck with that site as well.  I have only ever bought one deal off of Living Social and that was a magazine subscription.  Are you a fan of these discount deal sites?

Finally, in answer to your mushroom questions.  I knew it was okay to eat as I looked it up on the Internet and found a picture of the mushroom.  Also I figured it must be fine if the guy was picking them.  Also when we were growing up we used to eat field mushrooms, so are familiar with them. 

I would like to take a mushroom identification course though, as I am sure there are many more varieties that we could eat.

Very sad news just in; Betty from Coronation Street has died, I wonder how they are going to write her out of the series......