Been a few days again......

Last week went by in a flash, and I am not sure why.

I was actually out and about a bit which was unusual for me.

I did a bit of clothes shopping for myself.....which doesn't happen too often.  Managed to use a $50 off coupon when you spend $100 and a $20 off coupon when you spend $20.  So spent less than $80 and got five pairs of knickers/underwear, a thick pair of winter tights/pantyhose, a skirt and a top.  All good quality and will last me for ages.

Had a morning out with all five grandchildren at Jungle Land  I must say I am not familiar with these indoor playgrounds, but if I had young children I would be going with them on a regular basis, especially in Winter when it is bitter cold outside.  The older three used so much energy and even the two babies were kept busy.   There were a number of other children there and lets just say other peoples parenting skills left a lot to be desired.  It also shows which children have learned how to share and which children need to work on their sharing skills!!!

Went to knitting and have now finished one side of my poncho.  Need to get back into it and work on the other side.  Pleased with it so far.

Had a run out in the car on Saturday up into Muskoka.  Hadn't been up that way in a long while, it was the road we used to go back and forward on to take our son back and forward to university, so brought back many memories.  It was bitter cold, but the sun was shining brightly.

For the next three days I am going to be painting our spare bedroom.  I have been "threatening" to do this now since the New Year, so finally going to do it.

I am getting back into doing Swagbucks again and have just cashed my points in for another $5 Amazon giftcard.  If you want to check it out and decide to join up, I would love it if you would use my referral link: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Appleby

I am going to be posting more on how I am earning/saving money shortly.

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***

This is so keeping me out of mischief, and look out for those turtles crossing the road!

I just can't get enough of it, I can check it at least half a dozen times a day and it still fascinates me.

What am I talking about.....that Sitemeter thingy I have at the bottom of the blog.

My number one favourite thing is the world map with all the dots on it. I want to thank everyone for visiting. I have visitors from Malta, Vietnam, New Zealand, Africa, Middle East, Poland, India, just to name a few places. I get so excited when there is another dot from a place I haven't seen before.

Then there is the "by referrals" section, and that is such an eye opener. For instance, someone did a google search on "Celine Dion Opening Act," and up pops my blog as an example.......who knew that??? Isn't Google marvelous, I did not know that would happen. Then some poor soul, popped in kidney bean lasagna in Google and up pops my blog for baked bean lasagna..........LOL They must have wondered what on earth had happened!!!!

This one was neat, someone put in "rona sunshade gazebo top" and up popped my blog, I hope my review was helpful? Maybe my blog is doing a public service of sorts?? And here is me thinking I am rambling on about nothing.

There are so many different statistics to look out it can keep you occupied for ages, well it does me.

We went for a ride out in the car today (Saturday) and here are a couple of photos, they were taken from the car:





Isn't that cute, having a warning sign for turtles crossing. I will say its a pretty busy road, and we all know that turtles don't exactly walk with a speed of knots now do they? So I am guessing there must be a pile of squished turtles on the road if they do decide to cross the road.