Ottawa/Quebec vacation

We are home and settled after our extended Harder family vacation to Quebec/Ottawa! It was a lot of fun! For those who may not be aware, the city of Ottawa is located directly on the border of Ontario and Quebec. The Quebec side of Ottawa (formarly called "Hull") is named Gatineau. So it's really two cities that have grown together. This unique perspective was really rewarding from a canadian point of view. To see the rich differences between two provinces, even so closely connected.

We stayed for one week, in a lodge that was technically in Quebec. The lodge (called "Labrador Lodge". Look it up, it's gorgeous!), is situated on one of hundreds of tiny lakes! Our lake was called "Lac du chip" and it was so beautiful and serene. A small enclosed lake with slight hilling all around, causing the lake to scarcely catch even a breeze.

As a result of the lack of wind, the water floor was mostly made up of fallen trees. It's hard to say whether the lake used to be a forest, or if it's simply that every time a tree falls into the water, it doesn't drift anywhere. It simply gets water-logged and sinks down, preserved indefinitely. It was really quite a sight to canoe over some of these tree graveyards in the lake. Such a different scenic experience from Manitoba!

As a green thumb, naturally I was instinctively interested to note some of the differences between Quebec's zone 5b climate and our zone 3b climate.  Well, the landscape did not disappoint! I mean, even the weeds were basically just wild flowers! :) The below photos are just taken from the sides of the gravel road to our cottage! I went for 2 or 3 walks to admire these weeds, however by the time I got around to taking photos of them, it had just rained! So you'll have to take into account that all the flowers are in their most closed-up state in these photos. In full sun, it was simply astounding, seeing God's gardens.

 

It's important to note, that this is Evening primrose... something VERY DIFFICULT to grow here! I started it in my milk jugs and it is growing in my front flower beds! :) Just another "weed" in Quebec! 

One of the most unique differences (and not really plant related) was all the cyclists! Cyclists everywhere! Because their summer starts at least a month earlier and ends at least a month later than ours, their winter is significantly shorter. In fact, when we were looking into parkades in downtown Ottawa, we noticed that a few of them were business parking from November through February, and then all public parking March through October. I can only imagine this is due to the general consensus that if it is nice outside, people ought to be cycling. The roads were a bit wider with designated painted bike lanes either on the side walks or on the streets (either way properly designated). But it wasn't just in town, even over the rolling hillsides of highways, we very frequently saw cyclists. It was neat to see that with a warmer climate came greener attitudes.

One of the neatest pieces of greenery we saw, was a display in a park called Mosaique Culture. Together, us kids decided to take mom and dad to see this display as part of their 40'th wedding anniversary gift! It was well worth the visit!  Mosaique Culture was a group of living sculptures. Metal frames with plants growing on them in various artistic designs. They were quite breathtaking in real life! Photo's don't do it justice, but never the less, I will put some snap shots in here for you to drool over!

The Amount of time and care taken to colors, and textures of plants was very respect-worthy. Though I must say, even during prime-time visiting hours, I saw at least 30 different gardeners working full time at watering, pruning, re-planting etc.. It took many many very intelligent and skilled hands to make this happen!

By some of the displays they had speakers playing music. By the First Nations display, they had some throat-singers music playing. I thought that was a nice unique hommage to the culture that they were representing.

These crazy animals, are also made out of plants! I dont know whether they grew out the grasses and let them die to achieve the brown color and texture, but whatever it is, it's genius! Here you can see two gardeners hard at work.

There is at least ONE thing I am growing that I can tell you about this week! I'm trying to just keep this post Ottawa related, for the sake of focus. But I can tell you about this one thing, because we brought it with us to Ottawa! We're growing a little avocado. Confused yet? I’ll give you a hint... it’s not growing in a pot of dirt! That’s why it came along with us. :)  If you still haven't figured it out, one last clue. Our little Avocado is due to arrive sometime around January 30'th 2019. If you figured it out, great! :)  We are excited to share our news, and you are welcome to talk openly about it to others, as our close family and nearby friends have all been made aware.  Please feel free to message or comment directly on the blog post, but please do not comment on the Facebook post link. That’ll ruin the surprise for others! :) Please allow them to discover our little secret for themselves. So, yes there has been a good reason for my sluggish postings lately. I'm tired! haha!

Anyways, That's all for this week! Next week I'll get back to regular garden posts! There is quite a bit to catch up on in that realm as well, including some serious bug invasions that are ruining my flowers and some veggies too :(  . But in order to not have too much all in one post, I'll leave it here for this week! :)

Until next week, keep your thumbs green! Keep them in the dirt, keep your eyes peeled to the beauty around you!