Last weekend I took a road trip home to my home town, Forest.  It was my nephew’s birthday and where there’s cake, I will go!  I visited a few of my favourite haunts.  The Forest Florist is a home decor mecca, and just behind it is a fabulous antiques shop whose front porch is a constant carousel of furniture steeped in history.  A few years back I bought a charming little dresser there and brought it proudly back to my flat in Toronto.  I adorned it with green glass knobs that cost more than the dresser!  Here’s a shot of my favourite antiques shop front porch:

While home at Christmas I had a chance to go back to the exact place I grew up, our old farm.  It’s been 20-some years since our family moved off the farm on Lakeshore Road, but it will always be home to us.  There’s not much left on our old property now, not even our coveted lilac bushes – the tell-tale sign across Ontario that a farm-house once stood here (don’t tell anyone but we have been picking bouquets there every spring since…).  Much to my surprise, there is a new tenant.  It is tall, and creates quite a stir…

The Old Henderson Farm

You can see this giant wind turbine for miles around.  I’m not sure yet how I feel about this new tenant but I imagine if you told my Dad that we’d be harvesting wind on our farm he would laugh.  On my way back home last weekend, I took a further stroll down memory lane and passed through the little village of Kerwood, not far from my sister’s place.  The year I graduated from elementary school my sister and I quite crazily decided to grow a half-acre of cucumbers for Bick’s, and each day that summer we took 10 bags of gherkins-to-be to Kerwood for processing.  Our parents still call this adventure in back-breaking labour a “character-building experience.”  I still can’t believe I love pickles to this day!  This shot of an abandoned farm house was taken as I passed through town. 

Sorry about the stroll down amnesia lane dear reader…there’s something about Sundays that makes me nostalgic.  And, as always, I miss home.