To Vegreville and Back

We love taking the back roads of Alberta, seeing sights and landscape and history that we wouldn't otherwise see. On Sunday we drove up to Vegreville (2.5 hours away) and back, taking slightly different routes for each direction.

We drove through

Ponoka

Hobbema

Wetaskawin

Gwynne

Camrose

Holden

Vegreville

Camrose (yes, a second time)

Ferintosh

Mirror

And these are just the towns we drove through, not by.

 

 

It was a lovely day, and we came home richer by photographs, memories and one second hand double stroller.

Ellis Bird Farm

Earlier this summer I visited the Ellis Bird Farm...on the occasion of a shower put on for E and I (thanks again, M!)
And I was so impressed that I visited again, just E and I...whereupon M fed us tea and scones (she waitresses there occasionally).
And was still so impressed that I went back a final time with my husband...the last day they were open for the season.

May I recommend visiting?

If you like birds....

They apparently have the largest gathering of mountain bluebirds in North America.
Purple martens and many other kinds of birds also abound. 

If you're aren't a birder (which I am not)...

there are still reasons to go. 

Like the delicious baking at the teahouse. In keeping with the natural fauna of the area, the teahouse serves an array of desserts featuring saskatoons, rhubarb, raspberries and strawberries. The buns used for sandwiches are baked fresh every morning and the tea is loose and served in personal tea pots with real china cups and saucers.

And the scenery. The Bird Farm is an oasis amidst fields of crops. Not that there's anything wrong with fields of wheat and canola and whatnot. But when you step onto the paths of the Bird Farm, you feel like you're entering another world. The Farm is a mixture of native trees and shrubs and general "bush" and carefully maintained gardens of shrubs, perennials and annuals. I found butterfly gardens, a xeriscaping garden, a "native-species" garden, and a water garden. And, of course, there are birdhouses tucked away everywhere.

The Ellis Bird Farm is free to visit, including the interpretive center, where you can see stuffed examples of various bird species, and watch live video feed from inside a swallow house or from the finch feeder. And the resident biologist and manager, Myrna Pearman, is more than happy to answer questions and get even the most skeptical visitor excited. It is closed for the season now, but will re-open on May Long Weekend of 2011 with another full season of tours, birdhouse-building events, birds and flowers and lots and lots of tea.

Finally, on an interesting note, the Ellis Bird Farm is integrally tied up with the MEGlobal/Dow Chemical plant across the road. An interesting juxtaposition of industry and conservation, to be sure...

Our Alberta

With one day off a week these days, we really treasure our Sundays as time together as a family. 

Yesterday we slept in, went out for breakfast, bought a couple of new clothes for E, and then went for a long drive in west central Alberta. 

We had a location where we needed to end up (the Danish Canadian National Museum at Dickson, where I did a bunch of my research and am still involved) but we didn't have a time limit. 

We had a backroads of Alberta mapbook, and we took secondary highways, machinery roads and gravel for most of the way (our poor car sadly needs a wash now...)

I love Alberta.
The old barns in various states of disrepair (or repair).

Memorials to towns and schools and communities no longer there.

Fields of richly coloured crops almost ready for harvest.

Hills and valleys, drumlins and eskers, creeks and rivers, lakes and swamps and dug-outs.

Places that still reveal traces of the settlers' European heritage.

Places that remain relatively untouched, containing native plant species that are becoming more and more rare.

We live in a beautiful province, made especially beautiful by the season of full bounty awaiting harvest. 

It was a refreshing break from our little plot of mud and clutter and hard work.

A Working Museum

Carstairs Custom Woolen Mill

The carding, batting and spinning machines from an upstairs look-out.

 E and I visited the Custom Woolen Mill near Carstairs.

The Museum calls itself a "working museum" -- and that is exactly what it is. As a side note, Dan, I think you would love this place.

Making yarn

The Mill receives wool from all over Alberta, washes it, cards it, and makes it into woolen batts or yarn. They also sew wool duvets with a one-of-a-kind long-armed sewing machine unit and knit socks on giant machines.

 The machines are largely all built in the 1800s and the whole operation has the feel of a Victorian era Industrial Revolution textiles operation.

The carding and batt-making machine up close.

The Mill has a millwright and a metal lathe on hand to fix or rebuild gears and sprockets to fix the machines.

The carding/batting machine up close.

The business is so busy they have two years' supply of unprocessed wool waiting in storage sheds.

The sprocket system the quilt design runs on.

The head of the sewing machine.

In addition to making socks, quilts, yarn, felt and batting, they also make wool insulation, which, I'm told, is used often for insulating log cabins.

Quilting a quilt.

It was free to tour; the staff were knowledgeable, friendly and wanted to share about their work; it was a very cool place to visit. Now, if only I could finish my quilt so I could take it here to be bound with warm and long-lasting Alberta wool batting!