• Sky Mountain Golf Course, Hurricane, UT

  • Maureen O’Shea at Torrey Pines

Southampton Beach.

The beach at Southampton

On Monday, two of Ruth’s friends from her nursing-school days in Guelph, Ontario arrived for a two-day visit. Marg and Barb arrived around noon and they were a lot of fun. We spent most of the afternoon outside until the rain came. And when it came, it poured for a couple of hours – and hard – hard enough to knock some leaves off the trees. We probably got half-an-inch, all tolled.

We had a nice dinner together, then spent the evening playing Scrabble, a game I love to play both with friends around the table, as well as playing online, against two of my friends as well as my daughter, Lisa. Barb brought her game as she is known to do whenever she travels, and why not, Scrabble is always a lot of fun and puts your grey matter to good use!

Downtown Southampton

Downtown Southampton, with great shops for ladies wear!

On Tuesday, I had an appointment to see Brenda at Sauble Hairwaves and, in no time at all, she had my hair just the way I like it! We had an interesting day, although it was exceptionally windy and cold, cold, cold. We were off to Southampton, about a half-hour drive from Sauble Beach, heading south. There, the four of us checked out three stores on one side of the street. Each of these stores offered a great selection of clothing, with designer brands like famous designer Joseph Ribkoff as well as Lissette L, both from Montreal. One store was called L & Co., the second was called Sisters on Huron– owned by 7 sisters, and a brand new store called Cottage Chic, which had men’s clothing and furniture in addition to the ladies wear – and seems to be the talk of the town! Southampton is a diamond in the rough when it comes to great fashion at reasonable prices!

Like Sauble Beach, Southampton is on Lake Huron, and on the mouth of the Saugeen River (just a stone’s throw from the Saugeen Golf Course I told you about yesterday!) We managed to keep our cameras still enough to take some pictures of the beach – but swimming was definitely out of the question!

Group photo at the restaurant

Maureen, Ruth, Barb and Marg at Lord Elgin’s Fish and Chips

We drove along the Great Lake from Southampton further south to Port Elgin, headed for the famous (at least to the locals) Lord Elgin’s Fish and Chips. True to the advertising, they had all-you-can-eat haddock, but we opted for the halibut instead, and all of us enjoyed our meal. Then, we stopped at the Farmer’s Market where I bought 5 pounds of fresh asparagus for $5.00! We came home and had a fantastic dinner of pork tenderloin with fresh vegetables and for dessert, I whipped together another rhubarb strawberry crumble. It turned out really well, so I’m going to share the recipe with you, below.

Rhubarb Strawberry Crumble

Rhubarb Strawberry Crumble with frozen yoghurt on top

Rhubarb Strawberry Crumble
1/2 cup melted butter         3 cups cubed rhubarb
1 1/2 cups rolled oats          1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup flour                         1 1/2 tbsp. flour
2/3 cup brown sugar           2 cups sliced strawberries
Combine butter, rolled oats, 1/2 cup flour and brown sugar. Put 2/3 of this mixture in an 8″x 8″ cake pan.  Cover with rhubarb and strawberries. Combine granulated sugar with 1 1/2 tbsp flour then sprinkle over top.  Spread remaining oat mixture on top of everything.  Bake 45 minutes at 350 F.  Serve with frozen vanilla yogurt or ice cream.

Marg and Barb left for home at the same time Ruth and I headed to Pinewoods Golf Club to join the ladies group for nine holes. I had a partner on the cart and, our group was a threesome. This time, I played with Deryn Preston and Carol Bohnert and we had a lot of fun. Deryn spends half the year in England and the other 6 months here at Sauble Beach. What a lady! She hit the ball pretty darn good and has a lot of class! After golf, she insisted I had given her so many tips, she was buying me a drink! She ordered a Coors Light for herself and a Palm Bay Lime and Cherry for me. My game was one stroke better than last week and I was low gross again! More bragging rights!

Read more

We woke up to bright sunshine and that made both of us happy! Thursday, it had been trying to rain at times and, grey and overcast, we ended up having just a few sprinkles. The sun came out for awhile around dinner time, so I was optimistic that we would have a sunny day for golf and a great day out.

Our tee time was 9:30 a.m. at the Sauble Golf and Country Club, a sixty-nine year old course teetering on the 6400 yard mark. When we arrived at the Pro Shop we were informed that they had a shotgun tournament starting at 1:00 p.m. We said that shouldn’t be a problem as we play fast.

The course had very nice, big greens with not a lot of undulation. The fairways were much the same, open and quite good and there was a varying degree of difficulty with the rough. In some places, the rough was really thick and other places, it was very thin! There were just a few gravel cart paths, most went from green to the next tee box. There were a couple of small lakes and several three-foot wide ditches with water going across the fairways, teasing you to hit your ball into them to add some drama to your round!

When we finished the par-5 seventh hole, we noticed what appeared several large rhubarb plants growing between the course and one of the neighbouring houses. Ruth said we must drive over see if if we can get some! Then we noticed the lady that lived there was outside, so we high tailed it over to her, and she was more than happy to cut some for us! We picked it up after finishing the ninth hole. I think that rhubarb apple crisp will be on our dessert menu tonight, perhaps with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

The course was pretty empty and we finished in three hours. We enjoyed the golf course and, although it was a bit windy, we had fun!

Two Chicks Cafe

Two of the young women working at the Two Chicks Cafe.

Our next stop was Two Chicks Cafe on 2nd Avenue North, just a block away from the beach — and us two chicks thought it would be a great idea to drop in to have lunch there.

We had the pleasure of being waited on by Georgia McLay and Maranda Murphy, and those two young women were gracious enough to pose for a picture for the blog!  Great service, Georgia and Maranda — keep up the great work!

Ruth had a tuna sandwich with fresh vegetables and I had the egg salad sandwich with chips.  Both were excellent choices.

The hockey stick chair

My chair at the Two Chicks Cafe was made out of hockey sticks. What a great idea for #recycling

The cafe is tiny with about six tables, but they also have outside seating. My chair was made of used hockey sticks and the base of the table was made from an old pedal sewing machine – such ingenious ways to recycle!

The Two Chicks Cafe has really good food and it’s run by great people. Stop by and enjoy the country music on radio — and I read on their website that they have a big lineup of live music on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights ALL SUMMER LONG. What a great idea.

And I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a great place. I found this on Twitter:


Oh, and one more thing about this great cafe: they’ve got free Wi-Fi that was pretty fast, so I was able to write my blog post for you!

Read more

Wednesday is Ladies Golf Day at the Pinewoods Golf Club in Sauble Beach, Ontario, a golf course close to where Ruth has her cottage.  When we called the clubhouse to ask if we could join the ladies, we were told to be there at 10:00 a.m. and we would be able to play.

So we did!

Turns out, there were enough women for two foursomes. So Ruth joined one foursome, and I joined the other.

One of the things that keep golfers coming back to play is that one nice shot that finds its way into your round, even when your round isn’t amounting to much. Not only does that one nice shot make up for all the horrible ones you may have on that particular day, it helps you to hold your head high, your shoulders straight back and put a little skip into your step.

Today, my shot of the day was an unlikely blind shot — that worked! It was on the ninth hole; I was 90 yards from the green, but in between me and the pin, was a HUGE cedar.  From where I needed to make my second shot, I couldn’t see the flag through the thickness of the tree, so I had to make the shot on instinct, and believe it (or not) it ended up being just over a foot away from the hole.  E-Z-P-Z par!

Pinewoods is a nice, nine hole course, about 2250 yards long.  I had never seen the course before, so I was not expecting to play great so I was quite surprised when I was low gross of the group! Ruth had a good game too and after our game, we decided to have lunch at the club.  The prices were jaw-dropping! Can you believe a Western sandwich (they don’t call them “Denver’s” here) cost only $5.10? Was it ever good!

LAMBlicious

LAMBlicious

On our way to lunch at the Palmers’ on Tuesday we saw a sign, LAMBLicious, on the highway.  Since both Ruth and I love to eat lamb, we stopped to get some lamb on on our way home.  They were out of lamb chops so we bought lamburgers instead (lamb + burgers)!

These burgers are made with oatmeal, celery seed, garlic, salt and pepper — and lamb, of course. We cooked them on the barbecue after we got home and added some Monterey Jack cheese, fresh tomatoes, mustard and some sliced cucumber for garnish and the burgers were “delicious” — just as advertised! A nice green salad on the side – and a little red wine – made for an awesome dinner.

We are going back for more tomorrow, determined to get there early and get our hands on some of their lamb chops!

We have been getting the cottage into ship shape and have only had a few setbacks so far.  We noticed the toilet wasn’t flushing like it should be, so we got the septic tank pumped out, but that didn’t solve the problem. Next, Ruth called Perry the Plumber and he came out right away and solved the problem. Like they say in plumbing, a straight flush beats a full house, and I don’t think we’ll need to worry about that — or a slowly flushing toilet — anymore!

 

Read more

Picture of Ruth petting the Doberman Pinscher

Julian, the Doberman Pinscher with Ruth

The BIG Doberman

I had never seen a Doberman Pinscher before up close until yesterday — and this one was the size of a small pony.  Before we’d arrived, this dog was, apparently, upstairs sleeping on the queen bed, when we arrived in time for lunch at the farmhouse that belonged to Nigel and Judy Palmer.

The dog’s name is Julian. He is fine with strangers — as long as its owners are at home.  Heaven forbid you enter the house if no one is home.  I rather think that the dog would take you out in no time!

Our hosts are long time friends of Ruth. They’ve known each other ever since Nigel went to the Veterinarian College in Guelph, Ontario with Ruth’s late husband, Otto. They live in the countryside, about 40 minutes away from Owen Sound, and their farm have animals other than just Julian. They keep horses — including two Belgians, 25 head of cattle, and every year they have a new batch of free-range chickens.

The Farmhouse

Picture of Nigel and Judy's farmhouse

Nigel and Judy’s farmhouse

The main part of the farmhouse was built long ago — with walls that are 2-feet thick. The Palmers, after buying the farm, later added an addition to the house, made with some of their very own own maple trees from off their property.  The workmanship of the woodwork was very impressive, with a vaulted ceiling some 20′ high, but somehow the architecture was soft and pleasing to the eye. Many log-style houses look garish to me, but not the Palmers’! Their farmhouse had a cosy feeling.

There was another couple asked to lunch, Clive and Carol Guy, who have another veterinarian connection. Clive and Otto co-wrote some of veterinarian textbooks when they were younger.

The Palmers and the Guys somehow got the dates mixed up for the luncheon and the Guys arrived on Monday instead of Tuesday!  That wasn’t a problem for the Palmers, and it was rather a good thing: after all, it gave them an extra 24 hours to reminisce!

The dining area table was set, with a wonderful combination of old and new dishes and cutlery.  The view from the windows of the rolling pastureland made for a beautiful setting, and although we were invited for lunch, this was dinner — big time. Coq au Vin, rice, cole slaw, beet pickles — and cheese bread from the local Metro Grocers (yum!).  As for desert, well this is rather funny — I’d been talking about rhubarb just the day before and thinking about making rhubarb and strawberry crisp. Lo and behold, for dessert we had rhubarb cream pie.  Luckily for me, Judy cut the pie into small pieces and there was enough for me to have seconds!

We heard many stories over lunch and each couple told of how they met their spouses.  Of course, the guys rendition was a little different than the gals!

Hopefully our paths will cross again.

Read more