Recently we’ve been on a bit of a landscaping spree at the farm. We wake up at 530am or so, have a quick coffee and breakfast and then head out to do yard work before the smoking hot sun gets too hot to handle.

One of the best parts about waking up so early is to welcome the day properly. Seeing the sky transform from a dark hue, to a misty white, to bright pinks, oranges, and reds.

It’s one of the hidden joys of waking up so early – and definitely worth it!

Ok, we’ve been pretty absent from the blog recently…and not that it’s much of an excuse, but we’ve been busting our chops on our business, and getting the farm in order, while also trying to manage keeping up with life in the city. As you can imagine, that leaves little time for blogging…but that’s beginning to sound kind of like an excuse isn’t it.

So, to make it up, I’ll be updating over the next little while on what we’ve been up to – everything from a trip to Vegas, to major farm work, to running a business!

It’s been loads of fun, but of course, as with all things in life, trying to keep some balance in it all can be tricky. So, to try and get back to a more balanced life, we’re making Cashmere Clutch more of a priority.

Stay tuned for cool updates on what we’ve been up to!

xo
Ingrid

When we’re not up at the farm, we’re normally travelling, or visiting friends at nearby cottages.

One of my friends has a cottage in the Thousand Islands that is just to die for! And when I say cottage, I really mean private island. You can see the sunrise, sunset, and everything in between. It’s surrounded by water, and there’s always people stopping by on boats to say hi.

The view:

On the boat:

Our fabulous host taking us back to the dock:

It’s the perfect cottage getaway!

P.S. Going to the cottage in Ontario is like a birthright. What’s the “done” thing in your area? Trips to Europe, camping in the backyard, or endless late summer barbecues?

I’m a reality tv buff – which is kind of funny considering:

- I don’t have a tv
- I really don’t enjoy/don’t have any drama and gossip in my life
- my life is pretty “real”

But after a long day of working, exercising, and doing daily errands, there’s just something wonderful about zoning out and watching silly tv.

When it’s time to watch tv I usually hunker down in my bed, turn on my laptop, put in my earphones and watch away getting totally involved in what’s going on with the characters – and in the case of particularly cringe-worthy shows reeling with pain when I see some of the more ridiculous stunts.

My current faves are:

- Tori & Dean
- Bethenny Ever After
- Real Housewives of Orange County (RHOC)

My husband thinks it’s horrendous that I watch such silliness – it’s not adding anything to my life, and these women (particularly on RHOC) are sooooo poorly behaved amongst each other, have terrible manners/attitudes toward the general public, aren’t very smart and well, they are such jealous bitches of each other!

But, for me I just I enjoy. And, since I really don’t have any people in my life and circle of friends that aren’t lovely, smart, loyal, honest and motivated in their own right…I guess I don’t have to worry that my life will ever be like RHOC!

A SLURPEE!

There’s nothing that reminds Canadian youth of hot summer days more than a big slurpee form the local convenience store.

My favourite flavour was always a mix of orange and cream soda, sometimes with a dash of Coke.

What was yours?

Living in Niagara on the Lake is great. The air is clean, there are trees all around, we have so much space, and there are great local restaurants nearby.

But when it comes to fine dining the options are limited. You can go to Peller Estates, again and again…or maybe their sister winery Hillebrand….but other than that there isn’t much.

So when we heard this recent announcement that Jamie Kennedy was opening a new restaurant in Niagara Falls it really made our day!

Then we realized that Massimo Capra already has one in the Falls, and after squeeling with joy for a few minutes we realized our dining outlook for the area just got that much brighter!

Massimo’s restaurant, called the Rainbow Room by Massimo Capra is in the Crown Plaza on the 10th floor. The menu looks divine!

From the dinner menu I’m dying to try the:
Warm Peaches and Cheese
Roasted Garlic Artichokes
Maple Glazed Porkchop.

I’m dying to make a reservation and test this place out – a full restaurant review is coming up soon!

This Spring has been pretty crazy – just when you think the weather is about to turn warm and lovely we get another spell of 10C weather with snow and storm warnings.

This, of course, makes spending time outdoors, planting pretty flowers and other “nice” gardening things a tad too uncomfortable. Imagine trying to plant summer flowers with wind whipping through your hair, rain pelting your face, and your whole body freezing? No thanks.

So, instead of actually planting anything I’ve become obsessed with cleaning up the garden. Much to my horror the gardens are filled with snails! As soon as I saw a few I started noticing more, and more, and more, and now I see tens and hundreds of them everytime I look! It’s making me crazy.

And I can’t stop thinking about it!

I’ll come home late at night from a party, only to put on some grubby clothes, and try and catch snails! I’ve tried beer traps (didn’t work), digging them up, and I’m almost ready to move on to chemicals.

Crazy I know.

Recently I decided to do a fun little thing for my over-worked husband who has a taste for everything fancy.

So, I went to the specailty Italian shop, and bought 50 grams of each of their prosciutto’s.

When he woke up after sleeping like a bear he was pleasantly surprised by a “Prosciutto Tate Testing” I’d set up for him for breakfast.

He tasted each piece, and then had to rate them based on his preference.

It was quite fun – and a cool way to make brunch at home that much more exciting!

Here’s a recap of the results:

Pick #1: La Torre Prosciutto di Parma ( $34.90/kg)
Pick #2: Ruiliano Prosciutto di Parma ($49.90/kg)
Pick #3: San Danielle Silver Prosciutto ($26.90/kg)
Pick #4: Niagara Prosciutto ($44.90/kg)

Unfortunately the Niagara one come in last – which is a shame because I love to support local farmers/businesses.

Other than that – It just goes to show that the most expensive is not always the best!

Here’s a slice of our citified country life:

The first snowfall:

The barn:

Stay Tuned: More to come on how our country life unfolds.

This morning after picking up my Starbucks coffee, I felt hungry. Since Starbucks has such terrible tasting food I decided to walk across the street to a small grocery store to pick up a small yogurt.

One yogurt – that was all.

I walked into the store…and saw some nice looking organic blueberries, so I picked those up. And then I saw some Tangerines, which would sweeten up my plain yogurt wonderfully! Then some bananas caught my eye, followed by some almonds, sunflower seeds, and nectarines.

I had to put all my goodies down, go back to the entry of the store, and get a cart because I couldn’t carry all the things in my arms!

When I headed over to the dairy aisle I picked up my plain yogurt, but there were flavoured kinds on sale too – so naturally I picked up a mango flavour, berry flavour, peach flavour. I also bought some cottage cheese because it has loads of protein and is healthy too!

Almost ready to hit the checkout some muffins caught my eye, so I added them to my bursting cart.

Finally I was satisfied that I had enough food for my breakfast.

After I left the store I thought about what I intended to buy:

- one small yogurt

Vs. What I actually bought:

-bluberries
-bananas
-nectarines
-tangerines
-sunflower seeds
-almonds
-4 big containers of yogurt (literally, 2 Litres of yogurt!)
-cottage cheese
-muffins

I intended to spend $2.00

I really spent $29.67

It’s true, you really shouldn’t go to the grocery store when hungry!