Month: September 2009

I‘m on a “Ottawa’s Hidden Treasures” tear these days! The photos from this post were actually taken a couple of weeks ago, but I’m just getting around to posting them now. No wonder we’re not getting any housework done — every time the sun shines, I feel the need to pack the boys up and celebrate with an excursion of some sort. Lucky for us, Ottawa never lets us down — there’s always something fun for a family to do.

We’ve been visiting Valley View Little Animal Farm since we moved to Barrhaven six years ago, but I suspect that a lot of people have overlooked this little gem. It’s right on the outskirts of Barrhaven, off Fallowfield Rd between Moodie and Eagleson. Admission is $6.50 per person, and kiddies two and under are free.

Valley View is the perfect place for the toddler to early school age set. There’s fun stuff to climb on at the front of the park, and a small barn with goats, chickens, rabbits and the usual petting zoo type creatures that you can feed by hand. My boys have always been fans of the dozens of metal yellow Tonka trucks strewn around near the entrance… when they were toddlers, I think we could’ve just paid our $6 to get in, play with the trucks for three hours and then leave again without actually looking at the rest of the farm!

Behind the small animals barn, there’s a path that meanders beside a duck pond on one side and some bigger animals in pens on the other side. This blue-eyed meanie scared the heck out of me when I got a bit too close — even though there was a fence in between us, I still jumped back hard enough to fall on my arse when he hissed angrily at my obnoxious camera in his face.

This donkey was a lot more placid. Beloved and I agreed, there is something in his soulful eyes and “pet me, please!” demeanor that highly resembles our Golden-Shepherd mix, Katie.

Other animals include peacocks and llamas, deer and ponies, pigs and some very unfriendly emus. They also have some gorgeous horses.

The animals are my favourite part, and the boys like them well enough, but what they really want to do is run wild over the half-acre or so of play structures strewn around the end of the park. They’ve added quite a few since the last time we visited. There’s a few of the traditional climber-and-slide combinations, but they have a whole bunch of custom structures in adventure-inspiring shapes like pirate ships, trucks and airplanes. There must be a dozen or more in various shapes and sizes and styles.

I really didn’t think we were going to be able to get Lucas out of this tractor-train combination. He would stand aside to let other kids have a turn at the wheel, but would not, under any circumstance, consider actually leaving the vehicle for the best part of 20 minutes. (Is it me or do the terrible twos start earlier with each kid?)

You know how just about every city playground has the same basic look and feel, with largely the same sorts of stuff? The thing I like best about Valley View, in addition to the animals and the small, friendly feel to the place, is the fact that they have such unique things for the kids to explore, from the hand-built play structures and the sea of Tonka trucks to this really neat see-saw built from old wagon wheels.

New this year, they’ve also opened up a whole new section with a farm machinery museum. It’s 365 heaven back there! I can’t remember what this does, but I love looking at it!

And what is it about milk jugs that make them so interesting? Or is that just me?

Something about this row of tobacco tins gave the farm museum barns a feel of authenticity. This is one of my favourite shots of the day, for some reason I don’t quite understand.

Of course, no trip to the farm is complete without inspecting the old tractor beside the equally weathered barn!

Oh wait, you mean we’re not here to indulge in my endless quest for photo opportunties? This is about the kids, you say? Well then, no trip to Valley View is complete without a ride on the tractor train around the corn fields, sunflower valley and the pumpkin patch!

I’d forgotten how much I love Valley View in the year or two since we’ve been, and it’s practially around the corner from us. We tend to go to the Experimental Farm when we need our farm fix, simply because we have the annual membership, but there’s a sweet quaintness to Valley View that makes it unique and worth the trip to the far southwest corner of town. This is a great place for a sunny autumn day family adventure – definitely one of Ottawa’s best kept secrets!

For more than 15 years, I lived in Ottawa completely oblivious to Britannia Beach. I’d visited Mooney’s Bay, Lac Phillip, Meech Lake and scores of others, but none came close to the Lake Huron beaches of my childhood growing up in London. Then one happy summer, we discovered Britannia Beach, and it’s just not summer without at least a few easy trips out to enjoy its wide sandy beach and surprisingly clean water.

For all the times we’d visited Britannia Beach during the day, though, it never occured to me until this summer that it would make a spectacular spot to watch the sun set. It’s free, it’s close, and it’s a perfect end to a pretty summer day.

Saturday night we checked it out ourselves. The evening was so perfectly clear, there was nothing to inhibit our view as the sun slowly dipped toward the horizon directly across the river from us.

Boys being boys, they didn’t have quite the attention span for the setting sun that I did. Lucas led the chase after some feathered friends.

The big boys were more interested in climbing the boulders on the breakwater.

There were huge boulders and gravel, but not a lot of skipping-sized stones. That didn’t stop the boys from enjoying the timeless pastime of throwing rocks into the water, though.

(I love how his feet are clear off the ground!)

I don’t think we could have chosen a more perfect night to watch the sun set. There were a few other families out there, but not nearly so many as you might expect, had you known that you’d get to watch this.

It didn’t take long for the sun to disappear almost entirely, leaving one last kiss of sunshine on the horizon.

(Tip: to make sure your camera registers the tones and saturated colours of a gorgeous sunset or sunrise, meter for the sky just to the right or left of the sun.)

After considerable debate, I chose this one as the picture of the day.

This is one little adventure we’ll be adding to our regular repetoire of local favourites. Matter of fact, I can see making a full-day adventure out of a hike around Mud Lake, a picnic dinner, and then sunset on the beach. Who needs a cottage or camping, anyway, when you can have all this and still sleep in your own comfy bed?

I don’t know how the weather was in your neck of the woods this Labour Day weekend, but here in Ottawa we got the sun and mild temperatures that July forgot. This means that the mile-long to-do list was promptly abandoned in favour of some end-of-summer outdoor family fun. So much fun, in fact, that I’ll need two posts to cram in all the photos!

First, let me tell you about one of Ottawa’s true hidden treasures: Mud Lake. Never heard of it, right? Me neither! I came across it in looking at someone’s list of great locations for photography in Ottawa, and had wanted to check it out all summer. Yesterday morning was clear and the weather was perfect, so we recruited UberGeek and a few of his boys to join us as we went off in search of nature and a bit of exercise.

Mud Lake is here, just a smidge to the east of the Britannia Yacht Club. According to the NCC:

A patch of wilderness in the middle of an urban setting, Mud Lake is an amazing area of forest and wetlands. Located in Ottawa’s west end, Mud Lake is home to hundreds of species of wildlife, with raccoons, frogs, turtles and foxes, to name but a few. This ecologically significant urban natural landscape is also prime birding territory, with thousands of birdwatchers coming each year to observe hundreds of different species. A walk through this easy-to-access urban jungle provides an exciting escape from city life.

We parked on Cassels Street, just down from the Britannia Filtration Plant, and we could see the entrance to the trail from the street. We briefly debated bringing the stroller, knowing neither the quality of the trail nor the length of the hike, but decided against it in the end. If you’ve got a durable stroller with big wheels, you could easily bring it through — or you could, as we did, spend the entire hike caught between the leaping, running, adventuresome five-to-eight year old boys and the toddling, curious, must-stop-to-inspect-this-dirt-even-though-I-just-inspected-that-dirt-two-steps-back-and-oh-look-here’s-a-rock-and-I-must-inspect-this-pinecone-too-and-hey-did-you-see-there’s-some-more-dirt-over-here-and-oh-a-stick-and-no-I-will-NOT-hurry-up-and-you-may-absolutely-NOT-carry-me-thank-you-very-much-oh-look-here’s-some-very-interesting-dirt-I-wonder-what-it-tastes-like 19-month old.

The very first thing we saw as we set out was a turtle sunning himself on a log in the middle of the lake. It was also the first instance of boy getting too close to the water and getting a soaker. Not too far down the trail, we came across this little dock, perfect for inspecting the frogs and fishes below, not to mention giving mothers great photo opportunities.

This is what they were looking at:

It was just about a perfect morning for a hike. It was clear and mild, the day just starting to warm up. For the most part, the trail is clear and obvious, although there are lots of little sub-trails here and there. There were very few mosquitos out, for which I was extremely grateful. I think this guy (girl?) might have been helping out on that front.

(While we were stopped to admire this giant web — easily three or four feet across! — the chickadees started circling. Note to self, bring seed to feed the chickadees next time! I’m not much of a birder, but we came across quite a few people with binoculars, whom I’m sure were delighted with our whooping, crashing, running lot of boys!)

The trail wanders around the edges of Mud Lake, sometimes through the canopy and sometimes right up to the edge of the lake, with lots of opportunities for pretty vistas.

Hard to believe this is smack dab in the middle of the city, isn’t it? Can you spot the goose in the riot of colours and reflections here?

This is my favourite spot on the hike, an old wooden bridge across a tributary of the lake. You can see the hint of fall colours, and there were ducks swimming under the bridge. I stopped so long here to take pictures that the others wandered off without me!

There was only one point where it wasn’t completely obvious which trail to follow, and we ended up having to double back a little bit. The lake is shaped like an inverted V and I think we followed a trail that petered out right in the lee of the V, so to speak. We found our way back to the main trail, though, and finished the hike about 90 minutes after we started out, after circling the entire lake. For our crew, that might have been about 30 minutes longer than ideal, but it was still a wonderful morning out and a great way to celebrate the end of summer.

Stay tuned, and later this week I’ll show you another of Ottawa’s Hidden Treasures, almost right next door to Mud Lake!