Tag: christmas

Every once in a while Clint and I like to go for a road trip in the local area. We quite often go to “The County” which I have talked about at great lengths on other posts, or other parts of our area within an hour or two drive. This past Friday (yesterday) we decided to head to the town of Stirling as they were having a Festival of Trees at Farm Town and then we headed over to Campbellford, maybe a 20 minute drive from Stirling.

You may ask what’s Farmtown Park? It’s a few buildings located just outside the town of Stirling and it’s a way to learn the history of agriculture and rural life. The idea started in 1986 and the name Farmtown was added in 2012. The building where the Festival of Trees is held is quite something. When you go in, there are old fashioned shops and businesses going down either side with a wooden sidwalk to help you on your way. You can’t go into the shops/businesses but you can look through the windows and see all the old items. Down the middle of the building are all the trees, wreaths, plants and other items, each having a box beside them. You have to buy tickets and put a ticket in the box beside the item you are interested in and then on the last day they will draw a ticket out of each box and whoever they pick wins that particular item. We did put a few tickets in a couple of boxes, so fingers crossed! I’ll let you know if we win, if I don’t mention it, then we were losers !

We left there and headed to Campbellford to try a new to us brewery called Fogorig Brewery. It’s a really nice property with old stone buildings, pretty location. And they have a brewery dog and you know I love those guys! The owner of the brewery, and the dog, was very nice and Clint and I had a great chat with him. The beer was quite good and we bought a few, perhaps more than a few, to take home. They have an outdoor area where they have popup food trucks and entertainment but this is only in the summer. We’re going to try to get there for a summer Saturday. While we were chatting about beer and beer taxes, he gave us this card to read. It saddens me to think of small businesses, like craft breweries, suffering because of the greed of our governments, particularly the Provincial government. No wonder so many businesses struggle and/or close down.

When we left there we headed for lunch at the Dockside Bistro restaurant in Campbellford and then stopped at Empire cheese to buy some cheese and the chocolate factory for a look and perhaps a small purchase! The owner of the Dockside restaurant came over to our table for a chat, he was a lovely man and we enjoyed talking with him. Our server was also great and she made a pretty good Whisky Sour for me. The owner was telling us about their patio, open in the summer and that it is a dog friendly patio and they also have a dog menu! We don’t see that very often but we have seen it at a couple of other places.

All in all, it was a truly great day, except for the pouring rain all day haha. But it was warm, it was 12 Celsius so if not for the all day downpour, it would have been a beautiful day.

Stay safe and next up will be another installment of our trip to Algonquin last fall.