Spring is in the air

I love spring in Carp.

Flowers already blooming.

Kids laughing and playing.

The distant thunk-thunk of skateboarders. ;-)

The Sweet Potato re-opening with the promise of sweet fries.

Green grass. Trees budding. Everywhere people laughing and smiling.

It is spring in Carp. Excellent...

The Carp Farmer's Market nears the end of another season

The Carp Farmers Market takes place every Saturday in the village of Carp at the Carp Fairgrounds. While the market is full of interesting things to do and see all year round (except for when it is closed in the winter) my favourite time to visit the market is in the fall.

Something about getting ready for Thanksgiving and poring over fall crops to bring to the table really brings the whole issue of local food home for me. There really is a bounty of goodness that grows in the surrounding areas, and you can bring it to your house just by taking a bit of time to visit the market.

Yesterday was truly a glorious fall day and the market was bustling. Check out the pictures by clicking on Bear and Oliver below.

You can always make new friends at the Carp Farmers Market.

Carp Fair 2008

Thoughts from a fall fair.

Strands of tickets for rides.

Screams.

Laughter.

Running children.

Yummy snacks.

Coffee with a little sumpin sumpin.

Games. Prizes!!

Crafts.

T-shirts and ball caps - rocker styles.

Teenager gangs.

4-H people.

Sheep and cows.

Fancy chickens.

Model trains.

Reptile show - massive snake!

Grandstands.

Huge horses.

Ribbons and trophies.

Lumberjacks.

Seniors.

Long, long ride lineups.

More screaming!

Bumper cars.

Roller coaster.

Round and round.

Green...

8-horse hitch.

120 heavy horses in the ring.

Champions.

Winners.

Happy families.



flickr and I are still processing the pictures and videos that will make up this story.

The Carp Fair was an amazing event this year - you can read what took place here - http://www.carpfair.ca

Stay tuned for the full story

The Sweet Potato is A Cut Above!

Andrea Bruce and Joey Yagminas have a sweet dream.





As every good entrepreneur knows when you have a dream, you simply lay out your goals and objectives and start knocking down your list. Theirs goes like this - open one Sweet Potato chip stand in Carp (completed April 2008), then open a few more Sweet Potato franchised chip stands (planning now) around the Ottawa area, and eventually open their own restaurant.

When they do open that restaurant we should all get reservations on opening night, because I just had some of the best side dishes and starters I have had in a while. The Sweet Potato namesake is the literally one of the best plates of fries I have had in a long time. Their particular flavour of sweet bright orange goodness is big on flavour, short on the bad fats, and their homemade chipotle mayo dip is good enough that you kind of want to clean out the little bowl with your finger when you're done.

And they make some berry healthy choices at the Sweet Potato. My blackberry, goat cheese and raspberry vinagrette salad was very tasty - and you have to admit that there aren't very many (none) chip trucks that serve you up a gourmet salad. Also on the menu are smoked meat sandwiches and a few other tasty unexpected treats.

I had a chance to talk to them about the Sweet Potato on video. Watch it below. Special thanks to Sawyer Watson, my most excellent cameraman, checking his new camera out for this interview and who thinks the Sweet Potato fries are the "best in the world".



After you are done watching the Overlay.TV video and clicking on the links you will want to stroll, drive, bike, horseback or stroller down to 405 Donald B Munro Drive in Carp and get your hands on a Sweet Potato fry. Or you can contact them at 613.266.2634 or by email to thesweetpotato (at) sympatico (dot) ca .

Vote for your favourite movies for Carp Fair Drive-In Movies

You can now vote for which movies you want to see in the Carp Fair Drive-In Movie night. Vote here - http://www.carpfair.ca/fairinformation/driveinmovies.htm - for your favourite movies from the following list:
- HappyFeet
- ET
- Open Season
- Over the Hedge
- Dreamer
- Charlottes Web
- Jaws
- Superman 3

The winning movies will be announced here and will appear at the Carp Fair Drive-In Movie Nights on August 13 and 27.

Carp Fair Website Up To Date!

The Carp Fair website is all locked and loaded. Registration, entertainment, concessions and more are now update. Take a browse to start dreaming about or planning your trip to the fair. Leave comments here if you want to see something different or more!

http://www.carpfair.ca

Feels like summer in Carp

The flowers are up, the river is down, the kids are playing in the creek and the dog is sleeping on the grass - I know its almost a month away but it definitely feels like summer to me.

Last weekend we had a huge breakthrough (literally). For a couple years now we have been attempting to navigate from the east to the west across the Carp Ridge on mountain bikes, ATVs and other wheeled devices - we have been turned around, gotten lost, gotten stuck, gotten wet and never actually made it through at all.

Well - it appears if you hang a left at the big rock, navigate down the small cliff over the dead trees, then wade or spin your way through the abandoned beaver dam at the halfway point, that you can actually make it through. Bring a winch though, because I got buried past the fenders and it took about half an hour to get it out.

The only disappointing thing is that when you finally get around Hidden Lake you run smack into a big construction site that poses it's own unique challenges for navigation. But, we love it here, so it follows that more and more people would want to live in Carp, so we don't really mind having to hop, skip and jump through the rock and dirt piles. :-)

Carp Fair - That's A Wrap!!!

Awesome weekend of sun and fun at the Carp Fair in Carp, Ontario...we all had a blast and it was packed with events, music, rides, games, shows, exhibits, and more. I think everyone who attended would agree that the saddest thing is having to wait a whole year before we can do it all again! Pictures and more posted online at www.carpfair.ca

More Carp History

Carp is a small village west of Ottawa, Ontario, in beautiful Canada, where James Paul, an Irish shoemaker, about 24 years of age, purchased some land to make shoes way back in history - actually around the 3rd of August, 1844. James bought this half an acre near the present Swan Pub (mmmm...Swan Pub), and on that site began to operate his shoemaker business. This is the first proven non-agricultural business on a site in what is now referred to as Carp.

Three years later, in 1847, James Paul moved his shoemaker business to Pembroke - possibly since all of the locals now had quality shoes. The reality is that the actual origin of the name Carp has never been established - yet.

Early pioneers told me that there never were carp in the river, but that there were thousands upon thousands of suckers and mud pout in the river. For the people who live by or near the banks of Carp River in the 1860's and even right up until last fall, the suckers were literally "meat on the table".

Another account, The Carleton Saga, written by Harry and Olive Walker, gives the following conjecture (p.422):

"When the writer researched the origin of the name Carp as it applied to the river and the village, a student of nomenclature in Montreal, Herman J. Rolland, wrote the following possible explanation: 'The French word for sucker is "carpe", and it would seem to me that coureurs de bois may have given the name "Carpe" to the river, as they must have known of its fishing conditions, and later on the village possible adopted the name of the river.'"

How will we ever know if there were ever carpe in Carp?

Carpology

If you take a day in Carp (or seize it) should it be Carpe Diem?
If we share rides in Carp, would we Carp-ool?
If you need something built, do you call a Carp-enter?
Should you park in a Carp-ort?

These and more important issues when we return...

No Water. Flooding rampant.

Interesting that in a year with so little precipitation we are seeing the kinds of floods that we are in the plains along the Carp River.

The mighty plains...the might river. Hah!

Who needs mighty...in our own little way this beautiful river, currently home to thousands of returning Canada Geese, has spread its own wings out across the neighbouring fields, trails and driveways and is gathering up a force of flotsam and jetsam bound for Kanata.

What is odd about this is that we can already see signs of the lack of water. A typical spring would have all of the ground spongy and muck would abound. But no, dry hard ground bites back at my struggling shovel, dust prevails from the top of the mounds beside the homes of future flower greatness.

But the floods range on along the mighty Carp...we secretly may start diverting the river to our perennials if the skies don't open up.

This marks my first blog about the weather...if I was more vane I would consider this a real technology breakthrough. Currently it's 17 degrees celsius, mostly cloudy, with winds gusting from the NW...ooh, this is fun.