A Cold Winter’s Day… The frozen St. Lawrence River/Seaway can be see on the middle/left.
A wonderful – and totally unexpected – bonus to being a blogger is all the interesting and talented new friends you find in your “fellow bloggers”. In fact, in the last 24 hours I’ve connected with http://dianeskitchentable.wordpress.com – a wonderful fun & newsy recipe blog AND http://fromthebartolinikitchens.com, an excellent blog with delicious Italian recipes.
While “chatting” with Diane, I mentioned we used to have a farm and farmhouse in St. Antoine de Tilly, Quebec, Canada, and the fact that I should post some photos from there. I had planned on preparing/photographing Stuffed Chicken Rolls tonight BUT, since I’m nothing if not impulsive, I’m going to post some photos of our beloved farm instead!
First, a bit of background… My husband, who was French Canadian but grew up in the States, had wanted to buy a farm ever since I’d known him – and we met when we were both eighteen. Most of his family lives in the province of Quebec, Canada (Montreal and Quebec City) although his immediate family resides here in Massachusetts, so, when it came time to buy a farm, I thought it made sense to buy one in Quebec – the prices were much more reasonable etc. (Not that my French is all that good…)
My biggest garden – with our neighbor’s barn on the right. I loved this garden so much. It had to two winding paths which met, and there was a seating area with a wooden bench.
The seating area – same garden as above.
At the time – January 1998 – we were living in the small Mediterranean country of Malta, but we were back for the Christmas Holidays and, as always, spent some time up in Quebec. On New Year’s Day 1998 we drove through our favorite village of all time – namely St. Antoine de Tilly – and I spied an incredible little farmhouse house on top of a bluff. As we rounded the corner, we saw that it was for sale. Like this yellow farmhouse which I now call home – it was Love at First Sight.
We actually never saw the inside of the house, although we did see a video of the interior sent to us by a cousin. Neither had we seen any of the property. It didn’t matter – we knew we wanted that farmhouse, which happened to also have 130 acres!! And, just to make it even more perfect, the farm was only about 30 minutes from one of my favorite cities – Quebec City!
Our beloved Quebec City, Quebec (Canada) 
We had such great times and – although our time there is now past – so many people, including our French Canadian family and friends, plus all our visitors/family/friends from the States – and Malta – have wonderful memories. And those memories can never be taken away!
The 2nd of my three of my gardens – St. Lawrence River/Seaway in the background
myyellowfarmhouse.com 
So glad you liked the photos – and I had forgotten about the ‘shout out’. I’m a BIG believer in ‘sharing the good stuff’ – like your wonderful blog !! ; o )
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Gorgeous! Such beautiful photos, and such great memories! And thanks for the shout out above. I never saw that!!!
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A big Shout Out to Chef Mimi who recently became a follower of My Yellow Farmhouse. Chef Mimi has an excellent blog – check her out @http://chefmimiblog.com/
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I totally get how long and crazy the trip was “long ago”. Before they put in route 91, the drive to Quebec City from Springfield, MA took about 10 hours…. all on winding route 5… driving through all the little towns along the way. I started going up there with my husband’s family when he and I were both 18. We’d also head up in a station wagon… with 8 other kids and my husband’s parents. Thank God his brothers and sisters were always so easy-going, Funny story – once one of my sister-in-laws got left at a “bathroom stop”. I don’t know how long it took them to realize she’d been left behind!
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Oh no! I’m going to assume that when your sister-in-law got left behind that it was before everyone owned a cell phone? I suppose with that crowd one or two missing could go unnoticed for a while – and as they say, “there’s bears in them woods”!
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I often wonder how we ever lived without cell phones. Once, when we lived in NYC, my husband and I waited at two different doors outside of a dept. store – for 45 minutes – each of us thinking that the other one must’ve gotten mugged. (And, of course, we each maintained that OUR door was the “front “door…)
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Ha! You’re very generous because I would have said the “right door” (and of course mine would have been right). There was that time early on when they had roaming charges & my, at the time 13 yr. old daughter ran up a $300 cell phone bill from Lake Placid! That was almost reason to forget about cell phones.
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That farmhouse is lovely & brings back memories of my maternal grandparent’s farms. They lived at the very top of Maine on the Canadian border in Madawaska, then Fort Kent. Of course in those days there were no major highways and very few motels so it was a 2 day trip with pulling over for sleeping. My father had a station wagon that he’d put air mattresses in the back for us so it was quite an adventure.
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Great read!! And you know how much I love and miss Quebec!! Love the pic of the Chateau/Old Quebec and your farmhouse there… ahhh, very typical Canadian home (at least on the Quebec area). Quebec is so beautiful Spring, Summer & Fall, but I’ll skip those brutal Canadian winters!!
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You are sooo right Sue – they pay for their gorgeous summers by having brutal winters!!
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