Some things to love

There's something for me to love in every part of this photo - one I'm really pleased I stopped to capture.

First it's the hints of colour - the changes that speak to autumn which bursts on this area in all its glory - it doesn't seem to creep this year - it is just suddenly everywhere.

Second is the image of young Clydesdales eating their way along the edge of the pasture. (Well maybe the horses are first given that I love those big animals so much - I have to chuckle at this passion.) That these youngsters respect that the river is the edge of their range is remarkable to me - I love that tails are switching. They're obviously walking and ripping out grass as they go.

Third - the reflections in the river - the horses at the edge - the edge of the river bank, the large rock on the left hand side... reflections always make me pause for some reason. They often are so beautiful.

And then did you notice the grass is only partway down the bank of the river? It shows the grey clay, bared by the decreasing water level in this big river that has supported so many farms, and historically many mills of various kinds grist mills, flour mills, timber, all kinds - and even further back it was a support for First Nations - teeming with trout. There are still trout, but not nearly so many, and you have to be a skilled angler. Decreasing water levels mean to me that we need to be more careful and take better care.

All in all, this photograph has made me feel grateful. With Canadian Thanksgiving approaching this weekend,  perhaps that's what has me thinking along these lines. But I know I'm so blessed to live in a beautiful area, filled with things I love, and the ability to move around freely unlike half the world, without fear, with a full belly when I wish it and with friends not deadly enemies wherever I look.

Just some reflections of my own on this beautiful morning. Do you have some as well?

Opening doors

Recently I have added some new doors to this old church. The front door is very old, and small - not the regulation six plus feet found in most homes today and it has an old porcelain knob.

My contractor friend said to me - "Do you want to use the handle from the old door?"

No I thought, then answered out loud - "No!" very firmly as I looked at the modern handle that had been used on the door I was replacing.

I knew exactly what I wanted. I ran out to the drive shed and pulled out a crumbling basket full of bits and pieces of iron, some ancient hand-carved dowels and about ten porcelain knobs.

After sorting through the basket we found a complete latch set for the knobs and found two porcelain knobs that fit. Nothing worked right away of course and it took lots of WD-40, paint thinner, black paint and elbow grease to pull it all together. At the end of the day - my new door had a new-old handle.

This handle and the other contents of the ramshackled basket came from an old log house that my husband and I had located back in the 70s near a community called West Montrose. With our sons, we took it apart, first the insul-brick covering, then the weathered board and batten silvered with age, and removed the interior wainscotting, doors and bits and pieces. The intention was to place on some property (40 acres across the Valley from where I live now) as a retirement home.

My brother and his family, young girls then, came to help once in a while because they lived nearby in Waterloo. It became a family project that has left us each with many stories and memories. My brother passed away three years ago, and his daughters live in British Columbia, but I have photos of those days. We all remember those days.

And the bits and pieces that we saved tweaks my memory as well. Obviously my husband had saved the porcelain handles and the other old handles and latches from the building. He was such a "keeper." Lucky for me these days when I find treasures like this.

In doing my research at that time I found the last remaining owner of the house. The property had been sold to the local conservation authority which was going to expand the acreage under its care and flood much of the farm land. So the log house whose owner was in a nursing home, had to go, as did the barn with its wonderful ever-flowing water fountain.

I located the owner. I wrote to her and learned the history of the home. It was built in 1837 by her father of what was called rock elm - heavy dense wood - plentiful in that area. 1837! Nearly two hundred years ago. The barn was enormous. I can't remember now what kind of a farm it was, but I would bet there was a little of everything, dairy and beef cattle, sheep, pigs and grain. She lived there with her brother until he died, and later she became to old to work the farm by herself. She was 83 or 84 when I finally located her. I need to find those letters which I kept and find out more.

The history of our countrysides, our homes wherever they are around the world, is too important to lose. So many of the stories of a people's history are captured in the minutiae of the daily activities of one or two families, or groups.

I strongly believe we need to remember our histories at this time in human kind's growth and development..

There is so much violence around the world, so many disasters. And so many groups coming together to try to right a wrong - whether it's a natural disaster or a human-created war or violent activity.

We need to remember that it was people coming together originally, in our dim past or recent past, that has allowed our species to prevail and flourish. A single human wasn't nearly as successful as a group in hunting, farming, any kind of occupation. It took more than one. Even a single sales person, needs another to sell to to complete a transaction. As groups small or large we can effect needed changes to bring about much needed peace and sharing the bounty of this wonderful planet in a much more sustainable way.

And so this doorknob has not only opened a door to a room in my old church - (perfect that it too was created back in the 1800s - 1870 to be exact). It has opened a door to a flood of memories and to some philosophic meanders which make me want to reach out and do something to help make those much-needed changes.

At this time of year - wherever you are, I hope something will prompt you to review some bit of history, and open a door that might affect how you think or feel. Who knows what will come of it? Perhaps something truly wonderful.

The road allowance

Along the edge of a field the dogs and I often walk, is a line of trees. It is littered with huge boulders and rocks that have obviously been lifted from the farm field and set aside to avoid damaging machinery.

Then there is a sort of gap. It's slightly overgrown, and on its other side (the right in this photo) there is a much larger pile of boulders and stones going in a straight line parallel to the edge of the field. It has, in many places, remnants of a split rail and barbed wire fence atop it. The dogs often clamber or leap across it into the bush on its edge.

The gap is a road allowance. When this part of Ontario was first explored back in the early 1800s, a surveyor came in and laid out all the roads, or potential roads, and property boundaries. So this road allowance is very old. It may at one time have been used by the farmer who owned the bush on the one side and the field on the other, to get from one place to another. It's overgrown in spots and trees have fallen across it.

Limbs blown down from ancient trees that are now passing, litter it in spots and make me look up. This tree is a beech that has died. There is some sort of infection that has or is killing all the beech trees of a certain size, making walking in the bush dangerous when the wind is high. It makes me sort of sad that bugs and molds from other lands brought as the world grows smaller and we have greater contact, are able to affect some of North America's native species, trees, fish, animals, plants. The price I guess of ignorance of this potential. Dutch Elm afterall came to North America in the 1930s.

When the field is planted I don't like to walk on its edges. The dogs will go with me and leap through the growing crop destroying young plants. So when I really looked at what this was I decided this would be one of the paths I would take. The dogs then either go with me along it or into the bush lot, looking for raccoons, porcupines, the scents of deer and coyote. It's not a large bush lot, but it's very pretty at all seasons. Right now it's quite fragile with tiny flowers and plants growing - fawn or trout lily, trillium, hepatica, blood root, may apple, black cohosh, herb Robert to name a few. I could go on but I've run out of  names at the moment.

If you look closely in this photograph you can see the fallen fence posts along the boulder-remains of the original boundary of the road allowance. Pale beech leaves from last fall still cling to young trees. As the older ones have died, they have thrown  hundreds of beechnuts out which squirrels have panted for them... the woodlot will rebound slowly as the old fence deteriorates. The road allowance will grow in, unless others like me, use it to walk the edge of the field and bush. It's too full of road blocks for snow mobiles and ATVs to move along, and perhaps few know it exists, just the family that owns it and a few neighbours?

One of the things I often catch myself doing while I wander around, is wondering what it was like in this part of the world before Europeans discovered it, and then when they did the backbreaking work of clearing endless forest to try to create a small farm.

The countryside is changing. Old style apple farms are being bulldozed to make way for the vine apples - 7000 acres up here. There are still large beef farms and some dairy farms, and many small farmers find themselves now renting hundreds to thousands of acres to plant crops. But it's changing. And that of course is the only constant.

Something to think about on this rainy morning. Hope you have a great day.

This old house

The hole in the ground -basement or root cellar - and an old fridge or cupboard just seen through the lilac bushes that have grown around the edges of the foundation, is all that's left of this old house.

Built way back from the road - it must have been constructed by Scots who moved to this country back in the 1800s. You can see farms formerly owned by them with the houses and barns constructed in the centre of the property. This meant they didn't have to cross so much land to reach the edges - more efficient.

These pieces of split rail cover a dug well, close to the old foundation.

But notice the bluey-purple in the background?

There are patches of it all around the homestead.

I've spent the past hour looking through my wildflower field guides to try to figure out these flowers. They are either blue-eyed grass or bluets gone wild... or maybe even hyacinth gone wild. Maybe one of you may know? I'd love to be certain.

Nevertheless, they make a carpet of blue and are simply glorious, particularly in the sun.

They seem to spread everywhere, bursting through the winter-dried grasses and reflecting the sky when the sun is out.

And then there are the daffodils. Clumps of them ready to pop open and say "Hello world here we are."

When I first came upon this spot, walking the dogs of course, I couldn't believe it. Someone had taken the time many years ago, to plant a beautiful garden.

The property was sold I guess. Certainly the house was abandoned - I see way too many houses and barns abandoned reminding me that small family farming is a difficult way to eke out a living.

But nature has preserved the memory of the family that lived here in the remnants of a garden. It's gone wild and spread beyond its borders, but still enchants to this day. The day lilies too remain, and though just inches out of the ground now, in a month or two will offer their gorgeous orange cups to the sun.

Poignant. Missing what has been lost.

That's how I often feel when I see an abandoned house, barn or secret garden such as this. I wonder what it was like to live in this rugged country when there was a home built here, with a fire in an old iron cook stove sending smoke up the brick chimney and warming the small house.

The various histories in the world, big and small, but often the most intimate and smallest - such as the story of the family who lived on this property once upon a time - intrigue me and let me drift to a simpler time.

May your day be filled with gardens, dreams and wonderful memories.