New to the North

Raking leaves in March - just a bit of snow left.

In January 2012 I moved from the UK to Eastern Ontario, not all that far from Ottawa but in the highlands.  I bought a small hobby farm, around 60 acres - 50 of them bush - and hope to settle down to gardening and general maintenance.  Who knows, even a little farming.

I knew it would be different but possibly not just How Different and just How Much there would be to learn.  These things include woodstoves, all the different birds that visit my feeders, tractors with PTO's, the plants in the bush, where to buy wood, what you can plant when - and that doesn't even scrape the surface of who you should contact to find out about whatever and where to shop.  I've lived in Canada before so it's not totally new but things have changed, particularly the government!, and I've never lived quite so rurally which presents its own problems.

I've started this blog to try to keep in communication with my friends (I hope many of them will visit) as I'm finding it really difficult to write to everyone individually as frequently as I would like.  I hope this will fill in a few details between letters.

First the land - it's a little farm that, even when the first owners dug it out of the bush - probably between 1850 and 1900 - must have, pretty obviously, not been able to support a large family.  The soil is rocky and dusty and there is no natural water source on the property - though now there are two wells.  Someone worked hard to 'pick rocks' from the earth and stack them, some as big as a small car, at the edges of the field - the well know 'stone fences' of this part of the province.  On top they piled the unburnable, useless for building, stumps of the trees and these have mutated into wonderful flowing, grey sculptures.  A large field encircling the house and barn has been subdivided into hayfields and grass - I'm going to need that sit-down mower.  Immediately behind the house is a rather threatening dug garden, threatening because it is four times the size of my UK allotment and I realise it could revert to weeds the instant the Canadian summer hits its stride.

For UK readers I should explain that Canadian winters, while they are exhilarating and beautiful in their harshness, really don't know when to bugger off and stick around a bit too long.  Then it's summer and the corn is as high as your pussycat's eye and you've already lost the weed battle.  But I can't complain, Canada has welcomed me gently with a very mild winter which was late to arrive and left early - in fact it never really got into its stride with temperatures only hitting about 20 below on a few occasions.  By mid-March the snow had gone which was very hard on the ski people; the hills usually staying open until the end of April.  It was nice to have an early Spring but when Canada is not cold in the winter you know there are real problems with the environment.  Maybe it was a blip.

(Trivia alert - Ottawa is the second coldest capital city, only beaten by Ulaanbaatar.  No wonder it has the world's longest skating rink - the Rideau Canal)

Well, I'd better wrap up for today and get on with my chores - feeding the birds, lighting the stove etc. and cleaning the house as I think I have a friend, with dog, coming to stay for a few days.  The dog's very lovely but the cats aren't too impressed.  My first job is to mend the sunflower bird feeder that the squirrel has tipped over for the second day running.  This results in a feeding frenzy beneath the soft maple that houses the feeders.  Earlier in the year it was American goldfinches and chickadees but at the moment there are about 20 grackles, five mourning doves, a red-winged blackbird and his missus, 3 starlings and about 10 bluejays.  They frighten off the small birds and the downy woodpecker, who is pretty fiesty but doesn't have the weight.  The hairy won't be moved.  So I'd better get the food out for the little birds while they still have time to tank up for a cold night.  It only gets down to about freezing now but, if you only weigh an ounce (or 28gms), that's cold enough to finish you off if you're hungry.  Gotta run.  Bye for now.