Environment, Wildlife, Agriculture

Free Bunnies!

Every spring we are entertained to see a couple cottontail rabbits running around in the backyard. They live under a giant spreading yew bush that nestles against our deck. Over time, I have made peace with the bunnies.

Despite a continual attack on our flowers– impatiens, tulips, pansies, zinnias– I have come to accommodate their presence. They are fun to watch. A ritual or game they play involves a constant chase of tag on the lawn. After a couple rounds, one will back into a corner, and egg the other one on to attack. So bidden, the aggressor runs toward the other like a cross-checking hockey player. The defender jumps straight up like a jack in the box. Then they start the tag game again.

In the spring we get additional surprises. For the past two years I have cleared away the mulch around our rose bushes and have uncovered a little nest of tiny furry bunnies huddled together, absorbing the morning sun’s warmth. Cute as a button. Over the next weeks their numbers decrease from four down to one as Mother Nature starts pulling strings.

The bunnies were not always welcome. After they clear-cut a set of zinnias, they provoked me to build a fence around my garden. Next morning I came out to inspect, and found they had chewed a door through the fence. I put up another fence. Another door. Finally a steel fence, and security was restored. Despite their attacks, I give them space because of their entertainment, and because Jane, my wife likes them around.

So, I have taken the extra step of befriending these furry chums. Walking out onto the deck, at any time of day, I may find a bunny contentedly nibbling away at our lawn. They never run. I think they are confident I could never catch them, which is true. So, doubling down on their casualness, I strike up a conversation. One-sided but an attempt. My logic is that the more they hear me talking to them, the more relaxed they are in my presence. So far, I have been right. Not sure what the neighbors think.

This spring we were further surprised to find we had three fully grown rabbits playing tag. That begged the question: Siblings? Cousins? Mates? Philanderers? The possibilities of a triangle of relationships came to mind. But still, we were just entertained to see that three had emerged from the deck’s protection over last winter.

Yesterday, while mowing the lawn, I found this year’s litter. It was not under the roses, but dug into the side of a hill by the moraine locust tree in our backyard. A small grey patch appeared where I was pushing the lawn mower. Looking closer, I found a hole, carefully covered with a layer of downy rabbit fur. Aha! A new brood! Now I know what those full grown bunnies have been up to!

This morning, we were again stunned. Out came another bunny from the yew bush, about the size of a teacup. Nibbling on the grass, and rolling in the sand pile they have created for morning ablutions. Wow! A small bunny..but wait…another one follows, also cup-sized! Two teenagers!

Now where did they come from?

In the next few weeks I will be planting our flowers. We’ll see how long they last.

Agriculture, Wildlife

Fence Wars

The pandemic is winding down, sort of. Despite the restrictions put upon us, I decided early in the spring, that this would be the summer of the flower garden. How much trouble can you get in, if you never leave the yard, right?

*^{A fine summer garden, suitable for replication!}*

To that end, I retrieved pictures of a magnificent Door County Wisconsin garden that I wanted to replicate. Taking this photo in hand to a local nursery, I sought the help of a smiling lady who would identify and select the flowers I wanted to grow. She enjoyed my enthusiasm as I racked up the charges. She joyfully counted up the zinnia, rudbeckia, sweet potato vine, coleus, ageratum, gladiolus, alyssum and countless pots of geraniums. I was envisioning a floral presentation which would turn the heads of any passers by.

While I trailed behind her among the rows of flowering flats of annuals, I couldn’t help noticing the abundant displays of leafy, shade-loving plants as well. Perfect for the crabapple-covered berm in our front yard! So I loaded up on some plants blessed with strange and exotic names like hosta, lilies, caladium, coral bells, heartleaf, and lungwort, and pushed a crowded steel buggy back to the cash register. It was without doubt, the most expensive impulse I had enjoyed in a long time. And the flowers would pay that all off.

*^{The Shastas delivered a mountain of white.}*

I won’t bore you with the earnest labors which followed, turning over the earth in our front, side and back gardens, pulling out the weeds and dead roots from prior year’s efforts. But count on it, the ground was mightily disturbed, and by the end of two weekends, I had planted all the greenery, laid down some delicious fertilizer, and watered.

And waited.

The summer of the flower garden was off to an auspicious start. Every day through May and June I walked the perimeters, pulling out weeds, and smiling as blooms started to appear. Meanwhile, the perennials were covering for any spot not in bloom, so I watched as the shasta daisies blew up into a mountain of white, our bed of roses went wild all at once in multiple colors, evening primrose, sweet william, even our hollyhocks rocketed to new heights outside the fence. The day lilies lining our hedge delivered a marching brass band of orange trumpets. There was no end to the diverse display of blooms, and my dream of the summer flower garden was being fulfilled.

The dream was not mine alone however.

On an early morning stroll through the zinnia patch, I was stunned to find that five of the thirteen plants had been felled like prime pulp wood. The perpetrator left no footprints, but in a brazen attack on our sovereignty, had chewed through the stalks at knee height, bringing them to the ground where they were then masticated into shredded greens. Gadzooks!

I scratched my head at this, and then went to the side garden where the full Door County display had been planned. Calamity again. Three more zinnias, which are the tall variety and much counted on for color, had been trimmed and toppled. But adding to that injury, the same dastardly villain had also chowed down on the sweet potato vine. The vine, when mature, provides a brilliant light green, or a dark purple outpouring to the garden, knee high. It was at this time, lower than a coalminer’s boot.

I recalled a short discussion at the nursery: “Do deer or rabbits like sweet potato vine?” The helpful lady replied, “Well, they are a vegetable, you know.”

*^{Baby bunnies: “Don’t leave the nest!”}*

Galvanized by these assaults I quickly looked for our asiatic lilies and their brilliant orange blossoms. There they were, in shreds like forlorn tears, fallen from their completely denuded and decapitated stems.

It struck me that I had sown my own misfortunes. Back in April, while weeding around one of our hundreds of clumps of narcissus, I spied a small brown furry animal. It was a baby rabbit. Following his mother’s instructions, he was frozen in place, waiting for me to go away. But I didn’t. Looking around, I discovered that this little fellow had disobeyed a greater instruction: “Do not leave the nest!” Indeed, there was a nest, burrowed under the side of one of our roses. It was beautifully made with a soft bedding of warm, sun-soaked leaves, and at that moment, home to three more baby bunnies.

Then, I made the worst error possible. I informed my wife who is an ardent bunny lover, that we had a tiny family of four in our rose garden. After settling her down, and dampening those motherly instincts, I promised to leave the small nursery to itself. Cute little fellows, they were smaller than my fist, and had tiny bunny ears. How could I possibly harm even a whisker on their adorable heads?

*^{The wiley bunny: hungry and crafty.}*

We watched for them constantly, and after a couple of days, they had fled. Occasionally they would pop their heads out from under the back deck, or play a hopscotch game beside the yew hedge. We were entertained as they rolled in the sand–where there used to be a healthy lawn–and laughed as they nibbled on blades of grass.

So I was reconciled to a hands-off policy vis-a-vis the bunnies. As it turned out, one day a gorgeous red fox was skirting around the backyard. Foxes are quite extraordinary. They have sharp, well defined facial features which telegraph high intelligence. And their tail, it floats behind like a giant white-tipped bronze scarf in the wind. But most importantly, though sadly, they love rabbit. From that day on, the bunnies no longer frolicked in the yard. Except for one, whom I suspect is the same one that wandered from his nest as an infant. And he was now the numero uno in our backyard.

I thanked the fox under my breath, and explained to my wife about the circle of life and other esoteric philosophies about food chains, karma and rabbit ragout, which by the way is highly over-rated. We had rabbit once in a Montreal restaurant, and I nearly dislocated my jaw because of its rubbery texture.

*^{Trimmed, just like McQueen would do it.}*

The fox disappeared from our yard, and I saw that my best defense against further intrusions was a fence. I retrieved a sturdy green plastic net fence from the garage, and staked it up around the zinnias. I likewise circled the sweet potato vine in the vain hope it would recover. Returning to discuss my “wall” strategy, I was reminded of my promise.

“You won’t hurt the bunnies.”

“Nope. I am just cordoning off the area. We will co-exist.”

“Good, because they have a right to be here. And I like them.”

“No problem. We’re good.” I smiled and pursed my lips.

Next morning I returned to the garden to view the zinnias. Two more were down. But not eaten. Just snipped off at knee height and abandoned, with the blooms lying on the ground as if their necks were broken.

“What the hell?” I searched again for tracks. I found none. But looking closely, I found a small trap door had been incised through the green fence. Ankle high, the door was opened from the bottom, hinged at the top, and its sides neatly snipped off. “Crap!” I couldn’t believe it. The rodent had cut his way in, like Steve McQueen in the Great Escape. To his credit, he mischievously decided not to eat the flower, but just to kill it, to vex me.

Doubling down, I placed bricks against the hole. “That’ll do it, mister. I am onto you now.”

Next morning, I couldn’t get out to the garden fast enough, and to my dismay, another hole appeared in the fence. And he had cut through three giant marigolds. Rabbits don’t like marigolds. They smell, and they leave orange stains like Cheetos. Still the bunny had struck again.

“Do you know what he’s done now?” I challenged my wife. She responded defensively, “You need to share. They’re hungry too, you know. I think they’re cute.” The fact is I kind of admired the little varmint. The bricks had only egged him on. “I gotta get a better fence!”

ACE Hardware had just the thing– a black plastic, tight mesh fence, 30″ high. I brought it home, and wrapped it around the original green fence. “There. That’ll show ya.” I mumbled to myself. Our summer of the flower garden was getting off to a rocky start, but I felt that there was still time to bring it across the finish line in full bloom. Mind you, the garden was taking on the appearance of a prison yard.

Next morning, I stared out the living room window, wondering if I should even take the regular patrol. “What the hell, may as well.” So out to the yard I went, and carefully navigated among the geraniums to get to the prized zinnias. Almost with silent admiration, I gasped, “Two more down! How the heck did he do that??” I should point out that these zinnias are the “cut and come again” variety, according to the little plastic bookmark that comes with each pot. It dawned on me that perhaps the rabbit could read.

Looking closer, I found a section of the new fence where it did not cover the old green one. And there, like the open door to a rabbit smorgasbord was a perfectly carved opening. The bunny had precisely cut a 3″ x 5″ entrance, leaving no sloppy trim, no hanging flaps. A tech school grad could not have done better. I actually think he preferred the new material.

The surprise of this latest violation was that he had cut down no new flowers. I suspect he wanted to leave them for a later meal. But I am off to ACE again, this time, for a steel fence, and perhaps a 12-volt battery.

My plans for the magnificent summer of the flower garden continue, but I now admit that I have a hidden partner in the operation.

Thanks for reading and sharing! I hope you have better luck with your summer garden!

Culture, Environment, Government, Legal, Wildlife

Butterfield: Where To, Now?

A group of 3 year-olds graze on the open space at 901 Butterfield Highway.

Driving down Butterfield last week we spied a herd of deer grazing in the snowy, white expanse of a field cleared in 2016. Among them were at least 4 bucks, with 3-point antlers. Around 2-1/2 years old. They would have been newly born in the spring before the Archdiocese of Chicago cut down 33 acres of sheltering trees on this scenic, colorful piece of woodlot on the west side of Libertyville.

The once colorful woodlot was viewed by more than 20,000 motorists every day.

The deer are a conundrum caught in a quandary. They have multiplied to 28 in number, primarily due to the removal of wooded habitat that housed their arch enemy, the coyote. Left unchecked, they face an uncertain future, either from lack of food, or an unlucky collision with an auto speeding along Butterfield Road. They must wonder, ‘What’s happening here? Where will we live next?’

We might ask the same question ourselves.

Cluster Housing: 148 homes planned for construction on 15.2 acres of land.

Back in August 2016, the Village announced an open meeting of the Plan Commission to present a housing development proposal to occupy a 40-acre lot owned by the Archdiocese of Chicago. The developer, it is now learned, had bid $15 million to buy the land for the purpose of installing 148 ‘cluster homes’ on the lot, plus two detention ponds and roads. 7 acres of woods would offer a treed park for walks.

The open meeting attracted over 100 residents who voiced their concerns and asked pointed questions that set the commission, and the developer, back on their heels. The meeting adjourned with a promise of refinements, and for a follow up, which was scheduled in January, 2017.

An astounding disregard for optics, and the local parish.

The machines made fast work of the Church’s order.

Then, in November, just before Thanksgiving, with an astounding disregard for optics, and an unconscionable dismissal of its local parish, the Church decided to spring into action. After receiving approval from the Village, it cut down 33 acres of mature trees which grew on the development site. The sheer sight of the woods coming down, so swiftly, leaving a naked field behind, shocked many in Lake County. More than 20,000 drivers passed the scenic woods every day.

By January, the development had surfaced all sorts of debate and before long, it became clear that the residents were pushing back. Their concerns ranged from traffic to congestion, from design to pollution. Ripping out the woods was the final straw. A summary of 19 specific concerns were circulated, and became talking points for review.

Looking north on Butterfield Highway, homeowners will enter and exit just left of the power line pole.

The Village Board became closely aware of the situation, and received a final proposal from the Plan Commission to halt the development. In a special March 2017 meeting, held at the high school auditorium, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously against the development as proposed. The pivotal issue was traffic congestion and safety.

Looking south on Butterfield, the commuters’ treks just begin.

It could have ended there, but a dose of reality was dispensed. Libertyville had just killed the Church’s $15 million dollar deal, and the Archdiocese, reputedly in search of cash, was miffed.

In June of 2017, the Catholic Bishop of Chicago filed a suit against the Village for its “capricious, arbitrary decision” which denied the Church its constitutional rights to sell the land. And so, it ended up in court.

The trial commenced in November 2018, and concluded December 7. The judge was buried under boxes of memoranda, reports and legal papers along with 10 days of procedural testimony. The sole subject: traffic safety. Nevertheless, he offered a decision perhaps as early of January 31, 2019.

A portion of the 28 white tail deer that grazed on January 20, 2019. Not a coyote in sight.

We wait. But back to the deer. Where do they go? Ironically, their numbers swelled because the coyotes lost their homes in the woods. But what now?

As an FYI, the Lake County Forest Preserve is closed at night until March because they are thinning out the deer population. In their books, 15-30 deer can safely occupy a square mile (640 acres) of open land. Yet here we have 28 deer grazing on the corner of the 33-acre open patch. Maybe they hale from St.Mary’s and Pine Meadow golf course. Interestingly, on the Forest Preserve website I picked up their regrets about development and how it affects Lake County’s natural resources:

“Natural processes are disrupted. No harm was meant, but 150 years of settlement has greatly changed local habitat. The surface may look okay, but many habitats are not healthy. The gradual impact of people settling in this area has been astounding:

Prairies were plowed
Wetlands were tiled and drained for agriculture
Wildfires were suppressed
Predators and pollinators were wiped out
Invasive species were introduced and their populations exploded
Habitats have become islands in a sea of development
Streams are muddied
Prairies, woodlands and wetlands shrink smaller and smaller”

Three bucks in a quandary: where to now?

It’s all sobering to think about. We wait for the judge to announce his decision.

Agriculture, Culture, Environment, Science, Wildlife

Marmoration Nation

The Brown Marmorated Stinkbug

I had to laugh when a recent plea came across our Village Facebook page, “Will they be spraying for mosquitos this year?”

The summer’s nearly over. Fall’s coming. Frost on the pumpkin. Mosquitoes??

Skitters may be annoying, a nuisance, bothersome and carriers of West Nile disease, but other than that, well, they aren’t stink bugs.

Last fall we found scads of these penny-sized twirps on the side of our brick ranch, an unsightly rash of brown measles, sunning themselves every afternoon through September and into October. Mindful of the laws of karma, I did not kill them. I flicked them off the sliding door screen and wished them a good life, but somewhere else.

Brown Marmorated Stinkbugs are so named because they have a marbled camouflage suit. Hard to see as they bask on the lilac leaves in the afternoon sun.

Halyomorpha halys: a member of the family Pentatomidae

They also smell.Before understanding what I was dealing with, I smacked one, and as it exploded under my hand, it shot off a dying waft of odor that resembled rotting, moldy underwear, which I say kindly. Understandably, they are not tasty, so lack many natural predators. Crows turn up their noses. It turns out that wasps will go for them. Terrific!

Stinkbugs are unpleasant creatures, only recently making it to our corner of the Midwest in northern Illinois. Apparently they originated in the far east, and hopped a ship to a harbor on the east coast, and with time, they have moved west. Apparently they like soybeans which grow abundantly on a 33-acre field across the highway from us.

Time moved on, and as the snows fell in December, the stinkbug drifted out of our memory. We passed the evenings in front of the fire, catching up on Survivor and other important social studies.

Then, one day in January, a black dot appeared on the family room wall, over the door.

“What the…?” I stared. “That’s a, a, a stinkbug! What’s it doing in here?”

No longer spooked by the ironies of karmic payback, I grabbed the odiferous brown button in a wad of tissue, and walked it off to the toilet for a quick dispatch to the next world.

“Don’t know where that came from, but it’s history.” I flumphed down on the TV couch beside my wife to witness 8 publicity-hungry people attempting to dive into the Pacific ocean to retrieve a key, which would unlock a box of beanbags back on the beach to throw into a basket which would tip over and raise a victorious tribe buff.

Then, looking up over the fireplace, another brown button.

You can guess the conversation that followed, and that eventually, unbelievably, tortuously repeated itself for the next three months as every day, two more bugs appeared in the family room.

Under duress, their natural odor is intolerable.

Somewhere on the outer lining of our house, a gang of stinkbugs was holed up, waiting for spring. We came to imagine that the ringleader would crawl among its cohorts asking for volunteers to go out and check the weather.

Everyday, without fail, two creatures would emerge, quietly, stealthily, and present themselves somewhere in the family room or hallway. They never flew. They just appeared, immobile, prostrate, stuck to a wall. They stood out like 8-balls in a bathtub, and so quickly ended up mummified in tissue and expelled to a plumbing system which hopefully took them to a station miles way from us.

And then spring came, and the bugs one day missed their cue, not showing up. We relaxed, and enjoyed the following months that scrolled through May and June’s fragrant flowers, thick lawns cut weekly, releasing the unforgettable aromas of fresh cut grass. Deep into summer the garden fluttered under the visiting companies of butterflies, mindful robins, cock-eyed, frenetic squirrels and later the incessant, raucous buzzing of the cicadas.

As September arrived, the sun warmed our home on its west side. Stepping out to the deck to light the barbecue, I lifted the lid, and looking up, spotted, there, on the wall, a brown, marmorated, stinkbug!

Stinkbugs: seekers of nook and cranny.

“Cripes! A stinkbug!” I groaned. Looking beyond this unwelcome visitor I found another. And another. “Holy crap! They’re back!” Sure enough, as I walked along the side of our house I spied more than a dozen.

The next day, I obtained a particularly bug-lethal concoction from the hardware store. Mixing approximately 3 tablespoons to a quart of water, I filled up a handheld spray bottle. The solution was 5 times as powerful as recommended.

A crusade of epic proportions

For the balance of September I sprayed every afternoon and every morning, targeting bugs in twos and threes, clustered under the soffit, ensconced in the cracks between the bricks, hiding under the lilac leaves, perched on the window screens, and skittering along the edges of the gutters.

It was a crusade of epic proportions. I had gone through a whole quart of the concentrate, and went back for a second, relishing the daily harvest I was taking on these annoying little bugs. The walls dripped in poison spray as the bugs plummeted to the ground, dead.

You may recall the adventure story, “Leiningen And The Ants” . A plantation owner and his crew are defending the crops from a vast plague of soldier ants that devour every living thing in their path as they march, six-legged, towards the house. Leiningen first attempts to fend them off with a moat. The crafty, unstoppable ants still cross. Next he douses his fields in gasoline to burn the ants, but they forge on. Finally, he floods the entire plantation by diverting the river, only just escaping his own vivisection as the ants pulled him down.

Somehow, I felt like Leiningen, defending house and home, and winning.

Early this October, the weather turned cold and wet, and the stinkbugs were gone. They had vacated the trees, the walls, the gutters, the screens, and the soffit. It was over.

October in Illinois is a flighty month, climate-wise. After raking all the fallen leaves, we were presented with three days of 80’F weather. This past week, I surveyed the yard, and looking up to our gutters spotted more of the bug. Returning to the house, I loaded up another quart of the juice, and like trigger-hyper Terminator in a video game proceeded to decimate the bugs, which by this time numbered a small mob.

“I just finished off 84 stinkbugs!” reporting to my wife, who rolled her eyes. “The sun brought them out, and they got the juice.” I was triumphant. The sides of our ranch looked like a target range for paintball, with little wet splats everywhere.

After lunch, I ventured out to the deck as the sun came around. “Geez!! There’s more of ’em!” I went back to search and destroy mode, and sprayed 135 more bugs. “That’s gotta be it. Just gotta be.” Indeed, it did seem like their rush was finally kaput.

Our yard hosts a forest of mature trees. Closest to the house is a Moraine Locust. This tall giant provides the most generous and pleasing canopy during the summer months. Swinging in our hammock one can gaze up at the millions of tiny leaves that sway effortlessly in the wind like green petals against a brilliant blue sky. It’s an irreplaceable retreat, passing the time, thoughtless and serene.

The summer idyl is over in October however, and that is when the leaves turn yellow, and all one billion of them fall to the ground, and to our roof, settling in golden billows packing the gutters. It is a regular ritual to blast them out of the gutters, and with that purpose, I climbed to the roof, leaf blower in hand, and started the excavation.

A little tank at the bottom of the summit.

Hardly into the first side, and I scan the roof for errant leaves to push over the edge, when before me creeps a stinkbug. Crabbing across the asphalt shingles, it joins another stinkbug. I take a moment to blow it away with the leaves. And then I look towards the peak of the roof, and there is a long train of bugs marching along the summit like Sir Edmund Hillary’s Everest trek, complete with sherpa porters, numbering in the hundreds.

I am aghast.

Stepping up towards them I inspect the shingles at my feet, and watch as stinkbugs enter and exit every little groove in the overlapping sheets. They are everywhere. This is home. Seekers of nooks and crannies, they have found refuge. I walk up to the roof ventilators. These are black, screened aluminum umbrellas which shelter vapor draft for the attic. I tap on one, and 20 stinkbugs explode out from under in every direction like gangsters rousted from a crap game.

The neighborhood is a giant roof garden of marmorated chia pets.

I finish the leaf job, and descending to the deck pause to reflect. Leiningen conquered the ants, but only after torching and flooding his land. Not an option here. It dawns on me, as I survey the gables and rooflines next door, that every house in town is hosting a giant blanket of stink bugs on their roofs like an enormous marmorated chia pet. There is no defense.

We’re done for, until the frost comes, and it can’t come too soon.

Thanks for reading and sharing! The Department of Agriculture sees these as an economic pest. But a solution is hopefully underway.

childhood, Culture, Environment, Wildlife

The Treetops Club

The white pine is the tallest in the woods.

Driving through the country the other day I spied a tall white pine on the edge of a woods, and it reminded me of the pine woods at home, in Delhi, Ontario. We spent many weekends.. in the woods, under the woods, and on top of the woods, building forts, huts, tunnels and abodes.

The pine woods framed the southeast corner of our wanderings around town. Just south of the CNR tracks, and a few blocks east of Delhi Industries, and Delhi Metal Products, the 10-acre plot was our outdoor workbench as kids.

Soft green needles when on the branch, they fall rusty brown to the forest floor.

As the name implies, the woodlot was predominantly white pine, intermingled with some beech, birch, and the odd maple. The floor was a soft pad of rust-colored pine needles. If you dug down 2 or 3 inches you were into soft, black, sandy loam, the product of years and years of quiet decomposition.

White pines are majestic. They are permanently wind-blown like carefree flirts in a park, constantly getting the attention of every eye. They were frequent subjects of Canada’s Group of Seven painters.

On any given weekend, the odds were good that we were in the woods, digging or climbing. Our quest was the construction of a hut, or a fort, and occasionally a tree fort.

An adult attempt at reclaiming youth, somewhere on Kauai.

The huts were lean-tos. We scavenged dead branches for ridgepoles and then layered quantities of pine bows over the structure until it blocked out the sun. We never knew if it would stop rain, but if it did, it was on a day we preferred to rampage in someone’s basement instead.

Those huts were our headquarters on fair weather days, and absent the real thing, we consumed pine needle and newspaper smokes like little chimneys on fire.

The huts were also big enough to dig pits for small campfires, and if a lost hiker strolled by the lean-to, they were as likely as not to smell the pungent fumes of our home-rolled cigarettes as the smoke curled through the needles of the roof.

Rupert’s folly on Survivor 7. Caves don’t work.

On one series of weekends we ventured to build a cave. This entailed equipment: shovels, smuggled out of the garage avoiding the scrutiny of our parents. We learned years later that they were oblivious to the whole escapade. Digging into the soft cool dirt, we dug down a good three feet, piling the proceeds around the sides of the pit. When the resulting cavity was about 4 feet in height, we laid down the required logs and poles to hold up the roof, which again was a frilly knit of pine bows and other bracken. Before long, the cave was satisfactorily complete, and smoke ventilated through the canopy to be blown into the woods.

The pine is majestic: a frequent subject for The Group of Seven painters.

This cave was pretty impressive, having shelving inside for a small inventory of consumables like Cokes and smokes, and also a side for a small fire. We even had it stress-tested when a local teen drove his motorcycle over the roof to prove its strength. Bikes were lighter then. Today’s Harley would be stuffed into one of the shelves in an instant.

The first 10 feet were the challenge.

What we did find, and this is precursor of what the hapless Saboga Tribe found in CBS TV series Survivor, Season 7 on Pearl Islands– when it rains, water collects in the pit. We could have jumped into the future, 2003, and told Rupert, the witless architect that it was a bad plan. But sometimes, history needs to repeat itself.

Our best, and highest accomplishment remains however, when we built the tree fort. The tree was an elegant and aging white pine, probably among the tallest in the woods. Easily 60 feet high, and climbable to the very top.

The challenge was the first ten feet, over which there were no branches to leg up on. As a solution, we pilfered various 2x4s and 1x4s and fists full of 4 inch nails to build a ladder up to the branch-climbing level. When the handholds and steps were in place, we were on our way.

A pine woods, ready for building.

Pine trees are distinguished by their regular frequency of branches. Every year sprouts a new level, so that we could climb up the tree with relative ease. As we only weighed about 60-70 pounds, we had the freedom to climb and swing our way to the top, high enough that only another 10 feet of tree was above us. Standing on broomstick-like branches, hanging onto the trunk, staring into the breeze on a sunny afternoon, the world was ours.

Google Maps finds our woods, untouched 60 years later!

Over to the west we could see the Barrel Restaurant, Wills Motors, Smith Lumber and the factories on the highway. To the northwest, there was Beselaere’s Fuels, and the German Hall. Just north of us was the CNR track, and if we timed it right, we could see the locomotives lumbering down the track towards Simcoe. Beyond was the tobacco exchange and then the high school. To the northeast was the dump, and way off to the east was the fertilizer factory. Twisting around the tree and facing south was a vista of treetops and woods, edging up to a tobacco field, already green with young plants dotting the endless rows.

I think now about the tree as our finest moment. It invited us to climb, and regardless of our real position, we felt entirely safe and secure, high above the ground, surrounded by a nest of soft green needles on a web of black branches. There we hoisted up more boards and nails, and made a platform big enough for 2 or 3 kids, happy to be out of sight, but able to see for miles.

Google provides a beautiful view of the pine woods today. Miraculously, it is still there, somehow protected from development. I wonder if kids still climb trees, and I wonder, is ours still there?

Thanks for reading! Please share this with your tree-climbing friends!

childhood, Culture, Education, Wildlife

Big Creek

For the past couple of weeks I have been enchanted by a Facebook site whose entire focus is looking back at my old hometown, Delhi Ontario.

Young fishers on the bank, waiting hopefully for that first tug.

It has been a treat, viewing grade school pictures and tagging names to people I haven’t seen in 60 years. There have been renewed conversations with these long lost friends. While the site’s members are asking others to remember their shared experiences, it has also rekindled some memories of my own that I clearly had forgotten. Running central through these experiences is Big Creek.

The creek drains west Norfolk, like a vast willowy exotic plant.

Big Creek is about 40 miles long from its smallest tributary running into Windham township, at the northern border of Norfolk County. As it heads south towards Lake Erie it gains volume and girth, first with the addition of Brondy Creek north of town, then Cranberry Creek, from the west, in Middleton, then Trout Creek and Silver Creek come from the east, in Charlotteville. Further south it expands as Venison Creek flows in from the west of Walsingham.

Two youngsters head into the edge of the Carolynian forest.

It drains west Norfolk through a valleyed web of locally named brooks, streams, rivulets, freshets and runs that on a map looks like the willowy profile of a vast, exotic plant. Through its valleys grow a robust Carolinian forest, distinguished by towering beech, hickory, walnut, sassafras, butternut and tulip trees. The woods are alive with rich scents and sounds, modified by the steady gurgle of flowing water. Underfoot we find marsh marigolds and vast spreads of skunk cabbage.

Along every bank there is a path, both sides, worn deep by the feet of literally centuries of generations of natives, settlers, small animals and small people. They are there to walk, fish, camp, trap, hunt, swim, wade and stare deep into the current’s constant pushing of sand and silt towards the lake.

Green pools hide the fish on a sunny afternoon.

Fighting the flow are small fish– trout: brook, brown, and occasional suckers which vacuum the river bed. They are scurrying against the riffles to sink deep into the green pools under fallen trees and trapped logs. Every elbow in the river is the occasional site of fishers dangling a monofilament line over the pool, waiting for a tug.

The creek offered new events at every turn, especially after the spring floods.

As a boy, no more than 8 or 9, I accepted the waterway as open territory for discovery, as did all of my friends. Big Creek was as accessible as the school yard and main street. But more inviting, as it constantly delivered new events at every turn.

At the north end of town, a half mile pedal, racing down swimming pool road, a driveway took us into Deerlick, a rustic retreat. Some church owned it, and sent their meditating members off to think, and maybe relax. We wheeled in there on our bikes, and stopping in the woods, a few hundred yards, dumped our clothes, and jumped into a clear, shallow stream that flowed into the mother creek.

Icy water, 12 inches deep! We hung in long enough to claim a short rebellion against our parents’ warnings to stay out of trouble. Somewhere back towards the road we could hear the occasional rumble of cars over a steel bailey bridge paved with heavy, loose, oak timbers, and a pounding reminder that civilization wasn’t too far off.

The old swimming hole: fun, sand and noisy with shouts and splashes at a bend in the creek.

The little stream poured into a larger current, and a few minutes back to Delhi, past the horseshoe, which was an abandoned oxbow in the creek, and one could see the old swimming hole. A sturdy wire bridge was suspended over the creek to reach the other side.

This was a service club’s effort to offer some fun for the youth of Delhi. At a gentle bend in the creek, the water deepens as it wraps around a sandy beach, grossly out of place in the woods. Were it not for Norfolk’s sandy composition, there would be no beach. Nevertheless, there is a place to suntan, a change house, and every weekend the screams and chatters of a host of jubilant kids spread across the creek waters as they drift slowly by.

The dark water streamed by keeping us cool and moving.

The swimming hole is just that. Shallow on the beach side, the creek bed drops off immediately into a dark, murky green pool. The big kids jump off a diving board into the dark waters. On the beach side, I walk out to the end of a small dock and jump in, expecting to hit bottom, waist deep. There is no bottom, to my surprise, and am shocked enough to inhale two lungs full of water. My last memory is a stream of yellow bubbles rising before my eyes.

I woke up in the change house some time later. Luckily, I had been missed by a lifeguard who jumped in and pulled me out. She must have been terrified as they pumped me and shook me in the change house. I awoke under the eyes of a group of concerned kids. I had a horrific case of the hiccups which lasted all the way home as my brother escorted me. When I met my parents, I said I had taken a mouthful. A couple years ago, I sent that lifeguard a note with a picture of my family and grand kids. I pointed out they were her doing, and thanks.

The site was eventually downgraded to a camp for out-of-work transient tobacco workers, and the service club built a new pool up by the rink. Today the area is entirely unrecognizable, and the bridge is gone.

Skunk cabbage: big, voluptuous and odiferous.

The creek flows south, just behind a cliff. At the top is Talbot Street, and that is the address of the Anglican church, St. Albans, then St Casimir’s the Lithuanian church, and St John Brebuf school. It is one of the oldest streets in town, and is named after John Talbot who mapped southwestern Ontario, earning himself a throughway called the Talbot Road. More currently it is Highway 3.

Highway 3 bridge on the west side. Upstream we played hockey in the winter.

Just before Big Creek curves under the bridge, there is a slow spot. In the winter the ice forms easily, and we often went down to play hockey on the grey skin of ice in the winters. One had to be careful as open water drifted close by, and our mutual responsibility was to stop the puck from sliding into the icy black that bubbled and melted the edges of our rink.

After the bridge, the creek has a run of a couple hundred yards in shallow waters before it hits Quances Dam. There are stacks of rough cut wood there, six feet high, air-curing. I have climbed on those boards and waited for hours to spot the groundhogs coming out on a spring day to catch some noon sun. The brownie camera I hold takes vague, grey pictures, but they are gold to me, better than Disney, actually.

Big Creek jams up at the dam. The dam is old, originally placed there in 1830, and powered the lumber mill and feed mill owned by the Quances, one of Delhi’s earlier families.

Quance’s Dam: a concrete pillbox was our watching station for fish jumping.

In my younger years there, I never sensed that lumber was a business. The dam was for our entertainment entirely. Water cascaded over the concrete, separated by a ten-foot-high pill box between two spillways. We would jump into the pillbox to stare up into the lip of the dam that was under a steel bailey bridge. We looked for whatever was coming down, and occasionally for some hardy fish that thought they could jump up into the water above.

Quance’s Mill, creekside.

In the pool below there were small retention ponds built out of stones put there by fishers who wanted to keep their catch alive but captive, until they went home. One day we played in the pond looking for crayfish and found a nest of lamprey eel. They were just babies, about six inches long, flashing silver in our hands as we grabbed for them. They would grow eventually to attach themselves to the game fish in the stream, and in Lake Erie. Evil little slitherers.

Around the corner, there once was a hanging bridge that crossed the creek. I never saw it, but it was a convenience for folks who didn’t want to walk around Western Avenue to get to the dam, which was a rendezvous for many purposes. Farther down, the creek flows under the road, and past Stapleton’s stone welding and metal fabricating shop that is a landmark. When we built a go-kart, he built us an axle for the wheels.

Perhaps the loneliest, most foreboding building in town, our sewage plant.

Further south, the pungent odor of sulphur fouls the air. We have frequently walked down the dirt road to the town’s sewage plant. There, we would pass by a one-story cinder block building, lonely, unattractive and foreboding. Beside it, a fenced off water distribution system carouseled around a 60-foot-wide circle, dripping treated water into a bed of rocks. There was an intrepid group of truants who climbed the fence and rode the pipes one afternoon, reportedly. There was mention of a police visit. It was during school hours, so we missed that. Nevertheless, we were in awe of their bravado.

Beside the sewage plant springs a bubbling fountain of sulphur water. It boils out of the ground, exuding its trademark stench, and leaves a milky film over the rocks as it flows down to the creek. Like a saviour, Big Creek takes both the sulphur water and the treated sewage water away, cleansing the town of its trespasses.

A couple more bends in the creek and it curves past a reforested pine woods. There were many Saturdays when we sat in those woods, loaded up with a giant bottle of Coca Cola and a pack of cigarettes and solved the problems of our world, mostly school, teachers, parents and girls. The meandering creek took our troubles away with it.

The new Lehman’s Dam, equipped with fish ladder forms a magnificent small lake extending to highway 3.

Just before it hits another bridge, the waters are joined by the North branch as it is called locally, and Lehman’s dam traps a small lake of water further upstream. If one ventures up North creek, it eventually cuts under highway 3. Just around the corner we camped up there for a night in a small canvas wall tent. Fire, food, smokes, our friendly companion dog for company, and the calls of mourning doves made for a pleasant vacation in the woods. We were 11 years old, and living the good life.

The early Grand Trunk steam engines blew their whistle on the trestle coming into town.

Back down at Big Creek proper, it travels south under the railway trestle. Grand Trunk used to run trains over it, and then the CNR. The trestle still stands today, black and rusted, out of use, and it is a monument to the energy and will of a bygone business generation. 50-year-old trees are growing among its foundations. When I was very young that same rail line had steam engines pounding over the rails, and I can remember their flute-like whistles, nothing like today’s diesels with their air horns.

The trestle today, unused but picturesque. Credit: Randy Goudeseune.

This patch of creek is a highway for foot traffic. We often came here, walking down from William street, over the tracks, and into the woods. On any given Saturday this was a destination hike, punctuated by a campfire, and a sizzling frying pan of hamburger, potatoes and onions.

There was a particular elbow that we would camp on, where the creek rushed by in six inches of rapids. Wandering out into the water, I fetched a peculiar rock that stuck out among the froth. Picking it up, it looked like a brick, but very smooth and scarred with shallow scallops like someone had scraped the sides with a spoon. It was block of flint.

Not knowing this, but still intrigued, I hefted the brick into my knapsack and took it home. There, I chipped away at it with my dad’s hammer, and amid the sparks, broke off sharp thin wafers of flint. Before long, I was failing, but enjoying the attempts at making flint arrowheads. Just another gift from the creek. I still have the rock today.

Dicks Hill bridge under horse and carriage.

On Saturdays we went for bike rides beyond the tobacco factory. The gravel road led to the long sloping Dick’s Hill intersected again by Big Creek. The steel bridge there was a bailey construction with rumbling timbers that shook with every car that crossed over. From that bridge you could fish, spit, drop stones and apples to the smoothly passing water below. The town council closed that bridge in the 70s, and cut off the neighbours to the west of the creek.

The bridge in 1984.

A couple hundred yards in, at another elbow we camped in a grassy clearing over a 24th of May weekend: wall tent, food, fire and our same faithful dog. It was a delicious, sunny warm afternoon followed by a quiet star-lit night. Totally inspired, we rigged up a large tripod, and boiled a 5-gallon drum full of water and took showers, then turned in to bed, wet heads on a mattress of pine bows. The dog wouldn’t enter the tent and slept outside, no doubt looking for varmints. Next morning we woke under a heavy chill, with horrendous, thick, throaty coughs. Outside, the dog slept, covered in a heavy coat of frost.

Croton Dam generated 60-cycle hydro to Quance’s Mill. It couldn’t hold the water back in 1937.

A couple miles down from Dicks Hill are the remains of Croton Dam. We got there by gravel road and bike. This structure was built over 50 years earlier in 1907, and blew out in 1937. By the time we discovered Croton it had a young forest of trees growing out of its foundations. The portions of the dam still standing are worthy of climbing and walking, all the time staring up the steep hill on the other side of the creek. Looking upstream, it’s easy, and stunning to visualize what the mill pond used to look like, stretching back perhaps half a mile. Croton provided Quances Mill with 60 cycle hydro, long before Ontario Hydro.

Our furthest bike pursuit of Big Creek was Lynedoch. This little hamlet is poised in a valley around the bridge over the creek. Just south is an orderly grove of walnut trees planted decades before: probably thirty or forty 50-foot trees in neat rows across the flats.

A few tools from the fields south of Lynedoch.

As the creek wanders past Lynedoch to another elbow, you can still walk up to the field above where there are arrow heads and tools left behind by an Indian village centuries ago. Just another find by the water’s edge if you care to look.

Having unloaded my memories of Big Creek, it comes to mind just how lucky we were as kids to live in an unfettered, free-range world, to wander for miles, away from home. By today’s urban standards, our parents would all be in court facing child abandonment charges. Thanks to their trust, and maybe to their post-war sense of relief, we were launched optimistically to explore and learn, full time.

All the while, Big Creek was our playground and classroom.

Thanks for hanging in there and getting this far. This was a long essay, but so is the creek. Please like and share this one! Thanks also to John Waite, Randy Goudeseune , James Bertling, and Alice DeGeyter whose Facebook posts supplied some of the images.

Agriculture, Culture, direct mail, Fundraising, Wildlife

The Forest, The Trees, Or The Beans?

It’s not a secret any more that I enjoy reading direct mail. Not much of a life, you might suggest. Still, it guarantees a walk to the mailbox everyday, and a chat with our favorite USPS mail carrier.

My current discovery revolves around the offer I could not refuse, straight from the Arbor Day Foundation.

These good folks in Nebraska City, Nebraska are on a mission to blanket the country in a thick, variegated quilt of forests. So when they selected me to represent a small portion of the people in Illinois, I was hard pressed to decline.

Why?

Premiums often trump the original product offer for appeal.

It is a fact that in many successful direct mail offers, it is not the product that gets the sale, but the premiums which come along with good behavior. Good behavior in this case is responding quickly, and munificently. In other words, pay up, fast.

The survey is a powerful engagement device, selling all the way.

In return for my promptness, albeit somewhat stingy in retrospect, I might receive Arbor Day’s special rainforest, cool-shade-grown coffee for a year. Wow! I am supporting Starbucks right now, but I can be swayed.

It was with this initial buzz on my coffee nodes that I rushed to complete the Arbor Day Tree Survey, carelessly pushing aside any concerns about what would happen next.

The Arbor Day Tree Survey for Illinois is an excellent example of powerful sales rhetoric.

It helps that I am a tree lover. We live on a third of an acre, and have 17 trees. I feel rich, and enjoy the annual blooms, the blossoms, the pollen, the seed drops, and the mounds of leaves I rake.

Arbor Day is celebrated nation-wide, thanks to the Foundation’s efforts.

I think the survey deftly gets all the right answers from me. It lulls me into a positive frame of mind. I race through the harmless queries.

They ask, ‘have you ever climbed a tree?…when you were a child, did you ever play under or amongst the trees?… did you ever collect leaves, acorns, or pine cones for a school project–or just for fun?’

These questions are softballs, and I hit them all out of the park. “Yes! I climbed a tree! I lived in a tree!…I built a small condominium in a tree!..Yes! I played under a giant Beech as a child!…Yes! I just finished a vast collection of leaves with my grandson! Yes! Yes! I did all of that!”

Sophie’s Choice: pick one. But how?

These are soothing thoughts. For a moment, I slip into a gauzy reminiscence of TV’s defense lawyer Ben Matlock, asking woodsy questions in his unassuming, folksy manner.

But that reverie is smoothly swept aside by a troubling vision of Patrick Jane, the thoughtful, boyish, enigmatic Citroen-driving sleuth in CBS’s TV show, “The Mentalist”.

The questionnaire asks, ‘Which ONE of the following is the single most important function of trees: Providing shade? Providing oxygen? Being a source of beauty? Absorbing carbon dioxide? Filtering water? Saving energy by cooling our homes? Providing habitats for birds and animals?’

Like, how to choose? This is some kind of arboreal Sophie’s Choice, with the bark left off.

The motherlode of premiums: plant your own forest!

Really, the questionnaire does focus the reader to the countless benefits provided by a our forests, here and around the world. So kudos to Arbor Day for the survey approach. It segue’s to some opinion questions, and then asks for a donation which opens the gates for premiums. Big premiums.

Because I have asked for them, I will be receiving 10 Norway Spruce Trees, 2 Fragrant Purple Lilacs, a copy of The Tree Book, and a Rainforest Rescue Calendar.

And the coffee, for a year, I hope.

It turns out that the coffee offer is part of a sweepstakes. The fine print is found on the inside of the envelope. 500+ words in 10-point sans serif type, arranged in block paragraphs with no indents. My hopes of those rainforest-cool-shaded coffee beans are evaporating like dew drops on a hot car hood in July.

The 10 x 14 envelope costs extra, but its impact, complete with faux label does the job: it gets opened.

Speaking of envelopes however… I do applaud the package. It measured 10×14 inches, for no good reason other than to dominate the mail box, and to get my attention. It was printed to look like brown kraft. A knockout on the face presents the image of a label, but looking closely I find it is a varnish over the original white stock, masterfully done. This kit looks impressive, official, and urgent.

The power of data-driven variable imaging: customization.

Inside, there is a personalized letter, and it has a personal note referring to the spruce trees, just right for Libertyville, IL.

Alongside, I find a set of address labels, which are pretty much table stakes in fundraising, but they are optimistically entitled, “Arbor Day Foundation, 2018 Supporter”. That must be me! Their 2018 calendar further alerts me to Illinois’ Arbor Day being April 27th.

The mandatory address labels of fundraising, but tastefully designed.

So, I wait. The trees are coming next spring. The book and calendar, who knows? The coffee, fearfully a long shot. What I do know is that with every delivery, there will be a further prodding and arm-twisting for a gift.

While I am desperately trying to find a place to plant those trees, I’ll give it a thought.

Thanks for reading! If you would like the full appraisal of the Arbor Day Foundation, it is available here, at Charity Navigator.

Culture, Environment, Government, Politics, Wildlife

If A Tree Falls In The Forest

The woods that colored our view.

This past October has been a searing lesson in keeping one’s antenna up. The teachable moment was the watching of a highly efficient logging crew cut down a thousand or more trees from the lot across the road.

The clear cut was requested by the church which owns the land, and it was approved by the village after due inspection.

You see, where we live we have a village administration which has pretty strong rules about keeping up appearances. You can’t just cut down a tree unless it’s sick, damaged, or dangerous, and if so, you need a permit first. I used to think too much government is a rein on individual freedom, but this set of rules is a good one.

This old gentleman looks forward to a questionable future.

It turns out that the church is in the mood for selling the land for development. The challenge was to make the parcel more attractive, and to that end, counseled with its lawyers to build a case for removing a wilderness of 60-year-old trees.

The trees in question were part of an abandoned tree nursery. Fifty-five years ago, they were planted 10 feet apart, and do you know what happened? The owners gave up the business, and Mother Nature took over.

In fitting out her arboreal family, she attracted a host of wildlife, from deer, coyote and other furry creatures, complemented by boisterous flocks of birds who populated the tree tops with a chatter of music all day.

20,000 motorists enjoyed this view every day.

Meanwhile, the trees matured to their full 5-story height, and spawned a wilderness of jungle under the canopy.

Not a winner: this tag identifies a tree that didn’t make the cut, ironically.

The critters loved it; the church not so much.

Then about a year ago, a developer sniffed out a golden opportunity to build a settlement of new homes on the property, and before long, a deal was made. The developer became the authorized agent for the church to get the trees removed.

Every summer and fall a corn grower leased the land for this harvest.

The new agent petitioned the village government, pointing out the church’s liability if, God forbid, a tree might fall down and clobber a hiker foraging in the woods for morels. It hadn’t happened in 50-plus years, so odds were likely that the jig would soon be up.

With detailed, supporting testimony from professional arborists hired by the developer, and then double-checked by the village’s own arborists, and ultimately inspected by the mayor, the village gave the okay to axe the forest.

Each offending tree was tagged, and given a C.V. page in a three-ring binder. 2,500 candidates were put on the rolls, and 38 were deemed salvageable.

The news finally broke when the local reporter headlined an article on the pending clear cut. Then, and only then, did the public wake up.

The loggers, like good executioners, did their job swiftly, and well.

But sadly, too late!

A 57-year-old bleeds a story for the arborist.

In November the heavy machinery came in, and in a matter of a few days, decimated the woods which had pleased passers by for decades. Today, there is a giant mountain of chipped wood on the lot, over 20 feet high, and enough to fill the village swimming pool three times over.

Three winners. 38 trees survive the cut.

I mentioned passers by. Approximately 20,000 motorists pass the woods every day. Year after year the woods have been the backdrop to the driver’s view on a seasonal corn crop that has graced the parcel forever, accented by a colorful palette of leaves each fall.

One day it’s there, the next, it’s gone.

Driving north today we see a sodden battlefield of tree stumps, roots and tangled branches, exposing fresh, grainy wood under torn bark and up-ended logs. A water tower overlooks the scene, never before visible from the road. Behind that, the once sheltered golf course now presents a naked 20-foot-high wire fence used to catch wild golf balls.

The new view. Passers by witness the harvest, and drive on, chastened.

As we drive by, our eyes are drawn to the carnage, and then we avert our gaze in disgust. The sight is sickening.

One wonders if the village will have the gumption to direct the church to clean up the stubble and make it pleasant, minimally, just to keep up appearances.

Though the word “development” is attached to every discussion about the deforestation, we are assured by the village that the decision to remove the trees is not connected to any housing proposal.

This row of trees is no longer a threat to the hiker.

The questionable proposal to crowd up to 147 houses on the parcel of land is nebulous. Despite the best drawn plans, it has earned no approvals for re-zoning, plats or building.

In the face of the public’s nausea over the decisions to date, the development may never appear, or perhaps hover in limbo indefinitely.

2500 trees, reformatted.

Meanwhile, the steam and fumes of fermenting wood chips fill the air with a bitter tannic scent that drifts across our neighborhood.

The lesson we have learned from this smoldering string of events is that despite our best wishes, bad things happen if we don’t pay attention. To that end, there is an aggressive interest among the population to watch what’s going on down at village hall.

While all the time, we grieve, and get on with it.

Thanks for reading! Please take a moment to share this with your friends.

Culture, Sports, Wildlife

Paddles Keen And Bright

We have a fleet of canoes. It was never planned that way, but nevertheless, fate, good fortune and the wish of one man made us canoe mavens.

A typical sight along the summer roads of Ontario.

Just last week our son rescued one from the shaky rafters of a rustic, ancient boathouse on a lake in eastern Ontario.

The craft in question is a Chestnut brand Prospector with v-stern. It is a super-wide 16 feet feet long, and has a transom that could host a 3hp outboard if required.

The Chestnut Prospector known as “Pickle” by our grandchildren.

Our grandchildren call it the Pickle, because it’s green. The Pickle is the last of three canoes which my late father-in-law bestowed upon his three daughters, fulfilling a wish that spanned over half a century.

Chestnut Canoes were an iconic boat company headquartered in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It went under in 1979, victim of changing tastes.

1983– Mabel’s Tremblay loaded down with our young family.

The class of canoe is cedar-canvas. That is, a cedar rib and plank hull, over which canvas is stretched and bound into place. You will find modern canoes made out of fiber glass, and the truly exotic craft are made from pure cedar strip. Last summer we lifted a carbon-fiber canoe with two fingers. It weighed 14 pounds.

In the heyday of cedar-canvas canoes, it was common that most cottages in eastern Canada had a canoe, or were in sight of one off their front dock.

Camp was our training ground, and today it commissions at least one war canoe, seen above in their brochure.

Truly a Canadian legacy, the canoe today is still seen on the tops of vacationers’ cars speeding along the highways all summer long. But more often, you will see kayaks. Hard fiberglass, ultra light, in hues of red and yellow.

When not on the road, or in the water, canoes are habitually found in the rafters of boathouses and garages, nation-wide. Which is where we have two, right now.

The Big Idea

1996–Our boys ponder a launch of our Pal Chestnut off the front point of the cottage.

Tom Hamilton is my wife’s Dad, and from the time of his youth he had been an outdoorsman. Very much into camping and fishing, Tom enjoyed no greater release than to glide among the ripples of a quiet northern lake, trolling a lure in search of a hit from a bass or muskie. If he couldn’t experience that first hand, he was intent on passing the thrill along to his daughters.

So they went to camp.

1950– Tom took his team to camp to build cabins. Here they are arriving in “Tough”, a war canoe.

The YMCA summer camp of our youth was built by service groups, in one of which Tom was a member. After WWII, he spent springs and summers cobbling together cabins, docks and dining hall for generations to enjoy.

The waterfront was well stocked with Chestnut canoes, donated by wealthy benefactors.

The skills regimen at our camp focused on canoeing and out-tripping. The requisites were quite firm for campers to canoe and out-trip.

1989– Tom with his grandson and friend paddling the Grand River in his Pal, “Hochelaga”.

2016– Tom’s Hochelaga now carries three great grandchildren on the Bruce Peninsula.

We graduated from Tenderfoot to Tribesman, Brave, Chieftain, and Chieftain Expert. A fully-fledged canoeist was eligible for out-tripping when they had mastered bow, stern, portage and solo.

The strength test was to hoist a canoe onto one’s shoulders, unassisted, and portage it about a quarter mile. The canoe weighed around 80 pounds, which doesn’t sound like much until you are swinging it over your head in one move. The ultimate test was to paddle a “Figure 8” without changing sides.

The beauty of river canoeing is to enjoy sights unseen from the highway. Grand River, Ontario.

This was the environment Tom treasured, we were raised in, and not surprisingly, it generated tremendous self confidence and pride. The dividend was paddling these sleek, quiet craft on waters through valleys of forest and granite, easily gliding up to wildlife unaware at any bend in the shoreline.

Among Tom’s three daughters, we have 5 cedar-canvas canoes.

2001–Mabel’s Tremblay under total rebuild. The red paint bled through an earlier canvas.

When he retired in 1985, Tom searched classified ads, read marina bulletin boards, and probably pestered a few motorists who were transporting a canoe, and eventually acquired three beauties.

They are all in Ontario. Mary’s Chestnut (a Pal model) canoe resides in a bay by her cottage on the Bruce Peninsula. Bonney’s Langford is beside the Mississippi River in Pakenham, and Jane’s Prospector “Pickle” is just returning from a week on Silent Lake.

Many years before Tom hatched his acquisition plans, I had a well-travelled canoe given to me by a veteran cottager on our lake. Her name was Mabel Stearns. Her canoe was made in eastern Canada, around 1951. I think it is a Tremblay.

2003– Mabel, all spiffed up, trim and pretty.

It looked pretty rough. Coated in layers of chunky blue and green paint, it had dirty brown, peeling varnish coating its ribs and gunwales, and a hole in its bow, attributed to a fast speeding bullet.

Like most older canoes that live outdoors, its decks were crumbling and rotted from years of storage on the ground.

Bonney’s Langford among the rushes in Pakenham, Ontario.

We were nevertheless thrilled to have the canoe, and that fall we put on a new canvas, reinforced the bow and stern stems, and painted it red. Not a professional job, but sufficient for the time being.

A couple years after that, in 1981, Tom found a red Chestnut Pal looking for a new owner, and convinced me to buy it from a childhood friend of his for $100. For me, that was considerable, but at the time, a Pal retailed for $800 or more. This canoe was also broken, and I forthwith re-canvassed it, and painted it yellow.

The reconditioned canoes went to our cottage and traded places a couple of times when a more serious attempt was made to give them a worthy overhaul.

2015– My $100 Pal after a major overhaul, complete with mahogany gunwales.

Ultimately, we sold our cottage, which is a not uncommon phenomenon in Ontario where tax law makes inheritance of family cottages a costly consideration.

While we enjoyed the convenience of the cottage’s stable location, we now appreciate the canoe for its portability to other lakes and rivers.

2016– Tom takes his place on the Chestnut.

As a result, the Pickle has visited Silent Lake and awaits its next trip, now likely next year. Mean time it rests dry in storage outside Toronto.

And our $100 Chestnut has been on numerous lakes and rivers before taking up residence behind our house. Mabel hangs from the garage ceiling, waiting for her next outing.

For me, the pleasure in all of this has been the fulfillment of Tom’s wish, that the canoe stays front and center in our family.

It has done that, and more so.

Thanks for sharing our canoe story! “Paddles Keen And Bright” is lifted from a Canadian canoeing song, written by Margaret Embers McGee. The song is sung as a round, a supposed assist for paddlers.

My paddle’s keen and bright,
Flashing like silver,
Follow the wild goose flight,
Dip, dip and swing.

Sports, Wildlife

October 29, An Unintended World Series Moment

Sarnia – Ontario Border Town.

Moments after Game 7 started, a quick visit to the parking lot of our hotel presented this fleeting pleasure: the smell of Fall.

It’s cool here, about 45’F, and the air is refreshingly moist, a mile away from the St. Clair River.

There is an enchanting fragrance in the air. It’s the sweet musty smell of old leaves. Millions of oak, maple and ash leaves, colorful all day, have fallen to the ground, and are settling in to their final journey of decay. Above them, several million more are hanging on, urging their last breath through the night air.

The bouquet excites the olfactories. It ignites memories of secret Halloween raids on dark nights, running down alley ways and through back yards, over fences, chasing, or being chased.

All the while, there’s this intoxicating sensation from long ago: the cold brew of spent leaves, spiced with distant wood smoke, floating across the yards, streets and empty verandas of a small country town.

Upstairs, it’s 2-0, San Francisco over Kansas City, top of the 2nd.

I really hate to leave this, but it’s baseball.

Phil Brown

"Like triple cream– rich, pungent, a little barnyardy, and spreads easily. A good cheese."

Category Archives: Wildlife

Free Bunnies!

Fence Wars

Butterfield: Where To, Now?

Marmoration Nation

The Treetops Club

Big Creek

The Forest, The Trees, Or The Beans?

If A Tree Falls In The Forest

Paddles Keen And Bright

October 29, An Unintended World Series Moment

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