Passing Time ....

 It always feels like we're just passing time in January.  We get one grey day after another, sometimes with tiny slightly blue patches showing through the clouds.  Then every now and then a sunny day comes along and gladdens our hearts.  Thank goodness I've got my mentally challenging projects to work on!

Grey or slightly sunny days.

Grey cloud cover with actual (brief) sunny patches.

Sunny days - but not very often.

However, days are definitely getting longer, and the first plants and seeds have been ordered, so spring is on its way!

Wintering Ships

We had heard that a Great Lakes freighter was now wintering in Owen Sound, so after physio last week we drove down to the docks to see it.  We found not only the freighter, but two of them, as well as the Chi-Cheemaun in its usual winter booth.

It was the Algoma Innovator, docked on the far side of the harbour out from the grain elevators, and looking very scraped!

I always wonder what's in the 6 stories of the ship's cabin.  Seems like room for a lot of bunkrooms!

Driving a little further we realized that there was a second freighter docked in the harbour, another typical bulk carrier with a big boom for unloading.

Here it is, docked on the opposite side and down  from the grain elevators.  This ship has earned a reputation as a 'hard luck' ship, with a history of mechanical failures and groundings over its nearly 50 year lifetime.

This is the Algoma Compass, a very long ship, not as scraped up as the Innovator, but a similar self-unloading bulk carrier.

It's hard to get close for those dramatic shots when you're in the car, but I like this shot.

Did you notice the gulls on the ice in the background?

And a final shot of the Chi-Cheemaun in its winter booth before we left the harbour.

Beautiful Countryside!

 We continued our ride west, really enjoying the sun pouring in the car windows.  Passsed fencerows, fields and farms, eventually turning north, crossing the bighead river and home.

The Bruce Trail crosses the road here, at the stile on the left, into a pair of properties purchased just a few years ago that help avoid a very wet route.  I had a hand in evaluating these properties, back in the days when I could go walking through the bush!

I'm sorry, but we think this house looks terribly out of place in a rural landscape like this.

I was pleased to see this new windbreak of tiny spruce trees planted across this field.

And this is an old fencerow of Black Locust trees, once recommended for this purpose.  With experience you can tell by the shape of the trees.

This little creek is a favourite of mine, because it runs downstream until the Bruce Trail crosses it, where the stream forms a tiny ephemeral waterfall dropping over the Niagara Escarpment.

Perhaps my favourite view in the region, taken looking north toward Georgian Bay where Sideroad 7 drops down over the escarpment.

Another barn and small creek, this one draining down off the Niagara Escarpment toward the Bighead River.

With this picture I realized how much I can crop pictures with my little Canon camera, easier to use with one hand than my iphone.  This was cropped down from a much bigger picture.  With an iphone you can hardly crop down at all!

Ok, this is a geology picture which interests me even though it may not interest you.  See that dip in the horizon on the left?  That represents the difference between two geological formations, the higher Amabel formation on the left forming the Bayview escarpment, and the lower Manitoulin Formation forming a separate 'island' of bedrock at a slightly lower elevation on the right.

Finally we crossed the bighead River and were home.  A very healthy drive on a sunny afternoon, hope you've enjoyed it.

Big Houses and Orchards

After visiting Thornbury harbour we headed straight south out of town.  I'm always impressed by the big old 19th century homes on the main residential street, and the orchards south of town are among the best in the region.

Most smaller towns in southern Ontario have a group of big old red brick homes like these, products of a period of prosperity in the later 19th century.  Perhaps some of these belonged to ship captains in this case.  Today of course they often require a lot of maintenance and updating which can  be pretty expensive.  I don't often post pictures of private homes, but in this case my rationale is that if you live in a historic home you have to expect a few passers-by to take photos.

The village of Clarksburg which buts right up against Thornbury has become a popular art centre, with several art galleries, a sculptor and a theatre space on the short main street.  There's a great old hardware store too, Hindle's Hardware, which is said to have everything you could possibly need, all crammed into a tiny old main street building.  Our own favourite has always been the Honey House, the outlet for a local beekeeper.

Immediately south of town are the apple orchards, both the traditional widely spaced and heavily pruned trees, and the new high density orchards.  The trees in the upper photo until recently looked like those in the second photo.  The older trees were all ripped out and these new ones planted.

The same pattern repeats itself around the corner, still all on the same farm.  I won't be surprised to see the rest of the older trees get replaced in future years.

We headed west from Clarksburg across the Beaver River out into the open countryside to wend our way home.  Tomorrow some country shots.

Another Drive - On A Sunny Day

Last Saturday was a rare sunny day at this time of year, so we headed out for a drive.  We drove to Thornbury first, down into the harbour and looked around.  Then south through Clarksburg and out across the countryside.  Very different from our summer drives here, but beautiful nonetheless.

Heading down to Thornbury's harbour we crossed the old railway, now the heavily used Georgian Trail.

Not much ice build-up at the mouth of the Beaver River here; it's been a relatively mild January.

But a few dedicated fishermen were out.  I think these work jackets must cut the wind well.

The boulders along the shore are piled so high I can scarcely see the water!

Here's a nice boat for you to buy, the 'Charlie'.

The ski slopes at The Peaks, like all the others, are ready but closed during our current province-wide lockdown.

And the docks are all empty.

Tomorrow, big old homes in Thornbury and apple orchards in Clarksburg.

Paisley

Just before we finally found a Snowy Owl, we passed through a corner of Paisley, a nice small town on the Saugeen River.  When we hit the main street this beautiful building was right in front of us.  The old Paisley Inn, this has been vacant for 30 years and is finally scheduled for demolition soon.

In the meantime someone has had the bright idea of putting small gingerbread men all across the fence making it quite eye-catching.  And that's not all, we saw several bigger gingerbread men as we drove north.

People have gone too a lot of effort to make these.  Must be an interesting story behind them.

There was also this beautiful mural on the wall of one store, presumably referring to the fish in the Saugeen River.

That wasn't the only mural referring to the fish in the Saugeen.  This is one of the most striking murals I've seen anywhere!

Paisley sits at the confluence of the Saugeen and Teeswater Rivers.   Indeed, the confluence is right under the downtown bridge!  And Paisley has suffered serious flooding as a result in the not-too-distant past.  

On our way home after seeing our Snowy Owl northeast of town, we stopped to pay homage to Tara's baby Woolly Mammoth erected after a mammoth tooth was found nearby.

We also passed back through Kilsyth.  This is the former general store where my dad grew up, the home attached to the far side of the store.  I remember it when it was still a store.  We arrived home tired but pleased with our Snowy Owl search!

If you're interested in reading more about Paisley you might try Patsy's blog, 'Chillin'withPatsy'.  She and Bill normally live in their big 5th wheel and go south for the winter, but this year are spending the time in Paisley.  She usually posts pictures of her walk around town.  Sorry I can't give you a link; the link function isn't working for me.  You'll have to google it yourself.

Barns

We are in the midst of a huge transition in the farming economy here, from older 100 acre farms with their bank barns, and small cattle herds to a more diverse modern farm economy of larger farms with modern barns and more scattered rural non-farm residences.  There are fewer hay fields and more cash crops; farm enlargement goes on apace.

On quite a few properties the barn has been demolished.  The property has probably been bought by another farmer and the house rented out or severed and sold, but the farmer had no further use for the barn.  All part of farm enlargement.

Some farms remain with their older barns and homes, this one with a very long lane!

In other cases it's the barn that's gone and the house remains, quite possibly rented out.

Quite often we see modern homes built on the corner of farm properties.  Planning law here does not allow more than one residence on a farm normally, nor can the farmer subdivide his land.  In a compromise farmers are often allowed a single 'retirement lot' for themselves.  But research has shown that the average farmer only stays in such an isolated lot for three years, after which it's sold to a non-farm resident.

In some areas you get a much more open landscape, often of one huge field as former farm buildings disappear entirely.

On the other hand some barns get expanded to form quite large modern barns.  You can see the original old bank barn on the left end of this mostly new much larger barn.  Such new large barns are ususally dairy operations.

And on other farms farmers just continue with their older buildings; these are usually small beef operations.

Another barn  with no house.  We saw a surprisingly large number of these on our drive.

And another house with no barn.  

A line of pigeons on top of an old barn.  Only noticed these when I got home and saw my pictures on the computer screen.  Didn't qualify as owls!