Our Ontario Home

When we landed here in Paris I was pretty sure we had a diesel leak somewhere.  Ignored it for the first night but the next morning we lay a sheet of cardboard under the engine (which is in the rear) and ran it for a bit.  Sure enough a pretty big leak around the fuel pump.  Luckily there is a VW dealer in near by Brantford who was open on Saturday.  They led us to a real garage, filled with grease and oil and tools and they handle diesel fuel pumps almost exclusively.  The owner was off on Lake Ontario fishing for Walleye for the weekend so we had to leave the van till then.  We met with him on Monday - a super nice man who is perfect for the job - and he is rebuilding the pump for us.  Not cheap but it gets us back on the road shortly.

We've been staying with the Nunans and having a great time.  We've had many tours of the countryside and gotten a view of the local farming that we never would have had we been able to leave when we intended.  Tricia's father, John has driven us all around to see different farms and to meet some farmers.  Tricia's mother, Jo, has fed us supremely every day - homemade pie, chocolate cake, lemon ginger chicken, steak, meatloaf, winter squash...  It's very much the same sort of food that we eat at home which feels good.  Tricia has taken us on walks, on a tour of Paris, on a picnic under the railroad bridge by the Nith River and on a chicken moving adventure.

Tricia and Sam and the two dogs, Fanny and Dougal, heading for the chickens down the lane from the Nunan farm.

We've seen many field of soybeans, some are harvested and some are still waiting.  We got to see a combine with a 25 foot head harvesting a field nearby.  We are told if we can find a soybean pod with 5 beans in it we'll be rich!  After the soybeans or 'beans' are harvested farmers often plant winter wheat.  They do not till the land but use a seed drill and plant right over the minimal soybean stubble.  Some farmers are on a 3 year rotation of beans, wheat, and corn.  Some just alternate beans and corn.   A farmer can expect about 60 bushels of beans to the acre.  The price this year is about $10 a bushel.

A 60+ acre 'bean' field.

Closer.

Closest.  Note the weed free ground.  Not by chance.

Here comes the combine.

The truck (missing the tractor at the moment) with the hoppers waiting for the combine to fill. 

The corn we are seeing harvested is not for silage but for dry corn.  The corn stalks and ears are completely dry as the kernels need to be very dry to store properly.  There seems to be a lot of discussion about when to harvest the corn.  Farmers like to leave it as long as possible and let mother nature do the drying.  But if it's wet weather the corn doesn't dry and the combines get stuck in the mud.  The corn right now is at about 18% moisture - 15.5% is what it needs to be to store well.  There are huge driers, I haven't seen one, that complete the drying process.  We see corn and bean silos and elevators all around.  There is a cornfield here still to harvest and we are hoping to see it done before we leave.

There is beef and dairy too.  Jerseys, Holsteins, Black and Red Angus, Limosines, Short Horns, and some mixed up breeds.  There are Black Angus here and we've had fun looking at them to compare with what we have at home.  Lots and lots of cow detail has been discussed that I won't go into.  Lots and lots of cow stories too.  Last night we visited a 40 milker Jersey farm.  They pasture very little and produce some of their own forage and buy the rest.  A beautiful herd of cows.

Tricia and Sam.

John surveying the herd.

We went by a farm where they harvest worms.  Workers go out at night with head lamps and pick them up by the thousands for fishing bait.  Today we went by a sod farm.  They can get two crops of sod off the land a season.

We've seen wheat fields that are just stubble now.  Any volunteer plants that come up at the end of the season are sprayed with the herbicide Round Up to prepare the ground the next crop.  The wheat straw is used by the animal farmers for bedding.

We've been by hog barns where there are hundreds of hogs, turkey barns with thousands of turkeys that are laying eggs for hatcheries, chicken barns with broilers and quite a few horse farms.  The farm down the road has Fresians and Martha Stewart evidently comes to buy horses from them.  They are black and built like a light weight work horse.  We saw one farmer plowing with a three horse team but mostly everyone has lots of machinery.

The land is very flat and there are not many wooded areas.  The farm houses are often stone or brick and all have trees planted around them for shade and for wind protection.  No balsam trees unless planted.  White pine, cedar, juniper, and lots of oaks.

Dougal catching a stick.