Winter seems to have finally had it’s last hurrah and April is starting to feel like it should have a few weeks ago. With May only days away the temperatures have made their way into the teens consistently for a couple of days now and if the weather forecast is to be believed it should stay that way for much of the rest of the week. This will likely be the last week that we are able to get the snowmobile out to do any exploring. We have been here just over 3 years and there is still so much of the land we have not seen. Our 200 acres of Northern paradise is full of forest, meadows, granite outcroppings, ravines and marshes. Its not the sort of “farm” that would attract a farmer in the agricultural heartland of Southwestern Ontario. There is no clear-cutting here, no large open fields open to the elements and the driving winter wind, this is not large industrial farming land, in fact much of the 200 acres would be entirely unsuited to farming as we think of it today. Dotted here and there through out the property are meadow like clearings full of Wild Saskatoons and Roses, and forests of Birch, Poplar, Cedar and beautiful Spruce. Along the rivers edge deep ravines drain the winter run off, creating a magnificent stretch of heavily forested overlooks and natural hideaways.
We took the beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures this morning as invitation to delve deeper into the woods along the shore line today. There is still enough snow that we were able to access areas that are normally much more difficult to traverse in the summer months with the thick underbrush and boggy marshes still weighted down by a good foot or so of snow. A few months from now accessing these areas will be difficult not just because of the thick brush that is waiting patiently under the snow but the blackflies and those tiny little flies that swarm and sting something crazy. We are so blessed to have found such a beautiful place to call home and more so to have such a magnificent piece of nature to “quarantine” ourselves in during the Covid restrictions. I couldn’t imagine being cooped up in an apartment or even in a suburb of a city.
