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They belong to another era and were a fix-it solution for ground too stony to drive in a fence post.  When my father bought the farm, back in the 1940s, he found his acres of pasture land consisted of a thin layer of grass and gavel over limestone bedrock less than a foot down.  And the place needed fences everywhere.  Deadmen, as the neighbours called them, were the local creative solution to anchoring wire fencing.

A deadman consisted of a circle of posts containing, at the centre, rocks loaded in to the height of about five feet and held together by iron rims from old buggy wheels. This whole sat atop the ground relying on the weight of the rocks to  keep it upright.  Fence wire could be attached and stretched taut without pulling the heavy structure over.

Deadmen belong to a bygone day but some still stand where the fence corners were.  The posts for the circle are salvaged from an even older time when split cedar rails made fences. The whole side of the farm along the road was fenced with cedar rails until Hurricane Hazel came through and blew them down.  The very back field has remnants of the still earlier fence of intertwined pine roots the first settlers used to keep livestock in.

However, the day of the deadmen is long gone and many have simply collapsed where they stood, spilling their stones back to the earth and letting the grass grow up around them.  Yet these relics remain a testament to the hard labour and ingenuity of former generations. And I know each of these stones was painstakingly collected and hauled from the plowed fields of deeper soil by my dad.

 

 

 

 

It’s September and time once again for our county fair.  Picton Fair, one of the oldest in our province, has been going strong since 1831.  Even during Covid, when the Fair turned into a lively set of drive through displays, the county spirit did not falter.  Rain, thunderstorms, blistering heat or chill winds do not keep the crowds away. This year, with only a few showers, the weather smiled, the crowds poured in.

The secret of its attraction is that, true to its roots, it has remained a genuine agriculture fair.  There are horse competitions, English, western, barrel racing, and kids on their spiffed up ponies trotting proudly round the ring.  The cattle show is extensive, dairy and beef and the 4H youngsters leading the heifer or steer they have carefully raised and trained from a wobbly calf.

The hockey arena has long tables laden with all the fruit, vegetable and flower competition entries. At the side, safely behind glass, the pies, cakes and preserves sit temptingly, with the ribbons they have won.  In the curling rink there is the dog show in which dogs compete for longest tail, cleverest trick, best costume while at the other end, the arm wrestling trials go on. Earlier in the day there was a baby contest.

Naturally there is a midway, just the right size for our town, rumbling merrily away while riders shriek their delight. The little kids swirl sedately, the big kids spin way up in the sky, lights flash and molecules are shaken up for the rest of the year.

One whole room of the arena is filled with local handicrafts. Wood works, knitting, crocheting, holiday items, and tables of work from the senior’s retirement homes.  And, of course, a whole wall of incredible quilts from out quilters.

As for me, for some reason I like the far corner exhibition the best. In a separate building you can find the exotic bunnies, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and even pigeons while along the edge in small pens are goats, calves, piglets and a pony for children to get up close.

 

I went to the fair as a kid to stuff myself with cotton candy and hot dogs.  Now it’s sausage on a bun, fries and ice cream with a bag of mini donuts for later snacking and perhaps a daring sampling of a deep fried pickle. I hope the Fair continues for another two hundred years and that there will still be cattle and horses and exotic chickens, pies and quilts and an arena full of plump vegetables for the great great grandchildren to see with wonder.

 

 

 

 

This spring I noticed some dull-coloured, inconspicuous bee-looking insects working in the masonry grooves between the chimney bricks. On closer inspection, they were filling the grooves with what looked like mortar and flying back and forth to holes in it. Puzzled and fearing for my bricks, I had to look them up.  I knew honey bees and bumble bees but this was my first encounter with mason bees which had chosen my chimney as their next project. 

I learned that mason bees are our pals, considered beneficial and highly desirable as pollinators. Just ten mason bees can pollinate a whole fruit tree. They are only active from four to eight weeks at blossom time. Males emerge, mate with females then, poor fellows, fall dead. Females build solitary nests in suitable holes using mud with a high clay content. They fill the nest hole with pollen, lay eggs upon it, and seal up the hole with a concrete-like plug. Then they, too, die.  No wonder I had never noticed them before.

The eggs hatch into larvae which feed until the pollen is gone, then spin a cocoon and wait through the winter months to emerge as new bees in the spring for their short, busy life outside. Males have no stinger. Females only sting if strongly provoked so they are considered safe for children. Honey bee larvae breathe through microscopic openings in their wax seal. I assume mason bees do the same through their clay walls.

There is a whole thriving subculture of bee enthusiasts who raise mason bees for fun and gardening. You can order mason bee cocoons, mason bee houses, mason bee books, get instructions on how to build your own mason bee houses, collect suitable nest materials, join mason bee groups, learn to deal with pollen mites and much, more. Who knew!

 

After writing two historical novels dealing with the birth of the British Home Child emigration movement and its effects in Canada, I can still be surprised. This movement, created by social reformers, swept up destitute, abused and abandoned children and sent them off as farm and domestic workers overseas to new lives in Canada. This activity went on from 1870 to the 1940s.

To me and many others, this is all in the past.  Yet whenever I have been out in public with my books, The Tomorrow Country and The Accidental Bootlegger, I am regularly approached by people wanting to tell me about the Home Child in their family. “Grandma was placed on a farm near Consecon and she had never seen a pig before.” “My great grandfather was born in Liverpool.  He never found the brother that was sent to Canada after him.” “My father would never talk about where he came from.  I think he was one of those Home Children.”

The frequency of these stories can be explained by the site of the distribution home, Marchmont, in Belleville, in the centre of the Quinte region.  Every year dozens of British children would arrive at our little train station and march to the large building waiting for them.  Their stay would not be long.  In a rural land hungry for labour, there were multiple applications for each child.  Buggies and and wagons would line up outside waiting to take their scared little worker home. From the beginning, Marchmont placed over 6000 children in the region so it is no wonder their progeny abound.

In return for chores, the children were to receive food, shelter and schooling. Some lucky ones were treated like family.  Too many others were exploited, abused and never saw the inside of a school.  Some children were kept working hard during the busy season and returned to Marchmont when things were slow. This meant a child could go from placement to placement and never find stability. Others turned defiant, horrified upstanding farmers with their light-fingered street urchin ways or ran away to disappear altogether.

Contrary to popular belief, only a small number of these children were orphans. They were gathered from the streets or from families who, through sickness, accident, loss of work or the breadwinner, could no longer feed their young ones and were forced to give them up to keep them alive.  Siblings were not kept together.  Contact was lost.  Heartbreak and loneliness was often the lot of the Home Child.

To make things worse, Home Children were periodically attacked in the press was off-scourings of British gutters and carriers of disease foisted on Canada, filling the little strangers with shame and making them further outcasts. Many joined the army in WWI just to get to England to look for the families they had been torn away from.

Despite these tribulations, Canada offered many opportunities impossible in Britain.  Most of the Home Children grew up to become fine Canadians and raise families of their own. Too often their hid their origins so that only now are descendants discovering they have a Home Child in their family. With new enthusiasm they can research online the newly opened records of the emigration organizations to find out who great grandma really was.

Today, with over four million descendants in Canada from these brave little emigrants, their stories continue to echo through the generations. If you have a story, keep it, tell it and pass it down so that those who come after you will never forget.

I don’t know why I am fascinated by this battered yard sale sale acquisition but I can’t stop delving into marine knowledge of another era.  The book is a highly detailed manual of everything one needed to know to become a serious sailor in 1913. Well-thumbed, taped together, the book contains study notes, in real ink, browning at the edges, of its long-ago owner, one Francis Walsh of Nova Scotia.

From the book I learned how to deal with accidents during squall, how to adjust a sextant, how to send up a topgallant yard and rig out a jibboom, how to stow jute or cotton cargo, how to put out all lights and ban hobnailed boot with metal nails when powder or dynamite is coming board.  Using a hand lead line, the helmsman must call out, “by the mark 5” when at 5 fathoms.  (Mark Twain took his pen name from riverboat soundings.)

At the back are the Master’s Civil and Legal Duties and Board of Trade requirements. There is a fine of £500 for carrying passengers on more than one deck below the waterline. Should scurvy break out, issue a double allowance of lime juice and preserved vegetables such as cabbage and onions. Sighting of a derelict vessel must be reported to the Lloyd’s agent at the next port of call. A large red flag must be displayed on a destroyer or gunboat when submarines are exercising in the area.

The original wind scale made by Admiral Beaufort in 1805 has become obsolete in consequence of the changes in the rig of ships. With a hydrometer is found the draught which a ship should be loaded in fresh water of any density so as to have a given draught in sea water.  In a heavy squall to the windward under reefed sails, lower away and furl the upper topsails. Use a clove hitch for hitching ratlines to the shrouds.

Communication is a big concern for all vessels.  Morse Code, for example, is laid out, letter by letter,  ready for learning, only a part of skills to learn.

Lots of other useful information abounds.  A fathom is six feet, a league is three miles, a ton of fresh water is 210 gallons, a cable is one tenth of a nautical mile. A ship’s coal consumption varies with the cube of the speed. The diameter and lenses of anchor lights should not be less than eight inches. The amount of water a vessel displaces is equal in weight to the vessel and cargo. A single vessel approaching a squadron of warships would be well advised to keep out of the way.

A vessel in distress can fire a gun or explosive device at one minute intervals, display a square flag above or below a ball or sound the fog signal continuously.  Did the Titanic sound its foghorn for help?  It must have had a big one which surely would have carried to ship it could see on the horizon.

And so the fascinating  information goes on and on. I sincerely hope Francis passed his tests and eventually rose to captain.  If he learned everything in Tait’s he would certainly be well qualified.

 

I am so pleased to announce I have two historical novels just out. The Tomorrow Country, in a second edition, deals with the tumultuous beginnings of the British Home Children emigration movement sending destitute children to new lives in overseas. A fiercely warring crew of do-gooders, social climbers, crooks and rebel misfits battle it out to create Canadians-in-the-making. Lots of intrigue and hustle here as ambitions clash amidst the vast social upheavals of nineteenth century Britain.

The Accidental Bootlegger continues the story into young adulthood in the 1880s and is set in rural Prince Edward County, Canada where the Home Children face risky new challenges that could tar them  to the neck with scandal should any choice go wrong.  It is a tale told with humour and delight, involving a practically useless Englishman, a malevolent pig, an amorous circus sharpshooter, a sinking schooner and a village full of irate women who will do their duty if it kills them. You don’t want to miss the action!

A lot of research went into these books and a lot of effort into making them a lively read with new adventure at every  corner.  After all, it is really only reader enjoyment that counts.

Both books available at Books & Company in Picton, the Demorestville Café, and on Amazon. Enjoy!

 

 

I seem to have my own little flock of turkey vultures.  There are five of them and no matter how far they fly, they inevitably return to their favourite spot to rest and watch the neighbourhood.  That is the roof ridge of my barn. From there they eye me speculatively though I am still far too fresh to be lunch.

 Years ago there were no turkey vultures to be seen so, like other newcomers to the county, they were quite a novelty.  Now there are plenty of them wheeling about in lazy circles, scarcely needing to flap a wing.

Atop the barn, they stretch out their up to six foot wingspan to bask in the sun.  Large as the birds are, up to two and a half feet tall, they weigh only about three pounds.  A great help, I imagine, for that effortless glide.

Though I hardly see anything except some road kill, there must be enough dead creatures in the county to support this population of scavengers. With stomach acid a hundred times stronger than that of humans, they can digest just about anything with no ill effects. So turkey vulture poop is corrosive to whatever it lands upon.  They use smell to locate suitable carcasses.  They are so good at smelling that oil and gas companies inject a stinky chemical into their pipes and then find leaks where turkey vultures gather.

When freeze up comes and smells go away, the vultures set out for southern climes. The sure sign of spring here is the first sight of those dark silhouettes back doing circles in the sky.  Perhaps there is a bonanza of thawing winter kill awaiting them that the foxes and coyotes have missed. They will indulge in a little romance, make a nest on the ground and get on with raising the next generation of county vultures.  Or perhaps youngsters to keep spreading northward.  Meanwhile, they are welcome on the barn ridge and keep watch so long as they remember I am not quite edible yet.

I have ridden my bike past this butterfly milkweed for years. It is a roadside survivor, living dangerously just out of reach of that mower that trims the road edges. Rooted in road bed gravel, it copes handily with winter salt and summer drought and never seems to spread.

Its copious nectar provides a feast for local butterflies. Its milkweed leaves are the only kind that can sustain the caterpillar stage of the monarch butterfly. Its solitary splendor here outdoes every other roadside blossom and there is not another like it along the miles I ride. I’m very happy to say hello to it again this year and encourage more milkweed on the land.