who was the boy on the bike?

“I was born in Ontario, Where the black fly bites and the green grass grows
That's where I learned most of what I know, ‘cause you don't learn much
When you start to get old.” ~ Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

This column comes out on Valentine’s Day, so I feel it only appropriate that I pass along a little gift to you, dear reader. If you’re reading this in Arnprior, Carleton Place, Manotick or anywhere else The Farmwife is printed, bear with us. We in North Grenville are very proud of our little community.

Last week Mike McNaughton of Spencerville Home Hardware posted a video on the STAR 97.5fm Facebook page. The caption on the post was “pay close attention!”

It’s a Neil Young video, to his 2012 song “Born in Ontario”. Wikipedia tells us that Mr. Young was born in Toronto but spent his formative years in the sleepy little town of Omemee in the Kawarthas. The video depicts Neil as a young man, sporting a hairstyle that is reminiscent of Glen Campbell.  I’ve never been a huge Neil Young fan but I appreciate the music and lyrics. And after watching this video a dozen times, it’s growing on me.

It’s a black-and-white video, like an old home movie. It starts with views of forests and highways, mainly the 17 North and the Transcanadian. Cut to a vintage clip of young men playing hockey, then a shot of a teacher at an old one-room schoolhouse. There are a bunch of teenagers dancing…I think it’s the reel? Swimming in a lake, the sign for Blind River, and another highway sign, for the #1 to Manitoba.

Mr. Young seems to be reliving some of his favourite memories as a young man growing up, which really makes you wonder about the last clip, cutting in at about the 3:13 marker in the 4-minute video. The perspective is from the driver’s seat of a car, following a boy on a bike down a tree-lined street that looks a bit like Spencerville. Monument on the left, trees forming a canopy of shade over the street…it’s obviously a scene from the mid 1950s or close to it, according to the cars parked on the street.

Music fades out now, car overtakes boy on bike, and film seems to speed up a bit. Wait a minute. That is the unmistakable façade of the old Advance Printing building on the left, followed by the old Red and White, and – oh yeah! I forgot the old Scotiabank sits on the site of the old Johnson’s service station. End of video. No! We’re not done driving down memory lane yet! Aaaargh!

We got about 42 seconds of what is a very meaningful slice of history to local life-long residents, and of course The North Grenville Historical Society (NGHS). I’m currently trying to source the rest of the film. If it’s personal property, of course, we may be out of luck. But if we are welcome to a copy of the Kemptville scene in its entirety, wouldn’t that be nice?

We need to take a closer look. We have questions. Who is the boy on the bike? And the lone man walking toward the camera? I’ll bet some of our young seniors would know, if given the opportunity to slow the film down and study the images up close.

Why, you ask? Because it’s so cool! It’s a wee chunk of living, breathing, Kemptville history replayed before your eyes. I was born here in 1968. My young parents lived in that apartment above the shops on the left, and I do remember the trees so thick in front of the high school, where senior students stood in the shade and smoked their cigarettes in the ‘70s, in their wide-legged four-star Howick jeans.

Does anyone else have home videos like this one, in their storage? If so, consider bringing them to the NGHS for preservation. North Grenville is one of the fastest growing communities in Eastern Ontario, and our landscape is changing all the time. It’s so nice to see a glimpse of Kemptville in her younger years. To watch Neil Young’s video, go to www.youtube.com and search “Born in Ontario”. Enjoy.

Happy Valentine’s Day, for the love of Kemptville! If you have the technology, take a bit of video of your neighbourhood and file it away somewhere for someone to discover in the future. What a great gift.

You can email the Farmwife at: dianafisher1@gmail.com.

Cataloguing the cows

The last time I went over to the cows’ side of the barnyard I didn’t recognize half of them. With three calves born in the last month, I thought I should make a point of writing down who belongs to whom and what sex they are, what colouring they have, etc.  The Farmer is pretty good at writing everything down in his log book but he does leave a few important items out. For example, he doesn’t name them. And he doesn’t note their specific personality traits. These are points that are good to know if you plan to handle one of them, or attempt to retrieve them when they jump the fence.

In the fall of 2007, when we were just a few months married, we bought our first pair of cows. We had gone to Leo’s livestock auction in Greely with our hearts set on a couple of Black Angus but those went through the ring so fast, for such a high price, our heads were spinning. A pair of Herefords was more our speed. Ginger, the older and wiser of the two, is a very suspicious girl, always peering at us from around barn beams and round bales. She once got in between the hay and the tractor, and the fork pierced her side. The week she spent in the paddock, being repeatedly treated until her wound healed, did not endear her to us. If you try to get between Ginger and her calf, you might get yourself killed. The Farmer found that out the hard way, when he tried to help Ginger’s new calf to suckle last year. My husband dodged out of the way of the aggressive mama as she tried to toss him out of the pen. That calf never did learn how to nurse. He was bottle fed until he was old enough to get out on the pasture.

Big Betty arrived along with Ginger, but she was a heifer. She had never had a calf before. Both girls were pregnant when we got them. When their time came, we were somewhat prepared but also a little scared to death in case something went wrong. We had our neighbour, a more experienced cattleman, on standby. On a sunny April weekend, Betty gave birth to a little bull calf. She seemed a little flustered and almost embarrassed by the experience, or maybe it was the spectators. Anyway, she went easy on us. No problems. Ginger had Mocha the heifer the same week.

Mocha has turned out to be a very pleasant animal. She succumbed to hands-on attention from the beginning and although she occasionally protests by tossing her head, she doesn’t seem to mind a pat on her flank from time to time. And she loves apples.  More than once, Mocha has travelled all the way down the pasture, through a gap in the fence, up through the forest and into the front field where she feasted on the source of the heavenly smell. That year I had to actually fill a wheel barrow with the fallen fruit and dump it into the barnyard to keep her inside.

Our first attempt at breeding the cows involved artificial insemination. I showed the girls the brochure and we chose a strapping young mate together. It worked, the first time, so we tried it again. That second year, Betty didn’t catch. She actually looked ashamed and disappointed. Betty’s eyes give away her emotions. And when she is excited about the sound of sweet feed hitting the inside of a bucket, she comes running across the pasture like a pup, often kicking her legs up and swinging her head from side to side. I told her not to worry; she would be pregnant next time. We got a real live bull, who was quite tame and shy at first, but evidently very good at his job. 

So far this year we are doing very well. Ginger, Mocha , Oreo and Betty all had their calves and although the Farmer helped get them started a bit by stealing colostrum from the mom and feeding it to the babe, they are now feeding and thriving. Oreo had her calf and left him in the snow but the Farmer found him before he froze to death. Now it’s Julie’s turn to add to our herd. Hopefully before we leave on vacation and the kids take over farming duties.

The cat came back, and so did the pheasant.

I pulled into the laneway one day and saw something that I thought was a wild turkey. It just stood there, looking at me. I slowly approached and it turned and ran into the cedars, its long red tail pulling a trail through the snow behind it. Henry!

We raised pheasants this year, and one of them got away. In fact it escaped a couple of times. I’m convinced it’s the same one. I don’t know how he lasted through those two heavy snowfalls, but he did. Maybe he joined a herd of wild turkeys and ate what they ate. They probably accepted him, thinking he was a skinnier, more colourful version of themselves. The European version.

In any case, he was back, and he was hungry. The Farmer put an ice cream container full of feed on the ground near the cedars, where he seemed to hang out. The next day the feed had obviously been eaten, hopefully by Henry and not a marauding squirrel. But we didn’t see the colourful bird again for a while.

In the meantime, I was busy adopting out my barn kitten, Junior. I had forgotten about the photos posted on the Village Kitten Rescue website so I was a bit surprised when Ashley called for an appointment. The Farmer, however, was thrilled. With the nastier weather we have been getting lately, the adolescent kittens are constantly darting through the door and into the house to warm up. They sleep in the barn with the animals where they are quite warm, but they do enjoy a nap in a sunbeam in the TV room. And they love to tear down the hallway upstairs, through the bedroom and bathroom and back into the hall, like a Monte Carlo race route. You can hear their claws ripping at the carpet as they gain traction and speed, only to crash headlong into walls and each other. Drives the Farmer nuts.

“Why do we have four cats in this house?” he asked me, disgusted. He is more of a dog person.

I promised to try again to find homes for these semi-outdoors, semi-indoors animals. And I thought I had found at least one, when Ashley called.

On the night of the appointment, I made sure all of the cats were in the house. Ashley and I sat on the basement carpet and tried to lure Junior out of his hiding place in the dollhouse. Since his trip to the vet last fall, however, he has become wary of cages and strangers. So he was having nothing of our attempts to trap him. I kept thinking to myself…if he is resisting being caught I’m not sure he will make a very good pet…but she really liked his colouring and wanted to try.

Finally the Farmer came downstairs with a huge net and a live trap. He was ever so helpful. I caught Junior, stuffed him in Ashley’s carrier, and off they went, Junior’s plaintive wail trailing behind them.

The next day I got the first of a string of reports by email. Junior was hiding in Ashley’s spare room, unwilling to come out and explore. The next day, he met and made friends with the other house cat, but he still resisted being touched by his new human and the slightest noise from the puppy sent him darting under the furniture. Finally he gave in and allowed Ashley to pet him while he ate bribes of cat treats, but he just wasn’t settling in. I thought to myself, well, that’s the way he is here. He lets you get close, but that’s it. No picking up, no cuddling. He’s just not that kind of cat.

The next day, the cat came back. He immediately went downstairs to his dollhouse, sniffed all the corners, then darted upstairs to the patio door. I slid it open and he ran out into the darkness. Five minutes later he was back, crying at the door to be let in. I let him in and he ran upstairs, his brother and sister on his tail. The Farmer just looked at me and shook his head.

Oh well. It will be springtime soon. Then we will open the patio door, the cats will run out and we won’t see them again until fall. Henry the pheasant, however, has been spotted again, standing guard at the driveway.

Email the Farmwife at: dianafisher1@gmail.com

In a power outage, hunker down.

Last Sunday we had a blackout – or a whiteout, depending on where you were. The winds began around midnight and continued blowing throughout the night, gathering strength. Early in the morning a wall of snow blew past the house, completely blocking sight beyond the porch. Then the snow cleared and the sun broke through the clouds. But still the winds blew.




First the wind came from the North-west, up the pasture, to hit the house at the back porch, rattling the sunblinds where they were rolled up against the windows. Then the wind changed direction and it came from the East, smacking the awning against the house. Every loose flap and board on the house flew up and slammed back down, making quite a ruckus. The sheepdog started barking and the cats went into hiding.



Then, shortly after noon, the power went out. The sun was still shining, so we stoked the fire in the woodstove and settled in with the last of the hot coffee and our oft-neglected paperbacks on the couch. I thought, this is my way to spend a Sunday. As the hours went on, it became increasingly apparent that we would not be able to properly clean the house and prepare a full meal for our dozen-or-so Sunday dinner guests. I picked up the cell phone and called to cancel our guests driving out from Ottawa. “Oh don’t worry; we aren’t coming!” said my father-in-law, who informed me that a blizzard had completely overtaken Ottawa. News briefs on my Blackberry from Ottawa Police reported road closures on the west, south and east of the city due to poor visibility, ice and numerous collisions. They even closed the 417. At our house, the sun shone, and the wind stopped. But the power was out. So we cancelled Sunday dinner. We never cancel Sunday dinner.



The afternoon stretched ahead of us. What to do? I took advantage of the sunshine to sweep and Swiffer the floors, and the Farmer put a pot of bottled water on the woodstove for tea. I nibbled on bean salad, bell peppers and hummus for lunch. And I made a salami-and-cheese sandwich on rye for my husband. We were quite comfy in front of the wood stove, and tucked back into our books.



It occurred to me that we need a radio that runs on batteries for times like these. I would have liked to hear the news. But when she finally woke up from her long winter’s nap, our daughter created a wi-fi hotspot with her cell phone and plugged it into her laptop so we could check out the Hydro One site. Power outages were marked all over Eastern and Southern Ontario, in scattered pockets. Merrickville was on, but Kemptville and Oxford Mills were out. Oxford Station was on, but Spencerville was out. Our skies were clear, but Kemptville was in white out and Ottawa residents were being advised not to venture out onto the roads at all.



I settled back into the easy chair in the corner between two windows and tucked back into my book. Paulina went upstairs and got a pile of books and her guitar. I haven’t spent that much time with my youngest child in ages. Of course, she was also nursing a head cold so she wasn’t energetic enough to do much besides loll around in front of the fire.

At about 4pm, the lights, television and radio came back on. But I had finished my book, spent the afternoon in front of the fire with my husband and daughter, and felt very relaxed indeed. I made a simple dinner of salad, soup and open-faced Reuben sandwiches, and we watched two movies in a row.

“What a productive day this has been!” the teenager announced, before finally going off to bed. The power can go out any weekend as far as I’m concerned.



Author’s footnote: thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of the late Marg Rupert, who was killed in a fire at her home on Sunday. Hold your loved ones close, for we never know how long we will have with them. Email: dianafisher1@gmail.com.

To Anastasia on her 21st birthday

Those last two snowfalls of 2012 left the barn buried and packed in ice. The Farmer spent most of one day clearing our long driveway, then he started creating pathways to the shed and outbuildings with the snowblower. When he got around to the far side of the barn, he got a big surprise. Just in front of him in the pure white snow, a little black head popped up and bobbed around before weakly settling back down. A new calf had been abandoned in the snow by its mother.


The dark brown calf had been licked clean, and any sign of the birthplace had been covered by the freshly fallen snow. Still, there was no telling how long it had been lying there alone in the cold, so my husband and son-in-law carried it to the lambing room of the barn. They set it up with a heat lamp and gave it a rub-down with a towel. Then they went out to search for its mother.

All of our cows were standing at the hay feeder, chowing down. Mocha and Ginger had already had their calves; this one belonged to Betty, Julie or the first-timer, Oreo. Everyone munched and stared as they were examined by the Farmer. He decided Oreo, who wouldn’t let him anywhere near her, was the culprit, as her sides appeared decidedly less inflated than in weeks past. I imagine he spoke to her for a moment about her calf and, still in shock by the event of her first birth, she just kept eating.

I was summoned to make a bottle from the bag of Mocha’s colostrum in the freezer. I dumped the cloudy yellow contents of the baggie into the blender and mixed it with some bottled water. Then I poured the mixture into a measuring cup and gently warmed it in the microwave before pouring it into the calf bottle and fitting on the large rubber nipple. Pulling on snowpants, boots and barn jacket, I trudged out through the snow to the lambing room.

I found the calf, curled up in the corner of the pen, its head at an awkwardly uncomfortable angle. I climbed into the pen and sat down beside the animal, which was about the size of my daughter’s Labrador Retriever. The Farmer pried its clamped jaw open with his fingers. So much about farming is about being gentle and strong at the same time. “It’s cold,” he announced. We pushed the nipple of the bottle into the calf’s mouth, and I stroked the newborn’s throat. After a minute or two he started making little chewing movements but no sucking was happening. I pulled the bottle out and saw the nipple was blocked. The Farmer took it from me and emptied half of it into a bowl before filling a large plastic syringe. Again he pried the animal’s jaw open, this time to fit the syringe in before pushing the plunger. I heard and saw swallowing. Yay.

Fill syringe, open mouth, repeat.

When the calf had a pint of the warm liquid gold in its belly, we let it rest. Already we could hear his mother bawling outside the door. Suddenly she remembered she had left something in the snow over by the gate…

A little while later the Farmer went back out to the barn and the calf was on its feet. My husband carried the calf outside and reunited it with its mother. The new little family wandered over to the sheltered area of the barn, and the calf started suckling.

I said we should call the calf “Lucky” but the Farmer has decided his name is “Snowball”. Oreo was our only heifer this year so hopefully the last cows-in-waiting won’t have any surprises for us.

Farming is more about crisis management and problem solving than planning, I’ve found, as any plans you make can be laughed away by a drought or a rainy season. Hopefully 2013 will be more temperate than 2012, with enough hay for every animal and less stress for every farmer.

To reach the Farmwife, email Dianafisher1@gmail.com.

A very lucky snowball indeed.

Those last two snowfalls of 2012 left the barn buried and packed in ice. The Farmer spent most of one day clearing our long driveway, then he started creating pathways to the shed and outbuildings with the snowblower. When he got around to the far side of the barn, he got a big surprise. Just in front of him in the pure white snow, a little black head popped up and bobbed around before weakly settling back down. A new calf had been abandoned in the snow by its mother.


The dark brown calf had been licked clean, and any sign of the birthplace had been covered by the freshly fallen snow. Still, there was no telling how long it had been lying there alone in the cold, so my husband and son-in-law carried it to the lambing room of the barn. They set it up with a heat lamp and gave it a rub-down with a towel. Then they went out to search for its mother.

All of our cows were standing at the hay feeder, chowing down. Mocha and Ginger had already had their calves; this one belonged to Betty, Julie or the first-timer, Oreo. Everyone munched and stared as they were examined by the Farmer. He decided Oreo, who wouldn’t let him anywhere near her, was the culprit, as her sides appeared decidedly less inflated than in weeks past. I imagine he spoke to her for a moment about her calf and, still in shock by the event of her first birth, she just kept eating.

I was summoned to make a bottle from the bag of Mocha’s colostrum in the freezer. I dumped the cloudy yellow contents of the baggie into the blender and mixed it with some bottled water. Then I poured the mixture into a measuring cup and gently warmed it in the microwave before pouring it into the calf bottle and fitting on the large rubber nipple. Pulling on snowpants, boots and barn jacket, I trudged out through the snow to the lambing room.

I found the calf, curled up in the corner of the pen, its head at an awkwardly uncomfortable angle. I climbed into the pen and sat down beside the animal, which was about the size of my daughter’s Labrador Retriever. The Farmer pried its clamped jaw open with his fingers. So much about farming is about being gentle and strong at the same time. “It’s cold,” he announced. We pushed the nipple of the bottle into the calf’s mouth, and I stroked the newborn’s throat. After a minute or two he started making little chewing movements but no sucking was happening. I pulled the bottle out and saw the nipple was blocked. The Farmer took it from me and emptied half of it into a bowl before filling a large plastic syringe. Again he pried the animal’s jaw open, this time to fit the syringe in before pushing the plunger. I heard and saw swallowing. Yay.

Fill syringe, open mouth, repeat.

When the calf had a pint of the warm liquid gold in its belly, we let it rest. Already we could hear his mother bawling outside the door. Suddenly she remembered she had left something in the snow over by the gate…

A little while later the Farmer went back out to the barn and the calf was on its feet. My husband carried the calf outside and reunited it with its mother. The new little family wandered over to the sheltered area of the barn, and the calf started suckling.

I said we should call the calf “Lucky” but the Farmer has decided his name is “Snowball”. Oreo was our only heifer this year so hopefully the last cows-in-waiting won’t have any surprises for us.

Farming is more about crisis management and problem solving than planning, I’ve found, as any plans you make can be laughed away by a drought or a rainy season. Hopefully 2013 will be more temperate than 2012, with enough hay for every animal and less stress for every farmer.

To reach the Farmwife, email Dianafisher1@gmail.com.

2012 was a very good year.

Whether it was ‘annus horribilis’ or not, it’s important to sit back as the year wraps up, and take stock of your situation. On the Fisher Farm, 2012 was a pretty good year. We had calves born on schedule in winter, and although I had to keep one of them alive with a bottle because it wouldn’t suckle from its mama, they all thrived through the summer and fall until it was time to go to market. We had lambs born in spring, which is when I like them to be born; not in winter when you are constantly battling ice. Ice takes over the water buckets in the lambing room before the ewes have had their fill. Ice freezes the barn doors shut so we can’t get in to feed in the morning. Ice freezes the water hose so we can’t refill the water troughs when they are empty. Spring is better for lambing, to be sure.

We only lost one lamb to a coyote that we are aware of this year, and we only had four kittens born on the farm. That’s a pretty good reduction from last year, when we had 40. Operation spay/neuter was a success.

As the grass greened all around us and the farm animals began taking care of themselves, it became time to shift our attention to weddings. Our daughter’s, and my sister’s. One in January and one in September. First came Anastasia. She planned the whole thing pretty much on her own, on a shoestring budget, and it was impressive. I planted flowers in containers that could be easily shifted to the wedding site, and invitations were sent out for an important date three months into the future.

We managed to buy and put away some hay in early summer, and that was a good thing. You never know what the season holds, but this year it didn’t hold much rain. Our land is low and a creek runs through it so we didn’t suffer much but hay was pretty scarce all the same. Some farmers in Renfrew County are counting on the generosity of strangers out West for the hay that will get their animals through this winter. A winter that is shaping up to be a nasty one indeed. I would have been pretty sad to see the Farmer sell all our animals for lack of hay to feed them. Many farmers in Eastern Ontario had to do just that. I wonder if we sold all our animals if we would start over again?

We saw a terrible accident take the life of a beloved high school teacher, friend and coach in June. The funeral for Ted Cooper became a celebration of life. It brought so many old friends together to say goodbye to the old North Grenville District High School for the last time.

Anastasia married Andrew on a 30+ degree day in the middle of a meadow. The memories of that day are scorched on our brains as the sun scorched our skin. The new Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins went to P.E.I. for their honeymoon and caught a 1000-lb tuna fish. Too bad it was out of season and they had to throw it back for someone else to catch. It would have been worth about $10,000. In any case, I think catching a big fish is a lucky sign. And later in the year the bride was digging for driftwood when she found a diamond ring on a beach along the St. Lawrence River. I’m hoping the lottery ticket she bought me is just as lucky as she is.

We wrapped up the summer of 2012 with our annual Fisher Farm party, and this year it fell right on our fifth anniversary. A perfect celebration of a commitment I would make all over again, in a heartbeat.

My sister married her sweetheart and we celebrated as the power went out on September 8th. Dad was there in spirit, in the form of a double rainbow during the wedding reception. You bet your sweet Aunt Bippy we got pictures.

We have so much to be thankful for, as the seasons go whizzing by. Daughters graduating, finding their way in life, one little success at a time. It’s time to look ahead to 2013, for its challenges and surprises are still mysteries to all of us. May it be ‘annus mirabilis’, a very good year for each of you.

Email the Farmwife at: dianafisher1@gmail.com