I live in the country so when I saw that Amy’s challenge for Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #64 was countryside or small towns I grabbed my cameras and went out to take a few photos of the area around our house.
We have one acre on the corner of a 100 acre farm. Back in the day when this part of Ontario was being divided up for settlers the lots were all 100 acres each. It was allowed to section off a 1 acre piece in a corner as the “retirement” lot for the farmers when they retired and their children took over running the farm. Our one acre was sectioned off and sold , a developer built the house we now live in. We moved here from the center of the city 20 years ago. The picture above shows the farmers soy bean fields at the back of our house. He also farms hundreds of acres on other lands. Here are the silos where grain is stored ,the barn and other buildings.
NEIGHBORS
Here in the country we have the best neighbors. If we were in trouble we could call them any time for help. And …..here are our other neighbors! They are pretty laid back; two cows and two calves. The farmer does not have many cows as his business is crops of soybeans and corn.
THE COUNTRY APPROACH TO TRESPASSERS
A few years ago the farmer had sheep in this paddock. One day I looked out and saw two large black dogs chasing the sheep. I shouted to my husband David and he called the farmer. I ran out with David to the side of the fence. One dog already had a sheep down and was holding it by the nose. The other dog was at the back of the sheep. David had a long pole and tried to get the dogs away from the sheep. Neither of us wanted to climb into the field with those two dogs. Then the farmer drove up in his truck. He got out with a hockey stick in his hand. The other young man with him had shotgun.
“Make my day,” the farmer said to the dogs wielding the hockey stick above his head. The dog at the back of the sheep took off running. But the other one did not let go of the downed sheep. The farmer gave him a resounding smack on the nose with the hockey stick. The dog let go. The sheep had a bloodied nose but was otherwise unhurt.
So....in this part of Canada the hockey stick is the weapon of choice for trespassers! The farmer has a legal right to shoot any dogs that interfere with his livestock because if they stampede, run onto the road, causing an accident, the farmer is at fault not the dog owner. The owner of these dogs was visiting someone across the road. Here in the country people who own big dogs like that and come up from the city with dogs not under control are known locally as “citydiots”.
This is a photo taken after the ice storm of 2013.
It looked a bit different today.
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