Womanseyeview's Blog

Serial blogging

Posted on July 8, 2014 by womanseyeview

Okay I admit it…I do blog elsewhere and it means my favourite type of blogging here – where I have no restrictions – does sometimes take a back seat. But there I’ve come clean and I’m surprised too- yes I am a serial blogger!

It started innocently enough with our local on-line regional tourism board asking for applications from local bloggers and examples of previous blogs. I told them that I like exploring local outdoor spaces and referred them to this blog as my only example of previous work – how much trouble could that get me into?? Well maybe only a few of us responded because before I realized it I was staring down the barrel, caught in the web (insert appropriate cliche here) of a once every two week publication deadline!

And I couldn’t just blather on about whatever I wanted like I do here…and even worse I had to check my grammar and spelling all the time!

Well here I am 6 months in and they’ve just signed me up for another six…if I seem a little frazzled it’s because I’m going on vacation soon which means I need to have a couple of extra columns ready to go! Take this posting as a warning – be very careful what you ask for…

Posted in Life, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts, Uncategorized | Tagged published blogs, Serial blogging | 32 Comments

Canada Day contradictions

Posted on July 1, 2014 by womanseyeview

Just like my horse Romy searching through his grooming kit for goodies, Canada Day always makes me look for the gems that we have here in our special country.

As a country blessed with beautiful outdoor spaces, much of it rugged and still wild we are often stunned into reverential silence by what we are so lucky to have around us…and yet we are so frequently cavalier about our guardianship of the environment we find ourselves within.

So on this Canada Day 2014 I find myself whistfully searching for answers I know must be there just like the distant City you may be able to see in this photo.

My family came to Canada just after these wonderful volunteers started to forge the magnificent Bruce Trail I’m now hiking with my friend Cheryl.

This was just after the first universal medicare program had started in Canada – a testament to those things we prioritized as a country…it was and is a land of wonderful possibilities…but perplexing contradictions.

Maybe I wouldn’t have been as conflicted as I am but we’ve just had a federal by-election here, to elect four new members of our Federal parliament and the voter turnout ranged from 15 to 30%…Oh Canada!!

Posted in Environment, Horses, Political expression, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts, Uncategorized, Walking | Tagged Canada Day, voter turnout | 31 Comments

Moments that spur you on

Posted on June 16, 2014 by womanseyeview

When we decided to hike the nearly 900 klms of the Bruce Trail we weren’t sure we’d stick with it but we were determined to try.

There are moments on this hike that keep you going and sometimes those moments feel like entire days. Glorious days where the sheer magnificence of what you’re seeing and hearing makes your spirit soar…this past weekend was filled with those.
Yes it rained on our first day and the mosquitoes were dreadful at times- but they just helped us pick up our speed.
It was breathing in the highly oxygenated air, fragrant with the scent of the forest and rain in springtime that lifted us up. How many glorious shades of green could there be?

It was looking ahead on the trail and seeing a huge deer looking back and not reaching for our cameras because the moment would be fleeting and we didn’t want to miss one second of it – then she bolted, flicking her white tail at us she ran in panic until she had located her precious fawn and ensured it’s safety. We cherished that moment for hours.

It was moments of quiet reverence as we mourned the trees lost through the past winters ice storm or uprooted by unnatural winds.

It was having hundreds of toads clamour across our path as they hopefully hunted the mosquitoes and we cheered them on!

It was standing open mouthed at the beauty of the hawks soaring over the forested peninsula below us as we relished the victory of our tough climb.
And then it was the smaller moments of companionship as my friend Cheryl and I walked in comfortable silence or chatted about our families, politics and life along the way.

These are the things that keep us going onwards to Tobermory or wherever we end up – distance measured in moments not kilometres.

Posted in Environment, Life, Photography, Thoughts, Travel, Uncategorized, Walking | Tagged Bruce Trail, Canadian wilderness, friendship, Hiking the Bruce trail, Iroquoia section of Bruce Trail, Special moments | 35 Comments

Farley Mowat – Protector of the North

Posted on May 9, 2014 by womanseyeview

A great author and passionate environmentalist has passed on and many creatures -including us!- have lost a champion. After the horror he witnessed as a soldier in WWII Farley Mowat despaired of the cruelty of mankind and spent his life speaking up about our destruction of the natural world. He was ornery and outspoken and as recently as last week he was in the press with the following comment about introducing WiFi to Parks Canada:

“My thoughts can be expressed quite simply. I think it is a disastrous, quite stupid, idiotic concept, and should be eliminated immediately. I have very strong feelings that national parks. provincial parks, any kind of parks, that are theoretically set up to provide for the protection of nature, in some form or another, should be respected absolutely and ultimately and human beings should be kept out of them as much as possible.”
Farley Mowat, one of Canada’s best known nature lovers

RIP Farley Mowat.

Posted in Environment, Life, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts, Uncategorized | Tagged Environment. Parks Canada, nature, wolves | 26 Comments

Moving on to Greener Pastures

Posted on May 1, 2014 by womanseyeview

It has been a tough winter and the horses were showing a bit of that strain. Their environment had deteriorated badly with the winter melt and spring rains…

…so when my friend said she was moving her horses back to her own barn, I asked if ‘my boy Romy’ could move too.

Anyone who lives in a northern climate will tell you of the joy horses and other animals exhibit when they get their first sweet taste of green spring grass.

We rode our horses the couple of kilometres to their new pastures and were a little concerned that the change in their home could be disconcerting for them…but we couldn’t have been more wrong!

Romy kissing the grass!

Vegas savouring the sweetness.

From the moment they arrived and their hooves sank into the greener pastures they were in horse heaven. Their heads went down and they started savouring the sweet, green grass and even as we tried to take their bridles off they resisted, so that they could gobble as much as possible in case we took them back to their previous muddy abode.

Jube-Jube devouring the new shoots.

Yearling Arya contemplating the blue flowers.

Even the laying hens have a snazzy new home…

Spring has come to the country and our steeds have moved on to greener pastures…all is right with the world!

Posted in Environment, Horses, Photography, Thoughts, Uncategorized | Tagged greener pastures, Horses in Canada, Horses in springtime, Spring in the country | 19 Comments

To Read is to Fly

Posted on April 28, 2014 by womanseyeview

A spectacular ode to reading – just had to reblog this…hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

Posted in Life, Photography, Thoughts, Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Every kilometre counts!

Posted on April 18, 2014 by womanseyeview

On a recent hike along the old Welland Canal section of the Bruce Trail (longest footpath in Canada at just under 900 klms) I decided to try a much hyped tracking app on my smart phone to test out the new vs old technology. The old technology being a combination of the trail marked by volunteers and the paper maps provided in the official Bruce Trail Guide book.

Since as I’ve mentioned it is a very long trail, keeping track of how far you’ve actually walked becomes a central part of the experience – every kilometre counts. And sometimes the quaint clues they leave for the trail direction are a little challenging…

Spot the Bruce Trail marker?

Not to say that the fascinating perspective you get from wandering down disused locks and canal paths that you would never ordinarily see doesn’t have a thrill all it’s own.

However at the end of our day’s walk when the Bruce Trail Conservancy claimed we had walked 10 kilometres and my satellite powered smartphone app said it was in fact 12.5 I can tell you who we wanted to believe! Now don’t get me wrong – the Bruce trail types are my kind of people – outdoorsy, dedicated volunteers trying to encourage an appreciation of nature. And the satellite driven technology people are well…not – privacy invading, drone enabling, spying types as they are! So of course I believe the Bruce trail folks but come on – 12.5 would be such a nice accomplishment!!

Posted in Environment, Life, Puzzles and Contradictions, Thoughts, Uncategorized, Walking | Tagged Bruce Trail, Bruce Trail Conservancy, Tracking apps | 18 Comments

Enough already!

Posted on April 15, 2014 by womanseyeview

As my granddaughter said this morning when she looked out the window “enough already with this snow”. I know I swore not to go on about this but let these Canadian April photos and that anguished cry speak for themselves!

Devastated Daffodils

Pathetic pansies

Frustrated Finches

Posted in Environment, Life, Photography, Thoughts, Uncategorized, Winter | Tagged Devastated Daffodils, Pathetic pansies, yellow finch | 22 Comments

Step one – on our way to Tobermory!

Posted on April 9, 2014 by womanseyeview

What is it about some challenges that seem attractive while others don’t call to you one little bit? Not sure I know the answer but one snowy eve over a bottle of red wine my friend Cheryl and I had yet another great idea for a project. Now you should know this wasn’t our first and most other great ideas have not survived the ‘light of day’ test. This one however started small and before we knew it occupied a big place in our plans for the next couple of years. We wanted to hike the Bruce Trail – the whole nearly 900 kilometres of it.

Cheryl makes it to Southern cairn

So it was that one chilly April morning we drove in from our respective home towns and met in Niagara Falls where the trail starts. Cheryl did have a slight detour on the way though and seems to have missed an exit and crossed the U.S. border but she soon realized that error…the nice border guard was forgiving so we eventually met at the cairn which marked the starting point. I did however put myself in charge of the trail map for the foreseeable future.

Over the next two days we hiked the trail, slipped down muddy hills, forged through streams and tunnels and emerged relatively unscathed having triumphantly completed 16 klms with just a few hundred left to go…and we can hardly wait to get on the trail once more.

Cheryl slip sliding the Bruce.

Posted in Life, Photography, Thoughts, Travel, Uncategorized, Walking | Tagged Bruce Trail, challenges, hiking the Bruce, Niagara to Tobermory | 32 Comments

Did I mention the pancakes?

Posted on March 28, 2014 by womanseyeview

That sap is sure to start running any day now and then we’ll know it’s springtime at last! Talking to the experts around here it seems this prolonged cold spell has meant that the maples haven’t begun to share their sap with us just yet…but that’s going to change soon.

I recently joined two diverse groups of visitors to maple syrup festivals and got a re-education on the wonders of this sugary treasure we harvest each spring.

Seems that the first nations have been tapping maples for time immemorial and since being able to store the syrup was difficult they made it into wonderful crystallized maple sugar that they traded and used to preserve meats. I’ve tasted the dried salmon cured in maple sugar and it is divine.

At the conservation areas I visited, enthusiastic volunteers reenacted the old way pioneers tapped the trees, reduced the sap down to a syrup and then into the blocks of crystallized sugar. Given that the temperature that day was -10 celsius you had to admire the volunteers hardiness…just like the ancestors they were portraying.

The two groups I joined were different in some ways and alike in others…at the one very hilly maple lot they were young school children – squealing with delight even before their sugar fix. Accompanied by caregivers, they were amazed at the process of getting sugar from trees.

The second group were seniors who gathered at a conservation area with a much flatter terrain and many of them were also accompanied by their caregivers …they however didn’t squeal with delight until the pancakes, covered in maple syrup arrived…as did I…a great start to spring.

Posted in Environment, Photography, Uncategorized, Walking, Winter | Tagged festivals, Maple Syrup, pioneers, reenactments | 35 Comments