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Typical Autumn scenes for here; geese circling and honking, leaves in colour, fox hunting, curious vegetables, trudging in the woods with a dog. Causing ecstacy by very gently stroking inside a donkey's ears is less usual.
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I know that a lot of hunting goes on in Canada but somehow I feel very saddened to see fox hunters in your otherwise great pics. That just dont sit right with me.
ReplyDeleteIt's a blog about rural life. Hunting is a routine aspect of rural life. Foxhunting, in particular, is iconic of country life. The hunt is the centre of much social activity and so to exclude it from the blog would be eccentric.
ReplyDeleteI assume that you're in the UK, you may not be aware that the key objection to fox hunting there doesn't apply here; there's no need to belong to the nobility nor to have a former rock star father in order to participate in Canada. If you have a horse and think you can keep bum in saddle all day you can join in.
This isn't a classless society but the politics of envy operate differently here. Chasing a fox or a coyote on a horse just signifies that you live in the country.
I love this blog and refer to it usually once a week. I am a Canadian who has lived in the UK for most of my life. I have a large family in Ontario most of which live in the country and hunt. My Uncle and Aunt used to farm in Frankford where I have many childhood memories fixing fences around the chicken coop to keep the foxes out and nailing up "please no hunting/no skidoos" signs down in the wooded areas. I have honestly never heard of fox hunting as in the pics though. Btw fox hunting is more popular than ever now in the UK since they tried to ban it. I used to know a girl who went and she worked in Mcdonalds.
ReplyDeleteSo I just want to re-iterate this blog has given me a lot of inspiration so much so that I may want to buy a hobbie farm some time after we have moved back to Cnada on Dec 11th. Got to sell this place first though, and my Uncle thinks I'm crazy!
I'm glad you enjoy the blog. I expect you know by now that I'm English (long time in Canada) while Anna is an American (a few years here now). Prior to the start of the blog we lived in the city, Toronto. I'd always lived in cities.
ReplyDeleteWe're writing about what we find so we can't say that foxhunting is typical of Canada, or even of Ontario, just that it's popular where we are. There are three reasonably local hunts and each has a social circle associated with it. Other forms of hunting are more popular though, every weekend we hear gunshots; it's like being in Detroit.
If you decide to pursue a hobby farm have a look at the threads on the subject on the Chronicle of the Horse board, lots of good advice there about drainage and barns and tractors and other matters loosely related to horses.
Also get a copy of "Horsekeeping on a Small Acerage" by Cherry Hill (even if you'll have a large acerage and different animals). Avoid Storey's Guide to Anything; it recommends each of the conflicting approaches to any task leaving you worse off than if you read nothing.
Oh, and you won't have enough money, no amount of money is enough money; you may as well be reconciled to that from the beginning. We would like to buy so many things we never thought to need or want in the city; a better snowblower, a better harrow, an ATV, a better barn, more land, upgraded snowshoes, a second woodstove, new boots, a second dog, a horse box, a towbar for the Land Cruiser so as to pull the horse box, cross country skis, there's really no end to it.
Still, binding with one's inner peasant is an education of sorts. Good luck with it!
-binding
ReplyDelete+bonding
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