Colour at Kettleby

Photo by Barry Wallace

Maples ~ across the road from Christ Church Anglican

Another cross-over blog from BarrytheBirder

Here's another recent,cross-over blog from my Barry the Birder blogsite which may be of interest to my camera on King blogsite readers... 

Crow loves tax guy's peanuts

Photos by Barry Wallace

Don McKnight, accountant and proprietor of Personal Tax Services in King City, takes his responsibilities seriously.   One of the duties he performs diligently is feeding peanuts to a crow that awaits him each work-day-morning, on the hand-rail outside Don's front door.   The crow has been getting the hand-outs for a few years but Don hasn't given his crow-buddy a name yet.   Sometimes a second crow lingers nearby (a mate, perhaps?) but Don can't tell them apart.

Don does not think of this crow as being tame.   It is wild but there is a symbiotic relationship that Don certainly enjoys and the crow eagerly and faithfully anticipates each day.   It's sometimes hard to describe the value of a relationship like this, but as for the cost...it's peanuts...and a little goodwill.

And what the crow leaves behind, opportunistic blue jays quickly take.

Meanwhile, on a totally unrelated matter, Don McKnight has just been named as a 2012 inductee into the Newmarket Sports Hall of Fame, for his over-60-years involvement as a player, coach, umpire, association executive and builder of the sport, at both  a local and provincial level.   Well done, Don.

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace

Early autumn's orange aura

7th Concession & 15th Sideroad

Photos by Barry Wallace

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Barry Wallace

King Valley Golf Club at Snowball

                                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                          Photo by Barry Wallace

WATER WALL

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King City Skate Park update

Photos by Barry Wallace

Two future and eager skateboarders chat-up a construction worker at the site of the new municipal King City Skate Park and multi-use pad, beside the King City Arena.   Pictured below are two views of a very sculptural ramp that will apparently be skateable on both sides! 

This view (above), looking north from the baseball field, shows the multi-use outdoor-facility pad in the foreground and the skate park in the background.   The multi-use pad will be an outdoor skating and hockey rink in the winter.   Uses in other seasons are yet to be announced.

Completion of the new King Township recreational facility, on Doctors Lane in King City, is scheduled for sometime in mid-October. 

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace

Sunday afternoon drive in the Marsh

Photos by Barry Wallace

Although the Holland Marsh, also known as Ontario's Salad Bowl, is located in three different municipalties ( King Township, Bradford West Gwillimbury and East Gwillimbury) it is in many respects a place unto its own.   I never tire of wandering through the Holland Marsh, either on foot when I'm birdwatching or behind the wheel shooting photos for this blog about King Township.   Everything about it seems different and there are moments when it seems otherworldly.   I never tire of seeing it's many changing faces.

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Barry Wallace

Swans add tranquility

Photo by Barry Wallace

I believe these are migrating Trumpeter Swans that joined the Canada Geese on the Urbano farm pond, a few days ago, at the north-west corner of the 16th Sideroad and Hwy. 27., between Nobleton and Schomberg.   On Friday, it was still a summer scene but on Saturday it had become an autumn scene.

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Barry Wallace 

Chilly morning on the King Ridge

Photo and doggerel by Barry Wallace

Three Turkey Vultures

Sitting on a fence

We'd all head south

If we had any sense

This blog entry was originally seen on my BarrytheBirder blogspot a few days ago.   I thought it was also appropriate for my camera on King blogspot seeing how I took the picture in King Township's rolling landscape.   The setting is the old Gillies farm on the 6th Concession, at the 16th Sideroad.   For those of you who are already aware that I write two daily blogs, then you may have already seen this entry.   For anyone who is not aware of my birding blog, you can reach it easily by just going to Google and typing in barrythebirder or otherwise going to www.barrythebirder.blogspot.com/
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BtheB

Grand-dad would be disappointed by dahlia

Photo by Barry Wallace

My maternal grandfather, Sid Thomas, would have scoffed at the size of this dahlia bloom in my backyard.   The reason?   It's a mere 8" across.   When he was alive on his farm at Churchill, south of Barrie, he grew a flower bed of dahlias in which every bloom had to be 12" across, or else.   I never knew his secret.   Maybe it was the huge amount of manure he had available from the cows, horses and pigs on the farm.   Sid was a consistent prize winner for his dahlias in the Churchill Fall Fair.   It got so routinely embarrassing for him to win , that one year, when I was 13 years old and living with him for a year, he made me enter his dahlias in the fall fair under my name.   My contribution to the dahlia-bed was the wheelbarrows of manure I shuttled from the barnyard to the garden.    Yes, his/my dahlias won.   Almost 58 years later, the dahlia pictured above is the biggest one I've ever grown.   My wife also lays claim to it.   She is probably more responsible for its lovely show than I am.   It's not a prize-winner, but it and all the other small dahlias in the garden are a joy for us.

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Barry Wallace   

Round-the-Bend kitten

Photo by Barry Wallace

Six-week-old kitten takes a catnap, in a sweater, on the store counter at Round-the-Bend Farm, at Kettleby.

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Barry Wallace

Phil Chadwick ~ skilled and prolific as ever

Painting by Phil Chadwick

Pictured above is one of former King Township resident Phil Chadwick's plein air paintings laid down in the Killarney area of northern Ontario.   Phil visits the area each October and his blogsite this week mentions that he will be there again soon with participants from the Southampton Art School. For more on this former weatherman's excellent work, go to philtheforecaster.blogspot.ca or www.philtheforecaster.com
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Barry Wallace

Cold Creek turtle pond bone dry

Photos by Barry Wallace

For me, summer seemed to start in March of this year and it is still going strong in September.    I don't remember a warm, endless summer like this one.   It's one for the record books, on a number of counts.   But it has taken a toll late in its season.   Many ponds and streams have dried up.   Pictured above is the small turtle pond, just north north of the main pond, at Cold Creek Conservation Area.   It is bone dry and there are no signs of the turtles.   Such is nature.   This too shall pass, and rain and then snow, will surely replenish these fragile places we treasure.

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB 

King Christian Church ~ 161 years old

Photos by Barry Wallace

A week ago, on Sept. 12, I published a blog entitled "Cemetery with three names".   I should have included in that blog the pictures you see here, as this is the church that once sat on the same grounds as the King Christian Cemetery on Jane Street, north of Kettleby.   The church was moved from the Kettleby site several years ago and is now located on the King Museum grounds at Kinghorn.

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace

Schomberg Street Gallery

Photos by Barry Wallace

The originality, creativity and execution that went into the Scarecrow Contest at this year's Schomberg Steet Gallery art show certainly got the attention of all visitors.

What better than crows to decorate your scarecrow?

Families with children kept the horse-drawn wagon very busy on Main Street.

Some customers of the Schomberg Pub & Patio rode their own horses into town, tied them up at the patio, and sat down for a 'cool one'.

Hundreds of art patrons at the Schomberg Street Gallery passed by this completely oblivious puss on Main Street, on Sunday afternoon.   The weather was perfect for its sunny siesta.

This charming Main Street home is located right in the middle of Schomberg.   The entire front lawn is not a lawn at all, but is one gorgeous flower garden.   The property is for sale so you could be the one sitting on the verandah at next year's Street Gallery.

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace 

Schomberg Scarecrow Competition

Photos by Barry Wallace

Part of the Schomberg Village Street Gallery event this weekend was the very successful Scarecrow Competition.   While most scarecrows were located in the village, Brookdale Treeland Nurseries went all-out with their art installation on their site, south of Schomberg at Hwy. 27 and the 17th Sideroad.   This was a noteworthy effort despite being well-removed from the centre of activity in the village.  

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Barry Wallace

On the 16th Sideroad

Photo by Barry Wallace

Sheep soaking up September sunshine

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BtheB

Nobleton retail development underway

Photo by Barry Wallace

Construction is well under way on the Hwy. 27 site of the old Imperial Ballroom in north Nobleton, as seen in this photo.   Unconfirmed reports say that No Frills is the major grocer that will open here, along with an L.C.B.O. liquor store.

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace

Late summer

Photo by Barry Wallace

Seneca College lily pond

Cemetery with three names

Photo by Barry Wallace

One of the King Township cemeteries that I had never visited, until this week, is the King Christian cemetery site on the west side of Jane Street, just north of the 19th Sideroad, north of Kettleby.   This very old but attractive site was established around 1851, at the same time of the  founding of the King Christian Church, an offshoot group of the Children of Peace and the Sharon Temple in East Gwillimbury.   The original cemetery was known as the Hilborn Settlement Cemetery and was named for the Hilborn Family.   Seven members of the Hilborn Family are listed as being buried here in the mid-to-late 1800s.   The cemetery became associated with the King Christian Church and came to be known as the King Christian Church Cemetery.   Years later, in 1931, King Christian Church joined the Baptist denomination under the name of King Emmanuel Baptist Church in 1931.   Recently, the cemetery has been re-designated as the King Christian cemetery.   Years of neglect at this cemetery took their toll and several bodies were were moved to the Kettleby Cemetery.   The Ontario Genealogical Society lists 128 burials at this graveyard, including the seven Hilborn family members.

Jane Street frontage, north of Kettleby

Tombstones have been collected and preserved in a two-sided walled monument, while seven other newer monuments stand on their own nearby.   Plaques embedded in the monuments wall 

give details of the memorial's development.

This grave maker notes that Martin Bogart, who died in 1852, was born in 1766, the same year as the British Parliament repealed the notorious Stamp Act which was so unpopular in the British colonies.   His wife, Kenercha, who died in 1846 and was re-buried here, was born in 1775, the same year that Jane Austen was born, and the same year the American Revolution began.

Apart from the historical story to be found here, which will interest a few, this would make a lovely spot for a picnic.   Take a few sandwiches and a thermos of tea, spread a blanket and languish bucolically for an hour or so in this quiet, leafy glade.

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace