Spring is just around the corner...almost

 Photos by Barry Wallace

Black Forest is ready for spring

My dear lady and I dropped into Black Forest Garden Centre yesterday to see how the preparations for spring were going.   Despite the ongoing cool temperatures, melting snow and ice has been orderly and manageable and the launch into the spring gardening season should be well organized.   Black Forest is still a strong family operation with three of the Khonen brothers (George, John and Karl) and their parents (Gerhard and Katharina) on hand to welcome King's gardeners.   Pictured below are brothers George (left) and John Khonen (right) about to take an afternoon tea break from their preparations for the new gardening season.   Warm air filled the greenhouses on this day making it hard to leave.   Black Forest is on the east side Keele Street, a few hundred metres north of the 17th Sideroad. 

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Barry Wallace

Less mobile than before...

As luck would have it, Charcot's Foot has caught up with me.   The bones in my right foot are separating.   It behooves (no pun intended) one to seek a early solution when possible, as the alternative is quite unpleasant.

The treatment is to put a cast on the afflicted foot and compress all the foot bones, over time, until the bones fuse into one big bone and walking is normal again...hopefully.   My getting around King Township and further afield will be slowed by a cast (see photo) that I may have to wear for up to a year.   This blogsite (Camera on King) and my other blogsite (Barry the Birder) may become less frequent, as my mobility is reduced.   My intention is to carry on blogging, however, and I hope you will continue to look me up now and then.   Have a great summer everyone.

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if you wish.

BtheB

Photo by Linda Wallace

Lake Wilcox Park promenade now open

Pictured above are just two of dozens of wildlife art sculptures lining the promenade of the Town of Richmond Hill's new Lake Wilcox Park, on Bayview Avenue, between North and South Lake Wilcox Roads, in the community of Oak Ridges.   The park is about seven minutes east of King City.   There numerous art installations already in the park and they include images as simple and subtle as the oak leaf (below) engraved into a huge boulder between the lake's shore and the promenade.

Photos by Barry Wallace

This remarkable metal art installation is also a large sculpted storyboard featuring geographically-correct cutouts of Lake Wilcox, and nearby Bond Lake and Shadow Lake.   The names in a reverse-silhouette presentation recall early pioneers and settlers in the area.   The overall image is both stark and historically powerful.

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BtheB

To keep the home fires burning...

''This world...ever was, and is, and shall be,

ever-living fire, in measures being kindled

and in measures going out".

Heraclitus  c. 540 - c. 480 B.C.

Photos by Barry Wallace

Surely, no other place in King Township (maybe all of York Region) has as much firewood laid in for next winter as John's Firewood in the Holland Marsh, north side of Hwy. 9 - just west of the King's 6th Concession (Weston Road).

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Barry Wallace

A view from a different angle...

Photo by Barry Wallace

New subdivision east of Kinghorn

Houses are popping up on the north side of the King Road, just east of Jane Street and the museum.   This view looks south-east from Jane Street, approximately 400 metres north of the King Road.   The East Humber River flows westward through the bottom land in the middle of the picture.

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Barry Wallace

Phil Chadwick paintings

Secret Cascade

The painting above, by former King Township resident and weatherman, Phil Chadwick, leaves me breathless and exhilarated at the same time, while the painting below impresses by colourfully bursting from what should be a stark black and white silhouette.   Go online to philtheforecaster.blogspot.ca for Phil's own take on the creation of these paintings.

Cedar Shadows

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Barry Wallace

Cold sunset ~ Weston Road ~ hamlet of Strange

 Photos by Barry Wallace

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Barry Wallace

Icy leftovers under Hwy. 400

                                                                             Photos by Barry Wallace
South Canal Road ~ Holland Marsh

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Barry Wallace

Steaming scene in the Marsh

Photo by Barry Wallace

Bright sun ~ warm greenhouses ~ frigid air

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Barry Wallace

"Spring Emergence" art show at museum

 Ivanka Pirinikova 

 Ann Murray Livingstone

Arts Society King (ASK) has mounted its spring art show in the main foyer of the King Township Museum.   The multi-media show is entitled 'Spring Emergence'.   The museum is open from Tuesday to Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.   After rejuvenating yourself with the paintings and other media art, you may be interested in another mood-altering (in the nicest of ways) experience in the museum's main gallery.   It is Gary Conway's latest photographic exhibition (see photo below). 

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Barry Wallace

Sure sign of spring...

                                                                                                                                      Photo by BarrytheBirder

New arrivals at Nobleton Feed Mill

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BtheB

Seasonal dash by Ogden Nash

Photo by Barry Wallace

SPRING SONG

Listen buds, it's March twenty first;

Don't you know enough to burst?

Come on, birds, unlock your throats!

Come on, gardeners, shed your coats!

Come on, zephyrs, come on flowers,

Come on grass, and violet showers!

And come on, lambs, in frisking flocks!

Salute the vernal equinox!

Twang the cheerful lute and zither!

Spring is absolutely hither!

Yester eve was dark despair,

With winter, winter, everywhere;

Today, upon the other hand,

'Tis spring throughout this happy land.

Oh, such is nature's chiaroscouro,

According to the weather bureau.

Then giddy-ap, Napolean! Giddy-ap, Gideon!

The sun has crossed the right meridian!

What though the blasts of Winter sting?

Officially, at least, it's Spring,

And be it far from our desire

To make the weatherman a liar!

So blossom, ye parks, with cozy benches,

Occupied by blushing wenches!

Pipe, ye frogs, while swains are sighing, 

And furnaces unwept are dying!

Crow, ye cocks, a little bit louder!

Mount, ye sales of paint and powder!

Croon, ye crooner, yet more croonishly!

Shine, ye moon, a lot more moonishly!

And oh ye brooklets, burst your channels!

And oh ye camphor, greet ye flannels!

And bloom, ye clothesline, bloom with wash,

Where erstwhile trudged the grim galosh!

Ye transit lines, abet our follies

By turning loose your open trolleys!

And ye, ye waking hibernators,

Drain anti-freeze from your radiators!

While ye, ye otherwise useless dove,

Remember, please, to rhyme with love.

Then giddy-ap, Napolean! Giddy-ap,Gideon!

The sun has crossed the right meridian!

What though the blasts of winter sting?

Officially, at least, it's Spring! 

Ogden Nash, 1943

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace

Charming folk art in Schomberg

                                                                                                                                                  Photo by Barry Wallace

This fine piece of painted folk art, depicting a historical and fanciful view of Schomberg's Main Street, is an outdoor feature mounted on the front of one of the village's Main Street homes.   The painting also sports an appropriate title: "MAIN STREET SCHOMBERG".

Please comment if you wish.

Barry Wallace

Glenville's Green Guardians

Photo by Barry Wallace

Postal padlocks?!?

I don't think I've seen another postal group-box in King Township where padlocks are used to secure the individual mail compartments, such as those pictured above, on the Glenville Road, just north of Highway 9.   Actually, out of the 50 boxes, there is one combination lock

and several without any lock, plus one box that has a weather flap over its lock.   It may be a bit of a stretch to say there is a certain rusticity to the grouping, but then, the hamlet of Glenville (what's left of it) has its own rustic charm, doesn't it?.

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Barry Wallace   

Crescent moon curlicues on Kettleby Road

Photo by Barry Wallace

Between the shutters ~ in Kettleby

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Barry Wallace

Country Day School construction soars

 Photos by Barry Wallace

Extremely cold February weather did not seem to slow down construction at Country Day School  on Dufferin Street, in Eversley.   The original school buildings plus the inflatable sports dome and now the huge new senior school buildings are dominating the countryside views from the King Road, Bathurst Street, Dufferin Street and the 15th Sideroad.
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Barry Wallace

Church Street ~ Schomberg

                                                                                                                                                         Photo by Barry Wallace

Weather vane also a spring harbinger

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Barry Wallace

The Sun ~ Mother of the Marsh

Photos by Barry Wallace

Greenhouses, glass or plastic, large and small.....solar panels, roof-top or stand-alone arrays.....ice and snow melting.....black soil warming up.....the nearer sun rouses the slumbering Holland Marsh.   The continuous creation of the seasons unfolds and who upon this land does not gladly await the bounty?   Solar power, in its newest shapes and numbers, updates the theory and practice of collectivism in the 'Salad Bowl' of Ontario.   

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Barry Wallace

No smoking at Schomberg's Scruffy Duck

Photo by Barry Wallace

This sign may leave at lot to be desired aesthetically, but you can't blame the folks at the Scruffy Duck, on Main Street, Schomberg, for not giving their customers an in-your-face heads-up about the law regarding smoking in and around their premises.   The sign is really large, at eye level, and right at the edge of the sidewalk.   You have been warned, but don't blame the good folks at the "Duck".   We all have to do our part.

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Barry Wallace  

Private tragedy ~ public dismay

Sergeant

Andrew Joseph Doiron
1984 ~ 2015
Once again the Canadian flag  at Priestly Demolition, in Kettleby, was flying at half mast
on Wednesday of this week in honour of Canadian soldier Sgt. Andrew Joseph Doiron, who was killed by 'friendly fire' while serving in Iraq.   The Priestly company has routinely lowered its massive Canadian flag to honour each Canadian soldier killed in the line duty.   Sgt. Doiron was just the second soldier to travel the Highway of Heros since the end of the Afghan mission in 2011.   The other was Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, shot down while standing ceremonial guard in October of last year.   Previously, 158 Canadian soldiers were killed in combat during the Afghan mission.

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Barry Wallace 

Old Ford stake truck (needs a wiper blade)

Photo by Barry Wallace

Main Street Custom PowerSports 

Highway 9 & Main Street ~ Schomberg

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Barry Wallace

South of Lloydtown

Whiter

than 

white

and

blacker 

than

black

Snow 

will

melt

until 

the

earth's 

thirst

is

quenched

Photos by Barry Wallace

Please comment if you wish.

BtheB

Madonna at Marylake main gate

  Detail                                                                   
 Photos by Barry Wallace

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Barry Wallace




                                                               
        

3 newcomers at Dog Tales/Horse Haven

Photo by Barry Wallace

Pictured above are four of the eleven Clydesdales that were among the first of the saved animals to arrive at Dog Tales sanctuary, on the 19th Sideroad of King Township, opposite Thornton Bales Conservation Area, late in 2014.   There was also an Arabian and a mule.

Pair of young Shires and one old Belgian saved

Two young Shire horses and a big and heavy, but lame, Belgian draft horse are the newest residents of the Dog Tales/Horse Haven 45-acre farm on the King Ridge, between Dufferin and Bathurst Streets.   The three horses were purchased at auction and were likely saved from slaughter, after possible purchase by "kill buyers".   Passersby can get a good look at the equine retirees but are warned not to try petting the animals, as they may bite.   They are indeed magnificent creatures to behold.

Please comment if you wish.  

Barry Wallace