Originally posted as the newsletter for the Ontario Barn Preservation, November 2024.

Dear Members,

A variety of things happen in early winter. Flu and colds. (I'm feeling better, thank you, and I hope none of you have been ill). Christmas shopping, or the thought of Christmas shopping and baking and cleaning. The first snowfall and finding where you left the snow shovel last season. 

Then there is the annual Canada Post strike just as you start thinking about sending or getting Christmas cards in the mail. 

I (Laura) do have a Christmas card in the works for our members again this year. My niece, Emma-Jeanne, has hand drawn a holiday barn with a few suggestions and ideas. I hope you will like it. She loves drawing and painting. She is a pastry chef by trade. 

Merry Early Winter, 

Laura I found this image on a wallpaper website. A broken link to another site given as the source. So, I don't know who made it.

Wild Animals Living in a Barn

Have you ever tried to make a list of all the animals (wild, not domesticated) that might live in a barn, in Ontario? Let me save you the trouble. If you look for "wild animals living in barns" online, the search gives you farm animals: cattle, pigs, goats, chickens, etc. AI (artificial intelligence) still isn't all the bright. 

First, lets start with barn cats. They are on the fence (jumped up there like it was nothing) because they aren't fully wild, nor quite domesticated. 

My list of wild animals found in Ontario barns: barn owls (if you're lucky), foxes, weasels, badgers, coyotes, chipmunks, bats, squirrels, rabbits, snakes, toads, skunks, raccoons, opossums. A pretty vast assortment of birds, rodents and usually very unwanted mice, pigeons, rats (vermin). Water birds seem unlikely and fish... well, don't be silly. Spiders and assorted insects (I almost forgot the little creatures).

Then there are bigger animals like bears, deer and moose, they seem less likely to be around unless the barn is pretty forgotten and abandoned quite awhile. You aren't likely to see wolves, cougars, or lynx either. Though I wonder if they'd like to find an out of the way old barn for the winter too. Probably a great way to keep out of the wind and find rodent snacks all winter long. 

This is my list. You can probably think of others to include like fishers, those less heard about and not often seen. My brother had a fisher at his rural place near Barrie and Orillia. I didn't see it, I wish I had, from a safe distance. It liked the old outhouse. It hasn't been seen for a couple of winters now. I like to think it found a nice barn for itself. 

57,000-year-old mummified wolf pup discovered in Canadian permafrost - "An incredibly well-preserved wolf pup thought to have lived 57,000 years ago was pulled out of the melting permafrost by a gold miner in Yukon, Canada"

Found in the Yukon, from a time long before there were barns. See how important barns can be, not just for farm animals! 

Ontario Government - Wildlife Management - link

Ontario Government - Creating Wildlife Habitat - link

Hinterland Who's Who: Grizzly Bear

Laura

In case you missed it!

Ontario Rural Diary Archive - Another (like our own 'Your Old Barn Study') rural history project with the University of Guelph. "Centennial farm is no more. It has been replaced with suburban developments, a phenomenon happening in large parts of North America. In earlier times, our important cities were usually built in areas of good farmland. These cities have, of course, grown, and in the last few decades we have been covering up thousands of acres of some of our best farmlands with cement. We are increasing this rate of development all the time.

The year 1967 was centennial year in Canada. As a personal celebration, I did a series of paintings based on those things in my home county of Halton in Ontario which had been there for at least 100 years. Some of these subjects were works of nature but many were the works of man - old barns, farmhouses, fences and so on. Although these things lasted for 100 years or more, every single one of them has been destroyed within the last two decades - they were all gone by 1987.

I think that it is a pity that we in North America are so cavalier about our natural and man -made heritage. In Europe there has been for many years a serious effort to preserve the family farm and to preserve man-made works of previous generations. Such a commitment to preservation requires us to pay attention and to pay for it. The Europeans consider it a worthy cost. We North Americans apparently don't, and so our heritage disappears, very often through carelessness and more often through greed.

I enjoy painting man-made subjects from earlier eras because they have character and individuality. It is evident that they have been worked on by the human hand and by the forces of nature. This can no longer be said of our machine-made, packaged world which is increasingly enveloping us." ~ Robert Bateman - November 12, 2024 Canadian artist, Robert Bateman, posted about barns. I reposted this to our social media accounts. 

One Last Thing...

Inspiration for gingerbread house makers this year... A Gingerbread Barn found on Reddit. This could be an artsy version, with extra fancy icing doodles. Or, a less candy version without lots of little things that keep falling off. 

If you feel nostalgic for more Hinterland Who's Who I found the updated new videos. For me its just not the same without the old music to start it off and the same announcer's voice. 

Or, you could find more with YouTube and other places that host videos.

Bonus link. I'm not sure this was included here, or might have just been shared on social media for OBP. Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity

It's amazing the different kinds of people there are in the world. I've found some will attack kindness and praise the deranged, sympathize and understand them. Putting themselves in danger, but its ok because there are those faithful kind souls who will make things better, or at least, ok again. The clueless, if I can think of a better word I'll change it, wander through life and people as if nothing will hurt them, no matter how far they go.

I don't understand it, any of it. But, I'm clueless too I guess. I think people should be good, to each other, to the planet and all life on it. Up until they (a person) act mad and destroy life, as if it has no importance at all. I just think that's wrong. But, there are enough people in my life who make me question all of that. Am I foolish? Am I too moral? Am I setting myself up as a never ending victim for all those people who are more than willing to take everything I have?

The clueless are so blindly certain about everything, it makes me doubt myself. Are you confused? Well, then we both are.

After years of feeling there was something drastically wrong with me, I began to see a different sort of person. People who do not attack or blame others for everything. Everything, almost literally. Bad weather should be beyond most human control and yet... they can make you feel responsible somehow. With so many years of training it just takes one sigh, the repeating of a few words in just that way. I am to blame, I'm hopeless, when will I ever get it right?...

So there I am, among the clueless, always at fault, always the one to somehow fix things, and always clueless myself to understand how all of this works.

Pluviophile - Someone who finds beauty in rainy days, feeling a sense of peace in the sound of falling rain and the atmosphere a storm creates. Drawn to the scent of the earth and the rhythm of the rain, a pluviophile often experiences a sense of calm beneath the grey skies.

Dendrophile - A lover of trees. A soul drawn to the forst, the stillness, and the ancient wisdom held within. They are deeply connected to the trees... emotionally, spiritually, and energetically.. as is the forest has known them before.

Psithuriphile - A soul who is enchanted by the wind as it moves through the trees... the rustling of the leaves and the hidden language the forest speaks. They feel the wind as a presence, a quiet force flowing through the earth and air. A feeling of something ancient passing through them as if the forest itself is breathing as their own.

Thalassophile - A soul who feels most at home near the sea... drawn not only to the beauty of the ocean, but to the ancient feeling it awakens within them. A thalassophile senses that the waters hold memory... that something vast and intelligent lives benearth the surface of this world. The rhythm of the tides quiets the noise of modern life and restores a deeper remembrance within... that we were shaped by water long before we built cities of stone. To stand before the ocean is not simply to look at water... it is to feel the pull of something eternal, something older than language... calling us back to ourselves.

Orophile - A person who feels deeply connected to the mountains. Drawn to high places, open skies, winding trails, and the quiet feeling of standing amongst the stillness of ancient stone. For an orophile, the mountains are more than just landscapes... they are places of perspective and remembrance... a place that slows the mind and makes the soul free.

Selenophile - A lover of the moon. Someone who looks up at the night sky and feels a sense of wonder... drawn to the mystery and beauty of the ever changing cycles, and the quiet feeling that some part of us has always belonged beneath its light. For a selenophile, the moon is more than something seen above them... it is something felt within them.

Opacarophile - A person who feels deeply drawn to sunsets. Someone who finds beauty in the fading light and the changing colours of the sky... lingering a little longer as the day slowly gives way to evening. For a moment, everything seems to slow down. a sense of peace settles in, and nothing feels quite so urgent anymore.

Astrophile - Someone who is deeply drawn to the stars and cosmos... one who looks towards the night sky in a sense of wonder and feels that there is far more magic and mystery to our existence than we could ever fully imagine.

Ceraunophilia - A person who feels deeply drawn to thunderstorms... the sound of rain, distant thunder, dark skies, shifting winds, and the electric feeling in the air before a storm arrives. For those with ceraunophilia, storms do not bring fear, but a strange sense of calm amidst the power of nature.

Found as images at Live Love and Legacy - Instagram

Planting wildflowers along the highway, covering the middle and sides with colour, possibly fragrance, and something that does not need to be mowed, sounds like a great idea. I thought so too. Until I thought more about it.

Wildflowers will attract more insects, small animals and bigger animals to the busiest roads which will not be good for their continued health. Between animals becoming roadkill and people trying not to hit them, it could be dangerous for both.

Seeds from some will create havoc when they blow around. Others cause allergies for people which will be distracting for drivers.

Also, just because they do not need to be mowed, does not mean there is no maintenance at all. People would have to go along a lot of highway to keep plants from growing into the road ways. That would not be free: gas, wages, vehicles and maintenance of vehicles, equipment... Probably other things I haven't thought of yet.

You may think all that unused land could even grow something useful, harvestable even. Herbs could work better than wildflowers. But, still have some of the same issues.

Any plants chosen to grow this way would need to be hardy, drought resistant, grow over spring, summer, and fall (not be dormant and leave bare ground for most of the year - which would give space for all those so called weeds to re-seed and not look pretty), not grow very tall or spread too much. This is probably one reason plants we call weeds are left to grow along the highways.

I love the idea, but it isn't as simple as it seems.

I remember reading about this project when it was a new idea. I thought it sounded like a smart solution. I guess others didn't, but there are always going to be people who don't agree (sometimes they turn out to be right). But, until it is given a try, no one really knows if it will work. There are unpredictable factors, especially with wild animals and changes to technology as far as vehicles too.

I'm glad its working and especially nice for it to be here in Canada.

Since the 1980s, the Canadian government has allotted more than $400 million to upgrade and twin the four-lane highway, with a quarter of the budget set aside for projects that would reduce wildlife collisions, a growing concern. Parks Canada decided they would use part of that money to fence the entire highway — roughly 180 kilometres — and construct several dozen wildlife crossing structures in hopes of lowering the mortality rate.

In November, Parks Canada marked the 20th anniversary of the completion of the first wildlife overpass in Banff National Park. ... the six overpasses and 38 underpasses that criss-cross the Trans-Canada are today considered a worldwide conservation success story, reducing wildlife collisions by 80 per cent. Delegations from around the world now visit Banff to learn more about their crossing structures in hopes of building similar systems in their home countries, where new roads are cutting through wilderness areas at unprecedented rates.

Roads don’t only imperil wildlife through vehicle collisions; they can fragment habitat and cut off critical migration routes for species. It’s estimated that 25 million kilometres of new road will be built by 2050, the majority in developing countries who have never before had to confront the impact of highways on biodiversity.

Clevenger now has 17 years-worth of data proving the efficacy of the crossings. Among large carnivores, mortality rates are 50 to 100 per cent lower along sections of the highway where overpasses and underpasses exist. In those same sections, mortality rates for elk are almost zero, compared to 100 elk-vehicle collisions per year in the mid-1990s. Clevenger’s research has shown that 11 species of large mammals in Banff have used the structures more than 200,000 times, including unexpected species such as red fox, hoary marmot, boreal toads, wolverines, lynx, garter snakes and beavers.

Black bears and mountain lions prefer to use these shadowy, damp tunnels, says Michel, whereas grizzlies and ungulates prefer the open sightlines offered by the overpasses.

... away from passing motorists’ eyes, lies a grassy oasis. Against the odds, pine trees and wildflowers have taken root here, giving the overpass a fringe of greenery. On the edges, wire fencing provides safe passage for roaming animals.

In 2010, Parks Canada joined forces with CP Rail on a $1 million, five-year joint study to figure out why animals, mainly grizzlies, were dying on the railroad in unprecedented numbers. Their research revealed that a number of factors were drawing animals into the rail corridor, from increased vegetation to an inability to detect oncoming trains, with bears often running toward them, instead of away.

Paraphrased from Canadian Geographic - As Banff’s famed wildlife overpasses turn 20, the world looks to Canada for conservation inspiration