Near the Town of Primrose

This house is only boarded on the lower level. One of the upper windows is smashed, both panes of the glass. Other than that it is just neglected looking. Too bad it is likely to be pulled down so something else can go up. It is a busy intersection, on #89. But already covered by enough restaurants I would think.

One thing I noticed and wished I could have dug up were some very scarlet and very deep neon pink sweet williams. There wasn’t much else there remaining of the garden. Tons of weeds and only one groundhog (or some other rodent-ish creature) hole in the yard.

Rural Ruins – by Laura (me).

Suspense and beauty in torn brick, shattered glass, mouldering wood and old craftsmanship, weathering, falling into ruin.

Relinquished by those who made them and neglected by those who could reuse them. Now just an old house in the way in a world of strangers.

Wooden sheds and barns grey with age lean against the Earth waiting to fall into the dirt they grew out of.

Garden perennials struggle in the lawn poked by groundhog holes, roof shingles, glass, bricks and wildflowers.

History and life forgotten in each dusty, spidered window pane, each strongly holding brick and each door with crackled paint.

Mystery shines at the partially open doorway. A touch of things that once were. A whisper of things inside with rotting floors and peeling paint.

Rain, sun, wind and snow the house stands, holding itself up, majestic, keeping it’s secrets. A home to only the wild creatures now.

Green Christmas Meme

Found this one on Sandier Pastures and liked it.

What is your favorite Christmas gift?
An angel ornament my Mom gave me for the Christmas tree many, many years ago. I still put it up when I actually do get the tree up.

What is your best memory of Christmas?
Sitting around the tree in our old house in Scarborough, Ontario. Everyone together on Christmas Eve, hot chocolate and the whole works.

Depending upon where you live, do you have a hot or cold Christmas?
Cold, more snow again today.

What do you prefer in a tree? Fake or real?
Fake cause the real trees shed too much. Plus the fake tree is nice to have every year the same tree and each time I have moved I move the same box with me. It’s become a traditional of it’s own.

What is your favorite Carol?
Silent Night. When I was a baby my Grandmother had given me a music box angel which played Silent Night. It doesn’t work now but it is still in the Christmas ornament box.

What is your favorite Christmas Dinner?
Whatever someone else makes. Homemade is best, we used to make everything, nothing came prepackaged.

Do you wear a Santa hat at Christmas?
No. A red sweater.

Have you ever seen Santa delivering gifts?
I’ve been Santa delivering gifts.

I am tagging: Anyone inspired to do it.

Coffee and More Coffee

Meeting another rural explorer for coffee this afternoon. The Navigator as she is known on Flickr. Then off to work, another Saturday listening to the lunatics. You can’t have it all, apparently.

I’m looking forward to the coffee and chat. The Navigator has some of the best old house pictures. She is one of my top favourites. Admittedly it’s not a short list. Still, she has been to places I have yet to see and her pictures are very well done.

I may have a bug in my ear, literally. I can hear something that makes a soft thud noise inside my head in the area of my ear. It started at work last night, while I was wearing the headset. I don’t think it could be a bug, how would it crawl through the ear pads? But that is what my Mom said. She had a bug in her ear once when she was out gardening. So maybe that is what it is. It only thuds around once in awhile. Seemed to be doing more last night. I don’t really think it is a bug though. I think something is just a bit swollen from the standard work type of headache and it will be fine on it’s own. Maybe over my next weekend, this Tuesday/ Wednesday, it will go away. Still, a bug would be interesting in a kind of yucky way. What kind of bug is it and what did it think it would find when it crawled in there? Only the bug can tell.

For the Canadians and the odd American… have you heard about the new Tim Cards at Tim Hortons? I bought one last night. Saves me scrounging through the mess at the bottom of my purse for spare change each time. But, doesn’t it seem a bit backwards? Tims stopped letting us use the debit cards cause they wanted to provide faster service (so the signs say). Now they come out with their own private debit type of card. Faster than the bank debit card? I don’t see that working out for great leaps of speedy service. Might not be so bad once it gets going. Even then people will be in line reloading it, taking longer than it would have to just use the usual debit card.

I want to find new boots. A pair that I can mostly just slip on, without a lot of lacing up. Ankle boots like we used to have in the 80’s would be nice. I had a great pair of low cowboy style boots which are exactly what I’d like to find now. Not much chance. They all seem to be high rise ankle breakers or hiking style boots now.

Eight Random Facts About Me

You know you’ve been tagged when… You’re sitting in front of a blank screen trying to remember something about yourself, other than your name. OMyWord tagged me. Go read her eight things first and leave a comment. If you live close enough invite her over to do your ironing. She likes my little doll photos. I like her way of looking at life.

Thing One: According to the latest psycho babble I read at my sister’s house, I am an underachiever. We put a lot of energy into being mediocre. I can see how this does describe me. It’s not a complimentary thing so I choose just not to discuss it.

Thing Two: I need to phone all the usual services: phone, hydro, etc and change them over for the new place. It is complicated though. We want to have them on at the old house and the new house at the same time and yet not together.

Thing Three: Even I can get tired of drinking the same coffee after several months. As ok as the vanilla instant coffee was, I am really wishing for a change. I just can’t find where I packed my coffee filter thing. I did buy new coffee. I just can’t use it without the plastic filter thing.

Thing Four: I can count. I just can’t do it very quickly. I will never love math but I have learned to cope. I just had to grow more fingers and toes.

Thing Five: I can read. I have the evidence all stacked up in masses of heavy boxes which I have now moved more times than I care to count.

Thing Six: I know of at least five other places I want to get for more rural exploration photos. One of them is right here in town, pretty much.

Thing Seven: I am phone phobic. That’s the real reason I have not yet begun to make all those calls to the essential services to change things over for the new house.

Thing Eight: I think it’s very egotistical sounding to begin each sentence in this thing Thing with I.

Now, onto the list of tagees:

Should you choose to accept this random challenge…

LatteGirl, cause I missed meeting her. Maybe she just took that fingers and toes counting thing too seriously.

Leigh at Thoughtprints. I love that new photo of the train tracks at the beach. I’d like to step out there and feel the sand between my toes.

I will also pick on Bev, just because I haven’t talked to her for ages and wonder if she still reads her blog.

Next is Lady Banana. I don’t have a good reason, I just am. Let’s just say it’s because she’s yellow and has to be imported.

Farmhouse Ruins

The farmhouse was quite far back from the barn and shed, without any kind of path or road to it I couldn’t get closer. I didn’t want to walk through the field and muck up whatever was planted there. Also, as usual, I wasn’t wearing good footwear for walking through mud, prickly weeds and whatever else inhabited the area.

The farm was off a side road outside of Cookstown. I noticed it when we were driving on the #400. It is visible from the highway if you are looking for a dark old house in a field. The house is nearer the highway than the side road I drove to get there. Maybe the house was approached by the road which was once the highway, before it became so huge and cut off the old farm.

I would have liked to see more of the house. I drove around looking for another backroad but only found a road which ended at the highway, no exit. Maybe someone else with big boots to trek back there will get more photos.

The House on a Hill

I pass by this old house each time I drive to Newmarket to visit my family. The house is on the outskirts of Bradford, on a hill, across the road from the Husky Truck Stop. This time I brought my digital camera and took pictures. I started just at the wooden fence surrounding the place. I couldn’t see an easy way around it. After a few minutes I crawled under the fence in the driveway. I wish I had gone inside the house too, but I was alone so that didn’t seem like a good idea. Not that anyone was there, there were no recent tracks in the snow other than my own. An abandoned house isn’t safe and this one has been empty a long time.

The funniest thing that happened was losing my car keys. I had stuck them in my bra cause I had no pockets. At some point they had fallen out and I only noticed when I was back at the car, ready to unlock it and go.

My favourite picture is that one with the broken piece of chair. I love the house though, the look of it and how it sits on the hill.

So there’s my little adventure and my first use of the digital camera. They turned out better than I expected. It was cold and my hands were a bit shaky but none of the photos are blurred or out of focus. I don’t think they would have turned out so well if I had used my 35mm camera.