Beginnings

Readers of my Nature Nuggets blog will realize that June is the best time to see Tulip Trees in flower. I have always been intrigued by this species.

It is representative of the Carolinian Zone, where I grew up and have been able to spend the majority of my career. While I was the park naturalist at Rondeau Prov Park, I was fortunate to have many Tulip Trees close by my office, as it was located at the beginning of the trail by that name. And while Marie and I lived in the park for several years, and many times afterwards, it was the trail we most often ventured along. This trio of Tulip Trees made for a great photo op, and while I was in the process of capturing her looking up, she decided to give one of the trees a hug. And almost every time I go along the trail since she has passed away, I stop and have a little chat with her, indicating that the tree is needing another hug! (And so do I!)

This next photo was taken during a foggy early December day along that same trail, and she had her camera up getting a photo.

This trail has also been one of the most reliable places in the park to see the iconic Prothonotary Warbler especially during late May through early July. I have been blessed with getting lots of photos of this species, which was nicknamed the Golden Swamp Warbler by none other than the famous ornithologist John James Audubon. I certainly think that the verse in Psalms fits so well with this species.

But that is more of an introduction to June, rather than anything to do with beginnings that the title mentions.

I have always had a connection to nature or at least the outdoors. This first photo shows me in the stroller, with my dad and older sister posing here at Waterton Lakes National Park, in southern Alberta, way back in 1953 when I was slightly less than a year old. 

It was the first of several trips that our family took while I was growing up, in part because my mother was born in Saskatchewan and there were various relatives scattered across the prairie provinces. In addition to Waterton Lakes, over the years when we went west we visited natural areas such as Banff and Jasper National Parks, among others. (These next photos were taken more recently than on those family trips.)

Banff NP

Jasper NP

We often included some special places in the USA, such as: 

Yellowstone NP

Badlands NP

It is interesting that while many people go on vacation to places like Disney World, that never occurred in our family. It was always exploring and camping in significant natural areas, and that made an impression on me and so ever since, that has always been our focus. I don't begrudge people going to places like Disney World, especially since I would not want them all to descend on the incredible natural areas that are always more impressive with a hint of solitude! However the magnificence of the natural world is so much more intriguing and inspiring than anything Disney can offer, in my opinion.

I grew up on a farm, not more than a few miles/kilometres from Rondeau. It was mixed farming, with the usual corn, soybeans, wheat, tomatoes and tobacco. Also lots of livestock over the years, including up to 100 pigs, 25 cattle, 1200 domestic geese, 200 Pekin ducks and the like. It was a lot of work that never seemed to end. In some ways it was surprising that with all of the work required, we managed to get away for about a month at a time on some of those western trips. And especially since that era was just before so much chemical application was used to control weeds. Back in those days, it meant going out with a hoe, up and down the rows hoeing out the weeds that the cultivator couldn't get to. 

Planting tobacco

The livestock required a lot of work as well. For example collecting the eggs daily that the ducks laid, which then needed to be then cleaned and taken to someone who could incubate the eggs for more ducklings. And shoveling manure at times on an almost daily basis. This was especially annoying when I was in high school and had to shovel pig manure before catching the bus taking me to school, and hoping that I didn't get any of the manure to take along with me!

For the cattle and pigs, we produced our own feed, usually a mix of corn or sometimes cooked beans, depending on the weather. For the corn mix, it meant spending several hours a week shoveling ear corn into a hammermill or a corn sheller. It wasn't until I was in my later teens and working at Rondeau when I realized that all those hours with my left side only a shovel distance from this incredibly noisy machinery affected my hearing. It was when I was out birding with some of my colleagues at the park when I realized I was not able to hear many of the bird songs that the others were hearing. And of course my hearing hasn't improved at all since, so although I may see the beak of a warbler open and it is likely singing its heart out to attract a mate, I cannot hear a thing it is singing. There are many species of warblers, sparrows, some vireos, as well as brown creepers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, cedar waxwings, etc., that I have not been able to hear well if at all, for many years unless the birds are extremely close.

I did learn to watch out for nature, in part via my dad. When he was out with the plow or cultivator and he came across the nest of a Killdeer or Horned Lark, he would always lift the equipment and leave the nest intact. And he was always on the lookout for birds or other wildlife that were occupying or singing from the fence row adjacent to the field.

My mother was a teacher and as the local one-roomed school had all 8 grades involving about 55 students, it was too much for the new teacher to handle. The local board of education members convinced mom to teach grades 1-3 which she agreed to do. I was still at age 4 when she was asked, and so I started Grade 1 at that very early age at least until my birthday later in September. This was before kindergarten, at least at this rural school district.

I managed to do reasonably well academically, even quite well, through grades 1-8 without putting much effort into my studies. And so I started Grade 9 at Blenheim District High School at the age of 12, getting there via a school bus that was traveling throughout a portion of rural southern Kent County to pick up students.  But now things were a little more challenging scholastically. I had always been rather small in my early years. For the first two years of high school, I was one of the two smallest boys in the whole school that had a population of about 1200 students. Starting at my early age didn't bode well, and although I got through Grade 9, Grade 10 was a different story. I failed my first year of Grade 10. Yep. This was probably one of the first fairly devastating events in my young life, as it meant taking that grade all over again! I lost a year of my life in a way. A change of classmates, and taking the same subjects all over again! How would I survive??

And yet that devastating event turned out to be a huge blessing. My body had a chance to develop quite a bit, and certainly a lot of work on the farm helped. I didn't add a lot of height to my body, just a few inches, and I topped out at about 5' 8" but I was putting on much more weight, muscle and such and it really paid off. I hadn't done a lot of extra physical events in my first two years of high school, just the bare essentials to get through phys ed. But what a difference the year made. When we had those infamous 5 minute muscular endurance tests, I usually aced it easily. I became a long distance runner and excelled in track and field as well as cross-country races. In the latter event, I was usually either number 2 or 3 in the whole county for my age group, did well in the regional competitions and even qualified on one occasion to go to the all Ontario cross-country championship competition for my age group. Lots of running along the rural roads in the evenings after chores were done, certainly helped. I also dabbled in gymnastics and wrestling, typically even out-wrestling guys who were older and bigger. The high-school football coach kept after me to join the football team, and I eventually went to a practice and did well, but I had seen too many members of the team hobbling around on crutches or in a cast, and didn't want to go that route, so that was all that my football career amounted to. At any rate my life changed rather dramatically, as I was now considered a relatively top athlete for my age group, in this school of about 1200 students. My grades kept improving, and I managed to get a few athletic awards along the way. This next photo shows me getting the top athletic award for my age group, and this photo was taken and published in the Blenheim News Tribune.

So that gives a bit of background regarding the way my early years started, at least as how they related to the farm and school. Lots more to come!

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