Bucolic Ontario

The sky was baby-blue and puffy-white with ambient clouds, no sign yet of the 40% possibility of rainshowers the weather report advised of. Yesterday's heavy rainfall hadn't done too much, however, to clear the air of its dreary humidity. We passed fields of corn, farms with silo sets that gleamed in the sun, sheep and cows in their pastures - and a lone buffalo. Believe it.

We thought we'd do something different for a change. In fact, something that resembled what we so often had done years ago, when we were younger, with our children in tow. Exploring the countryside and the myriad towns that surrounded the national capital within that huge expanse of land familiarly referred to as the Ottawa Valley. Sitting prettily on the edge of the Canadian Shield. In fact, from time to time, the stonework reflective of that shield reared beside the highway in places, picturesquely. With juniper bushes and cedars, spruce and pine growing alongside.

We were headed for Kemptville, where we'd gone once before, to visit a country feed store. To pick up fifty pounds of peanuts. I'd long since run out of the original bag we'd gotten there, and we have been resorting to 2-kg.-sized bags from big box stores. Good quality, meant for human consumption, not wildlife, and priced accordingly. At the Kemptville feed outlet we discovered the peanuts were superior to those we'd bought in 50-lb bags at other feed stores, and preferred to continue going there.

On the highway median there was a riot of shape, texture, height and colour, as summer wildflowers began their conceited display. On the edges there were those low-growing clumps of yellow flowers called trailing lotus. Behind and among them, cornflowers, known also as wild chicory, its ground-up root used during the war as a coffee substitute. Its blue flowers are cheerfully vibrant, a great counterpoint to the bright yellow of buttercups, interspersed among them as well. As background, Viburnum bushes were in full bloom. So were daisies, white-and-yellow-centered, the emblem of love's uncertainty.

Its purple bell-shaped flowers stalked in a row, viper's buglos added its presence. Surprisingly enough Queen Anne's Lace, member of the carrot family, a puzzling fact that always left me wondering what it had in common with a carrot, other than its root shape, was also in evidence; surely too soon for that flower that I recall blooming much later than this? And the bane of Ontario allergy sufferers, ragweed as well. Surely it is all the rain we've had this spring and summer that has hastened those two to mature earlier than is my normal recollection for them.

We passed rural homes and forests, cemeteries and tiny Protestant churches where wandering pastors would occasionally drop by to deliver their sermons. In the villages and the towns, larger, stately, dressed-stone-and-steepled churches proliferate; Anglican, Presbyterian and Lutheran. In this part of Ontario, few Catholic churches presume to make their presence.

And finally, we reached Kemptville, a neat little town of neat homes and lawns surrounded by well cultivated fields, a farm town. And there we stopped, at our destination. Having called ahead before embarking on this trip to ensure they had in store what we were looking for. They had the peanuts set aside and the invoice all made up in preparation for our arrival.

Driving time: 45 minutes.