Our Place To Stand

Ontari-ar-i-ar-i-o! It was a place to stand and a place to grow and they called this land Ontario! These are some of the words from the popular song from Expo '67. Newly adult, newly married, just starting out on our life journey together, hubby and I loved the exuberance of the music and the words we really believed. Not much has changed.

Returning from our trip to China a few years ago, we were delighted to set foot on Canadian soil once more. In fact we wanted to get out and kiss the ground. Not that we hated our trip but we loved coming home more. It seems every time we set our sights for home after time away we are always happy. We love where we live. Let me take you on a journey through part of my Ontario.

Of course best known is the 401 corridor where highway 401 slices from Windsor to Cornwall, passing by the most populated areas. You cross the flat fields of Kent County, see the tomatoes and sugar beets rising to feed the world, and maybe get a whiff of natural gas around Petrolia and Oil City. The terrain changes to hills and more trees. Large wooded crown lands and manicured farmers' fields line the highway, broken up by homes and farm buildings, some stately, some not so much, but all showing activity.

As you approach the tree-lined 'Forest City' of London, you are nearing cow country. Huge mega farms vie for space with industry. New subdivisions push the limits of the highway. Near Dorchester, there is even one especially set up for home-based businesses with the business space included right in the plans for the new homes.

The city is a great place to visit and to explore but my heart is in the fields. The openness of it all, the patchwork quilt of green soybeans, yellowing wheat, spikey corn, and third-cut hay, all so neatly partitioned and covered with big patches of blue above--these things reach into my soul and fertilize it like honey bees do clover. I am at peace.

We turn off the 401 and drive the quiet back roads, paved but not busy, for the twenty minutes to reach home. We see the golf course with players lining up to putt on the first green, the little grouping of houses left over from a village of days gone by, the flashing light marking Hamulecki's corners--not on any map!--and the reduced speed limit for our village. Look our son has cut our lawn--great kid, eh?--and we turn in to our home, burnt orange door and all. Oh, it's good to be home!