The gentrification of Ontario's cattle country

For as long as I can remember, northern Grey County and all of Bruce County were considered "cattle country." The official mascot of Bruce County was "Big Bruce," a beef cattle-beast, whose twelve-foot-tall likeness still welcomes you at the northern approach to the town of Chesley.

A hundred acre spread up the road just came on the market at $1.5 million. A hundred acres let's you graze a dozen cow-calf pairs over the summer, plus grow the hay to overwinter them. In a good year, those twelve calves will fetch $12k at sale. Out of that you pay for your inputs. Hayfields need to be rejuvenated, equipment must be maintained and replaced, and veterinarians will occasionally be called upon. Your hundred acre beef farm might reliably return five or six thousand dollars in the course of a year.

Do the math, and you quickly realize that farm up the road won't be bought by a beef farmer. 

Instead, it'll either go to an absentee investor who will separately rent out the house and the pastures, or an affluent urbanite looking for a weekend retreat and a retirement option.

To the untrained eye, the landscape will remain the same. There'll be cows grazing in the fields, because neither the investors nor the affluent urbanites care for farming, and are happy enough to rent their pastures back to authentic farmers.

And that's an endangered species, the authentic beef farmer. The only young farmers getting into beef around here are kids who are inheriting the family farm and are debt-free. Not all farmer's children want to live the farm life, and as time goes on, more and more farms end up owned by non-farmers.

That's just common sense, given current market conditions. The guys who graze their cattle on my farm are a father-son team who own a couple farms of their own, inherited mortgage free, rent a few more, and have a herd of 150 cows. My guess is if you divided their total net annual income by the hours they put in, they'd be shy of making minimum wage.

On the other hand, they could cash out, pocket at least three millions for throwing in the towel, and the next generation of their family can live the good life in an exciting city somewhere. 

As much as they love what they do, you know what's going to happen eventually. 

On the plus side, the Audis, Porsches, and Land Rovers give you a nice break from watching nothing but pickups and John Deeres going by.

Pot-addled hillbilly thrilled to report Bentley sighting on the Bruce

I ran into a Bentley SUV in Wiarton today. Well, I didn't actually collide with it... God forbid! Their deductible is probably twice what my entire fleet is worth.

You didn't know Bentley makes a SUV? They sure do! I think it's called the Bentley Bendover, as in bend over while we bone you for three hundred grand.

It's a pretty enough machine though. All the utility of my aging Pontiac Torment without the stigma of low price. Who can walk away from that?

I used to think that a BMW SUV pretty much screamed "I'm a twat" louder than anything else on the road.

I was wrong.


The Bentley screams it way louder.

Testing my boat at the Cargill Mill Pond

Everything about this venture spelled disaster long before I embarked on it.

My boat was an early 60s Arkansas in fiberglass. A fourteen footer. She had, hanging off the transom, a 36 hp Johnson outboard. Pull start. Mid-fifties vintage.

It was "borrowed" from my dad, who'd had it sitting in his drive shed for years. I sold the "borrow" by stressing that the old Arkansas deserved to see water again.

Spent the winter fitting new rings and bearings to the Johnson. That was a pleasant pass-time when my children were little.

"Hey kids, on this Daddy weekend we're going to take apart the motor on that boat to see what makes it work!"

Luckily this was just as the internet generation was finding its feet, and my kids didn't realize yet that they'd have way more fun MSNing their friends rather than passing me wrenches.

The next summer would have been too late. That social media thing swept in hard and fast.

So it was springtime in Bruce County and the ice was off the Cargill Mill Pond, which was the nearest body of water suitable for a test run. Headed out bright and early on a Saturday. Even invited my dear Daddy up to witness the rebirth of the old Arky.

First sign that this was a doomed venture came as I was sliding her off the trailer. Only took a few minutes to notice that she was filling up with water.

I can't say here what I said there, in earshot of my dear daughter, may God forgive me, but in all the excitement of the engine rebuild and the general refurbishment of the hull, I'd forgotten to put the transom plug back in.

The purpose of that plug is to drain water out after an afternoon of boating. You pull her out of the lake, unscrew that plug, and drain out the accumulated spray and wash you collected out on the water.

But that drain hole is just as likely to let water in. So as I'm backing the trailer into the Cargill Mill Pond my little Arkansas is filling up. Unfortunately nobody noticed this till the boat was sitting on the bottom of the boat ramp.

Everything aft of the windshield was underwater.

A boat filled with water is way heavier than a boat not filled with water. There was no way to get the trailer under it, even though it was sitting right there by the launch ramp.

We tried pulling her out by hand. After all, it's only a fourteen footer, but no way. Had to pull her up on the grass with my tow strap.

We drain the water out, put the transom plug in, and relaunch.

Everything is looking good. I've got my dear daughter at the controls and her doting grampa on the shore watching us get the old girl fired up after that near miss.

After numerous pulls on that starter cord, while simultaneously fiddling with various carburetor parts, the old Johnson sputters to life.

Dear daughter takes that as her signal to ram the controls full ahead.

The fifty year old Johnson hits her redline for about half a second.

I go flying over the transom.

The boat sputters to a slow drift, motor deader than dead.

After a few unfortunate words exchanged with my dear daughter while she rowed the boat back to shore I set about to restart the motor.

A dozen cord pulls, nothing.

Four dozen cord pulls, with unlimited carburetor fiddling, nothing.

Finally I called my buddy Lippert, may he rest in peace, who lived not ten minutes away.

And that's how long it took him to get there. Had the old Johnson purring in another ten minutes.

Jimmy left, and the rest of our little crew raced back and forth and back and forth on that little mill pond... till on one of those 180 degree turns into our own wake at the end of the Cargill Mill Pond the motor stalled out.

Pulled on that cord half a dozen times.

Then I pulled it right out of the starter housing.

That was the end of the boat test.