A Summer Hiatus




As I have followed John Muir's summer of 1864 I have tried to imagine what was going on in the bigger community of rural Ontario that he had landed in. We know that he was staying with a Scottish family - the Campbells and they were just starting to get a little prosperity happening despite the fact that the father of the family had died a few years earlier. John Muir had gone out for a three week ramble that I talked about in the earlier postings. He then returned to the farm at Bradford and from the lack of botanical specimens from that period I can only imagine that he was actually working with the family on the farm. He would have arrived back in the prime time for "haying" on an Ontario farm. At that time it was all done manually; scythes for cutting, hand bound and then stooked (stood on end to dry) and then hauled to a barn with a horse or an oxen to be stored for the winter.

the Campbell farm today

Since John had grown up on a farm in Wisconsin he would have been an asset to any farm, especially one where the father was deceased. At the time in Ontario there was virtually no money in rural communities. Everything was shared or done on the barter system. John must have been working for his room and board. Sometime in August the list of specimens starts to pick up and that is the time I presume when he starts to walk south since he would have no money for the train. It is not until he arrives in Hamilton in late August that he gets into serious collecting again.

 The next post will resume in September once Muir is on the road again. 
Harvest time in late July
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** This is a little sidebar of info. about one of the spinoffs from my Muir Saunterings.

 During this past summer I volunteered with the Meaford Museum. I just wanted to share with you this photo of a bunch of kids from the summer program. I worked with the kids on the concepts of archaeology, palaeontology and the life of John Muir and his plants. For those of you who get depressed thinking about where are kids are at these days what with Nature Deficit Disorder and similar afflictions, take heart in this great group of kids! Is there a Muir among them?

Plant pressing is alive and well in Meaford!

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