Near Stouffville

[vaneramos]

After visiting koobear's café at Stouffville Market yesterday afternoon, I drove through Uxbridge en route to Lindsay to drop off Marian and pick up Brenna, just back from summer camp. The drive reminded me of long summer days growing up in the country, although this farmland is much more rolling than where I grew up.







Vicia cracca
The gravel road of my youth was bordered with purple vetch.

Comments

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these. I wish I could see a close-up of the vetch, so I can compare it with the Viper's Bug-loss that grows all over the Farm.

Bill posted some beautiful wallpapers of the Farm fields, but they gotten taken away--too much bandwidth, I expect.

Hope you are enjoying yourself!

hugs, Shimmer

Vetch

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Vetch is not like viper's bugloss, which is a tall herb, with coarse, bristly stems. Vetch is a legume (bean and pea family) with a similar vining habit to garden peas or sweetpeas, although less succulent. It grows in the same conditions as viper's bugloss (sunny roadsides and fields), but has a softer overall effect. Here's another shot to give you a closer look. Each flower head is about two inches long.

Re: Vetch

[rsc.livejournal.com]

has a softer overall effect

Although its viny habit makes it unwelcome in the vicinity of deliberate plantings.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Well, not really closer. Oh well. My camera can't do the macro thing.

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Thanks for both the new snap and the verbal description.

Bill owns a wonderful little book called Weeds of Canada. Maybe I'll have some extra cash on hand and check Chapters when I'm in Ottawa in a couple of weeks.

[apel.livejournal.com]

As Van is saying, it's nothing like Viper's bugloss. Here's a close-up taken in Great Tew in the Cotswolds in June last year.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Oooo, thanks, from the camera of apel herself. Nice shot of this beautiful weed.

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that *is* lovely! And helps my old eyes see the difference.

It does sound a bit insulting to call something that gorgeous a weed, though. And doesn't vetch have some properties that at least make it worthy of being termed an "herb"?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I find only few and brief references to vetch in my books on the uses of wild plants, except that the fava bean is also a Vicia species. Vetch could also be used as a forage crop like its relative, alfalfa, because nearly all legumes have nodules in their roots that enrich the soil with nitrogen. It doesn't seem to have much notoriety for medicinal or other properties.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

A "weed" is plant that grows where some human intended to grow some other plant.

[poetbear.livejournal.com]

love the picture with the hay and
barn in background!~paul

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks Paul. A field full of fresh hay bales is one of my favourite summer sights.

[apel.livejournal.com]

Ah, how summery. If it weren't for the buildings in the background of the first shot, both of those might as well have been taken in Sweden or the UK.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Would the buildings look different?

[apel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they would. In Sweden the buildings would have been dark red, to begin with. The roof angles are about right for Sweden, on the other hand. At least if the lower building is relatively new. In the UK you don't see many buildings with broken roofs like the large one.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

The low barn in this picture is relatively new, probably prefabricated metal. The larger barn is more traditional, a few decades old. Traditionally they were painted dark red, but this one has faded to the natural grey-brown of weathered wood. The roof appears to be a new one, but of course it is the traditional shape for hay barns across North America. The farms in this area look relatively prosperous and the buildings are in good repair.

In some parts of Ontario where the land is poorer you can see all kinds of dishevelled, picturesque barns and abandonned farmhouses. If I had more frequent access to a car I would love to drive around photographing them.

When I was a teenager, Dad and I used to go on pen-and-ink drawing expeditions to find old barns. Many of the ones we drew have been torn down and replaced now, because that too is such a fertile and prosperous region.