I’ve just got back from a trip into the slightly wilder areas of Ontario, where I was able to do a little exploring of some of the natural spaces the area has to offer. Just about three hours drive from Toronto, Pine Grove sits alongside the Pickerel river, just off Highway 522 about halfway between Highway 69 and Highway 11. 

 There are a few cottages for rent but as they were already occupied we took the old farmhouse, which was about 1.5 kms away. I was hoping to get some new nature images and this looked like a good location that I hadn’t seen before.  Being in a swampy marshland area was very entertaining, except for the massive number of mosquitoes and other irritating insects. I’ve got used to being like dinner on a plate for mozzies over the years but it was pretty bad this time, and the dog fared much worse than I did! This made hiking along the nearby forest trails a complete write-off, but improvisation is always close at hand and we did most of the exploring away from the dense mozzy areas. 

 The image above was taken one morning in Port Loring, the nearest (and very small) town. The air was hazy all day, like dull cloud except it wasn’t cloud and it turned out to be the result of smoke drifting in from the wildfires in Manitoba, and further north in Ontario. It cast a very strange shadow all day, and the river was eerily quiet. Even in the evening, there was an odd orange and grey cast to the sky, but still no cloud. At one point, the sun suddenly appeared from nowhere, and was orange and muted. These two images below (taken on my phone) were taken just a few minutes apart. 

 I did get to venture into some marshy areas, and this gave me the chance to photograph some wild forest, and stretches of water populated by hundreds of lily pads, and sometimes dead tree stumps, just standing there looking desolate. The sound of howling (singing?) coyotes behind me at one point just wrapped up the experience nicely! 

I'm going to save those images though, for the next post. Don't forget to come back!