That One Last Move
At a ‘certain age’ there often comes a dream, a longing, for a fresh move to afresh place, one last time. For some it’s a down-size, for others, just a side-size.For the brave and bold, an up-size! We had a small farm outside of Bobcaygeon, Ontario with horses, heritage large British Black pigs, laying hens and an enormous garden that I grew just for the fun of it. And a handful of apple trees, newly planted. Our home was made from stackwall, pulled from the cedar bush 35 years ago, hauled on Marc’s back and built into a house. It cost $670 to therafters. Family was far away, as was Peterborough for any major shopping andmedical needs. With grandchildren arriving and retirement from 9 - 5 just around the corner, we succumbed to the call for that one last move, to be closer to family and to retire to a chosen lifestyle of life on the land. Casually looking at options,we thought it would be great to match farm land with lakefront. The lookingbrought us to South Frontenac. Kingston is such a perfect larger centre with its first-rate hospitals andtransportation options, the County is so beautiful and the weather was even better!
We moved to Inverary in May, 2014 to a property with two ancient apple orchards, large hayfields, barn, pastures, a sugar bush, garden space to meet my expectations and stunning Loughborough Lake out theback door. This was a definite up-size. But it was the apple orchard that caught my eye. It was not inproduction, at all. Not a blossom was in sight the May we moved. When I was a little girl my parents had elderly Dutch friends with an apple orchard. I remember standing under one of the huge trees, branches reaching over me, covered in white scented petals. I’d never seen anything like it. The stunted crabapple in my Saskatchewan prairie backyard not exactly a close comparison. Researching, pruning, trimming, thinning, spraying with wild and wacky concoctions, experimenting, failing, pruning some more, refining the wild and wacky… after four years, we had fully restored our property’s heritage apple orchard. We maintain the orchard using organic methods only, no small task for apples as it’s not just us humans who like to munch on them! The existing varieties on the trees, all large standards and all over 65 years old, include two heritage exclusives, Canada Red Atlas and Canadian Red Melba. The Atlas is very rare and you’ll never find either at any grocery store; their flavour is spectacular, but they can’t be shipped or don’t store very well. Ergo…not commercially viable in our “store for a year and ship across the country”economy. There are also Heritage MacIntosh, Spartan, Yellow Transparent and one Hawkeye tree, which is the very original Delicious, when it was still delicious. Many new baby trees have been planted, all heritage or vintage varieties, including some famous trees from the past, but long forgotten today such as Wolf River, Belle de Boskoop, Esopus Spitzenburg and Rhode Island Greening.
Perhaps our apples taste so incredible because they are irrigated with fresh water from Loughborough Lake-! Who knows…it could be the secret sauce. What is not a secret is the beauty of South Frontenac, not only its many lakes, forests and farmlands, but its kind, welcoming and hardworking people. We are humbled and happy to be here.