ivyblossom | farmland in the Ontario springtime

I must admit to having a thing for rural landscapes. It's not that I desperately want to live on a farm; i just find farms so beautiful. The orderly fences, the deliberateness of the rows of corn or wheat or soy; I can't really explain it, but I love it. And it's one of the things that I love about southern Ontario.

What many people don't know about the Toronto area is that it's entirely surrounded by farms (except where it's surrounded by auto plants and Lake Ontario, that is). So while I've posted lots of pictures of the urban world in my quest to document that which I see, now I wanted to post some shots that are probably only of interest to me; the farm landscape along the road between my apartment in the heart of suburbia and my folks' place (also deep inside suburbia). This is about a 40 minute drive, from urban area to urban area, if that gives you a sense of how close the rural is to the urban around Toronto.

Some years ago when I started writing original fiction, it all came up rural, just like these pictures. It wasn't until my beta readers (

isilya in particular) noted now strange that was did I notice that this sort of view surrounds me and informs the way I see the world.

Yes, that was the fancy way of saying oooo look! Picturesque farms!

I should also note that I took all of these pictures from the backseat of a speeding vehicle, and the fact that they look as good as they do is a testament to my new camera. In addition, I'm taking these pictures at the worst possible time; the snow is gone, but the growing things are just starting to wake up.

Complete with a red barn!

A small farm, clearly with a family living there. This one to me said "animals graze here", but I saw no animals.

A grain field, empty because the winter has just ended mere moments before.

That grass is just bursting out of the ground, though it could be soy. I'm not good at identifying plants from the road (unlike my dad). I wanted this picture because of how bright green it is. It's still a novelty at this point in the (very early) spring.

I'm sorry the car got in the way of this one, because that's a great shot of a field. (Okay, I may be the only one who gets excited about shots of fields, but I love them! Look at that traditional old fence!

Great big farm house with a barn. I wish I could take credit for the composition of this shot, but it was entirely random.

A little marsh by the road.

Classic farmland; even without any recent plowing or sowing, you can tell that there were different crops in these fields.

The homestead, smack in the middle of the fields.

The sky was a little grey at this point, but here's a standard Southern Ontario farm.

Imagine living in that great big house in the trees! I'm not doing anyone any justice by taking these pictures before the leaves come back in; normally you wouldn't see the house from the road at all.