Sheilajeanne

Oh, he knew where they were all right! He borrowed the clothes iron to put veneer strips on the edges of shelves he'd bought, and he definitely did NOT want me to know about it! I would not have been happy!!

That is indeed some lovely work, olbrokemarine! Your kids are lucky to have you, and I'm sure these things you've made will become family heirlooms!

I think it's more likely what Chuck said! And knowing how my husband was always 'borrowing' stuff (tools, etc.) from me, and not returning them, I'd want my OWN set of tools, and I'd lock them up if we were both doing leathercraft! After he died, I found my iron, my spare can opener and a whole bunch of other stuff down at his apartment building. I remember specifically asking him about both the can opener and iron, and both times he shrugged and said, "I have NO idea where they are!"

My husband's family were victims of the Highland clearances. Fortunately the leader of their clan, Lord Hamilton, was a member of Parliament. He petitioned the government to help those who had been displaced, and was refused. So, using his own money, he bought a ship, and chose those he though were best able to adjust to life in the New World. The plan was for the immigrants to reach Niagara-on-the-Lake, but the owner of the boat hired to take them to Lake Ontario* was a real scoundrel. He let them off in the middle of the wilderness and told them Niagara-on-the-Lake was just over the hill! The whole party would have died if the local indigenous people hadn't helped them and shown them how to survive. My husband still had a letter in his possession where one of the women wrote back home, saying, "We had a slightly better winter this year. One bairn survived..." He remembers his mother showing him that letter and saying, "YOU are descended from that 'one bairn'!" This group of immigrants went on to found Hamilton, Ontario. I forgot to mention earlier that my husband was a cadet with the RCAF, and went through university on the Reserve Officer Training Plan. When his training was finished, he decided not to accept a commission. He also worked as an engineering draftsman on the DEW line in Labrador during the Cold War. *The rapids in the St Lawrence River were impassable, so it was necessary to travel overland, then hire a second boat. The St. Lawrence Seaway solved that problem!

Coming to Upper Canada was definitely a good move for my 'anchor ancestor'. If he had remained in Ireland as a tenant farmer, he never would have owned the land he farmed, nor would he have had anything to pass on to his children. In Canada, he was able to get 200 acres of land from the government for free, as long as he developed it within a certain number of years. Not an easy task when the land was all virgin forest! He did rather well for himself, In 1861, the first year for which I have a census record, he was living in a brick house while his neighbours were still in log cabins. The two biggest surprises I've found so far are that my great grandmother's first husband was assistant editor for The Mail, a Toronto newspaper which eventually merged with George Brown's Globe to become The Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail is one of Canada's best known newspapers. His mother also worked for The Mail, as a reporter. This would have been a very unusual job for a woman back in the 1860's. She had to work, however, as her husband had died. Secondly, I recently discovered there's a stained glass window in the church I attend that's dedicated to the parents of one of my great uncles. Both he and his father were physicians, so the window is dedicated to St. Luke.

The dangers of farming are not well known to the general public. Injuries from livestock or farm equipment are all too common - one of my uncles broke both his ankles when his pant leg caught in the hay elevator. He also accidentally ran over one of his son's with the disc harrow, when the boy fell off the back of the tractor! He suffered from farmer's lung in his old age, but still managed to outlive all of his siblings. And that's JUST one of the six families who stayed in farming! (There were 10 kids in my dad's immediate family.) Out of those six families, some of the grandchildren farmed for awhile, but as of today, they have all taken other safer and more lucrative jobs. One quit due to several friends dying of cancer. This got him concerned over the many chemicals farmers are exposed to, especially the pesticides. I think my father's youngest sister's grandson may be doing dairy, judging by what I see on his FB timeline, but I don't talk with him, so I'm not sure. I know his dad worked as a welder after his parents sold their farm.

Very true! All of us except for indigenous people were immigrants at one time, and my German/Irish ancestors were also refugees. The only one of my dad's family to fight in WWII was my eldest uncle, who helped to liberate Holland. Farmers were exempt, as the livestock needed looking after, and someone had to grow food to feed the people. My dad went to enlist, but they saw shadows on his lung x-rays and told him he had TB, and essentially sent him home to die. It must have been dust from the threshing on the farm because, as a teacher, he frequently was tested for TB, and the tests were always negative. He did develop respiratory problems in his old age, probably due to all that dust he inhaled before leaving the farm (farmer's lung). He lived to be 89, just missing his 90th birthday be 3 weeks! Another uncle worked on the home front for the RCMP, helping to track down Nazis and other foreign agents.

Chuck - wow!! Very interesting! Some of my family members who remember world wars with Germany were upset to find out about the German ancestry. Which is pretty silly, because it dates back to long before either WWI or WWII. On my mother's side of the family, her grandmother and grandfather immigrated from Germany at the time of Bismarck. I found it interesting that the grandmother's ancestry suddenly changed to 'Canadian' from 'German' on the Canadian census done at the time of the first world war! Maybe I'll get around to doing my DNA profile one of these days...

Spyros, I have NO idea what the original label on my cutting boards said! I got them a long, long time ago. So, not going to trust them with my chisels.

The poundo board was from Tandy. And yes, I have it under the belly leather when punching holes.

I used plastic cutting board in my kitchen, and also have a couple for leatherworking. However, the HDPE seems a LOT harder to me than a poundo board, which is like firm rubber. After ruining those chisels on the poundo board, I'm not tempted to do any punching on the HDPE~

This piece of belly leather was unusually thick. Parts of it are around 10 oz! Tandy was having a sale, and I bought it to practice my carving skills on. Found it had other uses, too! Fred, that looks like a great idea!

After ruining a set of chisels on my poundo board, I now punch with a thick piece of belly hide under my project. Cheap, and easily replaced when it gets too many holes in it!

Very interesting, Fred! Trefoil, of course, means three-leaved, and of course there are many plants that meet that description. I wonder if the plant was actually Oxalis, which is frequently eaten by people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis I've always know my father's mother's people were from Ireland, and in the last few years, I've been working on the family history. They came from Limerick (Rathkeale) and were actually descended from German refugees who left the Rhineland Palatinate area after it was devastated by war with France in the late 1700's. After there arrival in Britain, Queen Anne sent them to Ireland to work as tenant farmers for the wealthy English landowners. My dad often wondered if they were pioneers in Ontario, and recently I was able to verify that, by finding the crown land grant that was given to them in 1824! Yes, it's very hard to read, but if you look at what's written on the right it says: In council 29th September 1824: Recommended 200 acres. Order issued September 30th 1824.

The horse I used to own was a flea-bitten gray, whose coat was almost completely white, except for the so-called flea bites. There was a stream that ran through the paddock where they turned her out. EVERY TIME she would stop when she got to the stream, paw the water for a bit, then lie down and wallow like a hog! When she was done the one side, she'd get up, lie down again, and treat the other side to a mud bath! Fortunately, this was always at the start of her time at pasture. By the time she returned to her stall for her supper, most of the mud would have dried and fallen off, so she would be reasonably clean when I came after work to ride her!