―Willa Cather
United Empire Loyalist Flag
For a city boy like me it seems strange I would be so drawn toward nature... but I am, regardless of my pedigree. My dad had the same passion for the land but where it came from he could never understand either.
Sure, he was a hippie and dreamt about simple living but it was also bound up in the anti-war movement.
Dad figured all governments tried to tax resources to fund immoral wars and so in accord with his pacifism he tried to live simply and minimally so he'd stay below the tax threshold and thereby not contribute to foreign wars of aggression.
Living simply was dad's form of tax resistance but he was never able to acquire enough money while raising a family on a school teacher's salary to fulfill his dream of living off the land.
Ironically, when he retired, his assets increased but he was too old by then to endure the privations and hardships of living self reliantly, so he left his money and dream to me.
It must have caused him great pain though when I voluntarily enlisted in the military and fought in Afghanistan. He never criticized me though, because he taught me to walk in my own light.
But my choice must have been terribly disappointing.
Our differences didn't prevail though because in the end, we reconciled. He knew I was motivated by values different from his, but like him, I was idealistic.
I came back battle-scarred on the inside but he still supported me and I think a part of him was proud even though we saw things differently.
I could write a pretty poem for his grave stone but decided the best tribute I could give was to live his dream and that's what I've been trying to do ever since.
When I first saw the land there was something about it that drew me. It was more than an obligation to a dead man―it was a calling.
Something out there―in the earth, called to something within me, appealing by inward music.
It was a mystic pull to the soil.
The pull was in the ancient cliff that rose above the marsh and the ridge that ran along the property and formed part of the Niagara Escarpment. It was primeval land and I loved it.
There was also a creek and a pond and a couple of acres of woods that were the last remnants of a Carolinian forest. But more than that, there was a feeling I belonged and could share it with all the living creatures that inhabited it long before me.
And there was a strong conviction that we could live in peace. That's what the land seemed to be saying to me.
As I pondered these things I was sitting on the ridge surveying my property, watching two hawks circle in the cirrus sky, high in the air above me.
When I turned my gaze back to the land I spotted a black Land Rover parked in the rutted lane below me.
Hunters, I mused, and probably used to poaching off vacant property.
I hurried down to confront them and prevent any further incursion or killing of wildlife.
That was when my attention was arrested. I noticed a strange flag decal in the rear window that appeared to be a cross between the Canadian flag and the British Union Jack.
If they were local Loyalists out to take advantage of an unguarded property, they'd be in for a rude awakening.
The war I left behind was not so far when I could sense it rising inside me.