NO FISHING! in Wareham

and YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT

This sign board was recently placed by the MoE at the side of the small bridge that runs at the NE corner of my property.
I own the ground (pretty much) down to the creek from that bridge along the bank as it runs downstream to the west. The image shows the east side, where the creek is bounded both sides from the bridge as private property.

Some argument might be made about public access to the water course. I sure DO NOT allow anyone on my property for the purposes of fishing.

I have had it with all this....

From the north bridge, roughly SE.

This is how the once clean creek now looks. 

See the choking algae?

*That* is there because the Mennonite farmer who owns the farm just north of the water course on that east side things the Ontario Waste Management Laws just don't apply to him. He spreads his manure right down to the running edge of the creek. He is new to Wareham, and this *never happened* for the 20 years *before* he started farming that field.

Stream bank, NE foot of the bridge

See this?

These are coffee cups, pop cans, beer bottles - and empty plastic worm boxes. 

Pack out your garbage!

Plus tangles of fishing line. 

Do I even have to drone on about the hazards of tangles of nylon fishing line to birds - possibly my cats?

See this?
My cat brought home THREE of these yesterday.
They all were covered in gravel, so had been lifted up from the river bank and tossed on the roadway some place.
Never heard of 'catch and release'?
These were all freshly caught, a couple of hours would be my guess. No, I had not specifically noticed anyone over there yesterday.

See this?
You do read, right?
You do understand English, right?
You do know what ENDANGERED means, right?

Look at this again.
(Colours fade after a couple of hours dead in bright sunlight.)

Looks like an ENDANGERED Red Sided Dace to me.

You had better not let ME catch you fishing off MY bridge.

You ain't gonna like it, not one fucking bit...

Going past the surface...

A cover of "Call Me Maybe" performed by US Army Infantry Soldiers in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Original by Carly Rae Jepsen. Directed, filmed, and edited by the troops as a morale boost for our Soldiers here and our families/FRG back home. See you in just a few more months, and thanks for all your support!

Ok - I don't normally go for this kind of 'Daily Morale' kind of thing

But there is something else going on here.
The MASH Method :
'The only way to stay sane in an insane situation - is to act completely crazy'

Some of you reading this will understand completely.

And something else :
"19. The average age of the infantry combat soldier in Viet Nam was 19."

Look at how *young* those soldiers are.


Reguardless of what you think of the involvement of the USA in the Middle East, those young people did not *ask* to be put in that situation.
The politicians elected by those safe and sound at home decided to send them.
'Old men chose - young men die'
Same Same

Get home safe guys...

'Hand Made'???

 This is a comment provoked by the blog post and following comments made at:
opusanglicanum

It should look handmade…

(I would credit the author by name, but there is little to identify, and I got referred there via a Facebook cross link)


“It should look handmade” may be in fact a description used instead of the better “It should not be mass produced by machine”.

I am a professional artisan blacksmith. If you look *really* closely at pre-Industrial age forged work, you see that even in large grills with regular, repeated elements, are in fact all individually hand forged over the anvil, one by one. This creates slight differences to each. Not what happens if forms and jigs are used for the shaping. The net effect is subtle, but even the casual viewer notices something that tells them ‘hand made’.
A trained and careful hand *can* in fact produce effects indistinguishable from machine work. (I’d say this most often seen in highly skilled hand sewing!) This should be a goal to be sought as one develops as an artisan.

Roughly 1200 AD - Hand forged wolf head detail, about 2 inches long (Victoria & Albert, London)

In my own *modern* work, I stress designs that feature the greatest possibilities of shape and form possible by the aggressive use of hand forging methods. This does create objects very obviously ‘modern’ in their overall look.

Note that I am not talking about *mistakes* here, but an approach to the work itself. I most certainly have undertaken detailed reproductions and replicas of historic objects in the past. Here the fine details of the objects most often also must be created using not only hand work methods, but sometimes replica tools and historic processes. (Carving with a dremel bur will *never* look like carving with a fine chisel - and certainly is not a duplication of a historic process.)

(Addition)
This was a return comment by the mind behind opusanglicanum:

Since I do silversmithing ... as well as sewing, I can confirm that perfection is far far easier with sewing! It that very subtle "should" that gets to me. Looking handmade is a wonderful thing, but the should is used as justification far more often than its ever used as a compliment. The agressive handmadeness of some modern pieces is a separate category which is in itself a reaction against the conformity of our society, and in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing it can be fantastic - but to deconstruct any art form you have to know how to do it "properly" (for want of a better word) first. To deconstruct something without knowing how to construct it just vandalism. To use deconstruction as an excuse for not bothering to learn to construct is mental and physical laziness, and that's where the "should" becomes a vital distinction

(I have highlighted a critical point there)

I would recommend my own readers not only check out the opusanglicanum blog, but also take the time to run down the line of comments to this specific entry.

I have been stuck with how thoughtful the responses have been.
This most especially since the other 'check this out' suggestion from that morning turned out to be whining drivel. I had hopes that a discussion of 'what fails at re-enactments' might yield some meat, but it quickly descended to mere fat and fluff.

its an OPEN PIT MINE

*not* a simple 'gravel quarry'!

What I'm talking about here is the Melancthon Quarry.
The 'Mega Quarry'. The frackin' huge hole that is going to be blasted in just 10 kilometres south of Wareham. The open pit mine that is going to blow up the whole thickness of the Niagara Escarpment limestone that runs under my home area. The huge operation that will force me to dance around road train transports when I try to drive out of here to the east or south.

Both sides of this are resorting to distortions and half truth. The official company web site is perhaps more significant for what it does NOT say, than for what it does...

So - just what is this open pit mine going to look like?

Comparison : Marmora Iron Mine

The image above is a composite of the open pit iron mine outside Marmora Ontario (web site).
Click to open the image up, a better assessment can be had looking at it at the full image size of roughly 8 x 40 inches.

The open pit at Marmora is 75 acres / 30 hectares in size.
Visible depth (above water) estimated at about 100 feet
"Total mine production: 1.3 million tons of iron ore / 3.5 million tons of waste rock."
To keep the hole dry, 666,666 gallons per day need to be pumped out.
Operations stopped in 1979.
The total depth is 540 feet - so most of the pit is under water, now that the mine has been abandoned by the company.

So - how does the the image above compare to what is going to happen at Melancthon?

(Data from the official web site)

The open pits at Melancthon will total 1840 acres / 765 hectares.
Operation depth will average 186 feet / 56 metres (greatest at 261 feet / 80 metres)
Total estimated mine production: 1 billion tonnes
To keep the hole dry, 13,198,154 gallons per day need to be pumped out.

Compare the image of the hole above, with the intended operation in Melancthon:

80 times the size
Twice the visible depth (three times at the deepest)
At least 200 times the material to be removed
Twice the daily amount of water to be pumped

The most rational voice on the side opposing this open pit mine is the North Dufferin Agricultural and Community Task Force.


Some examples of the double speak and vague information being provided by the Highland Companies:

1) They emphasize that 'only 120 acres will be actively quarried at any one time'.
This hardly changes the size of the holes being left behind as they proceed.

2) They emphasize that the 'average depth is 56 metres, with a minimum at 30 and maximum at 80'. Note that '56' is a straight math average. How much of the total excavation depth is actually going to be at that average?

3) They don't actually give the yearly estimate on production. They do emphasize the total aggregate requirements for all of the Golden Horseshoe area - as if this operation was the only one in existence in Ontario. (How have we been managing the requirements to date?)

4) That water needs to be pumped *forever*. Exactly how is this company going to remain accountable for this expense?


My favorite example of the Highland Companies misinformation is this statement:

" Dufferin Country Road 124 is currently designated by MTO as a “truck haul route” and is therefore an appropriate route to transport aggregate."

 The company does not actually give a number for the indicated truck traffic. 
Voices in opposition estimate that one double length 'road train' tractor trailer unit will be required *every 50 seconds* down DCR 124.
This road is closed so often due to white outs from blowing snow that it has permanently mounted barriers placed at either end (brackets the open pit site).
The road that ends in near by Shelburne, and then dumps into Highway 89 then Highway 10? You know, the Highway 10 that runs right through Orangeville and Brampton?

We are being so screwed...