One of my favourite places to visit the former Agricultural Museum at Milton, ON. No longer under the direction of the Ministry of Agriculture, this not-for-profit is operated as Country Heritage Park. The passionate, dedicated board of directors and the volunteers, along with various organizations like the different tractor clubs and the heavy Horse Assoc. of Ontario have done an excellent job. The admission was only $7 per adult with a senior discount that Dave and I took advantage of. The CHP hosts several annual events that feature the various makes of steamers and tractors as well as heavy horse days with demonstrations of plowing, mowing, binding, threshing and horse drawn wagon rides. Check out their website for an events calendar at www.countryheritagepark,com I was at the park with a display of my paintings, limited edition prints and my pen & ink prints. The director, Reg Cressman, set me up in an old log barn with front and back doors wide open. There was shade and a lovely cross breeze wafting in every so often. The smell of the straw took me back to the days of my childhood when my siblings and I played hide & seek in the barn with our cousins. I set ups a makeshift easel and worked on a small painting. I knew I was alone but at one point I felt eyes on me as I painted but no one was there. I went back to my painting a few moments passed and then  I caught a slight movement out of the corner of my eye. I slowly turned and almost came face to face with a ground hog sitting atop a few bales of straw. He gave me the once over and then scooted down a hole and out of sight. Reg tells me the ground hog lives there. I guess I was invading his space. Every once in awhile the oversized rodent peeked out of his burrow and glared at me. I’m not sure if he was checking on my artistic progress or urging me to leave. This wonderful old pioneer barn was enclosed on one side with an old cedar rail fence and on the other side with a stump fence. As a child rail fences were quite common. My grandfather owned a farm around Puslinch Lake and in the nineteen-fifty’s one could still see stump fences on the back roads of Puslinch Township.