The Farm In Summer

One summer day in late July, I paid a visit to the Experimental Farm, mostly to see if I might be able to photograph the dairy herd out in pasture (they were either in a different pasture or, more likely, being milked at the time). The Farm is a government property, over a thousand acres of fields and pastures in the city dedicated to agricultural research. Roads and bike paths cross it. This view, beside a flowerbed with summer plantings, gives one view. It is quite likely that this flowerbed has tulips in May.

Corn was growing in one of the fields.

This view looks east from that field. The buildings of the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, as well as other working buildings of the Experimental Farm, are over there. The Museum uses a series of barns to house animals and displays on agriculture in Canada. Readers who haven't seen my series from the spring in which I paid a visit to the Museum might want to start with the first post. There were seventeen posts in total.

Continuing my walk, the first barn I came across was the Meadowview Barn, part of the Museum complex. A summer day camp was busy on the grounds around it- the kids were off to my right.

This view looks towards the Small Animals Barn in the background.

Across the road from the above view is this former house that would have likely been a residence for an administrator of the Farm back in the day. Today it houses offices for the Canadian Dairy Commission.

Returning back to the south side of the road, I photographed the Dairy Barn. The herd might well have been inside for milking time, and there was a milk truck parked here to make a pick up. This time of year, the animals spend a good deal of time outdoors.

Coming around the Dairy Barn, I had this second view of the Small Animals Barn. Cows were out in the paddock area, some visible near the trees. They would be the breeds who reside in the Horse And Cattle Barn, which I'll show you an angle of in tomorrow's post.

I leave off for today with this view of the Cereal Barn, taken from the south east. As I passed by, there was a notice on the back door that the building was being used for summer day camps, and I could hear kids inside. I have added today's post to Tom's Barn Collective post for the week, so go on over and have a look.