Morning Glory Farm
Rod MacDougall talks about his visit to Morning Glory Farm, an Ontario Canada rural community.
January/February 1970
By Rod MacDougall
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The weather was perfect! Even the crying of the two car sick children and an assortment of frayed adult tempers could do little to dampen the enthusiasm of visiting one of Ontario's first rural hip communities.
Situated in northeastern Ontario, five rural communal farms have been formed in the last year by young adults in search of life . . . they have found it.
The author and a group of eleven Alternate Society menbers from Toronto spent five days living, working and grooving on a 100-acre farm known as Morning Glory Farm. The meals were an adventure in themselves: Apple pan dowdy, fresh baked corn bread, soy bean concoctions, natural cereal breakfasts and many other wholesome, naturally delicious foods untainted by Standard Brands or General Foods.
O n arriving, we were amazed by the serene beauty of the scenery. Past glimmering lakes, brooding hills, fields that spoke of limitless and unfettered freedom, we drove. The children - made ill by miles of droning engine and slowly weaving blacktop - were now wide-eyed and breathless with smiles frozen on their faces in the excitement of their rural roller-coaster up-hill, downhill ride.
After a comedy of wrong turns . . . the splendor of Morning Glory Farm!
Most of the farms in the area are without electricity, though the power lines run by most farms. Morning Glory is no exception. We left the power line (and, with it, the last vestage of organized society) behind and travelled a half mile through a creek bed valley and up the hill to our new home.
Morning Glory is a group of well kept and sturdy buildings situated on 100 acres of rolling greenery crossed with charming stone fences and stands of beautiful fir trees. The soil is similar to that of the area in general; rich sandy loam.
The owner, Mike, is a healthy and purposeful 18-year-old of amazing ability and inventiveness. His farm has eight or nine buildings and a large, comfortable house made warm with an abundance of human love. Some buildings are being converted to serve other purposes: The smoke house is being transformed into a sauna and the hay loft to a music and play room.
To solve the problem of cold storage for food, Mike has single-handedly dug an 8 x 4 x 8 foot hole that will be his huge underground freezer.
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