A hawk circling improbably high above southern Ontario sees a land mass bordered on the north by Georgian Bay, the west by Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair, the south by Lake Erie, and the east by Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe. Facing west, the hawk sees the shape of an animal in the land below, the tail heading up the Bruce Peninsula, the feet treading on Niagara Falls and Haliburton, the forehead etched by the St. Clair River, and the trunk, for this is clearly an elephant, nuzzling the cities of Windsor and Detroit.brbrAs the hawk’s spirals tighten, his path circles south central Ontario, and he skirts the flank of the elephant. His elevation decreases, and he is visible overhead from my farm, first as a speck and then recognizable, his tail fanned out, his belly streaked and his wings tipped dark. He catches good thermals over the Dundalk Plain.brbrWhen he dives for a deer mouse in my hayfield, the hawk lands, briefly, over the womb of the elephant. It is a vast open space, isolated from other farms and cushioned by soft hills and gentle valleys. It is where we came to incubate as a couple and apprentice to be stewards of the land.brbr* * * * *brbrWe arrived here in our early twenties by way of the city. Thomas was right out of medical school and keen to start a country practice in the nearby town of Murphy’s Mill. I would take on the house, the land, the creation of a life in the country. The area had been designated as medically under-serviced, and the province guaranteed an income if we stayed for four years. The land provided rich soil to extend roots, dig in and stay. Murphy’s Mill is treed and spired, a road winding in from the south like a Carrington painting or a Maud L@&B? (õÃÿ¾Û€  (less)

would of anyone, ain't my fault is it, do you know what I'm saying, not making like Mother Teresa, but that's how I am.brbrIt weren't like you realised anyway, not at the time, not that first Monday morning. It weren't like you seen it all then and there when Poppy come stropping in them doors with her six-inch skirt and her twelve-inch heels; it weren't like you seen it all laid out, the whole fucking shit of the next six months, like a trailer, do you know what I'm saying, the whole fucking shit of the rest of our lives, which the way I'm feeling, do you know what I'm saying, most probably come down to the same.brbrPoppy Shakespeare, that was her name. She got long shiny hair like an advert. `Shakespeare?' I said when Tony told me. `Fuckin'ell bet she's smart.'brbrTony smiled at the carpet, like this flicker of a smile, like a lighter running low on fluid.brbr`So what am I s'posed to show her?' I said. `I don't know nothing, do I,' I said.brbr`Just show her around the place,' he said. `Introduce her to people, that sort of thing.'brbr`Nah,' I said and I shaken my head. `Ain't up to it, Tony. Sorry; I'm not. Does my head in, that sort of thing. What you asking me for?' I said.brbrBut Jesus, if you'd of heard him go on! Weren't nobody else would do, he said. Weren't nobody else in the world, he said, not Astrid Arsewipe -- couldn't argue with that -- not Middle-Class Michael, not no one at all, alive or dead or both or neither, known as much about dribbling as I did.brbrbrb2. How Tony Balaclava got a point/bbrbrFact is I been dribbling since before I was even born. My mum was a dribbler and her mum as well, 'cept she never seen her hardly, grown up in a home while they scooped out bit@!úáG®{ÿ¾Û€  (less)