Greetings in Steam

Puslinch is located south of Guelph, only an hour's drive away from Grimsby or Toronto.  It is rolling rural farm land, typical of Ontario. But it has an exceptional collection of steam traction equipment known as the Ontario Steam Heritage Museum.  We were lucky to visit yesterday for the Volunteer Open House - with live steam traction engines in the yard and a fiddle orchestra in the shop.  This felt like the farm version of the Santa Train ride. These huge steam tractors were pulling wagons full of riders along the wooded trails.  And there were quite a few tractors out and operating, so the air was full of steam. This is a privately-owned museum and restoration workshop.  It is on the property of owners Wayne and Judi Fischer.  You can read a little about it at ontariosteamheritagemuseum.ca  And there's a Wellington Advertiser article. There are so many forms of steam here - traditional tractors which we see in pictures of the yard.  There are shingle machines, wood-working machines,ship's engines, even a collection sewing machines was on display, That is what is interesting in the shop - how many tools, parts and supplies are present.   But back outside to the steam in the yard and the whistle blowing.

Hard Work!

Farm work has always been considered hard work with long hours of physical labour.  So when we look at these pictures of steam traction, we can get an appreciation for the contribution tractors made to threshing and ploughing.   They are big machines to handle big jobs. These pictures are from the January 2016 open house at the Puslinch Steam Heritage Museum.  More pictures and coverage of the Steam Museum can be seen at woodgears.ca. The official site is ontariosteamheritagemuseum here. We look back at this automation with nostalgia when we compare it to the growing use of robotics in agriculture - where products are 'sensor networks and robots'.  The main application is still at the harvesting stage.  An emerging application is robots/drones for weed control.

Full Steam Ahead for 2016!

Steam Traction!  These are too big to be called 'Tractors'. That's what these pictures show.  We drove to Puslinch Ontario which isn't very far away - only a half hour or so.  It seemed like a century away - into the rural landscape of Ontario and into the past of farming. This is part of the collection of private collector and restorer Wayne Fischer.  He had an open house for the volunteers of the Steam Heritage Museum.  This is a private facility on his property.  Volunteers were allowed to invite a few friends and Gerry and I were lucky to be invited. We saw dozens of these massive steam tractors in the shop. The facility houses his own collection and has engines from other collectors so it is a big facility and is packed with these machines in varied states of restoration. At the far end is a boat which has the story of being the sister boat to the "African Queen" in the Humphrey Bogart movie. It seemed much bigger than Strasburg.  Or was it the music and food and everyone talking and enjoying themselves. There was a fiddle orchestra for entertainment along with the big table of potluck food.  It was a wonderful community event full of good spirits and steam enjoyment. And why have the Open House in the winter?  The reason is significant: this is the only place in Canada that you can come year round and see the machines running on steam.  The facility has special telescopic smoke stacks to allow the steam engines to be started indoors and driven outside. What an amazing day for lovers of steam! See and read more here.  Or also here for a news article. And wrapping up 2015 there is Contest News of Finalist in the November Betterphoto Contest for a Japanese Iris image. And I've published a photo essay about the Calamus Rusty Shed at Lifeashuman.com.  It's here.