Farm Crawl with HCA

A variety of farms opened up their doors and fields to the community this past weekend at another successful Farm Crawl, this time on the western edge of Hamilton. This area's farms, are big on community and on sharing their products and way of life. Saturday was overcast and rainy, but people flooded into the fields.  Ticket sales were estimated at several hundred, not including the many children who could learn and take part for free. This family and community orientated day exemplified the importance of agriculture as an industry and a lifestyle.

The Dundas Valley 50 Year Vision and Strategy along with the Hamilton Halton Stewardship

Program were graciously hosted by Weirs Lane Lavender and Apiary for the afternoon. The Hamilton Halton Watershed Stewardship Program had assisted the farm establish a native/pollinator garden. This project would benefit their bee keeping and lavender honey-making venture, but the garden also provides a living teaching tool.

The staff of Weirs Lane Lavender and Apiary are enthusiastic about not only their craft, but also in their roles as hosts and teachers that day. The Hamilton Conservation Authority’s Dundas Valley 50 Year Vision and Strategy were there in recognition of the farm’s commitment to the community. This agricultural leadership is community focused, and will help preserve and enhance the Dundas Valley as it is today and how it could be tomorrow.

If you'd to view these farms and their products and practices, please follow the links below to their webpages for contact information.  Click here for information on the conservation efforts and the work of the Hamilton Halton Watershed Stewardship Program (including the pollinator garden at Lavender Apiary).

Click here for more on the Dundas Valley 50 Year Vision and Strategy or complete our survey if you have any ideas or comments about the Dundas Valley area now and in the future.

Hamiton Farm Crawl http://www.farmcrawlhamilton.ca
ManoRun Organic Farm http://www.manorun.com/
Lotsa Hostas & Jerry’s Berry’s http://www.jerrysberries.ca/
Weir’s Lane Lavender and Apiary http://www.weirslanelavender.com/

John Williams
Project Manager; Dundas Valley 50 Year Vision and Strategy
Hamilton Conservation Authority

What's Alive in Hamilton!

Sharp Lobed Hepatica

The natural areas inventory project is quickly gearing up for our final field season. This year we will be checking out many of the natural areas on the Hamilton/Halton border in Waterdown and East Flamborough. There are quite a few wetlands, valleys, escarpment talus, and deciduous upland sites in this area which we are excited to survey. Most of the spring flowers are now in bloom, so it won’t be long until our ecological land classification crew is out surveying the forests, thickets, meadows, and wetlands. But for now, check out your local natural areas for these spring ephemerals!

Bloodroot

Squirrel Corn

A spring ephemeral is a perennial forest wildflower that blooms in early spring and produces seeds before summer. These flowers take advantage of the sunlight that hits the forest floor before the trees produce their leaves

You may have heard that many birds are back from their wintering grounds down south. Keep an eye out for chimney swifts, red-bellied woodpeckers, and orioles which have all been heard and seen this spring. 

Juvenile Brown Snake

Our frog and toad monitoring program has had a quick start. With the warm temperatures lately, these amphibians have been calling all over the City of Hamilton. Spring peepers, wood frogs, chorus frogs, and American toads are common at this time of the year. Keep your ears open and you may start to hear leopard frogs, green frogs, and grey tree frogs.

And don’t forget that this is the time of the year that snakes are on the move too! Here is a juvenile brown snake that I saw on a walk through the Dundas Valley.

Keep checking the website for more updates on the Natural Areas Inventory Project.

Nicholas Schwetz

NAI Coordinator

Hamilton Conservation Authority

Help HCA win $25,000 with the Shell Fuelling Change Challenge! Vote for What's Alive in Hamilton and we can continue to educate our community and help protect the environment in Hamilton. http://fuellingchange.com/main/project/411/Whats-Alive-in-Hamilton

So this is Hamilton...

"Hamilton Conservation Authority". When I first read those words as a recent university grad on a job hunt, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. To be honest I didn’t really know what a Conservation Authority was. And my thoughts of Hamilton most certainly weren’t that of Conservation. 

I’d lived in Niagara nearly all of my life and really only knew of Hamilton as that place on the side of the QEW with all the smoke stacks. I will admit that it was a very limited perspective, but one I think many have while travelling over the Skyway bridge. It wasn’t until I started working at HCA that my view of the city (that I now call home) changed. 

As part of my training as a new HCA employee, I was given a tour of our watershed which was a real eye opener for me. I learned that not only does Hamilton have trees, but there are lots of them! It also turns out that there are a lot of waterfalls here too! Those of us from Niagara Region are taught to believe that we have the most beautiful and unique spots across the NiagaraEscarpment. After all, it is the ‘Niagara’ Escarpment, but it became obvious rather quickly that Hamilton poses some pretty stiff competition. 

Places like Christie Lake and Valens Conservation Areas showed me that it doesn’t take a 5 hour car ride to get out of the city and actually feel like you are out of the city. My drive to work in the Dundas Valley is certainly nothing to complain about either, and is quite a nice change from the hustle and bustle of downtown. 

Every now and again people will crack jokes about Hamilton, and now I find that I am the first to defend my new home. Not many people can walk out the door of their workplace and onto a hiking trail. There’s really no better way to find out what’s out there until you get out and experience if for yourself... and until you do, you truly won’t know what you’re missing. 

Brittany B.

HCA Information Services