Perhaps this was a last farming activity done on the Addison-Hall Horse Farm located at 15775 Leslie Street, Town of Aurora, Ontario (on the east side of Leslie Street and south of St. John’s sideroad). This piece of land shown on both photos below is a few meters north where the green barn and the farm house used to be. This was the field where all the horses used to graze on the grass and ran around.

I have never seen anything ever planted or farmed on this field, just grass. I am not fully sure but just after demolition in 2013 and then in the year 2014, I think it’s soybean that was planted on this property. On the back, looks like corn field. Also, further north (to the left), not shown on both pictures, around the same time the farm house was demolished, a two large bird boxes were installed in the field in 2013. As of now, those bird boxes are gone along with all the individual trees and shrubs that were spread out over the property. The Addison-Hall Horse Farm number sign is down as well. Sad to say but the only thing that is going to be preserved from this property is the name itself.

“The Addison-Hall Business Park development consists of 26 employment / retail / institutional / industrial blocks, open space blocks, 10 m wide buffer blocks and a wetland replication block on 76.5 ha (189 acres). There is approximately 2,000 m of 23 m, 26 m and 30 m wide industrial road allowances with road access to Leslie Street and First Commerce Drive in the State Farm Subdivision.“

“Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land’s inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery.” ― Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: Writings on Farming and Food.

Anna Lozyk Romeo
Aurora, ON