Take it from this Lanark County kid - you won't find any better, more flavourful syrup, than from the Maple Syrup Capital of Ontario

Looking around, from near the top of Foley Mountain, it was easy to imagine why the early settlers decided to make their home in Westport.

We had some memorable times, on those long, hot summer nights, along the shores of the mighty Rideau; but we were by no means the first to do so.

Some things were done a certain way and they had been done that same way for ages. Most of the time it was a good thing, a reliable thing, and we grew up being able to count on life being very predictable and very dependable.

Some of these tales were about the ‘land beneath the waves’. This Irish fable tells of an enchanted world, under the water, and mortals may visit there at dusk, between the rising and the setting of the moon, when the water is still, and reflects like a mirror. They used to call it the ‘gates of glass’.

The eldest ones said that the laughter and tears are sewn right into the quilt, part and parcel, stitch by stitch. Emotions, experiences, heartbreak, mourning, pain and regret, stitched into the cloth, along with happiness, satisfaction, cheer, comfort, and love. The finished quilts were a living thing, a reflection of the spirits of its creators.

When autumn gusts blew in from the Rideau Lakes, parched brown leaves swirled and scattered around the sides of the neglected building, forming mounds like grave-markers, for ghosts of the past, who lingered on the dust-covered dance floor.

The plants and animals all around us were waking from a long sleep, and our yard was slowly transformed into a carpet of soft green, and the skies above our house were filled with choruses of birdsong once again.

The crows squawked and scattered from their perch on wooden rail fence, as the rhythmic clip-clop of the horse's hooves grew louder.

We need only to close our eyes and we are back on the Third Line, walking up the lane, through the yard and entering the bright, warm kitchen. We are home again.