An occasional series:

BEYOND STONG POND

It is a hot day for the first hike around the site I am studying near the University, scheduled for "development". The video camera is not working, but a friend and I head out all the same. The Pond -- an small artificial pond on the edge of York University -- is scummy and filled with Canada geese who are paying no attention to the No Swimming and No Sailing signs. Beyond the concrete dam and spillway for the stormwater overflow, the meadow and remnant forest proliferate. The north end, where the bulldozers will be arriving sometime, is flat, but covered now in black-eyed susans, tartaned thistles, and every species of weed and mullein. In the distance, the high rises loom.

We pick our way through the creek bed, lined in broken concrete, and down into the cool scrub woods, taking pictures, mapping. We move back up onto higher ground, where there are signs of the farmland and farmhouse that used to be: part of an orchard, with wild apples; purpleblue phlox, the mainstay of many a homestead garden in the old days; and clumps of raspberries. In the interests of science, I eat as many raspberries as I can find.

On the ridge, rows of poplars flicker in the hot wind. There was obviously a fence here, and a road, long grown over into sumac and tangles of whatever. We keep hiking until we reach Black Creek, the borderline, and another sadly abused remnant of the area. On the other side, a paved path indicates the influence of the Park Authority.

The creeks fill to overflowing when the stormwaters hit, and so there is nothing in them, but they have carved out high banks in the hills, and there are cool low lands I will have to check out another day -- some high old trees reaching up to the level of the main level canopy. There are mosquitos down here, buggy, boggy ground. We loop around, and head south, to where the Hoover Homestead lies: the old house still there in some fashion, but we skirt around it today. It is at the far end of the site, on a hill on the south side of the creek, so it will be saved (I assume). We come out along the edge of the property, and find the student housing, a ball diamond, picnicers. A mower demarcates the line between lawn and the woods. And that is it.

Two hours: about 45 acres. A good start. Lots to look at in this ordinary piece of remnant farmland. Back for more probes as the summer continues.