After the first successful year at Central Don I decided to expand the scope of the business; I had spent several summers working at summer camps as a teenager and often thought that I would like to operate one of my own; I had experimented with a day camp for young kids, on site in the park and the response had been very encouraging. What I really needed was a place where the kids could come and stay full time during the holidays, eating and sleeping on site; it would be like the traditional camps in northern Ontario but with a major difference; we would be offering the kids formal riding lessons and unlimited use of ‘a horse of their own ‘ for the summer.
I needed to find a rental farm with lots of pasture for my horses, suitable spaces for training rings, interesting stretches for trail rides, and the right kind of barn and house. It was a tall order the house had to be of sufficient size to accommodate the twenty or so campers I expected to accommodate a well as my mother and father who agreed to help me with the project.
I found the place I needed just north of Toronto near the town of Stouffville, about a half hour drive from my stables by car and about three and a half hours if you rode or drove the horses, as we often did.
I negotiated a lease with a lawyer who represented the owners and a short time later moved my mother and father onto the place; they would live there year round but during the summer would be in charge of the camp, my mother doing the cooking and acting as den mother and my father looking after the horses and almost everything else.
What we were about to attempt was a first of its kind in Canada and I didn’t want anybody to confuse us with the hokey” double crossed piss off” dude ranches that existed further north. We would have qualified instructors giving formal English riding lessons. To that end we decided to promote the camp as an extension of the stables in the city and called it ‘ Central Don Resident Riding School
Before any of this could happen I had a hell of a lot of work ahead of me; the barn had been used to house dairy cattle, shades of Windy Hill, and all the concrete had to be busted out to make room for horse stalls. The house also took an enormous amount of effort to bring it up to specs but when we were finished we had two comfortable second floor dormitories equipped with army surplus bunk beds; my parent’s room was at the foot of the stairs so they could watch the nightly comings and goings.
We had to advertise for the coming season before we finished the renovations and the response to our campaign, which consisted of manning a small booth with a live pony in it at the Sportsman Show, was so good that we needed to arrange for more space; the garage behind the house would now become a bunk house for the boys.
I needed to find a rental farm with lots of pasture for my horses, suitable spaces for training rings, interesting stretches for trail rides, and the right kind of barn and house. It was a tall order the house had to be of sufficient size to accommodate the twenty or so campers I expected to accommodate a well as my mother and father who agreed to help me with the project.
I found the place I needed just north of Toronto near the town of Stouffville, about a half hour drive from my stables by car and about three and a half hours if you rode or drove the horses, as we often did.
I negotiated a lease with a lawyer who represented the owners and a short time later moved my mother and father onto the place; they would live there year round but during the summer would be in charge of the camp, my mother doing the cooking and acting as den mother and my father looking after the horses and almost everything else.
What we were about to attempt was a first of its kind in Canada and I didn’t want anybody to confuse us with the hokey” double crossed piss off” dude ranches that existed further north. We would have qualified instructors giving formal English riding lessons. To that end we decided to promote the camp as an extension of the stables in the city and called it ‘ Central Don Resident Riding School
Before any of this could happen I had a hell of a lot of work ahead of me; the barn had been used to house dairy cattle, shades of Windy Hill, and all the concrete had to be busted out to make room for horse stalls. The house also took an enormous amount of effort to bring it up to specs but when we were finished we had two comfortable second floor dormitories equipped with army surplus bunk beds; my parent’s room was at the foot of the stairs so they could watch the nightly comings and goings.
We had to advertise for the coming season before we finished the renovations and the response to our campaign, which consisted of manning a small booth with a live pony in it at the Sportsman Show, was so good that we needed to arrange for more space; the garage behind the house would now become a bunk house for the boys.
Every camp should have a swimming pool but I wasn’t about to sink thousands of dollars I didn’t have, into paying for a professional installation, I had another idea.
Several years earlier I lived with my father, mother and my sister Brenda in a little old rented cottage on Bayview Ave. the house was situated on a large tract of land that had once been a monastery but was currently owned by developers; it’s now the site of the new Granite Club. The shabby little place sat a stones throw from the first of the line of pretentious mansions that face the road and back onto the Don Valley.
I had several horses, my mother kept some chickens and we may have had a goat or two but I still didn’t think that that was reason enough for our neighbors to refer to us as the Beverly Hillbillies.
It was pretty hard, during the heat of summer, to listen to our neighbors splashing around in their Olympic sized swimming pools while we sweated away just over the hedge. It must have been particularly irksome for my dad because one day, while I was at school he started an amazing project.
When I got home there was a huge deep trench excavated not far from the house on the rim of the slope that overlooked the valley. He had bribed a bulldozer operator who was working on a nearby hydro easement to dig it on his lunch hour; a case of beer had been the incentive. Dad was down in the trench with a square mouthed spade carefully sculpting the walls; he stopped what he was doing and explained to me that back on the prairies it was common practice to make large cisterns by simply creating a nice, square, cube like hole and then parging a thin layer of cement over the sides and bottom. “ If it works for a cistern it should work for a pool!” he said. I got out of my school clothes and we both set to work; two weeks later we were all splashing around in our own pool, it lasted the whole summer and after repairing some winter damage the following one as well.
This was the sort of thing I had in mind for the summer camp but when I consulted my dad he said that the soil didn’t have enough clay in it to support the thin walls he had plastered in the pool on Bayview Ave. We would have to use cement forms and pore some real concrete; I was still up for trying but I would have to keep the costs down.
I got a backhoe in to dig the hole for me, about 25 ft. wide and forty feet long; the depth of the excavation was about 5 ft. at the deep end and 4ft
Several years earlier I lived with my father, mother and my sister Brenda in a little old rented cottage on Bayview Ave. the house was situated on a large tract of land that had once been a monastery but was currently owned by developers; it’s now the site of the new Granite Club. The shabby little place sat a stones throw from the first of the line of pretentious mansions that face the road and back onto the Don Valley.
I had several horses, my mother kept some chickens and we may have had a goat or two but I still didn’t think that that was reason enough for our neighbors to refer to us as the Beverly Hillbillies.
It was pretty hard, during the heat of summer, to listen to our neighbors splashing around in their Olympic sized swimming pools while we sweated away just over the hedge. It must have been particularly irksome for my dad because one day, while I was at school he started an amazing project.
When I got home there was a huge deep trench excavated not far from the house on the rim of the slope that overlooked the valley. He had bribed a bulldozer operator who was working on a nearby hydro easement to dig it on his lunch hour; a case of beer had been the incentive. Dad was down in the trench with a square mouthed spade carefully sculpting the walls; he stopped what he was doing and explained to me that back on the prairies it was common practice to make large cisterns by simply creating a nice, square, cube like hole and then parging a thin layer of cement over the sides and bottom. “ If it works for a cistern it should work for a pool!” he said. I got out of my school clothes and we both set to work; two weeks later we were all splashing around in our own pool, it lasted the whole summer and after repairing some winter damage the following one as well.
This was the sort of thing I had in mind for the summer camp but when I consulted my dad he said that the soil didn’t have enough clay in it to support the thin walls he had plastered in the pool on Bayview Ave. We would have to use cement forms and pore some real concrete; I was still up for trying but I would have to keep the costs down.
I got a backhoe in to dig the hole for me, about 25 ft. wide and forty feet long; the depth of the excavation was about 5 ft. at the deep end and 4ft
at the shallow; of course it wouldn’t be that deep after I poured the concrete for the bottom.
Dad’s assumption that the soil would not be the right consistency to allow us to simply parge the walls and bottom proved correct but I shaped them up as best I could and then started constructing the forms that would sit inside the perimeter of the hole. The wall would be about 8 inches thick for the most part but much thicker in a lot of places due to the irregularity of the dirt sides.
“That’s a lot of cement and a hell of a lot of weight, you better make sure those forms are good and strong!” Dad said, as he headed for the city and left me to build the barriers. I constructed the inner walls out of plywood over two by four studs and braced them with long two by sixes anchored to stakes driven into the mud at the centre of the bottom. When Dad returned the next day he found me down in hole admiring my handiwork. I gave one of the braces a test kick where it joined the stake and posed the question. “ What do you think? “ It didn’t take him long to answer, “ I think you’ll need twice as many studs and braces or she’ll never hold when they pour the cement in!”
I was taken back and a little offended; “ Hell it’s only four feet deep, it should be good enough!” He just gave me his familiar “ Whatever!“ look and walked away; I guess he figured it was time for another practical lesson for me.
When the truck arrived the next day and started to disgorge its heavy contents down the chute and into the cavity behind my flimsy forms I immediately began to appreciate the wisdom my Dad had tried to impart the previous day. As the concrete flowed like lava around the perimeter of the pool the forms seemed to come alive, first vibrating then shuddering and creaking loudly. As the concrete slowly rose the plywood sheets began to bow toward the centre of the hole, sliding the braces and their pegs inward. By the time all the concrete had been poured, each sheet of plywood was buckled to capacity and watery cement was seeping under the forms. I figured it was just a matter of time till the whole thing was going to let go; the truck driver seemed to be of the same opinion because he quickly retracted his chute and drove off; he didn’t want to be there when it happened.
The vibration of the departing truck caused further movement in the hole but miraculously the forms continued to hold.
I was about to jump down and see if I could shore the barrier up a bit more when I felt my fathers hand on my shoulder, “ Don’t even think about it,” he said “ You could get killed down there!” I figured it was time I started taking his advice so all I could do was wait and watch. I held my breath and tried not to move for the first hour or so then I started to relax; the shape of the pool would be horribly distorted but as the cement began to cure and set up, it looked like the forms had held up after all.
Dad’s assumption that the soil would not be the right consistency to allow us to simply parge the walls and bottom proved correct but I shaped them up as best I could and then started constructing the forms that would sit inside the perimeter of the hole. The wall would be about 8 inches thick for the most part but much thicker in a lot of places due to the irregularity of the dirt sides.
“That’s a lot of cement and a hell of a lot of weight, you better make sure those forms are good and strong!” Dad said, as he headed for the city and left me to build the barriers. I constructed the inner walls out of plywood over two by four studs and braced them with long two by sixes anchored to stakes driven into the mud at the centre of the bottom. When Dad returned the next day he found me down in hole admiring my handiwork. I gave one of the braces a test kick where it joined the stake and posed the question. “ What do you think? “ It didn’t take him long to answer, “ I think you’ll need twice as many studs and braces or she’ll never hold when they pour the cement in!”
I was taken back and a little offended; “ Hell it’s only four feet deep, it should be good enough!” He just gave me his familiar “ Whatever!“ look and walked away; I guess he figured it was time for another practical lesson for me.
When the truck arrived the next day and started to disgorge its heavy contents down the chute and into the cavity behind my flimsy forms I immediately began to appreciate the wisdom my Dad had tried to impart the previous day. As the concrete flowed like lava around the perimeter of the pool the forms seemed to come alive, first vibrating then shuddering and creaking loudly. As the concrete slowly rose the plywood sheets began to bow toward the centre of the hole, sliding the braces and their pegs inward. By the time all the concrete had been poured, each sheet of plywood was buckled to capacity and watery cement was seeping under the forms. I figured it was just a matter of time till the whole thing was going to let go; the truck driver seemed to be of the same opinion because he quickly retracted his chute and drove off; he didn’t want to be there when it happened.
The vibration of the departing truck caused further movement in the hole but miraculously the forms continued to hold.
I was about to jump down and see if I could shore the barrier up a bit more when I felt my fathers hand on my shoulder, “ Don’t even think about it,” he said “ You could get killed down there!” I figured it was time I started taking his advice so all I could do was wait and watch. I held my breath and tried not to move for the first hour or so then I started to relax; the shape of the pool would be horribly distorted but as the cement began to cure and set up, it looked like the forms had held up after all.
Two days later, after I had removed the plywood and timbers from the hole and had a closer look, I realized that the forms had buckled uniformly and created a scalloped effect that almost looked intentional, anyway that became my story and I stuck to it.
When I finished pouring the bottom and gave the whole thing a coat of aquamarine paint it looked like a miniature version of the pools I used to see in the old Ester Williams flicks; of course it was only four feet deep so when we took promotion pictures I got my most diminutive campers to pose on their knees in the murky water.
This allusion aside we pretty well delivered on everything we promised and the kids went away at the end of the summer having had a hell of a time learning to ride and porking up on Mom’s cooking. They all looked forward to coming back the following year.
When I finished pouring the bottom and gave the whole thing a coat of aquamarine paint it looked like a miniature version of the pools I used to see in the old Ester Williams flicks; of course it was only four feet deep so when we took promotion pictures I got my most diminutive campers to pose on their knees in the murky water.
This allusion aside we pretty well delivered on everything we promised and the kids went away at the end of the summer having had a hell of a time learning to ride and porking up on Mom’s cooking. They all looked forward to coming back the following year.
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