The trail leads from the house down the lane and into a deep valley bordered by large eastern hemlock, yellow birch, eastern white pine and maples. For a boy to proceed at any other pace than a run was to linger, loiter, dawdle, meander, creep, and saunter. But perhaps even Sir Andrew's schoolmaster father would forgive your lurking, lingering, loitering as you make your way down into the valley to visit this place of singing birds and babbling brook. The birthplace of sir Andrew Macphail was a working farm, the fields growing grains and hay, the barns housing horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, ducks and geese. She had a love for growing things and from every journey would bring home new plants - the shrub roses that still run wild, and flowering shrubs and vines.
Large trees surround the house, including lindens, white oak, white spruce, apple and sugar maple.
Some younger trees bordering this area are butternuts planted in 1980, their drooping, compound leaves adding a touch of the exotic. Keep your eyes open for birds and mammals near the homestead that you might see around your own home. Evening grosbeaks, the males in their brilliant yellow spring plumage, and American robins frequent the area and red squirrels commonly scold visitors from treetops. Things have changed in a great many ways since Sir Andrew's time. Walking underneath the quiet canopy, it is hard to imagine that the land on both sides was once cleared for farming.