This young House Finch eating on one of our many bird feeders was born earlier this spring in front of our house. Every year there is a pair of house finches that builds a nest in one of the shrubs near our front entrance, this year they had three young ones that hatched and now flying around on their own. Photo was taken by my finance with the Olympus 70-300mm zoom lens, click on the image above for a large photo.

This young male deer (antlers) was walking alone in the field behind me around sunset. He was aware of my presence but did not scare away while I’ll snapped a few pictures with my camera and zoom lens. The deer population in the Caledon, Ontario area appears to remain fairly high. Be sure to keep an eye out at night when driving down some of the lesser traveled roads, I have had a number of deer jump out of the woods in front of my car.

Ontario Provincial Police have announced human remains found late last month in Oro-Medonte and Lake of Bays Townships, and in Muskoka belonged to a 45-year-old Bolton/Caledon area man.

Whoever chopped up the body of a Bolton man and scattered it throughout cottage country was likely an amateur and not an underworld figure, a veteran homicide investigator says.

“People who are in stressful situations do strange things,” said Mark Mendelson, a former Toronto police homicide officer who now heads Mark Mendelson Consulting Corp., a private investigation firm.

His comments came after the OPP on Monday identified the body parts found in three regions north of Toronto as belonging to Morris Conte, 45, of Bolton, Ontario. Conte, a father of four and recreational drug user, had low-level ties to bikers and mobsters in York Region. Police have ruled his death a homicide.

OPP spokesman Const. Mark Kenney declined to comment on the cause or time of death, or what pieces of Conte’s body were recovered. He did confirm that Conte’s identity was determined through testing at the downtown Centre for Forensic Sciences.

Remains were found May 22 in Oro-Medonte Township’s Sugar Bush area, north of Barrie. Also that day, pieces of his body were discovered in Lake of Bays Township, east of Huntsville.

On May 28, a construction worker found yet another set of remains northeast of Bracebridge, on the shoulder of Stoneleigh Rd. off Muskoka Road 117. All of the body parts were left in plain view.

Mendelson said mobsters tend to be more efficient at getting rid of bodies of their victims, rather than cutting them into pieces and scattering them in places where they’re sure to be found. “Organized crime people (often) put them into barrels and pour in cement,” said Mendelson.

Mendelson also wonders if perhaps more than one person was involved in the body disposal.

A follow-up to the story, Orangeville Mazda Overprices Car $25,000 to Intellectually Disabled Woman; the dealership was quickly terminated by Mazda Canada which resulted in the Mazda logo and signs being covered up immediately (pictured above). Mazda Canada said it ended the franchise with Mazda of Orangeville because it breached the company’s business standards under a sales and service agreement in the transaction and other incidents.

However it now appears that Orangeville Mazda dealer has now re-opened under a new name Motion Mazda and under new ownership. Brampton Auto Mall Inc. which already owns nine other dealerships, confirmed earlier this month that it has bought the land and buildings of Mazda of Orangeville from previous owner Sunny Baines; reached a franchise agreement with the Mazda Canada to reopen the dealership as Motion Mazda.

Glen Alizadeh, head of the Brampton dealership group, said there is some skepticism and concern among consumers about the reopening but they are generally happy with the change. “We’re starting from scratch,” said Alizadeh, who would not disclose financial terms of the deal. “It’s an exciting challenge.” Alizadeh said he retained eight of the previous dealership’s 26 employees and hired new staff from other stores in his network.

Charges are still pending for the former owner and sales person who sold the overpriced car to Madeline Leonard. Luckily Mazda Canada gave Leonard the car without further cost or obligation.

If you drive along Airport Road frequently you may have seen this house which is just north of Caledon East. I am not quite sure what the story is about this house but it has been left abandoned for several years now and the only info I can find about it online is that it was broken into a couple years ago but was still left abandoned at that point. If anyone knows the story behind this house please let me know as I am curious about it. I find that this particular abandoned house is a little unusual given that most of the ones I have seen in the area are old century homes not newer constructions and given the value of the Caledon, Ontario real estate even for empty lots I find it a little weird that someone would just allow it to rot away like this.

This slithering intruder, an adult milk snake some how snuck into garage last month. This was the first different kind of snake I have found around my property other than the more common garter snakes. After taking some photos of him we set him free back into the field behind us.

The Milk Snake is a species of king snake, there are 25 subspecies among the milk snakes including the commonly named scarlet kingsnake. The subspecies have strikingly different appearance, and many of them have their own common names. Some authorities suggest that this species may be split into several separate species. They are distributed from southeastern Canada, through most of the continental United States, to Central America, down to western Ecuador and northern Venezuela of northern South America. Milk snakes grow 20 to 60 inches (51 to 150 cm) long. Across the wide range of this species, habitat varies. Typically, milk snakes live in forested regions, however, in some regions they can be located in open prairies. In various parts of across its distribution, milk snakes often abide in rocky slopes. For more info on Milk Snakes, click here. Click on the images above and below for larger pictures.

The Alton Mill is a late 19th century industrial stone complex located on the bank of Shaw’s Creek in the heart of the village of Alton in the Town of Caledon and us just five minutes south of Orangeville. The Alton Mill was built by pioneering settlers of Alton over 120 years ago and the 3.4 hectare site comprises of the main two-storey stone mill building and three-storey water tower, a brick chimney stack, a stone livery, the remains of the stone wool warehouse, and the adjacent mill pond and dam. For the full history of the Alton Mill click here.

Standing over the falls on the banks of the Credit River, the Alton Mill has been fully restored and brought back to life as a creative arts centre. It is now home to more than 30 artists in their studios, plus galleries, a heritage museum, café and unique retail shops. The Alton Mills Complex has been recognized for its heritage value by the Town of Caledon, By-law number 2004-201. For more info on the Alton Mill please see their website.

The above photo was take back in early April, I processed the original raw image with the Photomatix software to create an HDR image to help bring out the colors better, to see the original pictures untouched click here.

As first reported here, Caledon OPP now say a woman found dead after a minor collision in Caledon was a homicide and the man charged with second-degree murder in her death are mother and son.

Krystina Armstrong 45 years old, was found dead in the passenger side of one of the vehicles involved in the two-car collision on Friday is a victim of homicide and did not die as a result of the crash, police said. The Ontario Provincial Police identified the man behind the wheel of that vehicle as Luke Armstrong, the victim’s 18-year-old son. He was arrested at the scene Friday and remanded into custody on Sunday. He is set to appear in an Orangeville court on Thursday for the continuation of his bail hearing, said Caledon OPP Constable Jonathan Beckett.

“This case is very complex and this investigation will be ongoing for some time to cover off all the details of what happened before, during and after the event,” Constable Beckett said, declining to share specifics since the matter is before the courts.

Police were called to the scene of the minor crash on Simpson Road, at 9:40 p.m. Friday night, he said. “Once our officers arrived on scene, it quickly became apparent we were dealing with a much more serious incident. Quite often when police officers are dispatched to calls for service, sometimes the initial details we’re given do not turn out to be what we end up investigating.”

Josh Stevenson, who knows Mr. Armstrong from high school, was surprised by news of the young man’s arrest. He remembered him as a “pretty good kid,” but also troubled.

And Mr. Armstrong’s relationship with his mother was strained, he said.

“I know was his parents were divorced and that he didn’t see his mom,” Mr. Stevenson, 18, said.

Marital problems had torn apart the family. Krystina Armstrong a former travel agent had been split from her husband, George, for more than a year and had found a home on Rolling Hills Lane in Bolton’s south end, a few kilometres away from her old life.

Luke was to continue living with his father on Old King Rd. His younger sister, Hayley, was moving in with her mother.

Mr. Armstrong began his high school career at Robert F. Hall Secondary School in Caledon, Ont., before transferring to Humberview Secondary School in Bolton where his father, George, lives.

Luke’s Facebook page which was still active as of Monday night.

Anyone with information about the case was asked to contact Det.-Const. Matt Noble at 519-927-3041 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.

The Millcroft Inn is a hotel, restaurant and spa located in Caledon near the town of Alton, Ontario. The Millcroft Inn was originally built by Benjamin Ward as a knitting mill in 1881 to harness the power from the adjacent Shaw’s Creek. The mill continued to run until 1965, when the mill ceased production and the contents of the building were sold. The Millcroft Inn & Spa has been elaborately renovated to preserve its architectural beauty. For more info on the Millcroft Inn click here to check out their website. Click on the images for larger pictures.

The Caledon resident was a passenger in a vehicle that was involved in a “minor collision” on Simpson Rd. on Friday evening, Ontario Provincial Police said in a statement released Sunday night.

Const. Jonathan Beckett would not identify the woman or comment on how she died, except to say it was not as a result of the collision.

Nor would he release the name of the 18-year-old driver who was arrested at the scene and charged with second-degree murder, citing the need to notify the victim’s next-of-kin before any names could be released.

However, a family friend said the victim was Krystina Armstrong and the young man charged with murder as her son, Luke.

Armstrong was legally separated from Luke’s father, George, and was in the process of divorce. She moved into her new home on Station Rd. in Bolton the day she was killed, according to the friend.

Luke, a student at Humberview Secondary School in Bolton, lived with his father, said the friend.

Anyone with information about the case was asked to contact Det.-Const. Matt Noble at 519-927-3041 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.