4 • Editorials 8 • Sports 9 • Farms to Tables 27 • Celtic Festival
The
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Friday, July 26, 2024
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Volume 40 No. 30
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, ON N0M 1H0
Millar named Alliance president
A sight to behold As the Blyth Kids Club has continued to expand, offer more interesting programming and bring in young people from all over Huron County, things have continued to get better and better for area youth. That really hit a peak last Friday night when the club held its first-ever foam disco party at Blyth Lions Park,
welcoming hundreds of people to the community for some fun in the sun (and the foam). The club is now considering the idea of another foam party on Aug. 2 and continuing to build towards its end-of summer party, also at Blyth Lions Park, scheduled for Friday, Aug. 23, in the hopes of building on the success of last year’s event. (John Stephenson photo)
Brussels U13 Girls make Goderich semis By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen The Brussels U13 Girls Tigers made it to the semifinals of the annual Goderich Lions Centennial Girls Tournament over the weekend, but then fell to the host Goderich Lime team on Sunday morning by a score of 7-3, ending their tournament run. The team found success in the early stages of the tournament, beating Exeter on Friday night by a score of 11-5. They would take that momentum into their Saturday games, tying the Goderich Lemon team at seven but then beating the Londesborough Legends by a score of 9-4. Looking back a bit further, the U15 Girls played the Goderich Seahawks Lemon team on July 18 and beat them by a score of 19-13. That was the same night that the U11 Girls beat the Elma Express II team, also on the road, by a score of 16-12.
One day earlier, the U11 Girls played the Elma Express II team for the first time in two days, but lost by a score of 15-8 at home in Brussels. Also that day, the U15 Girls lost to the Mitchell Hornets Vosper team in Mitchell by a score of 19-3 and the U13 Boys beat Wingham on the road by a score of 16-1. The U13 Girls were in exhibition action that night, tying Seaforth on the road at 10. On Monday night, the U13 Girls beat the Londesborough Legends in Brussels by a score of 13-3, while the U15 Girls lost to the Mitchell Hornets Eisler team on the road by a score of 15-1. The U17 Boys were scheduled to play St. George in Brussels that night, the U7 Black team played Wingham II at home and the U7 Red team played Ethel on the road, but scores for those games were unavailable at press time. Looking ahead, on July 29, there are six games on the Brussels schedule for the night. The U7 Red
team will play Londesborough I at home, the U7 Black team will play Benmiller, also at home, the U13 Girls will head to Elma to play the Express I team, the U9 Black team will play Benmiller on the road, the U13 Boys will host Wingham and the U17 Boys will welcome Sebringville west to Brussels for a game. The next night also has six games on the schedule. The U11 Boys will play Benmiller on the road, the U7
Red team will play Wingham II, also on the road, the U13 Girls will renew their tournament rivalry with the Goderich Seahawks Lemon team in Brussels, the U9 team will play Ethel on the road, the U15 Girls will play the Goderich Seahawks Lemon team and the U17 Boys will be on the road to take on Wilmot II in New Hamburg. The next night, July 31, as the season begins to wrap up, the U9 Continued on page 6
Following a thorough search process, the Listowel Wingham Hospital Alliance (LWHA) Board of Directors has hired Esther Millar as the incoming President and CEO of the Listowel Wingham Hospitals Alliance, effective Sept. 9, 2024. The LWHA Board is grateful for the long-term leadership of outgoing President and CEO Karl Ellis, who, in January, announced his planned retirement following 14 years of service to the Listowel and Wingham communities. Ellis led the hospitals through many achievements, including major renovations and CT projects at both sites, while providing steady leadership through challenges including floods, cyber security issues, the COVID-19 pandemic and a recent fire. Millar has an extensive background in healthcare leadership and quality, patientcentred care. With a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master of Business Administration, she has worked as a senior healthcare executive across the province in healthcare sectors, including acute care, public health, long-term care and mental health. As a healthcare leader, Millar values transparency and teamwork, with the patient at the centre of the decision-making process. She is committed to supporting healthcare access closer to home, and further the role of small- and mediumsized hospitals in a connected and seamless healthcare system that more fully meets the needs of clients. On a personal level, Millar has small-town roots, born and raised in eastern Ontario, and embraces opportunities to contribute to small communities. She enjoys pets, outdoor pursuits, theatre and crafts. Her husband is an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer, and the couple have two grown children.
County to review sev. criteria By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Huron County Council has approved a severance application for Abram Martens in MorrisTurnberry against the recommendation of the Huron County Planning and Development Department, and is in search of a way to avoid similar issues with
future planning applications. The application, presented to council at its most recent meeting earlier this month, stipulated that two acres be severed from the property, containing a house and shed, and that 51 acres of vacant agricultural land then be retained. The house, however, is not yet a minimum of 15 years old, making it incompatible with the Huron
County and Morris-Turnberry Official Plans and the Provincial Policy Statement. This rolling date has replaced the former qualification date of a house having had to have been constructed before June 28, 1973, which is when the first Huron County Official Plan was implemented. Council made the Continued on page 24
PAGE 2. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Blyth artist Bos pursuing apprenticeship in tattooing
The permanent record Goderich’s Tribute Studios, renowned for top-quality tattoos and body modifications, welcomes apprentice Abigail Bos. The Blyth native started working at Tribute in high school and has apprenticed under shop owner Matt Cottrell for nearly a year, already (Scott Stephenson and Chelsea Gamble - photos) completing over 100 tattoos.
By Scott Stephenson The Citizen Since it first started making its mark on the people of Huron County, Goderich’s Tribute Studios has developed a rock solid reputation for providing highquality tattoos and body modifications in a professional, positive environment. The latest addition to the team is apprentice Abigail Bos, a Blyth native who first started working at the shop while she was still in high school. Bos has officially been apprenticing under shop owner Matt Cottrell for just under a year, but in that time, the driven young artist already has at least 100 tattoos under her belt. Bos was kind enough to spend her whole Sunday off to contribute some thoughts, feelings and a couple of custom tattoos to The Citizen’s permanent record. Tuesdays are officially “Walk-in” day at Tribute, but Bos is always happy to take walk-ins whenever she doesn’t already have an appointment. “Saturdays are our busy, busy days. On Saturdays I’m pretty much tattooing from 10 a.m. to five. There was one Saturday when I tattooed until, like nine o’clock... I’m always willing to do those overtime hours because I really love what I do.” Besides the actual act of tattooing, Bos’ favourite thing about her apprenticeship is learning the trade from Cottrell, who also happens to be the tattoo artist she admires most in the world. “I always thought that, being born and raised in Huron County, I would leave. Once I figured out that this is the industry I wanted to be in, I knew I wanted to learn under him.” Bos isn’t just picking up tattoo techniques from Cottrell - she's also adopted the calm, professional demeanor for which her mentor is known. Whether she’s setting up her space to maximize client comfort or checking in mid-ink to make sure everybody’s still having a good time, Bos projects the sort of confidence that puts people at ease. It was a bit of a whim that brought Bos to her chosen profession. “After COVID, I was
going into my senior year, and they told me my odds of graduating were pretty slim. So I came here just to get a piercing on my lunch break with some friends and I asked if they took co-op students, and they said, yes.” At the time, she was in the process of applying for an entirely different co-op. “I brought all of my paperwork here instead,” she recalled. Scoring her co-op spot at Tribute
made Bos into a bit of a trailblazer - she’s the first Central Huron Secondary School (CHSS) student to do their co-op at a body modification studio. “There was a lot of persuading the school board, and a lot of permission from my parents.” Even though she didn’t take traditional art classes in high school, her co-op at Tribute did earn her the credits she needed to graduate, taught her about different
styles of art, and inspired her to draw and paint. “There was also encouragement. We do [an] annual art show [at Tribute] every year, and Matt would let me design things for the studio, so I think that’s where I noticed I have a bit of a knack for it.” By the time her co-op was complete, Bos knew that she was going to pursue a career as a tattoo artist - it just felt right. The end of her co-op signaled the beginning of her apprenticeship. Bos approached this latest stage of her endeavour with unflagging fervor, and it wasn’t long before she was approved to start inking clients. “The first person I ever tattooed was on Tattoo Tuesday last summer. These two guys came in off the salt boat - they had like, three hours in town just to get off the boat, so they both came for tattoos.” While Cottrell worked on one of the lakefaring gentlemen, Bos designed a dead fish for the other and helped him choose the right placement. Her mentor chose that moment for her to take the plunge, and the client
was into it. A short-time later, the deed was done, and the man returned to the salt boat with one permanent piece of original Abi Bos art richer. “He left town and I’ve never seen him again.” When Cottrell feels she’s ready, Bos will graduate to the next step in her training. “Once you’ve mastered Continued on page 3
39th Annual Citizen of the Year Award Nominations Open North Huron Publishing reporter Scott Stepehson (left) and publisher Deb Sholdice (right) presents Roxane Nicholson her 2023 Citizen of the Year award.
There are so many people out there who do so much to improve their community. This is your opportunity to show your appreciation for all they do.
Each year a committee chooses an outstanding citizen from each of the Blyth and area and Brussels and area communities and wider Huron County area to receive an award for contribution to the community. If you know someone you think should be honoured, please fill in the form and send it in. You may attach a longer explanation of why you think your nominee should win, if you like. If you have nominated someone before and they didn't win, we encourage you to submit again. Emailed submissions can be sent to Shawn Loughlin at editor@northhuron.on.ca I nominate ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ as Citizen of the year for
q
Blyth & area
q
Brussels & area
q
Huron County
I feel she/he deserves this award because ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Nomination Deadline September 27, 2024. Name and phone number of nominator Fax: 519-523-9140 Box 429, Blyth, ON N0M 1H0
THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 3.
Was it really free? Glimpses of the Past with Karen Webster
L
et your mind travel back about 40 or so years and find yourself and your brother Jim ready for breakfast, eyeing up the new box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. The reason for the excitement wasn’t the cereal in the box, but rather the mystery toy that was hidden inside. You and Jim take turns at getting the prize and today is your day! Of course, the surprise isn’t at the top so Jim gets out your mother’s big green mixing bowl and dumps the contents of the box. There it is: a little red plastic atomic submarine. The instructions indicate to fill the cavity of the toy with baking powder and to splash some water on it. You snap the top and bottom together then head to your mom’s wash tub and half fill it with water. It takes a while for anything to happen but finally, a string of bubbles exit the submarine and it begins its maiden voyage across the tub. The custom of packing gifts in products originated with the Quaker
oat company in the United States in the 1920s. Previous to this time, oats were considered as only animal feed. The Quaker Company used the inducement of free dishes in the boxes of rolled oats to help people realize that oats were a good nutritional and economical source of food for humans calling them the “Great American Breakfast”. During the Depression, their campaign worked and led the way for other manufacturers to follow suit. Another promotion from the oats company involved mugs with decals of classic cars. I guess that using those mugs for years is the reason that I know that a Stanley Steamer was one of the first horseless carriages. And it wasn’t only food companies that were on the bandwagon. Two types of powdered laundry detergent companies, namely DUZ and Breeze, offered, at different times, dishes, glasses, flatware and towels. Imagine how
little laundry detergent was in a box that contained a bath towel? But the rationale that you were getting something “free” overrode the economics. Once a person started collecting a certain series of objects, they were likely to continue until they had the complete set. Other products also offered free items. The Shirriff puddings company included small, coloured plastic disks with the photos of hockey and ball players. These tokens that young folks so desired have become collectors’ items in the present day. For example, one that features Stan Mikita is currently being offered on eBay for $34.21. How many people remember the tiny China figurines that graced the boxes of Red Rose tea? These miniatures first appeared in boxes in Quebec in 1967 and continued to be offered throughout Canada until 1984. These “Wade Whimsies” came in several different series, such as animals, nursery rhyme characters
and the circus and are quite collectable today, being valued at $5 a piece for most. Some of the more rare items have the value of up to $100. Not all prizes were inside the box. Perhaps it was Shredded Wheat that had a series of dioramas printed on the outside of the box. Once the object was cut out and stood on its holders, it could be used as a backdrop for any number of childhood fantasies. Stores like the A&P offered sets of dishes. Each week a different piece in the set was featured. Perhaps, for an amount like $20, one of the plates or saucers could be received. Also, there was the option of purchasing the ones you missed. Recently, a friend of mine was remarking that her mother had collected the entire set of one pattern and that it was used everyday. Quite a feat considering that there were nine children in the family. Not all merchandise was given at the time of purchase. For example, Blue’s Food Market in Goderich and Remington’s IGA in Wingham, among many others, gave out stamps. One stamp was earned with the purchase of a certain value of groceries. There was a booklet to paste the stamps in and, when the
booklet was filled, it could be redeemed for merchandise from the store’s catalogue. These catalogues were quite sought-after items, sort of like an Eaton’s Christmas Wish Book, it seems. Did you ever receive free glassware from the Texaco station, or perhaps the small juice glasses from a food manufacturer? While you were getting something for “free” the company was buying your loyalty. The concept of loyalty purchasing has taken a modern turn with the inclusion of technology. On a cereal box, one may see the chance to win tickets to a final NHL Stanley Cup game or merchandise that honours a recent movie. All you have to do is go to a website, fill in your information, give the company access to your Facebook friends list and you are entered in the draw. Most people have several cards that, when produced at the time of purchase, result in free groceries, discounts on travel or other such inducements. It doesn’t matter whether it is a free toy or dish in the box or a cyber prize, these are all ways of creating customer loyalty, causing the buyer to keep on buying from the same place. The question is, “Is it really free?”
Tattoo culture catching on in Huron County Continued from page 2 every skill, then you go to junior artist,” she explained. As a lifelong resident of Huron County, Bos has certainly seen local attitudes about tattooing and body modification mellow over the years. “Has Goderich become more accepting of tattoos? Well, we have the mayor here, right now,” she confided. Goderich Mayor Trevor Bazinet later confirmed via e-mail that the rumours were true - he had indeed been at Tribute that Sunday, getting tattoos of both Goderich Town Hall and the Town of Goderich flag. Not only did he admit to being inked by Cottrell, he instructed The Citizen to “Feel free to mention me as often as you want.” He also advised that anybody interested in seeing said tattoos can check them out on his Facebook page. Bazinet also broke the news that he is not only thrilled with Cottrell’s work, but that he’s feeling “fortunate to have so many talented people in the Town of Goderich.” What a scoop! Even if you’re not a tattoo aficionado, you may already be a fan of this up-and-coming local artist - she’s responsible for some of the most colourful murals in Huron County. Somehow, between her recent graduation and even more recent apprenticeship, Bos started painting murals in Clinton. “When I graduated, I was quitting my job at Willy’s Burger Bar to come here, and the owner’s daughter had a blank wall. And she asked if I wanted to paint it, and I was like ‘yup’ - and I did it for free, and it just kind of took off from there.” That first spur-of-the-moment mural inspired numerous additional requests for original wall art in municipalities all over Ontario’s West Coast. While she never planned for her post-secondary experience to include a meteoric ascension as a post-modern mural maker, she finds that pursuing a passion for painting alongside her apprenticeship has been exactly what she needs as she develops her own personal take on neotraditional tattooing. “I bring a lot of painting style into my tattooing, which isn’t really traditional.” She also likes to bring a little bit of tattooing into her paintings, by
putting expired tattoo ink to canvas. “Once I can’t use my ink anymore, I take it home, and I paint with it. It’s my favourite medium. Solid Ink is where it’s at.” It’s still early on in her journey as a tattoo artist, but Bos is well on her way to finding her own personal style. “I like things that are a little surreal, a little whimsical. Taking
something that is real and putting a really odd twist to it... I’m a firm believer that your tattoos don’t have to mean anything. Or I think every tattoo means something, even if it’s something random, out of a gumball machine.” She also really enjoys brightening people’s days through tattoo restoration. “I really love bringing old tattoos back to
life. Relining them, recolouring them.” When it comes to creating her own custom tattoo designs, Bos approaches each client assignment differently. For example, when she recently received an open-ended request for a pair of tattoos, any size and style, for a reporter and his wife to use in a newspaper article about a homegrown artist apprenticing at a local shop, Bos was able to suss out what she wanted to do pretty quickly. “I immediately kind of thought about how newspapers haven’t died yet. One of my first thoughts was ‘wow, we’re still really keeping up with the times with paper news.’ And
that brought me to romance, which also hasn’t died with our technology. We still really try to keep the romance alive. So I wanted to do something news, and something romance. And I love colour. So the little part of me that I put in is the coloured roses.” Once she’s finished her apprenticeship and becomes a fullfledged tattoo artist, Bos has been thinking about furthering her education by hitting the road and seeing what all the other tattoo shops and artists out there are doing. “I hope to travel a lot - guest spotting, seeing the world, seeing what’s out there. I’m hoping this takes me... wherever.”
Are you tired of getting a second-hand newspaper? Artwork by Abigail Bos
The Good Shepherd (Letters of John Newton) "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep! I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand!" John 10:11, 28 Every part of our salvation, requires the exertion of infinite wisdom and almighty power. Jesus is the Shepherd of all who believe in Him. We depend upon Him--and He gives us the effectual help which we need. He is intimately acquainted with us-and knows every thought and intent of our hearts. He has His eye always upon us. His ear is always open to us. His arm is ever stretched out for our relief. We can receive nothing ---but what He bestows upon us. We can do nothing--but as He enables us. Nor can we stand a moment--but as He upholds us! It is amazing to me--that I do not find my heart all on fire with love to Jesus-when I consider-from what misery I am redeemed; to what happiness I am called; and what a price was paid for my soul! Alas! alas! my guilt and grief are that my thoughts of Jesus are so faint, and so infrequent; and that my commendations of Him are so lamentably cold and disproportionate to what they ought to be!
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PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Editorials & Opinions
Founding Publisher: Keith Roulston Publisher & President: Deb Sholdice Editor: Shawn Loughlin • Reporter: Scott Stephenson Advertising Sales: Brenda Nyveld
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Up in the air The electoral race in the United States continues to have more twists and turns than a cheap garden hose. Donald Trump barely had time to complete his nomination acceptance speech, resplendent in his ear bandage thanks to an unhinged gunman, before President Joe Biden suddenly decided that he would withdraw from the race and throw his support behind Vice-President Kamala Harris. As a mixed-race woman, Harris is at a crossroads for America. Will she be able to overcome the historic and persistent sexism and racism that has thwarted every previous attempt? It looks like the Democrats are willing to stake their claim, and she will likely gain the nomination, but who she selects as her running mate could secure her future. Just weeks after attending a celebrity-studded fundraiser for Biden, George Clooney wrote an impassioned op-ed piece for the New York Times calling on him to drop out of the race. On Tuesday, Clooney threw his support to Harris, endorsing “her historic quest”. He should do even more. A Harris-Clooney ticket would be unbeatable. The star power that Clooney could bring to the campaign would blow up the election. Men love him, women adore him, Trump hates him. He would bring far more charisma to the role than any of the run-of-the-mill Democratic governors that populate the potential candidate lists of the pundits on the 24-hour news stations. If Kamala Harris could give the nod to George Clooney, the election would provide very interesting media fodder. – DS
Making a statement In the early days of the corporate aspect of the Pride movement, your favourite businesses or stores would either make a point of raising a Pride flag or celebrating the LGBTQ community - with varying levels of sincerity, it’s fair to say - or they wouldn’t. Some would read into the silence of those who didn’t speak up in June, others wouldn’t, but those that didn’t want to support Pride just stayed out of it. Last week, John Deere, unsolicited, issued a statement detailing the end of its participation in “external social or cultural awareness parades, festivals or events” and diversity quotas. Several stories have chalked this statement up to backlash on social media, which has played a role in other companies, such as Budweiser, scaling back efforts to celebrate Pride. However, those companies just backed away or quietly ended efforts that seemed to clash with its core demographic of customers. Deere has made a production out of it. The company seems to be banking on its customers being impressed by this kind of statement in the hopes that it will boost sales and calm the waters on social media. Whether it will pay off or if the social media din represents actual paying customers remains to be seen. But, for now, the company has backed away from everything but tractors. While Deere and any other company most certainly has the right to endorse or not endorse whatever it likes, this appears to be a victory for the bullies and the time-honoured tactic of intimidation. As companies step away from Pride and scale back diversity, equity and inclusion practices, it can feel like hard-earned progress is being tossed away company by company. After such a bold statement from Deere, people will no doubt have their say with their wallets. – SL
Quiet in the land Last week, North Huron Council voted to eliminate the public’s opportunity to make comments at open meetings. Reeve Paul Heffer, whose notice of motion initiated the demise of public comment, vacated the reeve’s chair at last week’s meeting to advocate for scuttling the imperfect, yet symbolic democratic convention. This demonstrates a disappointing lack of interest in leadership. It’s a reeve’s responsibility to chair council meetings, which includes keeping speakers on topic. Respectful civil discourse is a cornerstone of democratic governance. Some individuals have abused the opportunity to effectively be heard by their elected officials, but this doesn’t justify removing the option for everyone else who wants to voice their reasonable concerns regarding important municipal decisions. Quelling the discourse of all citizens just to avoid potentially uncomfortable confrontations is like burning down the house to get rid of a few pesky flies. Some councillors argue that forming a delegation provides a better opportunity for dialogue. However, delegations are approved and scheduled at the discretion of an unelected clerk. With agendas posted midday on Fridays and meetings happening on Mondays at 6 p.m., there is very little time for community members to effectively organize themselves into delegations and write letters when an issue crops up that will directly affect them in some way. Why take agency away from the people, when council could look to improve the process rather than shutting the whole thing down? Removing public comment from meetings risks silencing the voices that need to be heard the most. Council should reconsider its choice and find a way to balance orderly proceedings with the fundamental right of citizens to speak out. Democracy is not designed to be this quiet. – SBS
Looking Back Through the Years July 30, 1969 Mrs. Ivan Bennewies of Bornholm, formerly Marjorie Doherty of Blyth, endured a terrifying ordeal during a flash flood that hit Exeter last Thursday afternoon. Marjorie was on duty at Exeter hospital when the floodwaters arrived, and as everyone knows, the hospital incurred nearly one hundred thousand dollars in damage due to the rising waters. As water began infiltrating the building, Marjorie descended to the basement to relocate drugs to a higher level in hopes of protecting them from the flood. Unfortunately, before she could finish, the water rose so quickly that she found herself trapped in the room. Fortunately, Marjorie was rescued by a member of the fire department while standing on top of a filing cabinet. The descendants and families of the late David Cook and Rebecca Harrison gathered for a family reunion on Sunday, July 26, at the Belgrave Community Centre, with 180 people in attendance. Prizes were awarded to Mrs. George Cook for having the largest family, Mr. Fred Cook for being the oldest member present, and Marsha Boak for being the youngest. Mr. Gordon Cook of Cochrane received the prize for traveling the longest distance. It was unanimously decided that this would become an annual event, held on the third Sunday in July. At a recent meeting of the Blyth Agricultural Society, the directors decided against soliciting donations from local businesses for the fair, as they had in previous years. They felt that this practice offered very little in return for the donors.
July 27, 1977 Approximately 350 people attended the 25th anniversary and reunion of the Huron County 4-H Club Leaders’ Association at the Blyth arena on Saturday afternoon. Since its founding in 1952, the organization nearly doubled its number of leaders from 32 to 60. At the time, the 30 clubs in the county had about 400 members. The Brussels Optimists hosted their steak barbecue on Saturday night at Don and Marilyn McDonald’s place. Around 35 people were present. The chefs were the renowned cooks Murray Cardiff and Don McDonald. After dinner, the Optimists held their world championship horseshoe tournament. It was an intense competition that continued under the bright beams of flashlights. (Intended for last week) A large crowd attended the reception and dance on Friday evening, July 15, at Family Paradise to honour the recently married Mr. and Mrs. Ross Mitchell (formerly Julie Ann Fairless). Ian Wilbee and his orchestra provided music for dancing. Before lunch, the joyous couple were called to the platform where Bill Shortreed read an address of congratulations and best wishes from their relatives, friends, and neighbors. Murray Houston presented a purse of money. Both Ross and Julie expressed their gratitude with a few wellchosen words. July 26, 1989 A complete lawn watering ban was in effect in the Village of Blyth with no indication of change anytime soon. However, residents
were allowed to water their flower beds, gardens, or new sod in the evenings between the hours of 6 and 9. Those who contributed to the success of the Blyth Festival over its 15 seasons were able to obtain a record of some of those memories for free in a new history of the Festival released last week. Entitled Special Memories, the 16-page booklet recounted the experiences of many actors, crew members and volunteers who had played a role in transforming the theatre into one of Canada’s notable success stories since that first sweltering July evening in 1975 when the Festival initially launched. July 29, 2004 On July 22, Ontario’s Minister of Culture, Madeleine Meilleur, visited the Blyth Festival to announce that the Festival had received a $14,239 grant from the Cultural Tourism Marketing Fund. This contribution was intended to help the theatre promote its 30th anniversary season of six plays. For the first time in over thirty years, the ball diamonds in Brussels were quiet during the Civic Holiday weekend. The Brussels Invitational Fastball Tournament, organized by the Tigers, was canceled this year, marking what would have been its 33rd season, due to a shortage of teams. Tigers representative Doug McArter mentioned that changes were being planned with the hope of drawing more teams for the event in 2005. The Friday night supper of beef stew at the Brussels Legion received enthusiastic reviews. A sizable crowd turned out to enjoy the meal.
THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 5.
Other Views
A truly inspiring story about creativity
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ecently we attended the wedding of our oldest granddaughter up near the edge of Georgian Bay to a young man she met after going to school up there, years ago. Though she graduated from Central Huron Secondary School in Clinton, our granddaughter had lived a transient life because her father was in the Canadian Armed Forces, serving first at Gagetown, in New Brunswick and then in Meaford. where he also was deployed to Afghanistan, before retiring to a job in Clinton. I remember when our daughter said she was planning to come home and show us her firstborn shortly after her birth. It was a hot, dry summer and our shallow well was empty. Worried about caring for a newborn with a water shortage, we had a new well drilled and a new pump installed to pump clean water from deep beneath the earth. I thought of that experience recently when we watched the movie The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind on Netflix, the true story of William Kamkwamda, who was born in Malawi. He was the inventive young boy who scavenged waste sites and found parts for radios, which he repaired for his community. In 2001, his area of Malawi, in central Africa, where people depended on a few crops for a meagre existence, was hit by drought. People were desperate. There were riots as people sought food. William’s family’s food supply was stolen by a desperate stranger. His older sister, realizing there would be one less mouth to feed, eloped with a teacher. His father went to work with a road gang to earn cash. William had been in school, but, in Malawi, you had to pay tuition to go to school, unlike rich Canada where school is free. Unable to pay tuition, William was expelled, but because he knew of the secret relationship between the
Keith Roulston
From the cluttered desk teacher and his sister, he had undisclosed access to school, and the school library. He discovered a book on using windmills to pump water from wells. He decided to build one. After constructing a tower from local trees, he was inventive enough to see how the mechanism works that transmits the power from the windmill to the generator that powers the electric pump and realized that the one way to make it work was by cannibalizing a bicycle, the only one available being his father’s pride and joy. After weeks of arguing, his father gave in and William cut the bike apart and reconstructed it to power the pump. The windmill was built, the pump worked and water trickled to the crops. The crop was saved. The people prospered. I couldn’t help but think about how fortunate we are in Canada by comparison. We live in a house now in its second century and there are the remnants (metal posts) of a windmill still buried in the yard. But people in this house (and what used to be the nearby barn) long ago outgrew it, replacing it with electric pumps. William’s life in Malawi, looks so desperately poor to us. People elsewhere in Africa who have to carry their daily water supply miles in jugs on their heads, seem even more remote from our lifestyle. Here,
meanwhile, I picked up the phone and someone came to drill a well and hook up our water. As fascinating as this story is, the real-life story of William Kamkwamda is even more amazing. I was intrigued by the movie enough to seek more information about William Kamkwamda on the internet. In 2007, William entered an intensive twoyear academic program combining the Cambridge University A-levels curriculum with leadership, entrepreneurship and African studies at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa. William is one of four recipients of the 2010 GO Ingenuity Award, a prize awarded by the Santa Monica-based nonprofit GO Campaign to inventors, artists and makers to promote the sharing of their innovations and skills with marginalized youth in developing nations. With the grant, William held workshops in his home village, teaching youths to make wind turbines and repair water pumps. He won a university scholarship to attend Dartmouth College in the U.S. There he met and married Olivia Scott Kamkwamda who grew up in Charlotte, South Carolina. The couple returned to Malawi where, in 2008, they founded the Moving Windmills Project, teaching people to build windmills to provide clean water to drink. In 2013, Time magazine named William one of the “30 People Under 30 Changing The World”. Currently, he is creating an innovation centre in Malawi to allow people to come and work to develop their ideas. There’s often excitement about this or that new development in our world but the creativity of one inventor like William Kamkwamda in far-off Africa is truly inspiring.
Dervid Hamson or not Dervid Hamson?!?!
V
acation vibes are in full swing, and I, Dervid Hamson, have been given the unique opportunity to fill in for the regular writers of The Chaff while they enjoy a well-deserved break. In a stroke of what can only be described as impeccable timing, I managed to snag a telephone interview with Scott Stephenson, The Chaff’s infamous and also, somehow, completely-unknown lead writer, who’s soaking up the sun and sand. DH: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me. How’s the vacation going? SBS: Oh, absolutely marvelous. We’re currently lounging on a very real beach where the sand is so fine, you can practically eat it. We’ve also managed to negotiate a detente with the local seagulls for uninterrupted sunbathing and sandwich-eating sessions. We highly recommend this exotic-as-heck location to anyone looking to escape the drudgery of community newspaper column writing. DH: What location is that, exactly? SBS: Oh, it’s, ummm. It’s the best one. It was voted “top one” in a magazine. All the valets here are millionaires. It’s a veryimpressive, very-real place. DH: Sounds delightful! I’m curious - how do you feel about leaving your beloved column in my questionably-capable hands? SBS: Well, Dervid, we had to take a leap of faith. After all, we’re familiar with your work, and while it may not be as polished and straightforward as our usual fare, it’s certainly… something. DH: Ah, the bar is set incredibly high, I know. Speaking of high, any vacation highlights you’d like to share? SBS: We had the unique pleasure of witnessing a local festival celebrating local festivals called the “Local Festival of Local Festivals”. It was
Scott Stephenson The Chaff locationally festive and undeniably local. DH: Fascinating! How are you finding the transition from your usual column-writing duties to this vacation? SBS: Oh, the transition has been fully seamless, Dervid. In fact, we’ve found the lack of deadlines and the constant barrage of creative ideas from our legitimate beachside location to be quite invigorating. The only downside is the occasional surprise encounter with an overzealous sand sculptor/gourmand who insists on discussing the philosophical implications of their work. DH: Thank you so much for your time. Enjoy the rest of your vacation! SBS: Thank you, Dervid. We’re sure you’ll do a jib-jab job. Well that’s about it for this week’s Dervid’s Chaff. We hope the absence of the regular writers wasn’t too jarring for all of you Chaff heads, Chaff fiends, Chaff-alanche Jacks, Chaff-ters in the rafters and all those Chaff Town down-frowners gowned or ungowned. Until next time, this is Dervid Hamson signing off. Additional note from Dervid Hamson: It turns out that while I was conducting this interview, Scott and the team weren’t exactly on a sandy beach. As it happens, they’ve been hiding out in a less glamorous corner of the office - apparently, the idea of sand and crowded beaches was less appealing than the lazy and
hazy comforts of their own office chairs. It seems like Scott and the crew have been ensconced in the basement office, where the “beach” they spoke of is, in fact, a rather uninspiring stretch of moldy linoleum floor. The “sand” they yammered on about is actually the result of some very messy use of coffee grounds, and the “local festival” is just an uninspiring leftover lunch of half-eaten meat nuggets and decrepit, stinky carrot sticks, complete with a broken disco ball for decoration. They’ve also invented a rather infantile game called “Desk Chair Paint Racing,” which involves wheeling around the office while slopping around open buckets of paint. It seems that their aversion to sand and crowded places led them to retreat to their more familiar, dustier confines. So, as I, Dervid Hamson, wrap up this report, it’s clear that the regular writers of The Chaff have taken a rather unconventional approach to their so-called vacation. While they might not be sunbathing by the ocean, they are certainly finding creative ways to avoid the great outdoors from the comfort of their office hideaway. Additional, additional note from The Chaff staff: When we returned from our vacation, Dervid Hamson found himself spiraling into an identity crisis of existential proportions. As he stared at his reflection in the cracked office disco ball, a gnawing doubt began to erode the edges of his carefully constructed persona. “Am I truly Dervid Hamson?” he mused, “or merely a figment of someone’s imagination?” The realization hit him like a poorly-thrown water balloon. How could he ever be sure of his authenticity? For that matter, how could anyone else be so sure of theirs?
Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense
No - right here’s fine
D
o you ever read this column and think, wow, I can’t believe he got 600 words out of that idea? Ever think, hey, this column could have been an e-mail? Don’t think I can keep taking a small idea and spin it into a whole column? Just watch me, Bozo. Earlier this week, as I was putting the finishing touches on a retrospective for the Blyth Festival’s 50th anniversary, I spoke with former Artistic Director Katherine Kaszas (1985-1991) live from London, England. She was there, I was here and we video-chatted. A big thank you to Katherine for doing that. It got me thinking about some of the weirder interview circumstances I’ve encountered in my nearly 18 years with The Citizen. Earlier this year, similar to the Kaszas interview, I video-chatted with Wayne Caldwell live from Spain - he was kind enough to chat about rural Ontario from a place that’s anywhere but. I know Scott had one of these circumstances earlier this year when he video-chatted with Owen Riegling from... a field. He called Owen and he was home after weeks on the road and was just lying down in a field - more than happy to show off the field to Scott. So, I think that’s one of the weirder ones, but I guess it proves one thing: that he’s outstanding in his field. Denny - that one was for you. I know I’ve had more than my fair share of interviews that I’ve conducted on the side of the road in my car, knowing I’ve needed to take notes and knowing the spotty nature of cell reception in this county. I interviewed Trina McBride from the Huron Pioneer Thresher and Hobby Association from one of those ONroute stops between London and Windsor once on my way to Detroit. Then there are the odd circumstances under which I’ve interviewed people in person. Speaking with someone in person is always my preferred method of connecting, but, as resources and time are scarce, sometimes you have to bite the bullet and do it by phone. One time, I went to Auburn to interview Jim and Dorothy Schneider - they’ve both passed away now, but I remember this interview well. Why? Because I severely injured my toe mere seconds before they opened the door. How? Well, it was winter and I had become quite accustomed to kicking my steel-toed boots against stone steps before I entered a house to knock off the snow. I went to do it, but forgot that I wasn’t wearing the steel-toed boots. Anyway, as blood poured out my body and into my shoe and sock, I interviewed Jim and Dorothy and if they could tell something was wrong, they didn’t say anything, so I guess I pulled it off. The second one is another foot one. I went to the Brussels area to interview Bryan Morton, who’s also no longer with us, about the project that would soon become the Four Winds Barn. I promptly took my boots off in the garage, which was where he left his new puppy, so she wouldn’t bother us. Well, when we were done and I came back out, I had one boot left. The other was strewn around the garage in far too many places to still be considered one boot. I told Morton that it wasn’t a problem and that they were pretty old boots anyway. In reality, they were my favourite boots and I still miss them. Ah well, these kinds of things happen. So, ya - for every interview that I’ve had with someone over a cup of coffee that’s gone really well, I’ve had another that... hasn’t. Again, it happens. Thanks to everyone who’s put up with me calling them from the side of the road or a mall food court. To any dog that’s eaten my shoe over the years, I don’t really offer my thanks.
PAGE 6. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
From the Minister’s Study
Koch places fourth, sixth at Legion meet
An annual tradition The Brussels Lions Club hosted its annual fiddle jamboree at the Brussels, Morris and Grey Community Centre on Sunday after having it at the Four Winds Barn last year. This year’s show was another successful one, with 25 participants signed up and plenty of people out on the dance floor. (John Stephenson photos)
Proposal sweetens getaway A NOTE FROM BETTY By Betty Graber Watson Call 887-9231 The Municipality of Whitestone in the Parry Sound District was our place of abode last week. Phil, Curt and Chris and all those who love them arranged their lives to gather in two waterfront cottages in this beautiful area in Northern Ontario. In-person family time is pretty precious for us, when Edmonton, Barrie, North Bay and Listowel are home for them. Meals were organized by Lara and between seven and 20 people were often ready to eat on Maple Lane. Well done Lara. Swimming, floating, kayaking, canoeing, fishing, reading and campfires kept everyone busy. Good weather made it lots of fun. Just to make the weekend extra special, Greg McDonald proposed to our Jordan on the dock with a beautiful sunset for the background. Pretty exciting for all. Hark, six, said it best: “Isn’t it fun being at Jordan and Greg’s marriagement party?” Why, yes it was, and a good week by all standards. Of course it’s good to be home. We came home to the news that my friend Joan Brewer from Bluevale had died. When someone dies, our thoughts go to the times and events that included us in their space. For Joan, she was a neighbour when we were on the farm, then again a few years later in the village, when I traded babysitting for her sewing formals for me at least three times. I know I got the best deal, but perhaps I was
testing ground for the many dresses she made and altered later on. Scrabble games between Clif and Joan kept me alert. Memories of the Brewer clan go over many years with David, Heather, Mark and Sarah keeping us entertained and, again, alert. To a life well lived, thanks for sharing Joan. As I read of all the political games in the U.S., I shudder. We need to pay attention to what is happening here too. Reading many opinion pieces in the Toronto Star this week, history tells a lot and memory seems to fade. One talked about loud voices that seemed to think their way was the only way and facts didn’t count, but volume should.
We come into the world innocent and the environment decides our way. We need to be very aware of the ill treatment that is happening now. If we don’t listen, learn and act, our caring country will lose the good reputation of caring for each other. When only economics rule, people get hurt. Apathy and ignorance seem to be why we get into messes. We need to do better. The orange and yellow flowers in the planters and baskets on Turnberry are looking very fine - a nice colour choice by the members of the Brussels Horticultural Society. Thanks Rick, you’re doing a fine job once again. Bye now. Betty GW
By Jo-Ann McDonald It was a quiet week at the Branch with lots of Comrades on holidays. The Branch hosted the Brussels birthday ladies last Wednesday for lunch. They enjoyed a favourite turkey casserole with dressing, gravy and turnip/carrot. They had birthday cake for the only July birthday girl, Dona Knight, who thanked them all for the birthday wishes. The 16 ladies who celebrated with Dona were Betty Campbell, Rene Richmond, Nelva Scott, Alice Marks, Nora Stephenson, Mabel Glanville, Janet Hook, Isabel Wheeler, Marguerite Thomas, Betty McCutcheon, Dale Chesher, Audrey Cardiff, Merle Cousins, Esther McCutcheon and Edna McLellan. Happy birthday Dona! It was pointed out to me that I had the wrong name as the winner of the Catch the Ace draw on July 12. I saw the Pennington name and Ken jumped into my mind, so that’s what I wrote. Oops! It actually said Kevin! So congratulations to Kevin Pennington, the winner on July 12.
The draw on July 19 had the weekly winner of Bob Simpson winning $175. He chose envelope number 11 and the seven of spades was revealed. The estimated jackpot for this week is $4,750. Get your tickets today! We send congratulations to Caleb Koch for his successful participation at Provincial Legion Track and Field held in York University, Toronto, from July 811. He placed fourth in shot put and sixth in discus. He did not qualify for the Ontario team, but hit the standard and was invited to attend the Canadian competition in Calgary within the next week or so. The Kochs, Doug, Erika and Caleb, are flying west, visiting with relatives and attending the competition. Good luck to Caleb! Don’t forget that this week’s pub grub is burgers, dogs and fries and karaoke is tonight with Stubby D. Come on down!
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NEWS FROM BRUSSELS
Brussels Legion 218 Catch the Ace Weekly Winner Winning Ticket: Bob Simpson, $175. Envelope #11 found the 7 of Spades. Next estimated jackpot is $4,750.
Year-end tourneys OverSTUFFed? the clutter are on the horizon Clear and cash in at the Continued from page 1 Black team will be on the road to play Wingham and the U15 Girls will play the Elma Express I White team at home in Brussels. The U11 Girls team will host an exhibition game that night with the Listowel Legends Fowler team. As August begins, the U7 Red team will play Londesborough II on the road on Aug. 1 and the U11 Boys will play Lucknow, also on the road. Then, year-end tournaments will begin. The U13 team will head to Stratford for the weekend of Aug. 9-11 for their year-end tournament while, the following weekend, the U11 Girls will also be in Stratford to end their season, while the U9 Red team will have its year-end tournament in Benmiller. Earlier this week, on Tuesday
night, the U9 Red team beat Lucknow on the road by a score of 12-8. The U7 Black team played Wingham I on the road and the U15 Girls hosted the Clinton Mustangs, also that night, but scores for those games were unavailable at press time. On Wednesday night, the U11 Girls were scheduled to play the Listowel Legends Beirnes team in Brussels, the U11 Boys were scheduled to play Wingham, also in Brussels, the U13 Girls were due to play the Blyth Gritty’s on the road and the U17 Boys headed to Tavistock, but scores for those games were unavailable at press time. Then, on Thursday, July 25, the U15 Girls were scheduled to head to Clinton to take on the Mustangs, but a score for that game was unavailable at press time.
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THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 7.
Edgar family meets at Lions Park for annual get-together
A faceful of foam The Blyth Kids Club, which sees its popularity grow event after event, hosted a wildly successful disco foam party last Friday night at Blyth Lions Park, welcoming hundreds of people to the village to enjoy some food, music, swimming and, of course, foam. The club is now building towards its end-of-summer party next month. (John Stephenson photo)
The Reading Web with Cindy Norgate
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esensitization. MerriamWebster defines the word as “to make emotionally insensitive or callous, specifically: to extinguish an emotional response.” I was monitoring very young students eating their lunch while the other teachers were on short break last week during summer school in Listowel. I overheard one student say, “Somebody tried to shoot Trump.” Then, he went back to eating his lunch. This started a conversation with the students, mostly negative about the U.S. and the Canadian Prime Minister. I changed the topic to something more appropriate and happier like, “Hey! Who do you think might win the cup next year?” Let me stop and say here, that no matter what political party you choose to “side” with, violence nor the taking of another life should ever be encouraged. This should be a nobrainer. The comment from the child let me know the child had heard this on the news or from the parent. My mind wandered back to 2001. I walked into a middle school classroom where I was preparing to teach a science lesson. Students were watching a video that another teacher was playing, of a person who had been fatally wounded while accidentally skiing off a cliff. I heard one student exclaim, “Cool!” I can tell you this infuriated me. We are taught in university to never get into a power struggle with a student, but I knew this was not an argument the student was going to win. Some people say, “Choose your battles.” I did, and this was worth fighting. I began to question the students about what they thought was “cool” about someone being injured or killed. Most of the students hung their heads, but two students expressed to me that it wasn’t their fault. They said, “This happens all the time when we play video games, so we’re used to it.” I asked them the question, “What if I told you the person in the video was my son?” or “What if the person in the video was
your brother or sister and someone said, ‘Cool!’? How would that make you feel?” Some of the students laughed at me, but others began to listen intently. I asked them to think for a moment before making such crude comments about someone’s demise. A CBC article from 2016 titled, “Pediatric experts make recommendations to curb ‘virtual violence’ in children’s lives”, shared the findings and recommendations of a recent study released by the American Academy of Pediatrics. In this study, Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the principal author was quoted as saying, “While limits are needed, it’s more important to focus on quality, adding that media can be educational and entertaining but there are also risks.” Dr. Christakis also stated, “Your child might be at greater risk than others, particularly when parents see aggressive tendencies in their children, they should make very concerted efforts to reduce the violence in their child’s media diet.” I also found this comment by the same professional, which was quite disturbing. Dr. Christakis continued, “The problem is there is no way to tell who is vulnerable to simulations in video games, such as first-person shooter games developed by the U.S. military to de-sensitize soldiers, until it is too late.” If our children are exposed to such games with many students confessing to me, personally, to have spent an astronomical number of hours playing this sort of “game”, then what are we to expect? These young brains are not yet fully developed. At this point in their lives, they simply do not have the skills to process such things. As you might have noticed by now, this is quite troubling to me, because I see it. I’ve seen it daily and how it affects children of all ages in the classroom. I’ve seen it affect their lack of empathy toward classmates, lack of respect to authority figures, and I’ve seen how
it affects their concentration. I’ve been told that I am overreacting. Really? If I am overreacting, then I will gladly continue to do so to help protect children and to do my best to help children to learn or not lose empathy for others. Let’s work together on this. Are you with me? I don’t want to leave you this week without giving you a few ideas of what I learned during my research. Biglifejournal.com shared ideas for teaching children how to feel empathy for others. According to their website, children between the ages of three and five could benefit from a story being read to them and you asking them how they think a character feels when they are hurt or sad. You could also set up a “We
By Deb Hakkers Well, we are almost halfway through summer. The Edgars gathered at Blyth Lions Park on Saturday with people coming from Petrolia, Forest, London, Wingham, Belgrave, Brussels, Stratford, Aylmer and all parts in between. Although the turnout was small, those in attendance had a great time. Of course, no Edgar get-together would be complete without cards - euchre, specifically, of course. There had not been a gathering since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was decided that it was important to make this happen at least once a year, with each family taking a turn to organize. Next year’s event will be in Stratford with uncle Harvey’s family organizing. Fred and I are on holiday this past
week and next week. There are no big plans like last year - we’re just staying local this year. It is hard to believe it was a year ago that we were in Holland. This week we wish happy birthday to Dave and Belinda Marshall on July 26, George Townsend and Sharon Brown on July 27, Kelsey Van Wyk on July 28, Brooklyn Bromley and Doug Craig on July 30, Emily de Corte on July 31 and Rick Elliott on Aug. 1. We hope everyone enjoys their special day!! If there is anything special you would like to see mentioned in this column, please e-mail mcraig1@tcc.on.ca, or call 519525-8640. Until next week, take care of yourselves and each other and enjoy summer while it is here, because it’s short and fall will be here before we know it!
Care Centre” in your home such as a box of tissues, Band-Aids, and a stuffy. This is helpful, for example, if Mom is sick. Your child can learn to offer Mom a tissue, or if a sibling is sad or gets hurt, you could say, “Your brother scraped his knee, let’s offer him a Band-Aid and let him hold the stuffy.” For more ageappropriate ideas, I encourage you to visit biglifejournal.com where you can find many posts about parenting and family. For our reading this week, I chose Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud and illustrated by David Messing (2015). According to Amazon, “This heartwarming book encourages positive behavior by using the concept of an invisible bucket to show children how easy and rewarding it is to express kindness, appreciation and love by ‘filling buckets’.” As I leave it here for this week, I want you to consider the crisis we’re in with our children regarding the violence that is seen, heard, discussed, and even played all
around them. Remember, I’m always cheering for you. “The world will remain as brutal as our level of desensitization to its brutality.” - Teal Swan
NEWS FROM BLYTH
MAITLAND VALLEY CAMERA CLUB
Photography by Gayle Jaycock
PAGE 8. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Sports Brussels Bangers above Tigers in standings Fullarton A’s in Linwood by a score of 12-5. One day earlier, the Walton Brewers hosted the Belmore Stingers and fell to the league leaders by a score of 12-0. Looking ahead, the Belmore Stingers will be in Wroxeter to play the Rippers on July 28. The Brussels Bangers will play the Brewers in Walton on July 30 and Belmore will be in Milverton to play the Millwrights on Aug. 1 and the Sebringville Sting will play the Bangers in Brussels on Aug. 2 before the league takes a short break for the Civic Holiday weekend. Action will return on Tuesday, Aug. 6 when the Goderich Grizzlies host the Wroxeter Rippers and the Wingham Hitmen.
On July 22, the Mitchell Mets were scheduled to play the Grizzlies in Goderich, followed by a July 23 game between Elmira and the Brewers in Walton, but scores for those games were unavailable at press time. There were four games on the schedule for Wednesday, July 24, including a double-header between the Wingham Hitmen and Brussels Tigers to be played with the designated hitter in Belgrave. The first of the two games was originally scheduled for June 5, but was rained out. The Monkton Muskrats were due to play the Mets in Mitchell that night and the Brussels Bangers were due to be in Linwood to play Elmira, but scores for those games were unavailable at press time.
Solid contact Last Friday night, the Brussels Bangers welcomed the Goderich Grizzlies to the village for some Huron County Fastball League regular season action. The locals would pull out the win by a score of 2-1, which has helped propel them over their Brussels counterparts, the Tigers in the league standings. (John Stephenson photo)
By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen The dream of a perfect Huron County Fastball League season remains alive for the Belmore Stingers, who are 12-0 after a 10-0 victory over the Brussels Tigers last week. The team has just eight games left on the regular season schedule, beginning with a game on the road this Sunday to play the Wroxeter Rippers. The Wingham Hitmen are in second place with a record of 8-2 and 16 points, followed by the Monkton Muskrats and Brussels Bangers with identical records of 64 and 12 points. Three teams follow with 10 points each: the Brussels Tigers (5-
5), the Goderich Grizzlies (5-6) and the Sebringville Sting (5-3). The Elmira U20 team and the Walton Brewers each have nine points and records of 4-6-1 and 4-7-1, respectively. The Mitchell Mets have a record of 4-4 and eight points, followed by the Fullarton A’s and Wroxeter Rippers with six points each and records of 3-10 and 3-9, respectively, and the last-place Milverton Millwrights with a record of 2-7 and four points. Last Friday, the Brussels Bangers welcomed the Goderich Grizzlies to the village and sent them away on the wrong end of a 2-1 score. That same night, the Monkton Muskrats hosted Elmira and won by a score of 5-4, the Sebringville Sting beat the Wroxeter Rippers at home by a
score of 6-4 and the Wingham Hitmen capitalized on the homefield advantage and beat Milverton by a score of 9-5. A game between the Wingham Hitmen and Sebringville Sting had to be postponed on July 21, while, that same day, the Brussels Bangers beat Fullarton A’s by a score of 9-0. The July 18 game between the Walton Brewers and the Milverton Millwrights was also postponed, but also that night the Belmore Stingers beat the Brussels Tigers in Belmore by a score of 10-0. On July 17, the Mitchell Mets beat the Wroxeter Rippers in Mitchell by a score of 10-3, while the Sebringville Sting beat the Tigers in Brussels by a score of 8-5 and the Elmira U20 team beat the
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Seeing is believing Horse racing doesn’t always work out the way the odds might suggest it will - that’s why the tracks take bets. Clearly the athletes of the day last Sunday generated surprise and celebration for at least two Clinton Raceway patrons, left, as part of the ninth annual Vic Hayter Memorial Trot, which was another bright, sunny day at the races. (John Stephenson photo)
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THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 9.
Huron Farms To Tables Farms to Tables? ‘The Citizen’ 100K meal is back
Salty goodness A nice, salty, Italian focaccia bread goes with just about every meal if you’re committed enough to wanting to eat bread and this Ligurian focaccia is a lot easier than it looks you just need to set 14 hours or so aside. (Shawn Loughlin photo) You’re reading The Citizen’s annual Huron Farms to Tables section and that can only mean one thing - the return of the everpopular Citizen 100-kilometre meal! Members of the staff (or their spouses) have slaved away for hours to bring you these meals, so you better enjoy them. This year, we’ve gone with an appetizer, dinner and dessert. And, if you’ve read your Bible recently, you know there’s only one way to begin a supper, last or otherwise: bread! Bonus recipe! Let’s get into it! - SL Bread goes with everything: Ligurian focaccia by Shawn Loughlin For the bread, you can make a relatively simple focaccia with your 100-kilometre ingredients, courtesy of celebrated chef Samin Nosrat, the author of Salt Fat Acid Heat. She relayed a recipe for Ligurian focaccia from locals in the northern tip of Italy, which includes over 12 hours of fermentation. At least 14 hours before you hope to be eating bread, mix five-and-athird cups of flour with two tablespoons of salt, adding twoand-a-half cups of warm water with a half-teaspoon of yeast (not local, I’m afraid) with two-and-a-half teaspoons of honey. Then, add a quarter-cup of olive oil (the flavour will really come through, so use the best olive oil you can find, perhaps from the Southampton Olive Oil Company or Olive Your Favourites in Stratford). Let the dough ferment at room temperature in a large bowl (the dough will at least double in size), covered in cling wrap for between 12 and 14 hours. Oil a baking sheet and gently release the dough onto the sheet, doing your best to agitate it as little as possible (the air bubbles are crucial to the fluffiness of the
bread). Pour some more olive oil on top of the dough, spreading it out to the edges of the tray a few times over 30 minutes. Create some dimples on the top surface of the bread and completely cover the bread with a brine made of a third-cup of warm water and one-and-a-half teaspoons of salt, which creates a pleasant saltiness throughout the entire loaf. Add a few more drops of olive oil alongside the brine and allow the bread to proof for another 45 minutes. Sprinkle some delightful flaky sea salt on top of the dough (not local, but the Newfoundland Salt Company makes some top-notch sea salt; Jacobsen Salt Company
makes delightful flaky sea salt in Oregon as well, if you’re into paying a lot in import fees into Canada - and who isn’t?) and put it in an oven heated to 450°F for between 25 and 30 minutes. Nosrat’s instructions include using either a baking stone or an inverted baking sheet in the oven, so it can get super hot and blast the bottom of the bread with heat. Finish the bread on the top rack of the oven for another five to seven minutes and then remove it, then add a few more tablespoons of oil onto the bread as it cools (the bread will absorb the oil). Let it finish on a cooling rack. Start me up: grilled cheese sandwiches by Scott Stephenson
The idea of the 100-kilometre meal was originally put forth as a sort of challenge, designed to illustrate how complex the modern day food web truly is. There are those living in urban areas and other food deserts that really have to wrack their brains when it comes to creating such a meal. But here in Huron County, we basically have our pick when it comes to making a meal entirely out of locally-sourced ingredients. This is a place that, historically, has produced a plethora of produce, filled trains with grain and raised meat that just can’t be beat. So, if you’re living in the area, being challenged to make a single appetizer using only ingredients found within a 100-kilometre radius of the office is only really challenging when it comes to choosing just one appetizer to make. In terms of canapés alone, there are near infinite options when it comes to bread/topping combos. Don’t even get me started on the possible amuse-bouche options available county-wide - it’s unfathomable. The mind boggles at the sheer number of amuse-bouche possibilities. When one is fully overwhelmed with the possibility of potential food stuffs, it’s always best to step back and take a moment to consider not what you could do, but what you want to do. And in this case, a moment of quiet contemplation
revealed that all signs were pointing in the same direction - towards classic grilled cheese sandwiches. Right now, you might be thinking to yourself, “a classic grilled cheese sandwich is not an appetizer.” And you’re right. When you see grilled cheese sandwiches being passed around at a party, they are always, in some way, fancied up. Maybe they have some kind of exotic ham hiding inside them, or a drizzle of blackberry balsamic, or some other such bell or whistle that is supposed to somehow elevate the already noble grilled cheese. But we all know that one of those tiny, precious sandwiches isn’t really a grilled cheese. A real grilled cheese is a three-ingredient sandwich, straight up. If you choose to integrate any ketchup into the situation after the sandwich has already been constructed, well, that’s between you and yours. Of course, choosing the classic grilled cheese sandwich as your goto party appetizer requires a fair amount of confidence, and that confidence can only come from using absolutely top quality ingredients. Luckily, all three of the essential (and only) ingredients of a grilled cheese are made in Huron County. St. Brigid’s Creamery in Brussels produces some of the nation’s best grass-fed butter, and nearby Capella Meadows is a great source of fresh goat milk, cheddar Continued on page 10
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PAGE 10. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Huron Farms To Tables Grilled cheese to start, followed by chicken cutlets
Time to get serious Now that you’ve assembled your grilled cheese tower, seen above courtesy of Scott Stephenson and Chelsea Gamble, it’s time to move onto dinner with John and Maria Stephenson and special guest, Maria’s young cousin from Belgium, Charlotte Vanrechem, below, who helped the couple make Maria’s famous chicken cutlets with roast potatoes, Parmesan asparagus and zucchini caponata. (Scott Stephenson, above, John Stephenson, below, photos)
Continued from page 9 and feta. Make the long trip to Red Cat Bakery all the way out Goderich-way, and you’ll have the perfect loaf of challah-style bread, although any bread from Red Cat will work. Use an overturned glass or cookie cutter to cut the bread into perfect
circles, butter each round liberally, shred up your goat cheddar, crumble in a little of that briny feta, and proceed making one perfectly golden brown sandwich at a time, keeping them warm as you go in the oven. When it’s time to serve your grilled cheese sandwiches, add some class by stacking your
sandwiches sky high, impaling them on a long skewer if deemed necessary for stability. Surround with an unnecessary salad of garden greens and seasonal berries, and voila - it’s party time! Dinner bell’s ringing: Italian chicken cutlets with zucchini caponata, roast potatoes and
Parmesan asparagus for four by Maria and John Stephenson For the zucchini caponata, chop a red and green bell pepper into twoor three-inch pieces, a tomato into small pieces, a large onion into slivers, two small zucchini into quarter-inch slices and a cup of mushrooms into small pieces. Press two cloves of garlic and you’re ready to go. In a large, deep skillet, pour approximately a half-cup of olive oil into skillet - just enough to cover the bottom of the skillet. Sauté the onions and garlic until the oil is hot - about a minute or so. Add all the chopped vegetables and stir all together until the vegetables are mixed with the oil. Add about a cup of cool water and stir again. Cook on high heat for about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium-low and cover with a lid, stirring occasionally. Do not let the veggies get dry or burn. If more water is required add about a half-cup of water at a time. Cook until veggies are soft but not mushy. This caponata is great served over rice. For the roast potatoes, you’ll need four large yellow-fleshed potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks. Drizzle them with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste, in addition to your favourite seasoning (a favourite is flaked thyme). Place the potatoes on a baking sheet and roast at 350°F for between 30 and 45 minutes, turning the potatoes halfway through roasting. To make the parmesan asparagus, place the washed asparagus on a
small baking sheet, covered with aluminum foil. Drizzle them lightly with olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of cheese over the asparagus, cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Now, onto the main event. You’ll need four boneless chicken breasts to make the chicken cutlets. Slice them in half, horizontally, and set them aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat three eggs well and add a quarter-cup of milk and about three tablespoons of parmesan cheese and some salt and pepper, whisking them together well. Place the chicken breasts in the mixture and let them sit for about 30 minutes. Now, it’s time to get messy. Place two or three cups of unseasoned bread crumbs in a large, flat dish and take one slice of chicken breast and coat with the bread crumbs by laying it flat on the bread crumbs and then turning it over and patting it flat into the bread crumbs with the palm of your hand, do this a couple of times by flipping it over. Remove the chicken from the bread crumbs and place flat on a dish. Repeat this process until all the chicken is coated with the bread crumbs. Set aside. In a large frying pan, fill halfway with vegetable oil (not canola or safflower oil, as it will not taste the same). Heat oil on full until hot. Reduce heat to three quarters or so. Place chicken slices in hot oil very gently, do not overcrowd. Fry until golden brown, flipping them over a couple Continued on page 11
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THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 11.
Huron Farms To Tables Baked cheesecake - a very sweet way to end the meal Continued from page 10 of times with tongs. When golden, remove from oil and place on a plate covered with paper towel to soak up the excess oil. Repeat process until all breasts are golden. A cheesy conclusion: baked cheesecake by Shawn Loughlin This one gets a little dicey with 100-kilometre ingredients and calls on you to make your own cream cheese if you can’t find it locally, but it’s worth it. It’s a loving homage to a recipe found in Earth to Table Bakes from the Guelphbased restaurant now known as Bardo, written by Erin Schiestel and Bettina Schormann - go eat there if you haven’t already. (A fun fact for long-time Citizen readers is that former Citizen photographer Jasmine deBoer worked on the creation of the aforementioned book. Proud of you, Jasmine! Taught her everything she knows!) Mix together two cups of ground graham crackers, a half-cup of
brown sugar, a teaspoon each of cinnamon and kosher salt and a half-cup of unsalted butter to make the crust. Pack it down into the base of a well-greased 10-inch springform pan. For the cake filling, mix together 24 ounces of cream cheese (three packages if you don’t make it yourself - if you do, you’re amazing; there are many recipes online on how to do this), two cups of sugar, one tablespoon of pure vanilla extract, a quarter-cup of flour, four large eggs, two large egg yolks and a half-cup of whole milk. If you have a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment. If you don’t, just as I don’t, I hope you’ve been hitting the gym. Stir the cream cheese and sugar first, fully incorporate, then the vanilla, then the flour, then the eggs and then the milk. Once everything is fully combined, pour it over the crust and bake at 250°F. The written recipe says for 90 minutes, but I’ve found I’ve had to go for nearly two hours
with my oven. (It should no longer look wet when you take it out and should only jiggle slightly.) Place the cake on a wire rack, leaving the pan bottom on, to cool to room temperature. Then put the
cake in the fridge for at least three hours before serving. The Bardo recipe calls for a rhubarb compote to be served atop the cake, but any seasonal, Huron County-grown fruit would do - I’m
thinking strawberries here. If you’re lazy, a can of cherry or blueberry pie filling does the trick, though I will say it is delightful on its own, naked as the day it was baked.
A tasty exercise Maria and Charlotte finish up dinner above, ready to dive into the finished product, while Tallulah Loughlin, left, helps her dad mix for about three minutes of the multi-hour process of baking a (John cheesecake from scratch. Stephenson, Shawn Loughlin photos)
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PAGE 12. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Huron Farms To Tables Biodynamic goat farm expands with Capella Meadows
Getting their goat Biodynamic farmers Edda and Erik Boettcher are expanding their operation to include an on-site cheese plant to increase the offerings of their brand, Capella (Scott Stephenson photos) Meadows.
By Scott Stephenson The Citizen You may not be familiar with Capella Meadows yet, but Erik and Edda Boettcher’s organic goat farm in Brussels is on the verge of becoming an essential destination for food fans from far and wide. People will be coming to their new farm store to pick up some smallbatch cheese and organic goat meat, or to hear a little bit about biodynamic farming techniques. Or just to check in on how construction is coming along on the cheese plant they’re building on the farm. The Boettchers may be busy, but they set aside a bit of time last week to sit down with The Citizen at a picnic table in the shade for a conversation about the history of their unique farm and the many plans they have for their goatcentric future together. Erik comes from a traditional farming background - he was raised on a farm right across the street from their current location. Growing up, his family mostly kept sheep, but goats did work their way into the mix. “We always had a few milking goats,” he explained. “It was my grandpa’s fancy when he was getting a little older. He said ‘oh, let’s get some goats’. And I kind of took that milking over those four or five goats. I handmilked them from when I was eight years old. And it just kind of became my animal, that I enjoyed. So then I grew it from that to actually making a good living with them. Shortly after, Edda came along. We kind of run the whole farm as a couple now - I guess the main part being the goats. At some point, Edda started with the cheese. The cheese part is all Edda’s doing. Mostly. With my support. Obviously.” Edda recalls the situation a little differently. “I was basically greeted with a question like - ‘If you’re starting to date Erik, are you interested in cheesemaking? I had never planned to do that, but I think I’ve got the cheese bug now. I’m very much into cheesemaking.” When she first came to Huron County, Edda didn’t have a whole
lot of farming experience - she’s from Düsseldorf, Germany. “I’m a city slicker, as his sister points out... I accidentally came for a visit, and I never really left.” In a roundabout way, however, it was a shared passion for biodynamic farming that brought them together - it just wasn’t a passion shared between Erik and Edda! “My cousin knew Erik, because he had learned biodynamic farming on the farm she was living on - he invited her, and she invited me, and I stayed.” However her first foray into the world of cheesemaking began, both Erik and Edda agree she’s very well-suited to the task, while he’s better suited to manage the farming side of the operation. The first cheese she started making was one of the most popular styles of cheese in Canada: cheddar. “It was not really a very intentional choice,” Edda explained. “It was just what was possible with the very limited opportunities we had to have
someone else doing the cheese. Gordon’s [Goat Dairy in Wroxeter ] at that time had been doing custom cheesemaking for three people, and only cheddar, as far as I remember. So we started with cheddar. And that, for a very long time, was our only cheese, because we had three children in the meantime, which took up way more time than we had expected. Last year, we really started with the cheese business. Before, it was just kind of a hobby, on the side.” Erik pointed out that Edda was really slacking off on the cheesemaking when she was raising each of their three newborn children. “It didn’t get the focus to take off,” he surmised. Edda agreed, but also promised that things were about to change.“I was the main person, and I had three children in five years, basically. My focus was somewhere else. Our youngest is turning two soon that’s independent enough, so last year I started making feta - that’s the cheese I make at Gordon’s Goat Dairy... there are more cheeses we’re planning, but I’m not going to tell [you] about it.” Edda believes everybody should give goat cheese a try. “One thing which a lot of people like goat for is the taste. Although for some people, that’s why they don’t eat or drink goat. For some people, though, it’s that unique taste of the cheese. And
for a lot of people, it’s easier to digest.” Even though she’s a convert now, goat milk wasn’t always Edda’s thing. “The first goat milk I ever drank was at my mom’s, in coffee, and I refused the coffee, because it was so strong.” Erik broke in with a quick alert - “Disclaimer for Ontario Goat Producers,” he announced, “that happened in Germany.” Before they could really get going with the cheese business, Erik and Edda spent years converting the previouslyconventional farm to an entirely organic operation, guided by biodynamic principles. “It’s always a little bit of a rough couple first years,” Edda explained. “You have
weeds popping up, and everything needs to kind of get back into balance. The first years I was here, that was always a big issue. The land was not really productive. It took a while to really get started. The farm is kind of over that big bump now.” Edda offered a brief overview of the biodynamic farming movement. “Basically, it was the first form of organic farming. Actually, it started 100 years ago this year. At that point, a lot of farmers realized that industrial farming changed the food, and they wanted to do something about it. There was one guy, Rudolph Steiner, who brought up an idea about how farming should work, and that was Continued on page 13
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THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 13.
Huron Farms To Tables Farm operation growing to include cheese plant honouring what the goats provide for them, and spend time every day working to treat them with the respect they deserve, all the way to the end. “It feels even more respectful to eat them ourselves, than it does to ship them. We try to give them a good life, and a good end... I basically don’t have any beef in the freezer. Whatever you would do with beef, I do with goat. I’m a lazy cook, I like easy recipes. So with a roast, I put it in the oven right after breakfast, and then I forget about it, and then at lunch I take it out, eat it, and that’s it. It’s very easy.” They also raise their own meat chickens for a little bit of variety, and trade cheese with Erik’s mother in exchange for eggs. In addition to their milking goats, Capella Meadows raises about 100 meat goats each year, most of which are sold at the nearby stockyard in Brussels. One of their primary buyers is a butcher shop in Toronto, which makes sense - goat is one of the dietary staples for cultures found in countless countries from all around the world, including Sudan, Haiti, Nepal, Nigeria, Ecuador, China, Bangladesh, Mexico, Mongolia, and more. North America may be lagging behind when it comes to consuming goat meat, but it’s perhaps time to catch up - goat meat is flavourful, versatile and high in protein. Capella Meadows hopes to start producing its own cheese on the farm as early as next spring, and Edda is very excited. “It will extend
our cheese varieties... I always want to make [cheeses that are] as natural as possible. When we have our own plant, we can start experimenting with the really funky ones. I like creamy cheeses, with a little stronger flavour. In general, I don’t like really young cheeses - I prefer an older cheddar, or gouda. I like variety - at the start, we only had cheddar at home, because we only ate our own cheese.” Once she has her own plant, the sky’s the limit for Capella Meadows. “We’re at a point where it really starts to get interesting for people,” she said. “Hopefully the cheese plant [will be completed] soon, and [we’ll start] having more varieties.” They may have only just broken ground on the facility, but the driven young cheesemaker from Düsseldorf is already dreaming of hosting cheesemaking classes and a second-storey event space. She just needs Erik to build it all first. Until the plant opens, people can still stop by the Capella Meadows farm store for some organic cheese, meat, flour, or seasonal produce. The store is currently open Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. They don’t do sales on Sunday that’s their day off. “It’s always good to have one day off and a little bit of privacy,” Edda explained. “On Sundays, we try not to work. Obviously, we have the animals, and we have to feed them in the morning. And milk them in the morning. And in the evening.” Working so much has meant that the Boettchers haven’t had that
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Continued from page 12 biodynamic farming. It was the first kind of logo of ‘organic’. There are two main things - one is that we’re trying to be circular. We have the animals that supply fertility, and the fertility grows all of the feed for the animals, and a little bit extra, which is, in our case, cash crops and vegetables. We try to be as closedloop as possible. We cannot expand our land base without increasing our animals, because we wouldn’t have fertility. We’re trying to build a little ecosystem.” Right now, the crop Erik is most enjoying growing is red beets, which is great, because they’re currently growing 10 acres of them. That’s 120 tonnes of beets. They’re also growing kidney beans and flax, hard red wheat, and soybeans. But the majority of their acreage is for the goats to enjoy. Edda likes to try out different specialty crops.“For us, it makes sense to look for specialty crops, especially since we are fairly good with weed control, so we can grow crops where others might be a little scared to try.” Erik thinks this has been a great year for their farm. “Great growing conditions, great hay yields, and as far as it looks to me now, we’ll have good wheat. Can’t complain this year.” Biodynamic farming also includes some very old-school methods when it comes to soil and crop improvement. “The other thing we do is preparations,” Edda explained. “Which, for a lot of people, is very esoteric.” This involves utilizing fermented herbs in the farming process. “It helps to harmonize the compost process, which is the base of our fertility. And we spray preparations on the crops, to help them utilize the soil better, and utilize the sun better... Biodynamics is the only form of farming that acknowledges the influence of the cosmos. With the tides, everybody knows what the moon does to the earth. In biodynamics, there are a lot of people that are very much into astronomy, and how the stars affect what happens on earth.” The astronomy element of biodynamics also inspired the name of their business. Capella (or ‘little goat’ in Latin) is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Auriga. “In fall you can see it - it’s a very bright star, and I thought it was a nice name,” Edda explained. Erik also mixes herbs into the pasture mix for the goats, which improves the health of the herd. “Herbs have a much higher mineral
spectrum,” he said. “They definitely like chicory, and plantain and trefoil. They also like curled dock, which is a weed, but they just eat it right up.” The farm is now home to 200 milking goats, plus young stock and meat goats. The milking breed are purebred, registered French Alpines. “We’ve had them from the start,” Erik said. “We were lucky to find a whole herd, and we just kept going with them. They’re a breed that’s well-suited to what we do with the amount of grazing we do in the summer.” The herd had never experienced life with biodynamically-minded farmers before coming to live with the Boettchers. Having so much space to graze confused the goats at first, but they eventually figured it out, with the guidance of a few borrowed sheep. The goats at Capella Meadows are also collectively afraid of water - they won’t even step across the shallowest puddle! Both Erik and Edda obviously love their goats, but for different reasons. Edda likes their easy-going attitude. “They’re fun. Most of the days. Some days, they are the opposite of fun... but they’re also easy to handle. I can't imagine milking a stubborn cow. You can’t really do a lot when they don’t want to, because they’re so heavy.” Erik respects the way goats live and learn together. “For me, I enjoy working with them. They seem to have that bit of intelligence - if they know the direction to go, if they know the routine, they’re quite reliable. We have a dog to help with moving them around the barn or out to pasture, but they’re quite smart animals. Which brings also the problem that they are able to figure out how to get out sometimes.” Their current lead dog is a border collie named Roy. Roy is almost too good at his job - he has to be kept away from the goats when they don’t need any guidance. Flax, their other dog, has retired from the strenuous world of goat herding. Edda appreciates the work Roy does on the farm. “When the goats get out, then you don’t have to be running after them as much - you can just send the dog, and he will, hopefully, get them to where you want them.” The Boettchers believe in
PAGE 14. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Huron Farms To Tables New food truck ‘Local Rolla’ is pleasing crowds
Hot wheels Goderich-based food truck owners, Pat and Jenn, are dedicated to feeding local food to hungry people. (Scott Stephenson photo)
By Scott Stephenson The Citizen Local Rolla is an exciting new farm-to-table restaurant in Huron County, and it can be found right down by Goderich’s beaches - that is, you can find it there most of the time. That’s because it isn’t a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant at all - it’s a food truck! When they aren’t down by the lake, the team members at Local Rolla can be found at various festivals and community events, serving up their endlessly creative cuisine. Executive chef Pat Church has been working in kitchens for over 25 years, but this is his first time running a restaurant on wheels. He handles all the cooking, while his partner, Jenn, deals with the customers as front-of-truck manager. Local Rolla has only been open a few months, but they’ve featured buffalo chicken Pop Rocks cones, rainbow Pride dogs, donut burgers, pulled pork grilled cheese, and so much more. His food philosophy is simple - to go as far away from the scale as they can with their food. They believe people these days want to eat healthier, cleaner food that still tastes great, and, to Local Rolla, that means food that comes straight from nearby farms and food producers. When they first started their new business, neither of these entrepreneurs knew what to expect, but the response from the community has been tremendous. “It’s only been two months,” Jenn explained, “but we’ve actually gained a bit of a following! It’s been exciting to see it grow, but we are still getting our bearings.” Pat had hoped that his approach to locally-sourced food would appeal to people, but this summer has been busier than he ever dreamed it would be. “It’s been overwhelming - we didn’t expect that! We expected to just come to the beach, and do 500 a day. But that’s not the case - it’s tripled,” he explained. It’s
not uncommon to see a line of people outside their truck, looking to check out their latest special or grab an order of Local Rolla’s signature duck fat fries. Even when closed for the day, customers tend to amble on over just in case they might have some smoked brisket on the go, somehow. Pat feels that having Jenn working the windows is one of the keys to their success. “The food is a part of this business, but Jenn in the window has created a customer base that comes just for her.” Jenn thinks that Pat’s wild style has really been capturing the hearts of both locals and tourists. “It’s not food, it’s art,” she explained. “Pat is super versatile with his cooking - if you can’t have something, he’ll just try and create something on the fly... he’s a food rebel.” Pat spent the first part of his
culinary career out west. He did his apprenticeship at Lake Okanagan Resort, and worked at restaurants in popular tourist destinations like Jasper, Banff and Kelowna. His travels eventually brought him to Huron County, where he took a job as the executive chef at The Benmiller Inn. The onset of the pandemic put an end to that job, and he headed back to Western Canada where his interest in local food began. “That’s where I started learning about farm to table,” he said. “I was in a small town about 80 kilometres from the border, and it was just ridiculous, the prices we were paying for stuff.” Since he was constantly surrounded by cattle, Pat started buying whole cows from farms instead of individual cuts. “It’s a lot cheaper, it’s a lot healthier for you, and it’s the way to go.” He learned a lot from that experience, and took his newfound passion for farm fresh food to the Kilmorey Lodge in Waterton, Alberta. He branched out from beef, finding farmers to grow tomatoes and peppers for their kitchen’s eclectic menu. Locals were impressed. It was rewarding work, but also very time consuming. “I was home about five times in three years,” Pat recalled. “Then Jenn said ‘enough - we’re buying a food truck.’” Jenn may not have had any experience in the food service industry, but she had a feeling that owning their own mobile restaurant was the right move. “I had the idea of a food truck in the back of my mind for quite some time - I was tired of the travel. My son is going off to university next year, so I knew that there would be some quiet time in the house, so I thought
- what better time to do it?” Though they’ve only just gotten going, it’s obvious that her instincts were right on. They felt that Goderich was the perfect place to start out and try to build a following, and soon learned there was an available spot down at the beach. They wrote to the local municipality, and were approved to open up in the spring. Pat and Jenn sprung into action, found a suitable truck, set it up down by the water, and started sourcing local ingredients for their menu. As relative newcomers to the area, it took a bit of time to make connections, but they’ve been finding more and more businesses that are interested in working with them. “This community is amazing,” Jenn observed. “We all help each other. There’s a very generous undercurrent in Huron County.” Going fresh and local is not without its challenges. “You really have to have the passion and the drive for it,” Pat stated. “When we’re lined up for five hours, we’re lined up for a reason.” Creating something as simple as a burger and
fries involves a whole lot of planning and hard work. Every day that the truck is open, Pat is there at seven a.m., cutting fries. Their custom burger blend is prepared for them by Green’s in Wingham, their soft, fluffy, buns are baked fresh by Bartliff’s Bakery in Clinton, and their fresh, fabulous vegetables currently come from Firmly Rooted Farm in Belgrave. Even the ketchup is made from scratch! Pat believes all the extra running around is worth it. “At McDonald’s, it’s just a burger. For me, it’s more than that - I’m creating somebody’s meal.” While not everything on their menu is sourced locally right now, they’re always looking for local farms with whom they can partner up. Jenn is a big fan of the vast variety of options available at Bayfield Berry Farm. “They have saskatoon berries that we love. And we use their jam! We did a peanut butter and jam grilled cheese on fresh sourdough bread from Bartliff’s.” Since they opened, Pat and Jenn have found that their clientele has Continued on page 15
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THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 15.
Huron Farms To Tables St. Brigid’s butter in high demand from top chefs
How now, brown cow St. Brigid’s Creamery is famed for its rich, yellow butter made from the milk of Jersey cows at Bill van Nes’ family farm near Brussels. (Scott Stephenson photo)
By Scott Stephenson The Citizen While searching for stories for this section, The Citizen stumbled across an article from a Torontobased blog that was extolling the virtues of the butter produced by St. Brigid’s Creamery. Over the past few years, St. Brigid’s has quickly become one of the worst-kept secrets among top chefs working in kitchens across the country. The butter is known for its bright yellow colour, rich flavour and superlative texture. It also happens to be made from the milk of the herd of Jersey cows on Bill and Cindy van Nes’ family
farm, just outside of Brussels. The Citizen set up an on-farm interview with Bill and made the short trek over to Brussels on a sunny day in July for a quick chat about what makes his butter just a little bit better than all the other butter out there. Almost four hours later, we returned to the office with all the answers we sought, some butter to sample, and a whole new perspective on one of modern society’s most misunderstood heroes - the cow. This is the story of St. Brigid’s Creamery. On this particular afternoon, the pastures on either side of the long driveway up to the van Nes house had cows grazing in them. At the end of that long driveway was the
‘Pay It Forward’ option available Continued from page 14 been subtly shifting - Local Rolla’s customers aren’t stopping by the truck because they’re already down at the beach, they’re down at the beach just to stop by the truck. Jenn thinks their generous portion sizes have something to do with that. “People are bringing their families here for dinner,” she said. Customers can either take their meals to go, or sit at one of the picnic tables set up near the truck for a unique al fresco dining experience near Lake Huron. It’s Pat and Jenn’s eventual goal to feed as many members of the community as they can. They already have a “Pay It Forward”
system in place, where diners can choose to purchase a meal for somebody in need. In the past, they’ve both experienced real hunger and homelessness - issues that are on the rise all over Canada. “Fifteen years ago, I was eating out of garbage cans,” Pat explained. “Now that we’re in a healthier place, we want to make sure that the community gets a little bit of that back. There were times when I was so hungry, or just wanted a cup of coffee, and there were generous people out there that helped me on my journey. And that's the whole idea behind this truck - we wanted to do something different, and we wanted to give back to the locals.”
man that The Citizen was there to see, Bill van Nes - the farmer who dreams of butter.
Van Nes named his butter business after St. Brigid - the patron saint of dairy workers. As he tells it, this compatriot of St. Patrick was a pretty inspiring lady. “There’s lots of legends about her giving away butter and making beer, and other fun stuff,” he said. “She knew how to have a good time, and she knew how to give to the needy.” While Bill talked butter, his wife, Cindy van Nes, was nearby, tending the family’s vegetable garden. Cindy also does the accounting for their business. Bill appreciates Cindy’s bookkeeping abilities, but tries to avoid the fresh vegetables she grows whenever possible. “I’d say I’m 98 per cent a carnivore,” he offered. “ And I don’t eat a lot of bread. If you were to ask me how I best enjoy our butter - it’s on steak, from our own Jersey cows. Jerseys have very fine-grain meat, and it marbles really well. It’s awesome.” In Bill’s estimation, the best steaks come from a fattened-up, retired cow from their own herd. “It’s just more tasty than something younger,” he explained. “People don’t like to take the effort to keep them that long, but that’s what I eat - a fat, stale cow that’s older. That’s the best.” Bill’s current farm isn’t his first rodeo - it’s not even the first farm he’s worked on Brandon Road - not
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PAGE 16. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Huron Farms To Tables Van Nes cares for herd of 350 Jersey cows
Cowabunga! These docile and curious cows are known for their high butterfat content, which results in a high-quality butter. (Scott Stephenson photo)
Continued from page 15 I’ve lived in on the same road in my life. I’ve only lived on this road, my whole life.” He grew up on a traditional dairy farm just outside of Ethel. His brother became interested in organic farming, and Bill followed suit. After his brother passed away, Bill went all-in on organic farming and a herd of Jersey cows. “When we were young, we used to have cows outside, and the ‘dry’ cows in pasture. Cows on grass is just a pleasure. It’s a lovely sight - it appeals to the senses. Then, when we went to confinement, the cows never went outside, and I missed it. I wanted to get the cows outside again. And then organic became a part of that. At the time, we were reducing pesticides, and trying to find alternative cropping methods.” The Jersey cow is definitely Bill’s animal - he has nothing but good things to say about them. “Jerseys are definitely special,” he stated. “They’re docile, curious creatures. They can be emotional - they have more character. They’re a totally different temperament than Holsteins. They’re smaller, they’re easier to handle. They’re also really suited for grazing.” Bill also explained that, for their size, Jerseys have large muzzles, and their multi-stage stomachs can handle grass better than their blackand-white counterparts. Jersey cows are also lighter on their feet, which helps farmers maintain their pasturelands. “A Jersey cow hasn’t been bred to eat out of a feed manger. They’re different. They’re also much more heat-tolerant, and cold-tolerant... They’re also more efficient, and they have a higher butterfat. And their butterfat is totally different from Holsteins. It’s very heavy, with much bigger fat globules, which rise to the top very quickly. It churns very easily for butter... Jerseys have really pretty faces.” At this point, to gain a deeper understanding of what sets St. Brigid’s butter apart, first one must understand a little bit about Canada’s commercial dairy industry, and the national supply management system that has, well, managed our dairy supply since the 1970s. In the commercial dairy
industry, Holstein cows are favoured due to their ability to consistently produce an incredible amount of milk. Jerseys may produce solid components that make great cheese and butter, but the supply management system measures a farm’s dairy output by volume. Bill explained the effect this had on farmers who favoured the milk of Jersey cows. “Before supply management, there was a thriving Jersey industry - it was mainstream. A lot of processors wanted Jersey milk for cheese and for butter. When supply management came in, it became about delivering milk as economically as possible to the processor. And milk is milk. The farmers are paid on volume, not components at all. And we all know Holsteins give copious amounts of milk, and so a lot of Jersey farms fell by the wayside. Processors were not calling for that Jersey milk anymore.” When he really got going in the Jersey milk game, Bill started with a herd of about 250 Jerseys, which
has since, slowly, grown to about 350 head. It’s still not enough to keep up with the demand, though. In order to produce the quantity of milk he needs to make butter, Bill has obtained an exemption from the Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s quota system, which has strict rules about the amount of milk any one farm can produce. And it’s still not enough to keep up with demand. “We didn’t expect this,” Bill admitted. “Now we have to raise our price, but we don’t want to raise it too much, because that’s not the idea! We want to expand the market!” Years ago, before he decided to just focus on salted and unsalted butter, he also tried his hand at producing cheese. “I couldn’t really get any traction on the cheese. It was quite a big investment to do storage, and you can’t just make a little bit and keep going like you can with butter. It was delicious, though.” Seven years later, he still has some of that original cheddar in storage, and, in his opinion, it keeps on getting better with age. About five years ago, Bill teamed up with a butter producer who used milk from his cows and two other Jersey farms to make grass-fed, organic butter. That company later went bankrupt, so Bill decided to strike out on his own. After a few false starts, St. Brigid’s Creamery was born. There are hundreds of places to buy St. Brigid’s butter in Canada, including every Whole Foods in Ontario and some in B.C. In nearby Stratford, Bill’s butter can be found at The Little Green Grocer, The Gentle Rain, and the Wild Hog Country Market. “We haven’t made that many in-roads in Huron County.” One of the places in
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Huron County that does carry St. Brigid’s is Meeting Place Organic Farm near St. Helens. Bill knows the price tag on his butter is one of the reasons it hasn’t caught on locally. Depending on where you buy it and how much you buy at a time, a 250-gram stick of St. Brigid’s will run you somewhere between $10 and $14. They also sell cases of frozen butter direct to homes in Huron County and the surrounding area. A shoebox-sized case of 25 sticks of butter may cost almost $250, but, for Bill’s butter fans, it’s just worth it. “This butter behaves very differently,” Bill pointed out. “If you put it in a cast iron pan, and just watch it melt, you will see a difference. It’s churned in the European style, and it’s more spreadable, even right out of the fridge. Lots of people from Europe and South America comment that it tastes more like the butter they get at home. Here in Huron County, it’s the price point for sure,” he said. “They just don’t see the value in it, yet. But tasting is believing. If you want to get the most out of this butter on a slice of bread, you should see your teeth marks - don’t spread lightly.” A tour of the whole operation at St. Brigid’s really casts the price of Bill’s butter in a whole new light. It’s not that he prices each stick based solely on its superlative quality - it also takes a tremendous amount of time, effort, and cash to make butter this good. “If it was a money-maker, everybody would be doing it,” Bill explained. “If cows live in the barn, they’re much easier to manage. If we’re working outside, with the elements, we do take a production loss. But the milk is superior. We try to keep our cows outside as much as possible.”
Everything at St. Brigid’s comes back to the proper treatment of the cows, throughout their entire life cycle. Bill’s oldest milk producers are around nine and 10 years old. When it’s time for one of his Jerseys to retire, he tries to find her a new home to live out the rest of her days. “We sell a lot of ‘house cows’ to people in the Mennonite community and people who want cows to just have milk at home. We don’t bring them to the sales if we can help it. We’ve got a waiting list Continued on page 17
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THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 17.
Huron Farms To Tables Sprawling farm operation offers many benefits
Continued from page 16 - I’ve sent cows to Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. People just keep wanting these cows.” The “full tour” involves so much more than just a stop at the pastures on either side of the driveway and a visit to the milking parlour. Each group of cows moves to a different part of the pasture once or twice a day. On this particular day, the cows wouldn’t normally have been outside in mid-afternoon, but a recent bout of rain had just shaken up their schedule. “We don’t normally have them out at this time of day, at this time of year. In June, they’re outside all the time, but it was getting hotter and drier, so we’ve been keeping them in during the day.” Spending the hottest part of their days indoors doesn’t mean their diet changes much - when the cows can’t go to the pasture, Bill and the workers at St. Brigid’s bring the pasture to the cows. “We do cut and carry - we go out and cut fresh forage, and we go feed them in the barn. It’s very good for the cows it’s very high in energy. And it’s also very good for the milk, and it’s very good for the butter. It keeps it nice and yellow, It’s also more work because you have to go out and do it every day.” The ungulates with a direct line into the main barn are, of course, the current cow crew providing milk for butter-making. The milking parlour and barn are just a short trip up the hill. Mixed into their herd are a number of Bill’s bulls. They’re easy to pick out of the crowd - the bulls are darker, and they tend to draw attention to themselves with a lot of bellowing. They’re also more muscular, and tend to hang out near the outskirts of the herd, making noise and looking cool. It’s a popular opinion that Jersey bulls can be quite mean, but Bill begs to differ - it’s all in how one treats these handsome gentlemen. “The bulls are awesome! Our bulls are raised on mums. That’s why we can walk in here, and not worry about the bulls. If the bulls are raised on a bottle, then we become their peers, and that’s when the problem comes. That’s how people
get hurt. We leave our bulls alone, we handle our bulls as little as possible - the cows are their peers, us humans are not. And a lot of people don’t know that. They say Jersey bulls are the worst, but that’s just how they were raised. Freedom to express their natural behaviour that’s one of the five freedoms of being a cow.” Bill’s not just thinking about bull mental health; having a few eligible bachelors around is good for everybody. “A bull in the herd helps the herd dynamic, 100 per cent. Working with it, we see it. And it’s much better for the bull. We grew up with bulls too, but they were in a pen by themselves. And then we brought the cow in heat to the bull. And those bulls were nasty. You did not want to get stuck in a bullpen.” While the bulls mostly hang around with each other and the cows, the cows are deeply invested in what humans are getting up to. They don’t just follow Bill wherever he goes - they follow everybody. The Jerseys are curious about new people, camera lenses, loose shoelaces, a grasshopper clinging to a haystalk - pretty much everything. “They’re very chill,” Bill pointed out. He also pointed out an example of the fertility cycle at work. “Look at those dung beetles at work - they’re just amazing!” A short trip down the road leads to another field, seemingly empty, surrounded by woods on all sides. As Bill’s truck drew near, Jerseys started pouring out of the forest. They were indeed light on their feet - from a distance, they looked to all the world like a family of deer. When the truck stopped, it was quickly surrounded by cows, who smelled the tires, eyed their own reflections in the mirrors, and pressed their snouts against the windows. These are the far-off dry cows. Giving cows time to ‘dry-off’ between calvings allows them to recover from the experience, and promotes healthy udders, mothers and herds. “Three weeks to a month before calving, we bring them back to the barn to prepare. But they’re outside in this group for a month, or a month and a half.” Being greeted by a gaggle of charming cows is most enjoyable. “They just came out of the bush to see us. Cows are from the woods. They evolved in the woods. They started acting as herd animals, and with compaction, with the herd effect, that’s how grasslands started becoming a thing. The compaction, the effect of hooves on the grass that’s what makes grass grow. You get your carbon from grass that gets broken off, mixed with urine and manure, and it all becomes part of the soil. If grass oxidizes without being incorporated into the ground, there goes CO2. But if it’s incorporated, that’s how you build topsoil. We have to give the cow credit where credit is due.” All Bill’s cows get to spend time
enjoying the wooded part of his farm. “When they go through the woods, they’re just so natural. I think especially for a Jersey cow more than a Holstein - they’re much surer-footed. They know what they’re doing. So we rotate them through the bush here.” Surrounded by a rapt circle of his dry Jersey cows, Bill went on to explain how herds of bison and buffalo, pursued by predators, had formed the Great Plains in North America, and how important cattle were to the Maasai people of Africa. The Maasai are a pastoral Indigenous society that tend to their herds in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. Their cattlekeeping methods are a central part of their cultural identity traditionally, the Maasai have eaten cows, drank their milk, worn their hides, made tools from their bones, taken salt from their blood, and governed themselves in accordance with what their herds need. The next stop was a wide open pasture full of rolling hills and long grass. Bill demonstrated how the borders created by long, thin lines of electric fence are designed to be reconfigured with ease, using rolling electric fence posts called tumble wheels. This keeps all the cows on the move from one section of the grazing land to the next, and allows previously grazed land to regenerate undisturbed. As Bill moved the fencing, the heifers in this pasture made the long trip up and down the hilly field, just to see what was going on. After they checked everybody out thoroughly, the young cows set about continuing their lunch. “I love listening to them eat. And I love the smell of cows outside.” The next stop on the tour was a visit to the fall and spring calves. “We breed everything back to Jerseys. We don’t use AI, we don’t use beef bulls. We tried it once and I hated it!” Bill loves the cyclical nature of his sustainable Jersey cow farm - it’s inspired by many other farmers from all over the world that came before him. “Cows have been the centre of a lot of cultures,
historically. Like the centre. The cow is sacred. If handled properly, they have so much to contribute. They’re volume-eaters, and they’re volume-fertilizers. They turn the soil into living stuff you can grow crops with... the cows make it regenerate.” The calves in these fields need to be acclimated to life in the pastures before they can join the rest of the group. “We’d like to start raising our calves on mums,” Bill explained, “but we’re not there yet. But that is a goal of mine. When we get there, that’ll be another story.” The final stop on the tour brought us back to where it all began - the pastures on either side of the long driveway at the main farm. This time, it was to visit a small group of cows waiting to calf. Most of these expectant mothers like to spend their time grazing and relaxing while they await the big day. We also visited a manger that was
temporarily housing two young calves, both born only a few weeks ago, out of step with the fall and spring calves. Bill was happy that they had each other to play with well-adjusted animals require socialization. “One of my favourite paintings,” he said, “I forget the artist, but it’s of the nativity, and you know what’s front and centre? A cow. We have to give the cow its rightful place.” Bill van Nes doesn’t run an organic dairy farm because it’s easy - he runs it because he likes good butter, and because he loves his cows. “If I wasn’t an optimist, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. I have to be an optimist. But I have to be a realist. And sometimes I don’t pay attention to what’s real… . This is not an easy road. But I’m optimistic that it’ll work out…. I’m thought of as being eccentric, and kind of out there. And I’m OK with that.”
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PAGE 18. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Huron Farms To Tables Diehl’s Bee Well has been a nine-year labour of love out into the community when she can. She has jarred batches for wedding favours and the like and will sell jars when she can (if you’d like to get in touch with Dianne and Bee Well, call 519-291-7855), but where she’s really made headway is on the awards circuit. Dianne and her Bee Well honey have been awarded by the Brussels Agricultural Society at least twice in recent years at the group’s annual Brussels Fall Fair. Last year, Dianne’s honey won at the local level and then the district level before earning her a bronzemedal finish at the provincial level. After her third-place finish in Ontario, Dianne said she was docked a bit because there was some pollen in the honey, but, as far as she’s concerned, that’s a matter of personal preference.
(Bee pollen has many benefits and it is full of nutrients and antioxidants.) She says the honey is great but, of course, she can hardly take credit for it. Her role in the process, as she sees it, is to do her best to keep her bees alive so she can harvest their honey when it’s ready. Dianne has also been open and welcoming to those who are interested in keeping hives and harvesting honey, hosting tours for local groups like the Majestic Women’s Institute and others. As for how she uses it, Dianne says that she and Dave use the honey a lot at breakfast and that she bakes a lot of bread with honey in it. One of her fellow Huron East Councillors has encouraged her to make some fermented hot honey, but she has yet to take the leap. To learn more about Dianne Diehl’s Bee Well honey, call 519291-7855.
Sweetened up Dianne Diehl keeps several hives of bees at her home farm on Cardiff Road near Ethel. She has been a local supplier for some, including wedding favours for those looking to send their guests home on a sweet note, in addition to using it a lot in her home bread baking. (Shawn Loughlin photos)
By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen In the long days and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people found their way to a number of homesteading activities, like growing their own vegetable gardens, baking sourdough bread and harvesting their own honey. Dianne Diehl from the Ethel area was ahead of that curve on having her own small honey-making operation, Bee Well, which has now been going for about nine years and has won a number of accolades along the way. Diehl and her husband Dave, who live on Cardiff Road near Ethel, had always expressed a bit of an interest in having their own hives and harvesting their own honey, so when the opportunity presented itself, they jumped at the chance. Dave, however, says that the bees are Dianne’s babies now and that he leaves most of the operation to her. He’s on-call for manual labour, lifting and moving things as necessary, whenever it’s needed. A friend was heading up to Meaford to pick up some bees and Dianne asked if she could have two nuc boxes and that was how she got her start. She had read up on some of the basics of keeping your own bees and she hit the ground running. Nuc boxes are small boxes of bees, usually used to start your own hives. One thing she’s learned, however, from season to season, is that what might work for one person may not work for another and what may work one season may cause
problems the next and that there’s no way to predict what will work from summer to summer. On that point, Dianne began with those two small nuc boxes, but has since grown her operation, but the trick is to always get the bees through the winter and it doesn’t always work. She said there is a lot of trial and error to the process and a lot of learning on the spot and along the way. In winter, for example, she would jacket the bees with a foam and plastic wrap and retain nearly all of them the following spring. Then, the following winter, with the exact same process, she lost about half of her bees. So, it’s hard to know what to do from season to season when you’re still learning and doing it at your home farm. When it comes to expansion, however, Dianne says you’re able to split the hives when they grow large enough, thus, growing your operation. At one point, Dianne had as many as 15 hives operating - that was about four years ago. However, through winter loss, she was down to only four at one point and now sits at seven for the operation, which has a home near the back of their property, which still contains several dozen workable acres that are currently planted with beans this season. The process has its ups and downs, Dianne says, but she’s always learning and adjusting. As for the finished product, Dianne and Bee Well don’t exactly have a retail presence, but she gets her 100 per cent local, raw honey
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THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 19.
Huron County supports The Well’s mission Huron Hospice Executive Director Willy Van Klooster and Board Chair Lisa Taylor spoke to Huron County Council at a meeting last month to ask that the county consider contributing $50,000 to the hospice’s ongoing capital expansion project. The organization is nearing the finish line of the expansion, which will include several more rooms and is slated to be completed in August. When complete, the hospice will be able to serve six patients at a time, compared to four right now. The expansion will also include walk-out patios for five of the six rooms, a communications area for nurses, a reflection room, a fully-accessible spa room with a tub, a fully-accessible visitor
washroom, a children’s activity room and more. In the past year, the pair said, nearly 90 per cent of those who have utilized the hospice have come from Huron County, with just 11 per cent coming from outside of the area. Council asked for a staff report on the request, which will be presented at a future meeting. *** Shannon McGavin of The Well Community Collective also presented to Huron County Council at its June 12 meeting. She began with a fun picture of her family in which they were all smiling and happy together, but noted that what they didn’t know at the time was that one of her and
Jeff’s daughters was experiencing mental health distress at the time and was planning to end her life. That didn’t happen, thankfully, but McGavin said she shared the story to note that things are not always as they seem when it comes to mental health struggles. The Well is aiming to tackle the subject of youth mental health throughout the region through partnerships and other initiatives by way of a $6 million campaign, which is 70 per cent programming and 30 per cent capital. McGavin didn’t ask the county for money, but for a letter of support, potential locations for The Well hubs throughout the area and further collaborations. Council suggested a staff report
on the requests, but some councillors suggested moving ahead with the letter of support right then and there. While some councillors were concerned about jumping the gun and expressing the county’s support before council knew exactly what it was supporting, the wording was finetuned to ensure that council was simply expressing its support for The Well as a concept and as a support for youth mental health in the region. Council passed a motion to pen a letter of support. *** After returning from the annual Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) conference, held this year in Calgary, Alberta,
Central Huron Mayor Jim Ginn has requested a report on the potential funding of public art in Central Huron. While there, Ginn learned that the City of Calgary sets aside one per cent of its budget for public art. As a result, he raised the idea of creating art for some of his municipality’s most-used parking spots, however, they are on a county road, meaning Central Huron would technically need the county’s approval to do anything on them. Ginn said he had already discussed the issue with Huron County Director of Public Works Imran Khalid, but requested a report on the proposal, which council carried.
DREA AM HOME OF THE MONTH M ALL DESIGNS, PLANS AND RENDERINGS © COPYRIGHT JEN ENISH HOUSE DESIGN LIMITED
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Plan Num mber 1-3-555 JEN OW A TOP SEL LLER NISH BUNGALO
an, with an expansive great roo om and more than 1,200 square e feet of floor space, An open living pla g g entryy home p plenty y of modern-da y appeal. pp Designed g for main-flloor living, g, the plan p gives this straight-e ay includes an unfinish hed basement for future expansion and is sure to be particularly appealing to firsttime home buyers. Inside the entrance, a planter ledge and a display stand offfer the opportunity to add feature interest in the foyer area. i offf the front door, has an attractive bay window and is designed with a Bedroom No. 3, immediately built-in desk for an easy conversion to home offfice or den, if desired. oom at the rear of the house has a window seat that adds character to the room The master bedro and provides a cozzy space to enjoy a relaxing read or an early morning cup of tea. A walk-in closet and three-piece en suite bathroom complete the suite. Bedroom No. No 2, 2 n next door, is across the hall from the main bathroom and adjacent to the laundry room. area is contained in the expansive great room that includes all the features desired The main living a by today's homeow wners. A freestanding work island offffers additional meal-preparation space and also has a raised bar for those casual snacks or quick cofffees. of the room has an option for an inverted bufffet stand and a door provides access The dining area o to the covered porttion of the sun deck. A generous amou unt of space has been allowed for the living/family area and a corner fireplace will give the room a cozzy feeling during the colder months. Storage space is w well provided, with a coat cupboard in the foyer, a linen cupboard next to bedroom No. and, of cours se the basement area. se, area No 2 and The double garag ge has a side door as well as entrance to the home through the laundry room. A 10-foot-high co overed entrance; horizontal siding and brick accents grace the exterior of the house, which is 38 feet, 8 inches wide and 62 feet, 4 inches deep with 1,278 square feet of living space. Plans for design 1-3-555 are available for $755 (set of 5), $815(set of 8) and $863 for a super set of S.T. or H.S.T. (where applicable) to both the plan price and postage charges. 10. Please add G.S Our NEW 52ND Ed dition of the Home Plan Catalogue containing over 400 plans is available for $16.50 (includes taxes, postage and handling). Make all cheque and money orders payable to "JENISH HOUSE DESIGN LTD" and mail to: JENISH HOUSE DESIGN D LTD. c/o North Huron Publishing #201- 1658 Commerce Av Ave Kelowna, BC V1X 8A9 OR SEE OUR WEB PAGE ORDER FORM ON: www.jenish.com O AND E-MAIL YOUR ORDER TO: homeplans@jenish.com
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PAGE 20. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Classified Advertissing – RATES – 20 words or less only $9.00 + HST Additional words 25¢ ea. + HST
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Articles for sale GERBERS FIREWOOD SER RV VING you for over 15 years. Y Yo our number one source of quality slabwood and bodywood. Delivery available. No Sunday calls. 519-274-1236, 519441-2085. ------------------------------------------SHADE TREES , SPRUCE , Whit Pine, White Pi Cedars, C d windbreaks i db k andd privacy hedges, Shrubs, Apples, Pears, Peaches, Plums, Sweet & sour Cherry Trees at (Emanuel E.M. Martin) Martin's Nursery 42661 Orangehill Rd, Wroxeter ON N0G 2X0.
Notices
Articles for sale Swap shop THE CITIZEN IS AV VA AILABLE TO purchase at these locations - Auburn Esso, Belgrave Variety Va y,, Blyth Food Market, Blyth V Vaariety, Blyth Ultramar, Brussels Foodland, Brussels Vaariety, V Clinton Convenience, Clinton Foodland, Fogal's YIG (Wingham), Wingham Mini Mart, Seaforth Foodland, Fincher's (Goderich), Goderich Victoria St Shell, Canadian Tire Gas Vi Bar, Goderich and The Citizen offffice in Blyth. ------------------------------------------REPRINTS OF PHOTOS taken by a available Citizen photographers are to purchase. All are in colour c . 4x6 $5.00, 5x7 - $6.00, 8x110 - $10.00. Phone to order 519-5523-4792 or email info@northhuron.on.ca ------------------------------------------WE OFFER A WIDE selection of Poly outdooor furniture in 11 difffferent colourss at approx. half price of competitionn. Located 2 blocks north of Whitechhurch at 382 Whitechurch St. Clearaance pricing on gazeboes. -------------------------------------------
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Summertime R Reads
Citizen-T To-Citizen o “SW WA AP SHOP” ad Call 519--523-4792 or email: e info@north hhuron.on.ca • Free ad up to 25 2 words, person to person only (no businesses), items valued at $1,000 or less. Price must be included in you ur ad.Y Yo our ad will run three times unlesss it sells faster! • The Citizen reserves the right to limit the number of items or ads per person. FOR SALE - Kreisler apartment-size piano and bench, $300; 7 ft. toboggan $30; burgandy reclining lift chair $25; lawn sweeper $50. Call Wingham 519-357-2768 30-3 --------------------------------------------FOR SALE - Used Poulan 15.5 hp with new 38” blade 5 speed lawnmower. $500; Assorted farm tools - picks, shovels, sledges - no handles $5 each. 519-335-6998 30-3 --------------------------------------------FOR SALE - Set of three stackable Tupperware pie shelves, $10 for the set. 519-357-4935 29-3 --------------------------------------------FOR SALE - Metal plant rack with plastic cover that converts to a mini greenhouse. $10. 519-357-4935 29-3 --------------------------------------------FOR SALE - T Tw wo heavy duty Troybilt garden tillers. Good running condition. $975 each. Can be seen at 382 Whitechurch Street. (2 blocks north of Whitechurch). 29-3 --------------------------------------------FOR SALE - Four antique chairs 29-3 best offffer. 519-357-2760. --------------------------------------------WANTED - Four gallon crock for WA pickling. 519-357-2760. 29-3 -------------------------------------------FOR SALE - Rod-Hockey game table with battery operated scoreboard. 49”x31”x36” high. $95. 519-523-4429. 28-3 --------------------------------------------
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Notices
Special family time Recently, five generations of Auburn’s Chamney family were able to be together - a feat that is so rare these days. Life-long Auburn resident Bud Chamney, bottom left, is seen holding his great-great grandson, Brooks Bastasin. Rounding out the rest of the generations are, clockwise from top left, Bud’s granddaughter Alison Bell, son Doug Chamney and great-granddaughter Madison Bell. (Photo submitted)
Procters to host outdoor services PEOPLE AROUND BELGRAVE
Your $e Yo ecret to a $uccessful Garage $ale Adverrtise in The C Citizen 519-52 23-4792
Noticees
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All word ads in The Citizen classifieds are put on our webpage at www.h huroncitizen.ca
By Linda Campbell Call 357-2188 Rev. Colin Snyder was the Worship Leader at Knox United Church on Sunday, July 21. He welcomed the congregation and lit the Christ Candle and the congregation sang “Open My Eyes, That I May See” accompanied by Mary Vair on the piano who also played prelude and postlude music. Scripture readings were read from 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, Ephesians 2:11-22 and Mark 6:30-34 and 5356. Rev. Colin Snyder’s reflection was entitled “Coming to our senses.” We need to simply open our eyes to see, open our ears to hear and open our hearts to feel the presence of God around us and within us. Hopefully, weather permitting, August services will be at the pond at the back of Ken and Lila Procter’s farm. If it’s rainy, the service will take place at Knox United Church. The community coffee break was held on Tuesday, July 23 at the Community Centre with fewer people, but it is always a good time
to catch up on the latest happenings. It is a busy summer but we all look forward to the gettogether. This afternoon we have our over80 birthday party at the United Church. It will be an enjoyable afternoon. Birthday greetings are extended to Nancy Jardin (Aug. 1). Enjoy your day! Happy birthday to Brenton Lebold (Aug. 4). Have a fun day. Remember, the farmers are busy in the field and will be out on the roads. keep them in mind and slow down. Have a safe week and enjoy summer.
NEWS FROM BELGRAVE
THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 21.
Miller explores tragedy, courage with ‘Descendants’
A different perspective Owen Sound-based artist Tony Miller says that while many of his creations are inspired by tragic events, he sees the positive change or courage within the stories and tries to explore that positivity, when possible. His show, “Descendants” is now on at the Bainton Gallery at the Blyth Festival Art Gallery until mid-August. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Owen Sound-based artist Tony Miller’s solo exhibition at the Blyth Festival Art Gallery, entitled “Descendants”, is just the latest steps in the journey of an artist who has exhibited all over the province and says he would create art even if he never made a dime as an artist. Miller and his wife and fellow artist Lorrain Thomson were in Blyth for the opening of Miller’s show, which was on Saturday, July 13. However, Miller became, to the knowledge of Blyth Festival Art Gallery President Carl Stevenson and Festival Artistic Director Gil Garratt, the first artist to spend the week of his show at the Blyth Campground. Stevenson said he had been
working to have Miller exhibit at the gallery for some time after the two had connected in the Owen Sound area. The two met after Stevenson researched his genealogy and found he was, generations ago, connected to Black members of the Owen Sound community. He began to be part of Black history events in Grey County and became aware of Miller’s work. Miller’s “Descendants” largely consists of his paintings and mixedmedia pieces with a pair of lino prints from his first book, but he is experienced and accomplished in a number of disciplines, including making sculptures out of concrete. Speaking with The Citizen, he said he loves to make art and would do it even if there wasn’t a cent to be made. Luckily for him, however, he’s been able to carve out a career
for himself as an artist. He and Thomson co-own Bliss Studio in Owen Sound, which has become a place where they can both make and showcase their art. Miller’s mother, however, was an artist, so there was always an easel around, he said. Then he would find art as a bit of an escape from the day-to-day realities of his childhood, which he says wasn’t very good, and as a place to belong in his later school years. He played baseball, he said, but he wouldn’t call himself a “jock” and he felt that the art community was where he found he fit best. He would eventually accept art as something he could do for the rest of his life and potentially make a living doing it. The “Descendants” show focused on the generations that came before
Obituaries
DOROTHY “ISABEL” MACDONALD After almost 90 years, Isabel’s “busy hands” are still. Isabel MacDonald of Heartland Apartments, formerly of Erie Street, Clinton, earned her angel wings at Huron Hospice on July 19, 2024. She was predeceased in 2007 by her husband, Frank MacDonald. Left to carry on her legacy of integrity and persistence are brother Arnold Andrews of Centralia, children Terry (Rose) MacDonald of Sarnia, Judi Hodges of Waterloo, Nancy (Stew) Brown of Tara, Tracy (Rene) VanRaaij of Alma, grandchildren Adam (Lisa) MacDonald, Blake (Sarah) MacDonald, Katherine Hauser, Sarah Brown (Sean), Jessica Brown, Austin (Stephanie) Brown,
Adriaan and Quincy VanRaaij, great-grandchildren Adley, Levi, Maple, Linda (Matthew), Lena (Gregery), Jadan, Tyrus, Brooklyn, Hayley and Clara and many wonderful nieces and nephews. Isabel was predeceased by her sister Donelda (Doug) Lewis, and in-laws Marian (Ross) Millar, Archibald (Dorothy) MacDonald, Jack (Jean) MacDonald, Bill (Carol) MacDonald, son-in-law David Hodges and grandson-in-law Michael Hauser. Whether Isabel was sewing, gardening, teaching ceramics at the Busy Hands Boutique, bookkeeping for her racing plumber, Frank, or building a home and life for her family and little dog, Tammy Rose, she approached everything she did with energy, inspiration and creativity. She was tireless, forward-thinking and feisty! She was loved for all these things and more. Isabel adored the colour purple and, in fact, all bright colours! Please feel welcome to wear purple or bright colours to celebrate her life. Visitation for family and friends is at the Clinton United Church on Friday, July 26 from 10:30 a.m. until the time of the funeral service at 11:30 a.m. The service will be followed by a reception luncheon at the church. Cremation has taken place. Inurnment will be held at
Dungannon Pioneer Cemetery at a later date. Memorial donations to the Huron Hospice Bender House or the London Health Sciences Foundation would be appreciated in lieu of flowers. Messages of condolence for the MacDonald family are welcome at www.falconerfuneralhomes.com
him, the people who have come into the world since and how they have shaped the world around them. As the descendant of escaped slaves who settled at the last stop of the Underground Railroad in Owen Sound, many of the stories that Miller’s art tells are sad, tragic and harrowing. However, Miller says he chooses not to see them that way, or, he seeks to find the joy and courage in the tales. Miller said at the opening night of his show that he seeks to tell the stories of courage of people who were persecuted for being Black and the changes their persistence and dignity would help bring about. This is the story of his art, but it’s also his own story. He said he receded into the background at times when he was younger and struggled with his identity at times, but he eventually began to embrace his identity and learn more about the bravery and success of Black members of the community. There are some stories, of course, such as pieces that deal with slavery, that have no silver lining, but Miller says that the very nature of the show is to explore what it’s like to be part of a community, coming from people who have had these kinds of tragic experiences. When he was a child, Miller felt that Black people were often characterized as being savage or uneducated in racist depictions in everyday entertainment. When he was able to look past that racism and find inspirational stories about the Black community, he learned more about his heritage and began to explore it through his art. His work has since been included in more than 40 individual and group exhibitions, including “From the Soul: Caribana Art Exhibit” in 2010, which was presented at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. The exhibition was curated by
renowned African-Canadian artist and activist Joan Butterfield and it represented the country’s largestever single-juried display of works of art by African-Canadian artists. Forty-nine artists contributed a total of more than 160 pieces to the exhibition. Miller was one of just a handful of the participating artists who were singled out for praise in a review by R.M. Vaughn of The Globe and Mail, who said, “One of my personal favourites in this vast collection was Tony K. Miller’s luminous, simultaneously festive and commemorative family portraits.” As for Blyth, Miller said he really liked the community and was impressed with Memorial Hall and its Bainton Gallery, specifically, lauding its size and presentation, saying he likely could have brought a few more pieces to be part of the exhibition. Miller’s show will close on Saturday, Aug. 10. The gallery will be open when the Festival’s box office is open.
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Remembering your loved one Honour your loved one by placing their obituary in
The Citizen. This is a free service provided by The Citizen. We encourage you to share the story of your loved one in a special remembrance of their life. Cards of thanks can be placed in our classified section, starting at just $ .00.
PAGE 22. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
HE stays status quo on Hensall Road, despite complaints By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen
Coming in hot! Last Wednesday, the U11 Girls Brussels Tigers hosted the Elma Express II team in Brussels, but, unfortunately for the locals, they fell to the Express by a score of 15-8 as they enter the last few weeks of the regular season. (John Stephenson photo)
McCutcheons reunite at farm PEOPLE AROUND WALTON By Jo-Ann McDonald Call 887-6570
The good weather has the farmers going fast and furious to get the wheat crop in. Combines are going, tractors and wagons are being loaded and they’re headed to the elevators. Balers are following in the fields to bale the straw, tractors and wagons are laden with bales and, in some places, seed drills are almost following the balers and then farmers are planting cover crops. It is a busy time for farmers and their families. Summer is time for family reunions, school reunions and town reunions. It was time for the McCutcheon reunion, held on the McCutcheon farm, and it was the 50th anniversary of Jack buying the farm that has held many family reunions, family parties and fun get-togethers outside of Brussels. There was a very large crowd attending from across the province, the country and even the U.S. The families of Lori, Michelle and Jill, the daughters of Jack, now deceased, and his wife, Esther, camped there for the weekend. There were seven campers for the weekend. Betty McCutcheon had daughter Cheryl and son Quinn and Darian from Colorado, Terry and Wendy and children Ashley and Daniel with Megan from Kitchener and Blaine’s son Darcy and Melissa, McKayla and Tucker from Alberta. They also invited friends and families from both sides of their family for the potluck supper, live music and fireworks. The kids had fun four-wheeling, frog catching
and blowing up water slides to entertain them. It was also Bruce and Michelle Blake’s 40th wedding anniversary, but, unfortunately, Bruce was busy combining wheat and didn’t make it until after 10 p.m., but still in time to have a dance with his bride. They report having a great time, one and all! Returning from a great trip to Newfoundland are many local folks. It was an organized tour and the group flew from Toronto to Deer Lake, Newfoundland. They then boarded the bus for a grand tour of the province for nine days. Some of the local folks there were Dave and Karen Bowles, Joe Hallahan and Catherine Terpstra, Henny Terpstra and Cookie Morton. They had exceptional weather, went on two boat cruises and were able to see whales and puffins, beautiful scenery, and they enjoyed eating fish, fish and more fish. The people were fantastic to meet and they were so friendly. They report that folks in the east are so friendly and accommodating to visitors. They flew home from St. John’s
with great memories! Welcome home! Celebrating birthdays are Dianne Flood, Sharon Godkin Paterson, Sherry McCall, Corrina Strong, Ken Williamson, Sandra Brown, Christopher Ritchie, Curtis Ryan, Andrew Van Vliet, Anne Williamson, Karin McDonald, Michael Warwick, Andrea Taylor, Bradley Fraser, Laura Godkin, Alivia McCall MacBain, Charles Gulutzen, Lanette Todd, Jim Blake and Kathy Elliott.
Huron East Council has opted to stick with the status quo in regards to traffic calming on a stretch of Hensall Road between Front and Tile Roads, despite pleas from the residents of Heritage Estates along that portion of the road. Director of Public Works Barry Mills presented council with a report on the subject at its May 21 meeting. This comes after a presentation from a representative of the Heritage Estates community presented on behalf of the group in April, citing safety concerns for those walking and cycling along the roadway. At that meeting, Paul Blayney said the mobile home community’s situation is a bit out of the norm, in that it is a small, urban settlement along a rural road, leading to a need for recreational space for exercise, but mixed in with a rural, highspeed-limit highway. In his report, Mills noted that speed limiting measures had been taken on two roads at the beginning of the year as a result of heightened daily traffic flows confirmed through traffic analysis. These included two stretches of Front Road (between Huron Road and Fifth Avenue and from MacPherson Avenue to Hensall Road) and Krauter Line in Grey Township. The traffic analysis, Mills said in his report, showed that the aforementioned roads should be bumped up from Class 3 roads to Class 4 as a result of the traffic counts. He added that consistency throughout the municipality in regards to its roads is paramount. “In order to uphold the expected standard of service, the speed limit needed adjustment to reclassify these roads to a Class 4, aligning
them with the majority of roads in Huron East. Consistency in road classification ensures uniformity in patrol and maintenance protocols across the municipality in accordance with the minimum maintenance standard for level of service.” Mills noted that data from Hensall Road between Front and Tile Roads had been collected in July of 2019 and again in May of 2024. In 2019 the data showed an average of 399 vehicles per day and an average speed of 86.9 kilometres per hour, while, in 2024, the vehicle count dropped to 175 vehicles per day at an average speed of 90 kilometres per hour. “Hensall Road is a two-kilometre stretch between Front and Tile Roads with stop signs at each intersection and, as of the reporting date, there is no evidence of a notable increase in accidents along this section of road,” Mills said in his report. He told council that he didn’t feel any changes were necessary, despite the concerns, adding that there is a certain level of responsibility on residents as well in regards to road safety. “In response to the public’s concern regarding the existing speed limit along Hensall Road from Front Road to Tile Road, staff are of the opinion that no alteration is warranted at this time. However, should council desire to delve into potential adjustments to the posted speed limit, an engineered traffic and speed study of the road segment should be conducted to ascertain Continued on page 25
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THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 23.
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OFA continues investment in safety programming By Crispin Colvin, Director, Ontario Federation of Agriculture Safety is important in farming, and many organizations work hard to raise awareness of being safe around farm machinery or when working with livestock. The topic of safety around harvested grain can be overlooked - but with the grain harvest now underway in Ontario, it’s also an important one to know about. In many areas of the province, you’ll see the golden fields of ripe wheat or barley become grain kernels and straw as farmers work on their fields. Harvested grain is hauled away from the field in wagons or tractor trailers and stored in grain bins on the farm before being delivered directly to a local grain elevator or sometimes even taken straight to a port for export. Regardless of how it is handled and stored, however, it’s important to keep safety top of mind. Trailers and bins of grain can be dangerous when you’re working with them and it’s easy to become trapped inside - an experience often described like quicksand. If help doesn’t come in time, it can lead to suffocation. That’s why the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), an
organization with which I serve as part of the provincial board of directors, is supporting a variety of projects around the province that focus on safety awareness as well as training for first responders who will be the ones called to the rescue - literally - in case of an emergency. Through these projects, local and regional federations of agriculture are helping to fund grain extraction units and equipment for rural fire departments as well as training on how to use these tools. The goal is to ensure that an emergency call involving someone trapped in a grain bin or trailer will be a successful rescue instead of a recovery mission. These projects are part of the OFA’s Revive Fund, which was launched in 2021 to help communities struggling with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the fund, our 51 county and regional federations can apply for matching funding from the OFA to help plan, develop and launch new projects and initiatives in support of agriculture and their local communities. So far, about $975,000 has been invested into the program by the OFA, its county and regional federations and other partners since
its inception, and new project ideas come forward every year. They are a great way to strengthen connections between OFA members and their communities in helping to raise awareness and support for the agriculture sector – and the grain extraction training and equipment is a terrific example of how farmers are actively engaged in meeting the needs of their local communities. Many other local and regional federations of agriculture are also using support from the Revive Fund to provide First Aid and CPR training for their members and families. Many rural fire departments, who are responsible for first response, are staffed by volunteers, so help can take longer to arrive than in urban regions - and farms are usually not close to populated areas. That’s why knowing what to do in an emergency is critical and can mean the difference between life and death. Most farms are small family businesses and they don’t have the health and safety training opportunities and workplace safety committees commonly found with larger companies or employers in other sectors, so the OFA helps fill that gap.
As an organization, we take all aspects of farm safety seriously and we work with many other like-minded groups to promote awareness and ensure people
have the tools they need to stay safe. After all, accidents can be minimized or even prevented with knowledge and training.
Sold! The Auburn Horticultural Society recently held its annual plant auction, with the help of Joni Reinhart, and welcomed about 50 people to the Auburn Community Hall. The club has since toured Bachert’s Elite B&B and is looking ahead to its Halloween party on Oct. 26 and Christmas crafts on Nov. 25. (Photo submitted)
BRUSSELS LIVESTOCK REPORT For the week ending July 19, 2024 Total Receipts: 1,660 cattle; 695 lambs, sheep, and goats Tuesday – Fed cattle sold on a steady market, with good buyer demand. Cows sold on an active trade at prices $2 - $3 higher. Thursday – Veal sold steady. Lambs sold steady to the week’s decline. Sheep sold stronger. Goat kids sold steady; cull goats sold stronger. Friday – Choice calves and yearlings traded stronger; second cut traded steady. Fed Cattle: There were 165 fed cattle on offer: Choice Fed Cattle: $245 – $265 up to $268 Second Cut Fed Cattle: $230 – $244 Aged and Medium Fed Cattle: $211 – $228 Holstein Fed Cattle: $175 – $227 Bill Finlay of Durham, consigned 23 head. One fat weighed 1,690 lbs. and sold for a price of $268. Inglis Farms of Clifford, consigned five head. One fat weighed 1,515 lbs. and sold for a price of $260.50. K/C McAlpine Farms of Ailsa Craig, consigned seven head. One fat weighed 1,790 lbs. and sold for a price of $252.50.
Cows: There were 180 cows on offer: Beef Cows: $165 – $192 up to $194 Good Holstein Cows: $158 – $165 up to $198 Medium Holstein Cows: $145 – $157 Bulls: $195 – $213 Kody Roddick of Petrolia, consigned three head. One red cow weighed 1,165 lbs. and sold for a price of $194. Cranbrook Farms of Brussels, consigned five head. One holstein cow weighed 1,420 lbs. and sold for a price of $198. Steve Stewart of Chatsworth, consigned one black bull that weighed 1,840 lbs. and sold for $213. Veal: There were 135 veal and 30 bob calves on offer: Beef Veal: Too few to establish a market Good Holsteins: $235 – $242 SL. Heavy Holsteins: $216 – $239 Heavy Holsteins: $191 – $207 Medium Holsteins: $229 – $234 Plain Holsteins: $220 – $228 Holstein Drop Calves: $100 – $1,275 /HEAD Solomon A. Martin of Priceville, consigned six head. One blue veal weighed 1,135 lbs. and sold for a price of $303. Bennewies Livestock Inc. of Bornholm, consigned seven head. One holstein veal weighed 745 lbs. and sold for a price of $239.
Van Nuland Holsteins Ltd. of Monkton, consigned 10 head. One holstein bob calf sold for $1,275. Lambs: Under 50 lbs.: Too few to establish a market 50-64 lbs.: $250 – $325 65-79 lbs.: $290 – $330 80-94 lbs.: $280 – $310 95-109 lbs.: $277 – $300 110 lbs. and over: $265 – $280 Sheep: $207 – $241 up to $270 Carman and Cheryl Bridge of Kincardine, consigned 15 head. Three lambs averaged 75 lbs. and sold for an average price of $330. Oliver Papple of Seaforth, consigned 32 head. Eight lambs averaged 95 lbs. and sold for an average price of $300. Goats: Meat Kids: $400 – $430 Dairy Kids: $330 – $410 Mature Bucks: $300 – $400 Mature Does: $100 – $250 Darrin Durand of Hensall, consigned eight head. Five kid goats averaged 63 lbs. and sold for an average price of $430. Sean Thomas of Goderich, consigned three head. Two kid goats averaged 86 lbs. and sold for an average price of $400.
Stockers: There were 1,150 stockers on offer: Top Quality Steers: Under 400 lbs.: $600 – $600 400 – 499 lbs.: $410 – $545 500 – 599 lbs.: $340 – $525 600 – 699 lbs.: $340 – $400 up to $439 700 – 799 lbs.: $337 – $419 800 – 899 lbs.: $324 – $373 900 – 999 lbs.: $312.50 – $347.75 up to $349.50 1,000 lbs. and over: $297.50 – $323 up to $326.50 Top Quality Heifers: Under 400 lbs.: $300 – $480 400 – 499 lbs.: Too few to establish a market 500 – 599 lbs.: $185 – $370 600 – 699 lbs.: $250 – $325 up to $377.50 700 – 799 lbs.: $270 – $323 up to $350 800 – 899 lbs.: $298 – $330 900 lbs. and over: $267.50 – $295.50 up to $301 Drew Rogerson of Moorefield, consigned eight head. Six simmental steers averaged 508 lbs. and sold for an average price of $525. Grandview Farm of Massey consigned 60 head. Ten charolais steers averaged 906 lbs. and sold for an average price of $349.50.
Flynn Farms of Clinton, consigned 190 head. Ten charolais steers weighed 906 lbs. and sold for an average price of $349.50. A-J Acres of New Liskeard, consigned 74 head. Nineteen charolais heifers averaged 841 lbs. and sold for an average price of $330. Tom Stull of Markdale, consigned 19 head. Seven simmental heifers weighed 904 lbs. and sold for an average price of $301. Hugh Ryan of Ailsa Craig, consigned 16 head. Three grey heifers averaged 1,035 lbs. and sold for an average price of $295.50.
BRUSSELS LIVESTOCK Division of Gamble & Rogers Ltd.
UPCOMING SALES TUESDAYS 10:00 a.m. Fed Cattle, Bulls & Cows
THURSDAYS
9:00 a.m. Drop Calves 10:00 a.m.Veal 11:30 a.m. Lambs, Goats & Sheep
FRIDAYS 10:00 a.m. Stockers Visit our webpage at: www.brusselslivestock.ca email us at: info@brusselslivestock.ca
Call us 519-887-6461
PAGE 24. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Report forthcoming on 15-year criteria for homes
Continued from page 1 change in the last few years to reflect a more modern approach with the rolling 15-year mark. However, with the house being constructed in 2016, it still doesn’t meet the new criteria. Council, however, didn’t really entertain the case made by Planner Jenn Burns and spoke in favour of approving the application with little discussion. There was discussion, however, about revisiting that 15-year criteria and perhaps revising it in the future. Council requested that staff prepare a report on the issue and return to council at a future meeting for further discussion.
*** Huron County Council is considering supporting the Huron County Cenotaph Book Project, being undertaken by local historian David Yates and photographer Conrad Kuiper, after a presentation from the two men. The book will be called For One Fleeting Dream of Right and the pair hope to have it released this fall in time for Remembrance Day. They asked the county for $5,000 in seed money to get the project off the ground - though the men have already begun their work - as a notfor-profit project. In his presentation to council, Yates said that any proceeds from the project
over and above the costs for expenses, design, layout and production, will be returned to the county. While some councillors were very impressed with the concept and prepared to approve the grant right away, staff urged caution and convinced council to follow its established procedure of not approving a financial request on the day it’s made and instead directing staff to prepare a report. In his presentation, Yates detailed some of the history of the county’s cenotaphs, saying they range in age from being created in 1919 (Hurondale) to 1966 (Clinton). The county has 13 cenotaphs, he said,
Collision near Auburn concerning
As a follow-up to one of my recent news items regarding municipal recreational facilities, I offer this. The Toronto Star recently asked Torontonians to submit their reasons for still loving their city. This was number 15 on a list of 56: “the free pools [indoor and outdoor] in summer.” Things continue to be in chaos in the U.S. as they approach the November election. President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he will not seek re-election after all, leaving his Democratic Party in a tailspin. The man obviously fears for his country should former President Donald Trump actually win. This may have been his major reason for staying in the race. But he has heeded the advice of family and cabinet personnel and stepped back.
Once again, however, Trump did little to change my opinion about him with his unkind words about Biden when he heard the news. The intersection of Base Line Road and Londesborough Road has collected more traffic casualties. Another accident at that location sent four people to hospital on Thursday evening and closed the road until nearly noon on Friday. That intersection was constructed a few years ago to provide an easier and direct route from Londesborough and parts east to Goderich. The trip over Ball’s Bridge and around the Little Lakes was confusing and lengthy prior to the installation of the new bridge and furthering of Londesborough Road west. However, for some reason, perhaps a tricky sight line, it has been the scene of many crashes. Even the rumble strips and flashing lights haven’t solved the problem. We slipped up to Goderich on that warm Saturday afternoon to see the just released movie Twisters. We so often are warned when watching a T.V. show to expect “adult content, coarse language and scenes of violence”. Well, this movie had none of those things, which was a nice change,
unless one counts the fury of the tornadoes. As a result of the things we learned about weather patterns and tornadoes themselves, I found myself watching Sunday’s clouds differently. When we entered the theatre lobby it was a tough choice for me. In the other theatre they were showing Despicable Me 4. I love those minions! I kind of wish I had a child to take as an excuse to go!
NEWS FROM LONDESBORO
though it would be 14 if the Lucknow cenotaph, where the names of those from Ashfield Township are inscribed, is considered. He also noted that two of the county’s cenotaphs in Goderich and Wingham will turn 100 this year. The stories of the cenotaphs have already been written, he told council, and the photographs will be taken in the coming months. He said that King Charles III and the Governor General have been asked to provide forwards for the book. Council asked staff to return with a report on the request. *** Huron County Council has authorized Director of Operations Imran Khalid and the Huron County Public Works Department to agree to a one-year term for the purchase of bulk coarse highway salt from Goderich’s Compass Minerals for the 2024-2025 season. This is in contrast to the recent three-year terms that the county has been negotiating. “The county procures highway coarse bulk salt to ensure effective management of winter road conditions. Historically, Huron County has been negotiating three-
year terms directly with Compass Minerals, which first began in 2015. The most recent term (20212024) has now expired and the County of Huron will need to secure pricing for 2024-2025,” Khalid said in his report to council, presented at council’s July 3 meeting. “Most of the counties tendered their salt procurement over the last three years and [found] higher prices compared to ours, with the exception of Middlesex County. On this basis, Huron County Public Works conclude [that] the negotiating strategy is paying off, as it minimizes any hedging for unknown labour, equipment and material costs in years two and three of a supply tender. Compass Minerals has treated the county very fairly over the years and staff suggest we maintain this arrangement for another year. Staff will continue to review comparative prices for salt in the industry.” Khalid told council that the oneyear term will provide staff with enough time to explore other options for purchasing once the term is up. Council approved Khalid’s recommendation.
Mini-riders Among those on the track on Sunday at the Clinton Raceway for the annual Vic Hayter Memorial Trot were the Young Gunz Mini Horse Races. (John Stephenson photo)
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THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 25.
From the Minister’s Study
Christ is here; the Holy Spirit’s presence is with you By Rev. JoAnn Todd, The Regional Ministry of Hope (Blyth and Wingham Anglican Churches) As I was reading the story of Jesus calming the storm, what struck me was the overwhelming sense of fear, of terror the disciples must have felt. Many of them were fishermen, used to being in boats on the water! But they truly feared for their lives, and I got to thinking, have I ever been that terrified, have I ever been afraid of actually losing my life? When I was flying to New York City in 2012 as the church’s representative on the United Nations Council for the Status of Women, we hit some really nasty turbulence after a three-hour delay to even get on the plane. We dropped, I don’t know how many feet, people without seatbelts went flying, drinks went flying, the plane went dark - that was scary and I did have a brief moment of wondering if that was the end. It was a terrifying experience at the time, I must admit. I was very glad when we landed, even if I was covered by my seatmate’s vodka and orange juice! We do, however, know that the disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee were overwhelmed with fear; they were in terror of perishing, mixed in with some frustration, probably hurt feelings,
and maybe a wee bit of anger, just for good measure. Jesus asks the disciples to take him across the Sea of Galilee, which, in itself, was interesting, because on the other side of the sea was largely nonJewish territory. So, off they went, to the lands of potentially hostile strangers, as they hung around with an upstart Jewish Rabbi who was intent on preaching a new way of interpreting and living out the Laws of Moses. That in itself might have been anxietyprovoking, if not actually fearful - a bunch of Jews going over to unfamiliar territory. Gentiles were generally not too receptive to Jewish strangers. Jesus obviously has faith in their seamanship and no real concerns about the journey, because he curls up to sleep in the back of the boat, comfy-cozy, head on a pillow. And then, while on the water, a storm blows up, it must have come up out of nowhere, because we can figure that a group of experienced fishermen would know better than to embark on a lake crossing, in the evening, if there was a storm brewing. And this must have been quite the storm - the waves so high the boat was being swamped, and yet Jesus sleeps right through it. The disciples were some upset they were in real danger! And it seems like Jesus doesn’t care that they’re probably going to drown.
Status quo maintained Continued from page 22 the appropriate course of action,” Mills said in his report. He noted that, if council were to go ahead with an engineer’s traffic study, it would cost the municipality approximately $3,500. Councillor Ray Chartrand disagreed with staff direction and made a motion to consider trafficcalming measures for that portion of Hensall Road, citing the unique relationship of the small urban area and a rural road. He recommended lowering the speed limit on that stretch of road to 50 kilometres per hour. Mills said that if council were to consider changing the speed limit on that portion of the road, he would recommend engaging a consultant to take a closer look at all of the roads in the municipality to ensure consistency. Chartrand’s motion to change the speed limit on Hensall Road between Front and Tile Roads was defeated, with council option in
Evangelical Missionary Church
favour of Mills’ recommendation to leave things status quo.
They obviously didn’t really know just who was in the boat with them! They waken Jesus in their awful distress, and Jesus stands up and orders the storm to still. And it does. The winds stop immediately, the waves subside, and all is calm on the lake. And that’s as scary as the storm was, because that’s when the fishermen disciples realize that aboard their boat was someone who could control the weather! Just let that sink in for a moment. If you had just experienced that - a violent, near-death experience on the high seas to an immediate and instantaneous calm - what would be going through your mind? Normal people can’t do that; regular folk, even if they are Rabbis or priests, have no power over the forces of nature. Who has that power? Now, recall the story at the beginning of Genesis - who created order and calm from the watery chaos before life was formed? God. And this Rabbi in the boat, who had absolutely no earthly fear of the hurricane-strength storm, simply says, “Peace! Be still” and the wind subsides and the waves calm down!? No wonder they were in awe. “Who is this then, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mk 4: 41NRSV) This is the one who calms the storms. This is the one who brings Peace in the midst of the storm. “Peace, be still.” (Mk 4: 39) “It’s ok now, I’m here, you don’t need to be afraid.” The disciples, overwhelmed with fear of the storm, are deathly afraid and don’t know what to do, or how
BRUSSELS S
U United Chu ur urch
to handle it; they are at their wits’ end. So, what do they do? They go to Jesus and all but demand his presence to their situation. “Don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” (v 38 NLT) And the power and the strength - the presence of Jesus - brings calmness and peace. Jesus never berates them; never tells them that there is nothing to be afraid of. He never says their feelings are not real - because feelings are very real to those who are experiencing them. Jesus just asks them why they were afraid. Where was their faith, their faith in him? We all struggle with the storms of life, and there is a whole litany of struggles we go through in a lifetime: pain, illness, loneliness, difficulties with relationships, problems with your significant other, your kids or your parents, money problems, anxious feelings, feelings of failure, grief or loss, and sometimes even fear of losing your life. There are times of uncertainty in our personal lives, when we feel afraid for the future, or we’re going into new territory and don’t know
what the destination we’re headed for will bring; times when we’re out of our depth, when we don’t really know where to turn. The good news in this gospel story is that our fears do not have ultimate power over us, because reigning over this world of fearsome things is a God who is mightier. Time and again in Scripture, these words are written: “Do not be afraid.” It is, you might say, the first and the last word of the gospel. It is the word the angels speak to the terrified shepherds (at Jesus’ birth) and the word spoken at the tomb when the women discover it empty: “Do not be afraid.” Not because there are no fearsome things on the sea of our days, not because there are no storms, fierce winds or waves, but rather because God is with us through all the storms of our lives. Remember, you are never, never alone. It’s OK, Christ is here. The Holy Spirit’s presence is with you. Then, calm your soul, and listen for the still, small voice that says “Peace, be still.”
The Regional Ministry of Hope Come Worship with Us! Trinity Anglican BLYTH 9:00 AM
St. Paul’s-Trinity Anglican WINGHAM 11:00 AM
519-357-7781 • email: revjoann@hurontel.on.ca www.regionalministryofhope.com Weekly service live-streamed at 11:00 a.m. on our Facebook page or on youtube @St. Paul’s-Trinity Anglican Church Wingham.
Brussels Mennonite Fellowship
Join J oin us at at Wor W Worship orship p Sunday, Sunday y,, July July uly 28, 11:00 0 a.m.
Come Worship with us
Come, the e invitation is open to all No Services at a Brussels United during August. We are invited to Wo Worship with h Melville Presbyterian each week at 11 a.m.
Sundays at 10:00 a.m. All Are Welcome
July 26, 2 p.m. Brussels Uniited “Sometimes Life needs a Little Planning” With Erin Donald, Dir. Clinical Serv. Huron Hospice, sharing what they offer.
Contact Alex at ministter.brusselsandblythuc@gmail.com y @g Website: b brusselsandblythuc.ca P.O. Box 359,, Brussels ~ 519-887-6259 P.
Interim Pastor Elwin Garland 250 Princess St., Brussels • 519 887 6388 The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control ~ Galatians 5:22
MEL LV VILLE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH BRUSSELS
No services at Melville for the month of July We are pleased to be invited to worship with our brothers and sisterss in Christ, every Sunday, at the Brussels United Church at 11 a.m. Soup & More 2 Join us every Friday from 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. for lunch. This free meal is made possible by the Brussels churches and many volunteers working together to serve our community. c All are welcome!
Sunday, July 28 at 10 a.m. BMG Community Centre (upstairs room) 800 Sports Drive, Brussels Childcare and Sunday School provided for children 0 to 8 during the sermon
Worship and Prayer Time Loving Fellowship Expository Preaching
Sunday July 28, 10:30 a.m.
Guest Speakers Martin and Genavieve Epp from the EMCC “Next Generation Team” will be joining us for the morning service as well as a learning lunch. They will be talking about some of the unique challenges that our youth face today and how to engage them. For more information, please call the church office.
For pastoral care concerns please call 519-524-7512 2
brusselscommunitybiblechapel.ca
Blyth United Church Sunday, July 28 at 9:30 a.m. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:11 Outreach project for July and August is back-to-school supplies for the Women’s Shelter.
Nursery & Sunday School during worship
On-site and online - live.huronchapel.com 119 John’s Ave., Auburn 519-526-1131
Join us Wednesday mornings for conversation in the garden starting at 10 am Contact Alex at: minister.brusselsandblythuc@gmail.com Facebook: Blyth and Brussels United Churches blythunited@tcc.on.ca ~ 519-523-4224
Services are live-streamed and can be found by searching n “Blyth Christian Reformed Church”
PAGE 26. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Division Court was presided over by Judge Holt on Monday, June 6, 1904 in Blyth. Three cases were presented. Read more in the Blyth Repository of History
405 Queen St., Blyth 519-523-4792 blythrepositoryofhistory.ca
Fridays The Citizen, July 23, 2009
Leadership in energy and environmental design
Devon Henry 84772 McDonald Line • Box 616 • Brussels
devonjhenry@hotmail.com 519-505-2473
The Citizen, July 4, 2019
The Citizen, July 30, 2009
The Citizen, July 29, 2004
The Citizen, July 11, 2019
The Citizen, July 18, 2019
THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024. PAGE 27.
Entertainment & Leisure
Celtic Roots Festival back for 32nd year in August
Celebrating Celtic culture The 32nd annual Goderich Celtic Roots Festival is coming back next month, offering a weekend of music, dance, art and family-friendly fun. Artistic Director Cheryl Prashker, above, has brought her extensive folk music experience to the festival, which features musicians from around the world. In the upper-right photo, last year’s Robinson Emerging Artist winners Kinnfolk perform at the 2023 edition of the festival. (Scott Stephenson photos)
By Scott Stephenson The Citizen In early August, the 32nd annual Goderich Celtic Roots Festival (GCRF) will be returning to Lions Harbour Park for a family-friendly weekend of music, dance, art and revelry. Although its origin can be traced back thousands of years to Northwestern Europe, there’s something about Celtic culture and music that tends to resonate with all kinds of people, worldwide. Over the past three decades, the GCRF has attracted Celtic musicians from across the globe to perform in Goderich and teach at the festival's annual musical college. One of those musicians is drummer Cheryl Prashker, who, years later, is now the GCRF’s Artistic Director and General Manager. The musical road that brought this well-respected artist to settle in Huron County is a long and winding one, which is not uncommon in the Celtic music scene. Prashker was kind enough to sit down with The Citizen to chat about everything from how she first found her folk, to how she ended up in the prettiest town in Canada helming one of the province’s best annual summer music festivals. A Montreal native, Prashker was a musically-minded young person from the get-go. “I always loved music, and I always wanted to play drums, but of course, that takes a little longer to get into,” she
explained. “I did the whole high school band thing.” Her early passion for music brought her to McGill University, where she was classically trained. “I was studying to be in the orchestra,” she admitted, “but I really just wanted to be a rock drummer. I’m an 80s girl, so, you know, it was rock and roll.” She first started to take an interest in the folk music scene after landing a gig playing with the Yiddish Theatre Company in Montreal. “I had a chance to travel to Russia with them, and all through Europe with them. It was an amazing experience, and I got more into folk music.” Upon her return from the old world, Prashker picked up and moved to New York City. “I just started going to open mics, and I started playing a little bit of Middle Eastern music with some people... I got very involved with the folk scene, and started to meet singersongwriters. I write a little bit, but I’m extremely shy about it. But I went to open mics, and I realized that it’s hard for guys and girls with guitars to find a drummer that is quiet enough to listen to their music and accompany it, quietly and respectfully. So I started bringing this little Middle Eastern drum, this little Doumbek, to the open mics, and then I started just accompanying everybody in New York.” Prashker moved from New York to Pennsylvania, where she became
a member of RUNA - an awardwinning Celtic band whose five members come from three different countries - the U.S., Canada and Ireland. While she was there, she also became involved with the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) in Philadelphia. “It would be like any other conference, basically. There’s workshops, and an exhibit hall, just like any business conference, but at night time, there’s showcases. Artistic directors can just walk around, and just listen to all the bands.” Prashker has found that the 15 years she spent helping organize the NERFA conference has really prepared her for the work she does with the GCRF. NERFA is a branch of Folk Alliance International (FAI) - a worldwide arts not-for-profit that exists to preserve, present and promote folk music. “It’s the major conference - it takes place in a different city every year,” she explained. Next year, the 2025 FAI Conference will be happening in her hometown of Montreal. “It’s a place where musicians can go and get seen by artistic directors, like myself, and get booked. There’s also regional conferences - Ontario has one of its own, called Folk Music Ontario (FMO). That conference is happening in October in Mississauga... it’s like walking around an indoor folk festival. There’s music in all the rooms, at all the times. People just looking for gigs. It’s an amazing thing.” Prashker’s percussive work with RUNA brought her to Huron County for the first time. “I’ve been a part of that band for 16 years, and we came to the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival in 2011 - the year of the tornado... I fell in love with Goderich. And I fell in love with the people, and I fell in love with the event.” RUNA returned to the festival the next year, but that wasn’t enough for Prashker. “Since you can’t come back every single
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year, I asked the organizers if I could come back and teach every year, and just be part of the Celtic College. And they said ‘sure.’ So I did that - I literally came back, every single year. And then I started to visit other times of the year. And I was in love with it, and I thought about moving here. Then they offered me the job as the Artistic Director and General Manager. That was in 2018.” Prashker organized 2019’s outdoor event in the park, only to find the festival would need to make a quick pivot into the virtual world to survive during the two most-restrictive years of the pandemic. Luckily, there was a new media upstart nearby that was looking for something to do. “We partnered up with Faux Pop, and they were figuring out what they wanted to do during COVID. They had this beautiful train station, so they turned it into a T.V. studio. Myself and a co-host literally did a live show, and all the musicians sent in video recorded versions of their 20-minute showcases. We presented the video portion, then Zoomed with the bands for a chat. It was like a late night interview show - it was amazing. We didn’t change anything, we just asked for donations, and we had enough money to pay all the musicians.”
Planning this annual celebration involves a lot more than just picking a weekend’s worth of cool bands to play songs in a beautiful setting. GCRF also involves a weeklong Celtic College, which has been successfully sowing the seeds of musical passion for three decades. “Two years after the original festival started, Warren and Eleanor Robinson, the founders, realized that people like to learn,” Prashker explained. “So they developed the Celtic College and the Kid’s Camp.” A week before the festival begins, all the musicians arrive in town. “We take over the local high school, and there are lessons in everything - from learning how to play bagpipes or how to play banjo or piano. There’s dancing, the Irish drum, singing, arts and crafts, and the classes go all day long. Every musician that comes in teaches whatever they’re good at, so every year it’s different courses. We’ve had people coming to this college for 30 years.” This unique musical education opportunity isn’t just a fun festival bonus - it’s the true lifeblood of the GCRF. It’s Prashker’s job to organize the college first, and the weekend's musical programming second. “People are always saying ‘hey, you should have this band, or you should have that band - it would be so awesome!’. But, interestingly enough, I have to do it backwards. I have to book the bands based on what they teach. I can’t have too many fiddlers, and not enough flute players. I have to balance the college first, and hope it makes for a good festival... all the slots at the festival are taken by the teachers and their bands.” While the Celtic College is only for interested artists 13 years old and up for children aged four to 12, there’s the Kid’s Camp, of which Prashker is a huge fan. “We take over four or five classrooms in the corner of the school, and we offer a complete, full-day program for the Continued on page 28
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PAGE 28. THE CITIZEN, FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024.
Entertainment & Leisure
McKennitt’s ‘Celtic Roots’ recorded largely at festival
Loreena McKennitt performing at the 2023 Goderich Celtic Roots Festival Continued from page 27 kids. They learn everything singing, dancing, arts and crafts, foam swords. I actually want to take the foam sword class - Dave Armour teaches that class.” Armour runs The Livery Theatre, and used to teach high school drama, so he knows a few things about pretend swordsmanship. His wife, Catherine Armour, is also helping to run the Kid’s Camp this year. Monday through Thursday at the College is devoted to learning new skills, but Friday is dedicated to showcasing those new skills, all over town. “All the classes that want to, come over to the festival site and play what they learned on the stage for about 10 minutes, and that’s how we open the festival. And the kids do the same thing on the Kid’s Stage, and all their parents and grandparents can come see them perform. Some of the adults are never on stage their whole lives, except for those 10 minutes, which I think is so cool.” Prashker’s enthusiasm for the festival’s gauntlet of Friday activities is equal parts obvious and infectious. “So that’s how the day goes. But the day’s not over there. Wait! Wait for it - after the classes are done, we go over to The Livery Theatre for an open mic, for an hour. Anybody can get up and sing a song. After dinner, we go to the little gazebo in the town square, which is called ‘The Square’, and we put on what we call ‘The Teacher Concerts’... it’s a chance to show the town a little bit of what is going to happen at the festival. After that, there’s a céilí dance in The Square. It used to only be for the college students at The Livery, but we’ve busted out of there, sizewise. Anybody, no matter their age, or whether they’ve ever danced before, they can get up and learn a few Irish dance moves.” This Friday night mini-festival is free for all who wish to attend. For the teachers and students, however, the night is still far from over. “Then, we go over to The Park House Restaurant, and there are sessions there all night. Singing sessions are upstairs, and playing sessions are throughout the entire restaurant. That ends at about two or three in the morning, and that’s the day. And then you gotta get up, and do it all over again.” Prashker believes that one of the big draws of their college is this unprecedented access the students have to worldclass teachers and talent. “Our sessions are for the college students and the pros. Sometimes, if you go to another festival, they say there will be sessions at night, but they’re strictly for the pros - nobody else is allowed to play. And I just don’t think that’s right. Here, everybody’s
welcome... It is a true folk festival, and a true session in the pub.” Once the first day of the festival fully begins, there is a lot going on in a very small space. There are five stages, a large arts and crafts vendor market, an international food court, a craft beer tent, kid’s activities, various workshops, and a giant merch table. This year, the merch table will feature a new live album by Loreena McKennitt, much of which was recorded at her phenomenal performance at last year’s festival. “Every band gets one Main Stage performance at night, and one Dailey Stage performance during the day.” The Dailey Stage is tented to offer shade to both acts and audience during daytime performances. “On top of that,” she continued, “we have our workshop stage. We take one musician from this band, one musician from that band, one from this band, one from that band, throw them together, give them a title or a theme, and say ‘go for an hour.’ I think bagpipes and banjos sound like a good workshop, right?” The other workshop stage is reserved for kid’s activities and dancing. “It’s an interactive dance opportunity. If people want to get up and learn social Irish dance, or clog, or whatever, those are happening all day on Saturday and Sunday... we’ve got something for everybody. This year, Prashker is personally excited for the return of Windborne, a group of singers from New England that have toured the world as performers and teachers. “It’s two husbands and wives, which is so cool. They have some of the most beautiful voices - like, my mouth just dropped when I heard them sing in person. They are stellar musicians.” She also knows that Goderich folk fans will be extremely happy to welcome Archie Fisher back to the festival. “He’s a fan favourite, and he’s Scotland’s premiere singersongwriter. A lot of songs that people have heard over the years that they think were written 300 years ago - he wrote.” Fisher, who turns 85 in October, recently retired from overseas touring, but he’s agreed to cross the pond one last time to perform at the GCRF. “It’s kind of huge for us.” Prashker hopes that this year’s line-up introduces more Canadians to Irish singing-sensation Karan Casey. “Most people here don’t know her - she was the lead singer of a band called Solas that was half based in Ireland and half in the States. She has one of the most exquisite voices to have ever come out of Ireland, and she’s never been here before, so I’m super excited.
She’ll be on Saturday night, and I think she’ll probably be one of people's favourites.” Bringing in artists like Fisher and Casey, who hail from the birthplace of Celtic culture, is an essential part of the festival. “Huron County has a large Celtic population - people that are of Irish and Scottish descent. This is an event for them to celebrate their heritage, and a way for them to honour their past and their history.” Local acts and artists from other parts of Ontario and Canada are also a programming must. “But also, for this area and this town, it’s a bit of an education. And it’s something a little different. With really good music.” The GCRF also strives to include musicians from all over the world, which serves to underscore the truly universal appeal of Celtic culture and folk music. The Japanese band O’jizo, which made its Canadian
debut in Goderich, will be returning this year. The band that discovered western folk music in high school through the films Braveheart and Back to the Future: Part 3 came to Goderich as the co-winners of the 2021 Robinson Emerging Artist Showcase. “They’re phenomenal...they were a little tentative about playing, but that was two years ago. I went to a conference in Ireland in January, and I saw them again, and they blew everybody away. Beyond a doubt, they were the best band of the entire weekend.” Putting together this huge little festival certainly isn't a one-person job. “We have an incredible board of directors, which consists of eight people. They are always hands-on, supportive, and willing to help. But the great thing about this festival are the volunteers. The biggest reason this thing has gone on as
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long as it has is the volunteers. We put all the musicians up in people’s homes - those hosts deserve a medal, as far as I’m concerned.” Prashker has a student assisting her during the early stages of festival planning each year, and the other volunteer-led teams begin coming together as the big event draws nearer. This year, accessible shuttle buses from Goderich District Collegiate Institute to Lions Harbour Park are being arranged to make festival parking easier. Altogether, about 250 volunteers make the GCRF happen each year. With the college and festival just a few days away, there’s still a lot of work to do, but Prashker wouldn’t have it any other way. “This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I love it. It’s like putting a puzzle together. It’s like a dream job. And you can quote me on that.”
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