The Rural Voice - June 2021

Rural Voice

The

June 2021

THE MAGAZINE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE ... $2.50 PM 40037593

HELLO TO HAZELNUTS

100 KM MEAL CHALLENGE

Hazelnut orchards are moving north as enterprising farmers look to long-term profits

From a bacon breakfast to homemade pasta, cooks create with local ingredients

CONSERVATIONISTS The Strang family is named Conservationist of the Year for building soil health

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Contents

20

The

Rural Voice THE MAGAZINE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE

Published monthly by: The Rural Voice, Box 429, Blyth, Ontario, N0M 1H0 Telephone: 519-523-4311 Fax: 519-523-9140 e-mail: info@northhuron.on.ca Publisher: Deb Sholdice Editor: Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot rveditorlisa@northhuron.on.ca

16

38

Columns Lisa B. Pot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Keith Roulston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Kate Procter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Jeffrey Carter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Mabel’s Grill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Recipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 Gardening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Woodlots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Agrilaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

Departments Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Ruralite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 Business Centre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 Advertisers Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71

Newsletters National Farmers Union . . . . . . . . . .66 Perth County Pork . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67 Grey County Federation . . . . . . . . . .68 Bruce County Federation . . . . . . . .69 Perth County Federation . . . . . . . . . .70 Huron County Federation . . . . . . . . .72

Contributing writers: Keith Roulston, Kate Procter, Jeffrey Carter, Rhea Hamilton Seeger, Arnold Mathers, Donna Lacey, Melisa Luymes, Anne Mann, Nancy Fisher, Bonnie Sitter, Jeff Tribe, Amanda Brodhagen, Hetty Stuart and Bob Reid.

JUNE 2021 • Cover Photo The Strang family Photo by Tim Cumming

• Deadlines: July Issue

Mailed by: McLaren Press Graphics, Bracebridge, ON – June 15

August Issue – July 13

16 Future for Hazelnut Orchards?

Thinking long-term, farmers are planting hazelnut orchards for profit

26 Future of Fairs The pandemic has forced agricultural societies to get creative and and go virtual with fall fairs

30 100 km. meal challenge Three cooks take local ingredients to design and cook a three-course meal

38 The Lone Elm The Browns’ beloved elm tree, dies but family members make treasures from its wood

Sales representative: Shelley Kroes rvads@northhuron.on.ca Production co-ordinator & Telemarketing: Joan Caldwell Advertising & editorial production:

Dianne Josling PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40037593 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 429, BLYTH ON N0M 1H0 email: info@northhuron.on.ca Subscriptions: $20 (12 issues) $35 (24 issues), includes HST Back copies $2.75 each,U.S. rates, $65.00

42 Sauces and Spices Homemade sauces are perfect with barbecued meats

46 Stay Positive!

Dr. Jan Pol takes the virtual stage at the Canadian Dairy XPO

All manuscripts submitted for consideration should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher. Editorial content may be reproduced only by permission of the publisher. The Rural Voice makes every effort to see that advertising copy is correct.

However, should an error occur, please notify The Rural Voice office within 30 days of invoicing in order to obtain a billing adjustment.

NH

ORTH URON

PUBLISHING COMPANY INC.

A division of North Huron Publishing Company Inc.

Feedback Letters to the Editor may be sent to The Rural Voice, P.O. Box 429, Blyth, On N0M 1H0

Cross-border servicing issues are complicated The Editor, The Huron County Federation of Agriculture (HCFA) works in an advocacy role on behalf of our farm family members. Along with our commodity partners in Huron County and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the HCFA is committed to a profitable and sustainable future for farm families.

The cross-border servicing

2 The Rural Voice

agreement between the Corporation of the Township of North Huron and the Corporation of the Municipality of Morris-Turnberry has been brought to our attention repeatedly as it has impacted the services at Green’s Meat Market and Abattoir Ltd. The HCFA wrote to both councils in August, 2020 to show our support for Green’s Meat Market and Abattoir Ltd. We asked both councils at that time to look at the importance of Green’s Meat Market and Abattoir Ltd. and determine how to proceed with coming to an agreement. At that time, we also indicated that we would appreciate being kept apprised of updates or status changes.

We are disappointed that an agreement has not been reached for cross-border servicing.

We understand that negotiating this agreement will be complicated, yet this agreement is necessary. This issue has brought to light the need for good working relationships between our lower-tier municipalities and in order to move

forward communication will be necessary. We understand that both sides are looking for a reasonable and fair agreement.

The HCFA encourages both municipalities to continue working towards a mutual understanding and work towards a conclusion of this matter.

Thank you. ◊ – Rob VandenHengel Huron County Federation of Agriculture

Deadline for the July issue of The Rural Voice is June 15

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Ruralite

“

•

Fair volunteers are often older

The Lone Elm

people ... and many of these people will

“Stuart visited his dad and told

not be back. Fairs have always been

”

him the Lone Elm was on national television. Austin got a huge smile on his face despite what he was going through medically because his special tree was being honoured.”

changing but the most drastic change might be the pandemic.”

~ Angela Schneider on the effect of the pandemic on the Palmerston fall fair, and all agricultural fall fairs, as organizers come up with new ways to offer these cornerstone community events. Story on page 26.

~ Nancy Brown, on the story of the Lone Elm, a majestic elm that survived on their Grey County farm for generations before ice storm damage opened it up to invasion of Dutch Elm disease. The tree was cut down last year with family members taking pieces of the wood to make keepsakes. Story on page 38.

Well Stated • Tomorrow: One of the greatest labour saving devices of today.

• Yawn: An honest opinion openly expressed.

• Wrinkles: Something other people have...similar to my character lines.

FARMING IN JUNE

“This farm is more than land and crops. It is our heritage and our future.”

Peter Schuttel says to his neighbour, Achim Stoecker and employee, Rick Pot, you need to see this! He had been cutting down Ironweed trees in his bush to make flooring and discovered each stump was covered with orange slime.

Turns out Ironweed sap makes a perfect breeding ground for orange-pigmented yeast and fungus to grow. The primary fungus creating the bright orange colour is Fusicolla merismoide. ~Photo by Rick Pot

~Author unknown

•

Neil’s One-Liners (Wisdom from the McGavin files)

• The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom

•

June 2021 5

Lisa B. Pot Lisa B. Pot is editor of The Rural Voice and farms in Huron County

The history of Little Bluestem I saw Jean Kellestine walking toward her neat, white house after getting the mail and had to break into a jog to catch up with her, even though she was one week shy of turning 90 years old. Living on her own, with frequent visits from her two grown sons, she walks daily to get the mail and greet neighbours along the way.

“I figure I’ve known over 100 people who have moved in and out of the Proctor Subdivision,” says Jean, who has lived here for 65 years from the days when it was all bush to witnessing million dollar homes being built across the road.

My partner, Jason, and I purchased one of the cottages in the Proctor Subdivision in March and have been investing lots of money and time in fixing it up for a vacation rental. We’ve named it Little Bluestem Cottage and quite a few friendly neighbours have stopped by to check the progress on “Claire Pyke’s cottage”. The older ones, like Jean, remember it as “Irene’s cottage”. It’s the history of Little Bluestem and this wonderfully quiet neighbourhood tucked in the woods beside Lake Huron that I want to learn about. As the first resident, there’s no one better to ask than Jean.

Sitting in her cozy kitchen, panelling on the walls and a puzzle in the works on the kitchen table, Jean settles in and tells me she was the oldest child of five born to Alvin and Elsie Proctor. Her parents were farmers here, when it was still called Carlow Central in Colborne Township (since amalgamated into Ashfield/Colborne/Wawanosh or ACW for short). When the Goderich airport was built, her parents sold 6 The Rural Voice

part of their farm to the airport Sunset Beach Road to pick up the owners and kept 51 acres “this side kids and won! The bus still travels of the ravine” which was all bush down the road to pick up students broken by a lane that had grass from new families who have moved growing in the middle. Alvin’s plan into the Proctor Subdivision. was to create a housing settlement In 1964, Chuck and Jean lifted and he got municipal approval to their house to put a foundation under start making 50 by 100 foot lots it and added an addition to create a which were later required to be 100 larger kitchen and two more by 150 foot lots. bedrooms. That is how the house “I was living in London and my remains today, painted a crisp white dad told (my husband) Chuck and me with a red barn out back where we should build a cottage on one of horses used to be kept in the winter. the lots and move back home,” Dan, who was visiting his mom remembers Jean. Theirs was the first during the interview, remembers building in the subdivision and Jean horse-drawn sleigh rides around the and Chuck were the first full-time horseshoe of Elm, Walnut and Pine settlers once the three-room cottage streets. was built in 1955. They had Jean can’t recall exactly when electricity but no running water, no Little Bluestem cottage was built but indoor toilet, no neighbours, no she remembers the woman who built telephone and no mail service. It was it well. That was Irene Orris, sometimes a lonely existence for the described as a strong, mannish, goodparents of three. They used an hearted woman. She was a manager outhouse and had to prime the well to of maintenance at the Kelloggs carry water to the house. However, it factory in London, with many men in always felt like home to Jean who her employ. She worked hard and loved watching the animals come often wore work clothes like the men into the yard and raised her three did because it was practical and children — Don, Donna (now handy. deceased) and Dan — in the little Irene built the cottage herself but house. what she used was an unsolved She used to send Don down the mystery for us. When we gutted the rough road dressed in his snowsuit to inside, Jason and I saw all these catch the bus on Highway 21, a burgundy wooden walls held together substantial walk for a little fella. A with massive iron girders. What was year later, his cousin joined him as Jean’s brother also decided to build a home in the subdivision. Two years later, a handful of cousins tromped down the road to catch the bus and often lingered on the way home to play in the woods or the creek below the bridge where the road dips low through the ravine.

However, Don wasn’t always the healthiest so Jean Little Bluestem Cottage was built by Irene Orris, described fought the town- as a friendly woman with great strength by friend Jean ship to provide Kellestine who is the first inhabitant of Proctor’s Subdivision busing down and has lived down the road from this cottage for 65 years.

Lisa B. Pot this cottage used for in the past, we wondered. A horse barn? A hunter’s cabin? It was Dan who told us Irene used railway cars to frame the cottage and in the 60-odd years it has stood, it has not shaken from its foundation. It was built strong and solid, much like Irene herself, by all accounts.

“If you and I had been digging dirt out of the foundation, we would have tossed it under the wall but Irene, she threw it over the wall,” remembers Jean. She also remembers an event from the year Irene built a shed and was roofing it with shingles. Chuck and his brother Bill were helping and she recalls that Bill was climbing up the ladder with a bundle of shingles on his shoulders. “Well, Irene grabbed that bundle and Bill thought he was going to be lifted right off the ladder with it, she was so strong!” laughs Jean.

Irene never married and she enjoyed the cottage for many years, leaving quite a few trees in the yard to provide shade in what is the largest lot in the subdivision. While most are 100 by 150, Little Bluestem’s lot ended up 100 by 200 and once boasted a section of bush as well. Now, it is completely surrounded by trees, creating a cozy haven just on the corner of Sunset Beach Road and Walnut Street.

Jean considered Irene a good friend and they visited back and forth. Irene is now deceased and Little Bluestem Cottage has seen a few owners since then. Families have been raised within its sturdy walls, along with a miserly hermit and a man who raised ducks on the property. Its latest owner, Claire Pyke, lived there alone after her partner died. She was and is a hardworking woman who most likely would have impressed Irene. Claire worked full-time, took care of her family, and stacked and split wood to keep the fire burning in the cottage for a wood stove was its only source of heat. Claire also had a large 5th wheel trailer at the other end of the lot for she, too, planned to use it as a vacation rental. By 2021, Claire was ready for an easier life and purchased a brand new trailer to set up in a cottage community outside of

Bayfield. Jason, who lives next door, time she gets the mail and I hope she asked if she would consider selling to will. It’s fun to show the progress us. We thought it was the cutest little and she will remember how the cottage and would make a beautiful cottage looked when it was first built. vacation home with its huge lot and Jean has lived a long time, surviving the beach just a five minute ramble past her four siblings and most of her down the road. friends. In her 90 years, she’s Since purchasing the cottage, we watched families come and go in this have been busy with renovations. quiet, friendly community but Irene’s workmanship created a sturdy newcomers likely don’t know she cottage but passing time meant it needed quite a few repairs.

Some new windows were installed (with more new ones to come), the electrical and plumbing was redone, a new bathroom and utility room were installed along with a new kitchen. Many walls were gutted and insulated, plus the living room ceiling redone to open into Jean Kellestine shares photos of her home the upstairs loft.

Tongue-and-groove when it was just a tiny cabin in the bush pine covers the loft outside of Goderich. and is featured in each room of the cottage, with the was the first resident! She admits to remaining drywall freshly painted. being lonely sometimes but keeps Outside, the shed Jean’s husband busy with puzzles and knitting. She helped shingle had to be torn down. donates hundreds of knitted caps to All the interior beams had rotted and the Christmas bureau each year. while we’d hoped to save it, the costs I was thrilled to chat with her and of repairs were too prohibitive. learn the history of the Proctor Someday, a timber-framed gazebo Subvision and our own little cottage will stand where Irene’s shed stood. first hand. I hope this will be one I share these plans with Jean at her visit of many in the years ahead for kitchen table. I wish I could chat Jean fully intends to stay in her white longer but I’m supposed to be house on Elm Street as long as sanding and painting at Little possible. “This is home,” she says Bluestem. I invite her to pop up next simply. ◊ NATURAL ALTERNATIVE FOR SCOUR TREATMENT & PREVENTION

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June 2021 7

Keith Roulston Keith is former publisher of The Rural Voice.

He lives near Blyth, ON.

We all live unnaturally

As I write this in early May, we’ve been watching a bird build a nest in a tree outside our kitchen window – a reminder that even in nature creatures alter their environment for survival.

Birds, of course, don’t have the ability to re-engineer nature that we humans do. We have changed the world so much that the future of humanity is endangered by manmade climate change.

Human ingenuity is now being put to work to find ways to continue our comfortable lifestyle, built on using cheap fossil fuels, in a post-carbon world. Yet even our solutions will be opposed by people who invoke

nature in their arguments against unwanted changes around them.

For instance, much of the solution to energizing the world without the use of carbon dioxide-producing fuels involves greater utilization of electricity. It’s been proposed that the vast amounts of electricity produced in Labrador at the Churchill Falls hydro generating station could help western Canada reduce its dependence on oil, gas and coal. That would mean, however, building huge power lines across Quebec, Northern Ontario and the Prairies. Just mention that huge acreages of northern woodlands will be cleared for power lines and watch environmentalists who are worried about climate change oppose extending the electrical grid westward.

Already I read that some landowners along the route of a proposed electrical power line between Chatham and Lakeshore are protesting the line. I’ve been through that kind of fight before. I remember the bitter opposition in the 1970s when two new power lines from Bruce Power at Tiverton were

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proposed running southward near Lake Huron and further inland to hook up with the provincial electrical grid at Seaforth.

Similar angry debates arose across Ontario years later when wind turbines were being erected as the government of the time encouraged creation of “green” electricity.

Today we have the great debate over the Deep Geological Repository proposed near Teeswater to bury 50 years’ worth of radioactive waste from nuclear power stations that have given us jobs and cheap, non-carbon electricity for 50 years.

If the Teeswater site is rejected, as is likely because of the veto power of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, the alternative site is in Northern Ontario. You can bet that as soon as the idea of trucking nuclear waste through towns to the north is raised, opposition will explode.

Part of a low-carbon future will depend on electrical cars. Who can complain about that? Well, an article in the current issue of The Walrus magazine describes the environmental costs in northern Quebec of mining the lithium used in batteries that would power those cars.

Urban media has actually bemoaned the work-from-home trend that’s become prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic with workers trading their 700-square-foot downtown condos for suburban or even rural homes. There’s a theory, you see, that big city density, with people living close together in soaring towers, is better for the environment than rural living. Yet those 50-storey skyscrapers are built in large part from concrete, responsible for about five per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions and steel that contributes 10 per cent.

Cities also require huge amounts of gravel for roads, etc. Some urban friends of mine are currently opposing development of a new gravel pit which will scar a very scenic part of Huron County.

There’s no getting around it, we all live unnaturally because of human beings’ natural inclination to alter nature to make life easier. Few of us would want to go back to living more naturally in caves, log cabins or longhouses.◊

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Kate Procter Kate farms, hikes, canoes, and plays guitar in Huron County.

Towns fade but the plants remain I’m sure there are as many different ways to remember loved ones, events, and experiences as there are people. My long-time favourite is plants. My friend’s mother gave me a piece of lamium from her flower garden during one spring visit. I planted it, and always took a little bit whenever I moved. Today – it welcomes me by the main door and brings both my friend and her mother to mind every time I come home. The smell of geraniums always takes me back to my grandma’s kitchen. For many years, my jack pine served as a faithful reminder of my summer spent planting trees as a junior ranger.

A few weeks ago, I had been checking field edges for windfalls and was walking along the river. I followed an animal path up the steep river bank. Suddenly, I came upon a clearing that was full of brilliant colours, in sharp contrast to the dull underbrush that hadn’t yet taken on the clothes of spring. It instantly brought to mind a bunch of people that I have never even met. People long gone, but not forgotten.

Those people planted primroses and grape hyacinths, rhubarb and lilacs. All brought with them from England when they came and settled Morris township in the mid 1850s.

Before I get angry letters – I’m well aware that many creatures – both plant, animal, and yes, more than a few humans – have been transplanted from place to place and done irreparable harm. But in this case, the plants in question have been well behaved, not displaced large swaths of native vegetation, and just quietly continue blooming in their spot, 10 The Rural Voice

spring after spring, for over 170 flourish, and the families moved years. away. The lime kilns remained in These plants lived in the Bodmin operation and I found an village gardens, located near where advertisement for fresh lime in the Brandon Road crosses the middle Brussels Post from 1902, but it is Maitland River. “William Harris, the believed to have operated until 1910. founder, settled here in the winter of “The Bodmin Lime Works, 4th Line, 1853-1854, naming the site after the Morris, are ready for the Spring trade county seat of Cornwall, in his and have a quantity of fresh lime on mother country, England. Here he hand. Guaranteed to be first-class. built the first grist and saw mill in Price 15c. a bushel at the kiln. A. Morris township” (Kirby, Jeanne.

Nicholson & Son. Proprietors.” A clothing ad placed around that time Morris Township Past to Present, 1981). for “the very latest New York styles” William Harris’s young daughter, that fit perfectly also offered to trade Sarah, was buried on the river bank, eggs for goods. her stone moved to the cairn located My Dad, George, and his brothers, where the Bethel Church once stood, Ross and Charles, purchased the land on the corner of the farm where my in 1955. For anyone who has ever parents live. Although the stones are wondered, our farm name, Bodmin, very difficult to read now, you can comes from that long-gone village make out some of them. “Sarah that was located on the banks of the Harris, daughter of William and Maitland River, the land now used to Isabelle Harris, Died July 22, 1864. grow wheat, corn, and soybeans.

Age 1 year, 9 months. The stones tell There is no “Mr. Bodmin” here, the story of the tough life and although it is a good way to weed out hardships endured by the tele-marketers these early settlers. when they call. A Bodmin was a map from the time bustling little place for shows that while about 30 years. In there were no addition to the grist and Procters actually saw mills, there was living in Bodmin, also a post office, Charles and school, manse, tailor, Abraham Procter lime kilns, general had farms close by. store, and cabinet They are the only factory (Kirby, 1981). I farms still owned sent pictures of the by descendants of primroses to an expert those original in such things and she Primroses from yesteryear settlers. told me that old I have visited newspapers are available online from Bodmin in England and thought both the Huron County Museum, and about the people who bravely set out the Huron County Library. It is across the ocean to an unknown land. unbelievably easy to access and on The presence of those flowers always more than one rainy spring day, I makes me wonder… did they really found myself venturing down a rabbit have any idea what conditions here hole into a long-gone time. I learned would be like? Who would think to a few things, one of the most pack ornamental flowers if they important being that human nature actually knew the difficult life they has not changed in all these years. would be facing? As I wondered this Long before Facebook and Twitter, aloud to my Dad, he suggested that neighbours exchanged barbs in the they knew they would never be back local paper – the only difference and just longed to carry a piece of being they had an editor to call a halt home to their new land. As far as when things got out of hand. memorials go, plants have proven to Bodmin thrived until 1880 or be perhaps the best – long outliving 1890, when the location of the the humans and the structures they railroad helped Blyth and Belgrave built. ◊

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Jeff Carter Jeff is a freelance journalist based in Dresden, Ontario.

A reflection on meetings with the Indigenous A river passes through our little rural community. It’s here where further upstream navigation ends for anything much larger than a canoe or shallow-draft skiff.

The river once served as a highway for lake-going vessels, the connection to Lake St. Clair and from there, the world. Apart from the spring thaw or when there’s a heavy rainfall, the current of the claycoloured waters are at best sluggish.

It’s a place that has for centuries been a gathering place and even permanent settlement. Around the turn of the 18th century people of African and European descent arrived to join the original inhabitants. All would gather along the banks for trade, for celebration, for nourishment of the soul.

Generations have passed and much has been forgotten of those times and yet a collective memory remains infused, part of the very landscape. At least it would seem.

A year ago, I was dealing with a

12 The Rural Voice

pair of overgrown rose bushes on a bright Sunday morning on the river flats next to the plaque celebrating a noted civil rights activist when I was approached by a cyclist. I had seen him earlier, weaving from sidewalk to street and back again with little regard for the sparse traffic, a miniscule black dog peeking out from his backpack.

He dismounted, set his friend to the ground which approached me as his master initiated a rambling conversation, speaking as the surroundings wavered about his spare frame. I learned he was an Indigenous fellow from the north, raised by adoptive parents in Eastern Ontario, had moved here to be closer to them again. He had secured work at the town’s food processing plant and a newly renovated apartment.

A lost soul, I thought, perhaps drawn to this place, this community, instinctually. He removed, his skyblue reflective sunglasses, revealing a surprisingly, long pale face, and small, dark eyes. A featherweight at most, he danced about a bit, one foot to the next, and took note of the hand-pruning shears clutched in my right hand and pointing towards him.

“What are you going to do with those?” he asked.

In response, I looked down, thought of my father, and offered a lopsided grin. Father called the village that lay five miles from our farm Skipper-Inn. At the public school there, we were assigned seats. One year Roger was placed immediately behind me at the back of the room and next to Roger was Bill. The fellow next to

me I don’t recall, other than he didn’t seem to have a great deal to say or share.

There was a bit of competition between the three of us when it came to tests and report cards. We’d compare the numbers. Bill, whom I suspected worked hard at his lessons, attained the higher marks though Roger and I were not far behind.

We shared what might be considered a strange sense of humour, Roger and I, and once wrote a story together, Normally Abnormal, perhaps inspired by Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein. To my surprise, we received strong marks and even a recitation from the teacher.

Roger carried an air of reserve about him. I suspect he may have performed better with his grades but preferred a place at the edge of things at that time. As for myself, I did care, but seldom to the extent of actually applying myself.

We talked of heritage once in the school yard, the three of us, standing together. I had plenty to say, and with a great deal of pride, having not yet recognized the betrayal and abandonment that can occur within families. I looked to Roger, posed the obvious question, only to be puzzled by his one-word reply — “mongolian”.

Highschool brought change. Our lives moved in different directions. I eventually stopped asking Roger to shoot a few hoops at the start of our gym class. It came as a kind relief to both of us; one possessing a natural athleticism, the other who only would attain some semblance of graceful movement through a great deal of practice.

There was an undeserved dark interval for Roger in high school. I saw it in his eyes as we passed in a hallway, our last communication.

Yet his fortunes and popularity in my mind appear to be on the rise. I remember especially his floating passage on the football field, slipping through the line, changing direction in full stride – and once again, gaining yards before his tall lithe form was dragged down, members of the opposing team having pinpointed the best hope of a losing side. ◊

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The guys had barely settled down on Cliff Murray’s front porch with their take-out breakfast from Mabel’s Grill when George Mackenzie noticed the stack of white plastic bags piled nearby.

“Is that fertilizer for the lawn?” he asked Cliff.

“No, fertilizer for Jenn’s flower gardens,” Cliff sighed.

“Why the sigh?” asked Dave Winston as he sipped his coffee.

“Well Jenn heard me say I was going to the Co-op and she asked me to get five bags of composted sheep manure. Me, a sheep farmer buying sheep manure! I said I could get her all the manure she wants for free but she says fresh manure stinks. I tell you, for once I was glad to wear a mask – hoping nobody would recognize me and ask why a sheep

farmer was buying sheep manure!”

“My wife gets her way on manure,” admitted Dave. “Even I agree liquid pig manure on the gardens is a bit much.”

“I stood up for my sheep,” Cliff said. “I told Jenn: ‘Those sheep have kept us on this farm all these years.’

She hits me where it hurts by saying: ‘No, my job with the county kept us on the farm all these years.’”

“Ouch!” said George. “Sad, but probably true.”

“How much do you think would be in those sacks,” Cliff wondered, pointing to the stack of manure, “about one good manure fork full per bag – at four bucks a bag? I could take a manure-spreader full of manure to town, sell it for half that price, and probably make enough to pay off the mortgage!”

“But you couldn’t sell it because as Jenn says, it stinks,” said George.

“People want what’s good in manure without the stink, so it’s got be composted.”

“Everything has to be composted these days,” said Dave. “I was watching this breakfast news show the other morning and they had this

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woman on promoting ‘guilt free’ dental floss. Apparently there’s no plastic in it so you can compost it.”

“I guess for once I’m good for the environment,” chuckled George. “I don’t floss my teeth at all.”

“And what does your dentist have to say about that?” Cliff wondered.

“Oh she used to nag me about it but I don’t have to listen to her any more,” George said. “She retired last month – at 54 no less. Moved up to this big summer house in Muskoka.

Quite a mansion. She used to have a picture of it in her office.”

“I wonder how much of that you paid for by not flossing?” Dave chuckled.

“I never thought of that,” said George. “I’d guess I paid for most of the deck that overlooks the lake.”

“So people worry about the plastic in dental floss but not the plastic bags they buy manure in,” grumbled Cliff.

“You’re really stuck on this manure thing, aren’t you?” said Dave. “Let’s face it, people aren’t practical when it comes to gardens.

Did I ever tell you about my rock?”

“What rock?” George wondered.

“Well I worked around this big boulder in the front field for years but finally after breaking one too many cultivator tines on it, I got a guy with a high hoe to dig it out. He was going to charge me to take it away so I just had him push it over to the fenceline.”

“I remember that,” said George.

“Whatever happened to it?”

“Well after a couple of years this guy in a pick-up with a landscaping company logo on the side drives up the lane one day and offers to take the rock away for free. I thought that was a good deal until I heard he sold it to a city customer for $400!”

“Ha,” laughed Cliff. “Could have been worse. Did you hear about the farmer in Belgium who was tired of working around this stone so he moved it seven feet out of the way and started an international incident?

Turns out it was a 200-year-old border marker and he’d made Belgium bigger and France smaller by 1,000 square metres.”

“Good job he didn’t sell it for somebody’s garden,” laughed George. “Imagine how that might have screwed up the border!” ◊

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Trees

Hazelnuts are a “get rich slow” prospect Hazelnut association chair encourages farmers to “go nuts” and consider diversifying with orchards By Jeff Tribe Agri‐entrepreneur Rebecca Compton of the Delhi‐area grows asparagus and is expanding on a 2.5‐acre hazelnut orchard with an associated processing facility which will remove debris, sand and any remaining husks from the hazelnuts before they go through a sanitizing wash and are dried on racks. Then, the hazelnuts are ready for sizing and cracking.

N

ewly-elected Ontario Hazelnut Association (OHA) chair Kevin Hodge wouldn’t be encouraging other farmers to consider “going nuts” had he not already done so.

“There is potential there,” said the Harley-area cash cropper, who added ten acres of hazelnuts to a “couple thousand acre mix” featuring corn, rye, soy, kidney and white beans. As well as advancing a personal policy of agricultural diversification, hazels embrace smaller acreage farming, contrasting the large scale/thin margin challenge.

“A 50 or 100-acre farm could be viable,” Hodge said.

“Let’s put it that way.”

The majority of the world’s hazelnuts are grown in Turkey, with Oregon taking the lead on North American production. The arrival of a massive Ferrero Canada plant outside Brantford and company indications it would welcome 25,000 acres of locally-sourced nuts helped spur interest in long-term Ontario hazelnut potential. However, replacing domestic demand currently serviced through imports and developing value-added niche opportunities represent viable shorter-term marketing goals.

Hodge’s own introduction to hazelnuts was encouraged through annual OHA symposiums, resulting in 2018, 2019 and 2020 plantings.

16 The Rural Voice

“We are all learning together,” said Hodge, who “prepared to step up and help out,” replaced outgoing OHA chair Eric Beriault in April, 2021 at this year’s virtual AGM. The organization’s stated goals include leading industry development through advocacy, identifying, developing and promoting marketing opportunities, providing and sharing educational resources, research and project collaboration, basically acting as a hub for industry producers, aggregators, processors and retailers.

“It’s kind of the go-to and we hope to keep it that way,” said Hodge. “Helping make the connection between producers and end users.”

The OHA website (https://ontariohazelnuts.com) is the organization’s entry portal, offering information, education and networking.

The Grimo Nut Nursery website (grimonut.com) provides another great resource for those considering hazelnuts. A business founded 45 years ago by Ernie Grimo continuing today with his daughter Linda is considered a, if not the, leading hazelnut nursery in Ontario. The website contains a wealth of information which offers a detailed introduction to hazelnut farming: varieties, planting grid, pollination requirements and climatic considerations.

The nursery’s decades of experience indicate hazelnuts can be successful provincially says Linda, based in part on varietal selection appropriate for Ontario climate.

“Or climates, because we vary quite a bit.”

Grimo nut trees are produced through clonal propagation, mostly layered, which emphasizes Linda, is crucial to uniform commercial production in terms of nut size, consistency and ripening at the same time. In the same manner as children from the same parents may exhibit considerable variation, seedlings may produce varied nuts compared to clonal propagation, variance ultimately reducing the value of a crop.

Nut trees are a passion for her father says Linda, but also represent a deep, shared commitment to providing the best quality possible in order to allow farmers to be successful. Seeing orchards of hazelnuts, heartnuts and black walnuts popping up through his pioneering efforts has been “so exciting” for Ernie, she added.

“That will be his ongoing legacy years and years and years down the road.”

Specifically speaking, OHA initiatives include input from a trial farm project established in 2016, hiring students through a federal summer job program to continue compiling multi-year Ontario-based data on varieties, disease and insect pressures, soil types and locations, and crucially, sourcing Canada Agricultural Partnership (CAP) funding targeted toward developing a marketing strategy.

“Where you get a nice return for your investment,” says Hodge.

Hazelnuts require a “get rich slow” expectation, theoretically beginning to produce nuts at five years of age, more tangible levels realized between seven and ten. With earlier plantations heading toward expanded harvests, the emergence of aggregators — the hazelnut equivalent of grain elevators for cash croppers — is helping “close the loop” for a fledgling industry looking not only to grow, but profitably sell nuts.

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“That should certainly help the process along,” said Hodge.

Trees are planted on a grid, often but not exclusively 18-by-18-feet or via a “double density” approach, trees nine feet apart in 18-foot rows for example, to accelerate earlier peracre production. As trees grow, alternates are spaded out and transplanted, leaving an 18-foot grid.

Hazelnuts “don’t like wet feet” and are recommended to be planted on drained ground, ideally with drip irrigation at least through their earlier, most-vulnerable years before root systems develop and deepen.

Species as well as spacing is vital to a hazelnut orchard, including strategically-placed cross-pollinating varieties whose variable pollen emission schedules from male catkins and female flower reception must line up with those of the main production trees. Oregon-based varieties Jefferson, Yamhill and Gamma anchor Hodge’s orchard, supported by provincial pollinators including Matt, Cheryl, Gene and Northern Blaze.

Beyond gypsy moths and other “regular” pests, Eastern Filbert Blight (EFB) is a major industry concern, a potentially devastating fungal infection caused by Anisogramma anomala. Hodge preventively sprays against EFB, and also regularly inspects, prunes and destroys any affected material, its arrival admittedly a “worrisome” sign.

EFB remains the industry’s number one concern, answered through the three pillars of breeding Clockwise: • Ernie and Linda Grimo, founders and operators of Grimo Nut Nursery (contributed photo).

• Agri‐entrepreneur Rebecca Compton with her newly acquired hazelnut processing equipment.

• Jeremy Tribe contributes to a 300‐tree, Oxford‐ County hazelnut orchard’s planting via the back of a shovel.

• Courtland‐area hazelnut producer Martin Hodgson displays a sleeve of hazelnuts in his orchard.

• Kevin Hodge is the current chair of the Ontario Hazelnut Association June 2021 19

and growing more resistant trees, spraying, and closely monitoring for, cutting out and eliminating any incidence.

Courtland-area farmer Martin Hodgson experienced the full weight of EFB’s destructive potential 20 years ago, with just 150 trees surviving from an initial 5,000 seedlings planted in 1994, ’95 and ’97 — enough devastation to make most people give up.

“I almost did,” admits Hodgson, who instead spaded the survivors into one dedicated area in an attempt to create a resistant strain. Still growing 20-plus years later, “blight free”, Hodgson has propagated and patented two varieties, Norfolk and Chelsea, and is applying for plant breeder’s rights on a third: Hodgson 5C, each with a “highly, highlyresistant” classification.

He also returned to planting in 2016 with two acres of Jefferson and Yamhill trees, the bridgehead for his current 10 acres.

“I’m hoping to have 30 or 40 acres here in the next ten years.”

20 The Rural Voice

Hodgson estimates cost of “You can’t flood the market,” he planting per double-density (268 said, indicating the “George Packing Company” logo on his hat, an trees) acre at between $6,000 and Oregon-based company Hodgson $7,000, including trees, planting, soil says is ready to welcome Ontario preparation and drip irrigation installation. It does take six to ten hazelnuts. “Once you get a crop, years for trees to produce he we’ll take it.”

Using an concedes, but then estimated green price “they are 100-year of $1.50 per pound, trees.”

Hodgson prunes Hodgson projects a in winter or late yield per acre of 2,000 pounds, the spring, has a resultant gross spraying regimen including anticalculation of $3,000 per acre before sucker, fungus, bacteria and pests expenses translating into a livable return (gypsy moths in from a 100-acre particular on young property. trees) and mows his “Legally,” he orchard’s cover crop Hazelnut tree leaves smiled. during the summer.

In closing, His 2016 planting Hodgson recommends putting in a produced around two pounds of nuts couple of acres, “getting going and per tree during last year’s fall harvest figuring things out.” says Hodgson, who anticipates no “And then you plant ten.” problems whatsoever in moving a Rebecca Compton did begin with crop whose demand he believes a 2.5-acre planting after being exceeds supply. intrigued by hazelnuts’ potential.

However while she anticipates adding another three or four in fall 2022, “and more hopefully every year after that,” Compton also expanded in another direction. The Delhi-area mixed conventional and organic commodity producer, and Asparagus Farmers of Ontario chair and Ontario Produce Marketing Association director identified primary post-harvest receiving capacity as critical to the entire value chain. An entrepreneur with an endlessly-restless mind and five years in the western oil and hospitality industries behind her, Compton began researching related equipment.

Her quest led to Chianchia, an Italian company with decades of experience building machinery for collecting, cleaning, drying, storage and final processing of hazelnuts, chestnuts and other in-shell edibles.

COVID-19 delayed the arrival of a pre-cleaner and cleaning unit by six months, but they made it in time for a successful smaller-scale “test drive’ last fall.

Compton’s business plan is to

either buy nuts from producers, or offer the flexibility of custom cleaning and drying for those who have or would like to develop their own secondary markets. In practice, hazelnuts will be received in bins, totes, boxes bags, “however the farmer brings them”, and augered into the pre-cleaner which will remove larger debris, sand and hopefully any remaining husks. If husk removal proves problematic in practice, drying in the farm’s repurposed tobacco kilns may precede this stage.

The second clearing unit removes smaller debris including leaves, twigs and stems.“Basically get it so it’s just nuts,” said Compton.

They then experience a sanitizing wash and will be placed in racks for drying. “And then they’ll be ready for sizing and cracking.”

Cracking capacity is a final stage which Compton hopes to add as soon as this fall, dependent on ongoing COVID-19-related European machinery acquisition challenges.

There is currently some limited provincial primary processing capacity, but Compton is not aware of any other similar facility prepared to accept hazelnuts this fall on a larger scale.

“This was a big piece that was missing,” she summed up, and a necessary one, “so we can start to grow the industry.

“You need to be able to get them to market.”

Investing on the forefront of a developing industry could be considered risky.

“Farming is always a risk,” Compton laughed. “Every day is a risk. But I’d like to think it’s a calculated risk.”

Her experience with asparagus, waiting four or more years for production may be helpful, but there’s also an element of personal passion for a unique, “different and’fun’ opportunity in a crop she sees taking off on a global scale, providing opportunity not only for multi-national corporations, but Ontario niche marketing initiatives.

“There is definitely a future for the commodity in the province.”◊

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Orchards

Hazelnuts for long-term profitability Thinking long-term and hoping to become profitable on 100 acres, the Belfours plant 300 hazelnut trees at their Seaforth-area farm • By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot •

C

Matt Belfour of Ginger Flock Farm near Seaforth marks the ground where 300 hazelnut trees were planted during phase one of their orchard‐plan to grow 1,000 hazelnut trees. They believe demand for hazelnuts is growing and while markets are undefined right now, plans to create partnerships with confectionary companies are underway.

ould hazelnuts be part of the answer to profitability for 100 acre farms? Matt and Becky Belfour are hoping so.

The couple and their two sons farm outside of Seaforth at Ginger Flock Farm where Becky does most of the work of raising and marketing Tunis and Tunis-cross lambs from 90 ewes while Matt works full time as a merchandiser for Huron Commodities.

They rent most of their acreage out, using some land for pasture.

Their goal, however, is to be able to make a living from their farm. So, like many farmers with small acreages, Matt and Becky have researched opportunities to make their 100 acres profitable.

Years ago, Matt read an article about the Ferrero plant in Brantford which produces Nutella and candies needing 20,000 acres of hazelnut trees to supply the demand for hazelnuts. However, there are only an estimated 700 acres in Ontario.

The couple started researching the possibilities and eventually joined the Ontario Hazelnut Association to get more information. They attended some symposiums and two years ago, Matt planted 10 hazelnut trees as an experiment to see if they would survive in Huron County, which is a little colder than in the southernmost part of the province where most of the hazelnut groves are located.

The trees survived and Matt started working with Grimo Nut Nursery at Niagara-on-the-Lake to propagate 300 trees for phase one of a four-part planting project that will result in 1,000 hazelnut trees. It takes at least a year to propagate enough varieties for a multi-variety planting, a requirement for hazelnut trees because they are wind-pollinated.

Plus, Matt wanted specific varieties that would thrive in this area.

In March, the couple double-planted the 300 trees by hand with shovels. Normally, trees are spaced 16 feet by 16 feet but the Belfours planted them in rows 16 feet apart but spaced only eight feet apart. The trees will get established and grow and then half the trees will be transplanted to another acre. Eventually, they will create a four acre stand of hazelnut trees. By taking a staggered approach, the Beflours can continue making money on rented June 2021 23

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acres until the hazelnuts are ready to produce nuts in four to five years.

“We figure the rent money we receive will pay for moving the trees,” says Matt. Also, research has revealed the trees don’t seem to suffer when moved with a tree spade.

The Belfours don’t have practical experience with hazelnut trees yet but as a new entrant into hazelnut growing, Matt has learned much from his research and asking questions of Murray Grimo and his daughter Linda at Grimo Nut Nursery who have been growing nut trees for over 40 years. Four things Matt found interesting are: Hazelnut trees pollinate at the end of winter. Originally, Matt thought to put beehives among the trees to assist in pollination but hazelnuts do not rely on insect pollinators, as they are wind pollinated.

Each hazelnut tree has a male and female component. The catkin is the male part and the flower is the female part. However, a hazelnut tree cannot pollinate itself. That’s why multiple varieties are required in an hazelnut orchard. The Belfours have planted these six varieties: Gamma, Yamhill, Linda, Carmela, Andrew and Aldara.

The Grimos helped him develop a planting plan to place varieties for best possible pollination.

Hazelnuts fall naturally. Matt wondered how he would harvest the nuts when the trees are 20 feet tall but the nuts dry and fall to the ground where they are swept up. Larger operations have machines that shake the trees for nuts to fall onto a sort of umbrella but starting small means lots of manual labour will be required once the trees start producing.

Hazelnut trees live and produce fruit for 75 to 100 years. Thinking long-term, the Belfours like the idea of establishing something that their kids might benefit from in the future.

Currently, hazelnut growers are fairly scattered and there are no definitive markets for the nuts. Each grower is kind of doing their own thing. With his expertise in merchandising, Matt hopes he can help the industry develop more markets and potentially be involved in creating a centralized market depot, as exists for traditional crops.

When his trees start producing, Matt says he will work on developing contracts with confection companies and potentially sell at farmer’s markets.

Matt knows he has much to learn

about hazelnuts, their productivity and diseases that threaten their survival, such as filbert blight. He’s excited about the challenge and about bringing a new kind of crop to Huron County. ◊

Six different varieties of hazelnut trees were planted at Ginger Flock Farm, named for the Tunis sheep they raise for custom lamb sales.

Matt and Becky Belfour (above with their sons) planted the trees by hand after much research into alternative crop possibilities for farmers with smaller acreages. The hazelnuts will start producing nuts in four to five years and the Belfours see the orchard as a long‐ term investment in their farm and family.

June 2021 25

Community

The future of agricultural fall fairs • By Amanda Brodhagen

Organizers dream up new ideas to offer fall fairs virtually with growing contests and scavenger hunts

O

ntario’s agricultural fairs have a long history with many fairs predating Confederation. The first recorded fair in the province dates back to 1792 with the Agricultural Society of Upper Canada, which has since been renamed to the Niagara Agricultural Society located on Niagara-on-the-Lake. From there the concept of agricultural fairs spread in popularity and became established in rural communities across the province by the 1800s. While fairs have changed over the years, perhaps one of the biggest changes in its long history is being witnessed today.

Since last year, hundreds of fairs have been forced to cancel due to COVID-19 and now more than a year later fall fairs are finding themselves in the same predicament as last year. Last fall, the Ontario government announced nearly $1 million in funding for agricultural and horticultural societies to help offset the financial losses due to the cancellation of fairs, but in a carefully worded statement, it said “for this year only” which means they should not expect it again this year.

While some fairs have chosen to cancel their fairs altogether for a second year in a row, some agricultural societies have taken this time to reimagine and retool their fairs for survival. The Rural Voice caught up with several agricultural societies in our region to find out how they’re doing and what we can expect for this coming fair season.

Listowel Agricultural Society (1856) istowel’s fair is a summertime event, typically July every year. The Listowel Fair was cancelled in 2020, but the agricultural society decided to move ahead with a virtual online presence leading up to and during the month of July sharing videos and historical photos through their social media channels. Later in the year, the agricultural society hosted a drive-in fireworks show, outdoor vendors show and a modified indoor Christmas craft show and two drive-through dinners – a roast beef dinner in October and a turkey dinner in late November.

Despite the outside-the-box thinking to operate during COVID, this vibrant and active agricultural society in Perth County has faced better days.

L

26 The Rural Voice

Leola Hartung of the Palmerston Agricultural Society checks out the vegetables at the Palmerston Fall Fair which was cancelled in 2020 but will be offering a virtual event this year.

“We have now had over 14 months of almost no rental income. We are grateful for the financial assistance of OMAFRA to help prepare for upcoming agricultural fairs, the Ontario Trillium Resilient Communities Fund for funding to help us get ready for a time when we can reopen our facilities as well as our community who have been very supportive of our drive-thru meals, our drive-in fireworks show, our events in the fall of 2020, our recent Shop North Perth Local raffle draw as well as the support of our organization as a whole,” said Elizabeth Johnston president of the Listowel Agricultural Society. “It has made navigating these many months of uncertainty and lost income much more manageable,” she said.

While fairs like Listowel offer something for everyone, youth involvement has always been a focal point.

“Agricultural fairs are extremely important for youth in the community,” she said. “Whether it’s participating in the fair ambassador competition, a 4-H achievement show with livestock, a 4-H life skills competition, enjoying kids’ day activities, participating in the kids’ pedal tractor pull, learning about agriculture and where their food comes from or any of the other many events and activities that take place at the fair, youth are given the opportunity to showcase their talents and to have fun at a local, affordable event,” she added.

This year marks another milestone in the fair’s history – 165 years.

Johnston says that plans are in the works for a modified fair which will include, a seed-growing competition (sunflowers, regular and giant-sized pumpkins), a community scavenger hunt/car rally, virtual photography, baby show and pet show competitions, a drive-in fireworks show and a drive-thru roast beef dinner. Events will span over the first two weeks of July with fireworks on July 16 and the roast beef dinner on July 18. Both of these events will be dependent on restrictions at the time.

For the 165th anniversary, the Listowel Agricultural Society is also planning a commemorative 500-piece puzzle and cookbook.

“We felt it is important to continue on with the tradition of having an agricultural fair in our community even if it is in a modified format with events, activities and competitions for the community to look forward to and to be able to engage in. Even though we aren’t able to meet in the traditional format of our fair with grandstand shows, livestock and homecraft competitions and the many events that encompass our fair, we still want to have events that people can be a part of within the community,” she said.

They’re keeping their fingers crossed for 2022 when they can hopefully resume to a more traditional fair and welcome the community back for in-person festivities.

Fergus Agricultural Society (1836) he Fergus Fall Fair located in Wellington County cancelled their fair in 2020 and chose not to hold any alternative events, but did share some educational videos online, said Rebecca Hannam, chair of the agriculture committee.

“We were thinking it was going to be a one-year cancellation but because we cannot hold a traditional fair again in 2021, we are now putting a lot of effort into planning alternative events, including virtual fair competitions,” she said.

Hannam said the board has formed a committee of volunteers to focus on brainstorming and planning

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alternative events. She noted community members, especially young families, are looking for things to do during the pandemic and it would be an opportune time to gain new interest.

“We are considering everything from take-out supper fundraisers to drive-through educational events. We are hopeful that we can return to hosting an in-person fair in September 2022,” she said. “For many fairs this is the first time the word “cancellation” has even been brought up. To have to cancel two in a row, it’s quite a change from the norm,” she added.

Hannam makes a compelling case that agricultural fairs are becoming more important as communities like Centre Wellington grow. Since the beginning of the pandemic there’s been an urban exodus to small towns and rural areas like Fergus. While the new residents might not be accustomed to celebrating the bounty of the fall harvest, one can hope that they can find a connection with food and farming, explained Hannam.

Palmerston Agricultural Society (1879) he Palmerston Fair was also cancelled last year. The agricultural society decided to host a few virtual meetings, but with all the uncertainty no one on the fair board wanted to take on planning an alternative event not knowing what the future would hold. Many people on the board were also happy to take a break and “many are at an age that the online options seemed daunting,” said Angela Schneider secretary of the Palmerston Agricultural Society.

“Some others said that if there was no in-person fair, they were not helping,” she added.

Normally in the spring the agricultural society would put on a pre-seeding farmers’ BBQ and a Ladies Night. Given the restrictions with holding in-person events, the agricultural society decided to make this an online event with the help of SilentAuctonBiz.com, based out of Listowel. “They offered nonprofits free services to host an online auction. We bounced that idea around and many thought it was a great idea. I took on the role of

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28 The Rural Voice

organizing it and it took off,” she said.

The agricultural society was mindful of who they asked for donations knowing full well many businesses in their community have been hit hard with the pandemic.

Instead, they decided to focus their efforts on reaching out to companies that haven’t been as impacted including machinery dealers, tile drainage companies and crop input dealers. “We also received lovely donations from people who normally show at the fair – sewing and baking,” she said.

The good news: it was a success!

“It drew in people from outside our area, so many had great fun bidding and watching as the bids went up as the auction closed,” she explained. “This would not likely have been as successful three years ago,” she added.

This year the agricultural society is working on planning a scavenger hunt to re-engage the community.

But Schneider worries that some fairs will not recover from the pandemic. “Fair [volunteers] are often older people … and many of these older people will not be back,” she said. “Fairs have always been changing but the most drastic change might be after the pandemic,” she pointed out.

Kirkton Agricultural Society (1869) he Kirkton Fair was also cancelled last year and as Kirkton Agricultural Society President Amy Switzer said, “It is definitely difficult to plan things when government rules are always changing.”

“I was so devastated that there couldn’t be a fair last year, but excited at the thought of a 2021 fair.

Now knowing that this year again will not be a ‘normal’ fair, I sometimes think when will we ever be able to have a normal fair again?

It’s hard to plan for something and be all excited about it and then find out it has to be cancelled,” she added.

Looking ahead, the agricultural society felt strongly that it was keeping the community engaged while also following the guidelines provided by public health. The fair

board held a drive-through chicken BBQ in May and plans to hold exhibits with scaled-back classes in a format that’s sanctioned.

“I think with more people over the last year growing bigger gardens (we all know how hard it was to find veggie seeds last year) people will be excited to have the chance to show off what they have been growing!

Entries will be dropped off and judged over a few days to allow for physical distancing,” she said.

Other events planned permitting

public health guidelines include, a socially distanced parade over fair weekend and a scavenger hunt.

Ontario is home to over 200 agricultural societies with many of them located in our communities of Grey, Bruce, Huron, Perth, Wellington and Oxford Counties.

Now that you’ve heard from a few agricultural societies what their plans are, get engaged and let’s help these small fairs in our rural communities continue the tradition as some have done for almost two centuries. ◊

T

Fall fairs have been a place for community to get together and share their talents (above) but the COVID‐19 pandemic forced many fairs to cancel last year.

Four innovative agricutural societies share what worked well last year while planning virtual events this year including vegetable‐growing contests, scavenger hunts and online auctions to keep community connected.

June 2021 29

Food

The 100 kilometre meal experiment By The Citizen Staff

The 100 km meal experiment: breakfast, lunch and supper ... all home made with fresh, locallysourced Jessica Loughlin, wife of Citizen Editor Shawn Loughlin, is seen here hanging some homemade pasta to try ahead of the couple making thier spaghetti alla carbonera recipe which uses eggs, cheese and bacon from local producers.

For their Salute to Agriculture 2021, a special supplement to The Citizen newspaper, publisher Deb Sholdice, Editor Shawn Loughlin and Reporter Denny Scott took to their kitchens to create 100K meals (meals sourcing only fresh ingredients grown and prepared within 100 kilometres of your home) in an attempt to highlight all of the wonderful food being grown and processed right in our own backyards.

Denny made breakfast, while Deb tackled lunch and Shawn cooked dinner. Here are their recipes, with a full list of producers which they shared in the hopes of getting readers to think locally when planning meals.

BREAKFAST Big breakfast: Bacon, eggs, sausages, pancakes and more with Reporter Denny Scott So, what did we have for breakfast? Well I’ve written about this in my column before, but my father, later into my life, started a tradition of having big breakfasts on Saturday and Sunday mornings – Sausage, bacon, eggs, pancakes, potatoes – I’d call it “The Works”.

It’s a tradition I adopted once my daughter was able to start eating solid food and, while it’s likely been detrimental to my waistline, it’s been something I look forward to every week. So, when I put forward the idea of these 100-kilometre meals, I claimed breakfast because I 30 The Rural Voice

ingredients

knew I’d be able to do it.

So our breakfast included the following (all homemade, unless it came ready-to-cook): bacon, sausage, fried eggs, hash brown patties and pancakes. Be warned, this recipe makes a lot of food.

While the ingredients came from across the area, I was able to source a lot of it from one place: Maitland Market and Supply just east of Goderich. The market puts a focus on locally-sourced goods and I was able to pick up numerous items there for my own meal including flour, coffee and bacon.

The pancakes and the hash browns were the most complex things to make, however I have developed my own way of making breakfast that I’ll share.

• BACON: There are a lot of different ways you can source bacon from within 100 kilometres of my house (which was my centre point for this little experiment) and all of them are great. I happened, however, to go with a staple in our house: bacon from Metzger Meat Products in Hensall.

Why am I even including the instructions for bacon?

Well it’s because I find that baked bacon is far better than fried bacon and I’ve come to realize a lot of people don’t know that it’s an option.

First, decide on whether you prefer chewy or crisp bacon.

While I prefer crisp bacon, I’m outvoted in my house. If you want crisp bacon and have a convection oven, preheat

to 400°F using the convection setting. If, like my wife and daughter, you prefer a chewier bacon, preheat your oven to 400°F without using the convection setting.

Baking the bacon in the oven should take about 10 minutes before you rotate the tray.

Put the bacon back in the oven for eight minutes, then check every minute or so after that until the bacon is almost done to your preference. It will continue to cook once removed from the oven, so give a little buffer.

• SAUSAGE: Like the bacon, there’s plenty of great sausagemakers within 100 kilometres of Blyth. Heck there’s plenty of great sausage-makers within a 10-minute drive of Blyth. For breakfast, I chose an Italian sausage made by Bachert’s Premium Sausages in Auburn.

There’s no tricks or tips here though: throw them on the griddle, cook until they reach an internal temperature of 165°F and then serve and enjoy. Personally, I love a little of Hanna’s (of Auburn) maple barbecue sauce on mine.

• EGGS: Pointing to a commercial producer of eggs is kind of unnecessary because, odds are, you know someone who knows someone who sells eggs, or you can just drive down some of the county roads in Huron and find a sign offering a dozen eggs for a few dollars.

For my meal, I sourced eggs through Shelley Kroes, a sales representative within North Huron Publishing. Again, no real recipe here. I used to use butter and a splash of milk to really bring out the flavour of the eggs, but, with a daughter with a lactose sensitivity, I’ve gone to making them naked.

It’s pretty simple: crack your eggs, throw them in your oiled pan, break the yolk, fry, flip and fry again. If, like me, you like a little zing or flavour to them, toss some onions and cheese on top before the first flip.

The glory of making naked eggs is it lets people eat them how they want. My daughter prefers them cut up with ketchup. My wife likes to make a sandwich out of hers with bacon and cheese. Me, I eat them, as stated, with onions and cheese and a little bit of Hanna’s maple barbecue sauce.

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• COFFEE: Huron County has become a bit of a mecca for coffeelovers in the last few years with numerous coffee roasters opening their doors. For breakfast, my wife had Chalo’s Colombian from Coastal Coffee near Goderich. I enjoyed a medium dark roast from Shopbike in Bayfield.

• HASH BROWN PATTIES: The hash brown patties are the simpler of the two recipes that actually required mixing and measuring, but definitely the messier of the two, requiring copious amounts of cooking oil.

You will need: A jug of vegetable oil, two large- or three medium-sized potatoes, two tablespoons of flour, one egg and paper towels.

First, rinse and peel the potatoes and then shred the potatoes. Set them aside. In a bowl, whisk together the egg and flour. At this point, you can throw in anything you want for flavour, including salt or pepper.

Cover the bottom of a good-sized frying pain with a quarter-inch-deep coating of vegetable oil. Put on the stovetop over medium heat. Mix the flour, egg and seasoning in with the potatoes and mix until everything is well combined.

Using a one-third cup measuring cup, scoop out the mix into the oil, making sure to flatten it until it’s just above the oil. Let cook for three or four minutes and flip. Don’t flip too early or it may not stay together. Let them cook for another three or four minutes and remove from the oil.

Drain on paper towels.

Be sure to top up the oil and bring it back to temperature between rounds. If the oil gets too low, you’ll end up with squishy hash brown patties and no one likes that. Serve with whatever you’d like. Personally, I prefer a dash of salt and pepper.

If you’re lucky to not burn many of them, you may get the rave review my daughter Mary Jane gave when she asked if I had just bought them at Tim Hortons (her favourite restaurant), despite them looking nothing alike.

• PANCAKES: My pancake recipe is a modified version of one that appears in The Phoenicia Diner Cookbook – put out by the diner itself, which is located in the Catskill Mountains in Phoenicia, New York. I

say modified because there are some minor differences I’ve incorporated over time.

You will need: two-and-threequarter cups of all-purpose flour (provided by Arva Mills and sourced through the Maitland Market), a quarter cup of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, one tablespoon of baking powder, half a teaspoon of baking soda, two large eggs, two-and-a-half cups of buttermilk, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon, one cup (two sticks) of unsalted melted butter, two tablespoons of vegetable oil and maple syrup (available at many local

farm gates and community stores personally, I use Freedom Syrup from Walton whenever possible).

Whisk the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and baking soda into a large bowl. Some people will say there’s a specific amount of cinnamon. I say measure that with your heart.

Then combine the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla in a bowl and whisk until most of the lumps are gone. Again, use as much vanilla as you want.

Personally, I think anything between a tablespoon and the whole bottle should work.

Mary Jane Scott (above) gets to enjoy the efforts of reporter Denny Scott who made a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs and sausage for the 100 km meal challenge. Publisher Deb Sholdice sourced local spinach, milk, Italian sausage, potatoes and onions (top) among other ingredients to create zuppa toscana in her crockpot, a trusty device for a busy people who want to come home after work to a home made meal.

June 2021 33

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34 The Rural Voice

Add the melted butter to the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla and whisk it again. Then add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients.

On a hot pan or griddle, spread vegetable oil. Use a one-third cup measuring cup to spoon out pancakes. Once the edges begin to brown, flip the pancakes. After one or two minutes remove the pancakes.

Serve as soon as possible.

You can add melted butter, however I find the butter within the pancakes to be plenty.

LUNCH Zuppa toscana with Publisher Deb Sholdice When I was asked to create lunch from ingredients that could be sourced within 100 kilometres of Blyth, I knew it was going to be cooked in my slow cooker. I’ve come to rely on this handy appliance so much that I’m the proud owner of four crockpots. (My Christmas dinner needs at least three working for the entire day to get the meal done perfectly.)

My friends and family have long known about my penchant for crockpot cooking. Several years ago, co-workers and I were upping the crockpot lunch game with an alphabet challenge. I drew the “Z” and ever since then zuppa toscana has been a hit at potlucks.

Fortunately, the recipe is both simple and flexible, making it the ideal lunch for this challenge.

Zuppa toscana is a traditional Italian soup (the translation literally means Tuscan soup) which can be made from a variety of ingredients, but the recipe I first found when Googling meals that begin with the letter “Z” was this one made with sausage, potatoes and spinach.

• One pound of mild Italian sausage (Luckily, I had bought a bulk order from a local farmer just before Christmas that included 10 pounds of sausage from one of his pigs) • One yellow onion (Maitland Market and Supply is a one-stop shopping mecca for local ingredients.)

• Two tablespoons of minced garlic (The Garlic Box in Hensall) • Four medium potatoes (or equivalent – local from Huron

County, purchased at Maitland Market) • Five cups chicken broth (I had frozen homemade turkey broth left from Christmas. Again, just throw the turkey carcass and some onions in the slow cooker and keep covered with water until you have broth.

Strain and freeze.)

• Two cups water • Half teaspoon of salt (Sifto, of course) • Quarter teaspoon of pepper • Red pepper flakes (optional) • One cup of heavy cream (Gay Lea in Teeswater is still processing cream!)

• Two cups chopped spinach (Also local from Huron County, purchased at Maitland Market. This can be replaced with kale, which is abundant in Huron in the summer.)

Heat a large skillet over mediumhigh heat. Remove sausage from casing, cook and stir until browned and crumbly. Add onion and garlic; sauté until onion is translucent. Drain and discard grease.

Peel and dice potatoes into one inch cubes or smaller.

Place potatoes, sausage mixture, seasonings and broth in the slow cooker. Add water until the potatoes are fully covered (up to two cups).

Stir gently, then cover and cook on low until potatoes are fork-tender, about five to six hours.

About a half-hour before your meal, add the cream and spinach. Stir to combine flavours and cook about 30 minutes on high.

For extra flair, garnish with grated local Parmesan cheese or Blyth Farm Cheese’s aged eweda cheese and some crumbled Green’s Meat Market bacon.

I brought this in for a fun Friday lunch for The Citizen staff. It served five of us with fairly generous portions, a couple of second helpings and enough left for a supper for one.

The best thing about crockpot cooking is how easy it is to make a meal that will impress your family, friends and colleagues. It is really as simple as chopping up some stuff and adding some other stuff and throwing it in a pot and forgetting about it for the rest of the day.

DINNER Spaghetti alla carbonara with

To make the pasta, you measure Editor Shawn Loughlin out two-and-a-half cups of flour on For dinner of The Citizen’s 100your cutting board or kitchen kilometre day of meals, I chose a counter, creating a well in the middle meal with a rather brief ingredient for four eggs, a tablespoon of olive list, but a classic and traditional oil and a tablespoon of salt.

Italian dish: spaghetti alla carbonara.

Once set up, you whisk the eggs The dish is Roman and when in and olive oil into the flour, slowly Rome – as evidenced by a recent incorporating more and more of the episode of CNN’s new Searching for dry ingredients until you have a Italy with Stanley Tucci – if you want loosely-connected ball. From there, to start an argument, you start asking you continue to knead the dough for questions about the origin of this about another 10 minutes until it dish. However, most people seem to really firms up for you. agree that the pasta was designed From there, you let the dough rest generations ago to be an option for at room temperature for a half-hour just about every Italian family, using in cling wrap before portioning it and ingredients most households in that rolling it out. Here, I use a by-hand country would have at the ready: pasta machine, so ensure the portions eggs, cheese and pork, as well as are small enough for the machine, flour to make your own pasta. but the real Italian grandmothers out A traditional carbonara recipe is there need only a rolling pin, a knife deceptively simple with very few and robust arm muscles from this steps. However, technique and timing point on. are crucial to ensure the dish doesn’t To begin the cooking process, you go sideways on you, which it can in a should crack four eggs and whisk hurry. them up, completely incorporating First I made my own pasta, which I them. These will be used for the have been doing when I have the pasta’s sauce. time for the last two years or so. This This is another point of contention is a relatively simple, albeit timeconsuming process that involves just a few ingredients.

For the pasta, I used flour from the Arva Flour Mill, which can be found at Maitland Market and Supply just outside of Goderich, as well as at the mill itself, and eggs from a generous coworker. As for eggs, you can source local eggs throughout the county and if you don’t want to get your hands dirty, there is no shame in buying dry pasta. In fact, using Italpasta means you’re using ingredients milled at Howson and A creamy spaghetti alla carbonara can be relatively Howson Limited in Blyth, letting simple to make says Editor Shawn Loughlin. It just someone else do the requires constant attention and timing so the sauce doesn’t overcook on you. hard work for you.

June 2021 35

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with the recipe. Some say leave the egg whites in, others say not to, while some say to leave one or two egg whites in with a few more yolks.

Apparently, the egg whites help make the sauce creamy, so let’s stick with that – plus it’s nice and easy not having to separate yolks from egg whites.

You should also grate one cup of cheese. The two acceptable cheeses for this pasta are Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano Reggiano (or even a combination of the two).

For a while, I had resigned myself to supermarket-bought Parmigiano (even finding blocks that you can freshly grate has proven difficult in Huron County during a pandemic), but a trip to Blyth Farm Cheese yielded a local answer to Pecorino.

There, the farm’s Blyth Eweda Aged cheese is made with sheep’s milk – a staple of Pecorino – and it’s excellent in this dish. Parmigiano, however, is a perfectly acceptable substitute – or you could always grate a mix of the two. Basically you’re looking for a hard, salty cheese.

To start cooking, get your water boiling, salting it liberally.

Meanwhile, you need to make a lardon, which is just frying small cubes or strips of bacon in a frying pan. This is where we in Huron County will have to make some substitutions.

A traditional carbonara recipe should use guanciale, which is bacon from the jowl of the pig. And while we are lucky to have an abundance of pork producers and highly-skilled butchers throughout the county, there likely just isn’t a market for this cut here.

An accepted substitution is pancetta, but even that can be hard to come by, so standard side bacon is perfectly acceptable in this dish. That you can find at any butcher shop, but I’ve used packaged bacon from Metzger’s in Hensall, which is readily available at most local supermarkets.

You want eight ounces of bacon, cut into about quarter-inch strips and then get it going in your pan. Other than the pasta cooking in your pot, everything else is going to happen in this pan.

NEW LISTING ~ NEAR GODERICH Cook the bacon until it crisps up and then take it off the heat. Don’t drain it or take it out of the pan – you’re going to want all of that fat left in the pan.

By now you should be cooking your pasta. How long it takes all depends on you. If you make fresh pasta, it shouldn’t take long at all to cook, whereas dry pasta will take longer.

In these final stages, mix your raw eggs with your grated cheese in a bowl, adding plenty of fresh-cracked pepper and maybe a little salt (though the bacon and cheese are both naturally quite salty).

When the pasta is nearing completion, put your lardon pan back on the heat and add about a half-cup of the pasta water to it to deglaze the pan. Some recipes call for a bit of white wine to do this instead – it’s entirely up to you.

After the lardon is back cooking and the water/wine is bubbling away (most of it will reduce rather quickly once the pan is hot again), put the pasta in the pan and toss it around for a minute or two, coating it in that fat (we promised local, not necessarily calorie-conscious – remember, everything in moderation).

Take the pan off the heat and pour in your egg/cheese mixture.

The second that’s in the pan, start mixing the pasta, eggs, cheese and bacon together. It’s important that it’s off the heat, otherwise the eggs will cook and you’ll end up with scrambled eggs. However, even with the pan off the heat, it will be very hot in there, so constant motion is essential. This achieves the creamy texture that you want in a carbonara and warms your eggs through, but stops them from cooking, ruining your dish.

Apparently here in North America, some chefs will add cream to their sauce to achieve that creaminess, but if you execute the traditional recipe correctly, there should be no need for that – and you won’t have to disappoint any of the Italians in your life.

Serve the pasta immediately with plenty of fresh-cracked pepper on top, complementing it with a chilled glass of white wine from any of the county’s excellent wineries. ◊

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June 2021 37

Trees

New life for the Lone Elm Star of the Elm Tree Recovery Project with a farm named after it, the Lone Elm created many memories for the Brown family ... and still is

After sustaining 24 broken limbs in the winter of 2016, the Lone Elm died in 2020 and was cut down to tears of Brown family members who were proud of their surviving elm in the fencerow of their Grey County Farm. After being felled in November of 2020, family members posed with the tree. From left to right are: Lloyd Williamson and Marilyn Cornish; Paul Williamson and Mabel Williamson; kneeling on stump in front, Olivia Williamson; standing on stump are Garrett Wallace and Martina Williamson; seated is Nancy Brown, then Stewart Brown and Carol Ann Williamson.

Mabel is Stewart's sister and was also raised on the farm.

A

giant elm that stood as a sentry over weddings, earned television fame and had a farm named after it has lost its fight against Dutch Elm but is being sawn, carved and sculpted into memories for the Brown family and friends.

“That tree was a big deal,” saya Nancy Brown, who is walking in the forest while chatting with me. She and Stuart are farmers in Grey County, having taken the farm over from Stuart’s father, Austin, and spent many years breeding purebred Charolais cattle and racehorses. Every horse and cow’s name boasted the prefix of Lone Elm for the Browns decided to name their farm Lone Elm as their majestic fence-row elm was the only surviving elm tree for 38 The Rural Voice

miles around.

“In the late 1960s and 1970s, the Dutch Elm disease came through our part of Grey County and took all the beautiful elms,” remembers Nancy. “They were such majestic trees with their characteristic vase shape.” One elm that survived was the “lone elm” growing in a fence row by the “other barn”, a smaller barn on the farm property that once housed sheep. Without a direct source of water, the barn was later retired for livestock use but remained on the farm as part of the vignette of barn and tree on the Brown property. The tree shaded the Charolais

• By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot •

when the fields around it were in pasture and also served as a sentry when the Brown children cut and raked hay on the tractor.

Since it survived the ravages of Dutch Elm disease, tree experts were hoping the Lone Elm had disease resistance and might survive to old age. Accordingly, Henry Kock, founder of the Elm Tree Recovery Project in Ontario, came with a crew and took grafts to propagate the Lone Elm. Twenty years later, the Lone Elm is still featured on the University of Guelph’s Elm Tree Recovery Page website found at https://arboretum.uoguelph.ca/researc handstewardship/elmrecovery.

That same year, the now-cancelled television show, Country Canada, did a segment on the Elm Tree Recovery Project and visited the tree to film the Brown family sharing memories of it. Before that happened, Austin Brown had suffered a stroke and was in the hospital. “Stuart visited his dad and told him the Lone Elm was on national television. Austin got a huge smile on his face despite what he was going through medically because his special tree was being honoured,” remembers Nancy. Austin passed away that year.

However, the elm tree continued to be a special tree for the Brown family. In 2016, Stuart and Nancy’s son Austin and his wife were married in the barn beside the tree and had their wedding photos by the elm tree.

Back when Austin and his siblings were young, the tree stood as a marker. Nancy says they would stare out the window hoping to be the first one to see the tree in the distance because then they knew they were close to home.

The branches of the Lone Elm were high so it was never a tree the kids could climb. Neither did it ever have a swing. It was noted for its one drooping limb which some might have construed as a deformity but instead, added to its beauty.

However, the Browns were warned that the drooping limb might be the tree’s demise. If it broke off, the tree’s cambium would be exposed to the Dutch Elm fungus. Even healthy and disease-resistant elms can still be overwhelmed by the fungus once

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damaged, and die.

That is, indeed, what happened. In the winter storm of 2016, the Lone Elm’s crown was severely damaged when 24 branches broke off and fell to the ground. It was the beginning of the end. The disease managed to get hold and the following year, one third of the tree died. The next year, another third died. Prior to 2020, only the drooping limb budded out.

By 2020, the drooping limb was also dead.

“It was so sad to see it dead last summer that we decided to have it removed after the crop came off. We had it felled in November with many family members coming to say goodbye. There were lots of tears,” says Nancy.

However, the family resolved to make a positive out of a negative.

Wallace Tree Services, owned by a family friend, came and cut the tree down. Then another young fellow by the name of Kyle McDonald came to help the family decide how to cut the tree up. “He understood how important the tree was,” says Nancy.

Accordingly, the tree was sawn up into lumber, live edge pieces and cookies. The Browns sent out a family-wide email asking anyone who wanted a piece of the wood to claim it and since then, wood turners, carpenters and artisans have been making everything from bowls to candlesticks to rings and charcuterie boards out of the wet wood.

The remaining boards have been stacked and stickered for drying.

“We calculated that we have 1,500 board feet of wood from the tree to use,” says Nancy. Once drying is complete, the boards will be made into tables, coffee tables, headboards and a fireplace mantle. “It has beautiful grain and everyone who sees it is amazed by it,” says Nancy.

Some planks feature a tight grain, some curled grain and some has spalting.

Nancy and Stuart already have two bowls that came off a lathe. As her personal treasure, Nancy wishes to have a cribbage board made from the wood. “A friend of mine makes cribbage boards and half-joking, I said I wanted something made that I could take with me to the seniors

home!” The couple is also getting a fireplace mantle made for the farmhouse along with an art piece made of a slab of live edge and photographs that will document the story of the Lone Elm. Another piece will go in the garden and large

cookies from the trunk will be put up in the barn. These items will stay with the farm.

More lore from the Lone Elm can be found in the book Barn Stories written by Mabel Williamson, formerly Brown. ◊

Making a positive out of a negative, the Brown family of Grey County has taken the trunk from their beloved Lone Elm where weddings were held and horses rode (above) and had it hewn into cookies and planks (top left). The wood has been offered freely to all Brown family members to make it into something special for their homes and plans are underway for the creation of tables, fireplace mantles, headboards, bowls, candles, rings and even a cribbage board!

The dead elm yielded 1500 board feet of wood with beautiful grain.

June 2021 41

Recipes by Anne Mann

Homemade seasonings and sauces

W

hen I was writing this column the weather was warming and the gardens waking up and I was dreaming of summer, a summer when the stay-athome order would be lifted and we could again be with family and friends, if only for small outdoor gatherings. I thought of sharing my BBQ favourites but have already given you Dad’s Flank Steak (June 2018), Marg’s Pork Tenderloin (June 2017), Jill’s Burgers (July 2017), Pork Kebabs (Aug 2019) and Grilled Corn.

What I realized I was missing was a really good homemade BBQ sauce.

Most prepared sauces have dextrose or modified corn starch which I avoid because I am on a gluten-free diet and I am never sure if they contain wheat. I set out to test some recipes and see what I liked. I came up with two excellent options, that are glutenfree, easy, and delicious and could not decide which I liked better so I will let your pantry contents dictate which one to make.

Southern Style BBQ Sauce This classic recipe from Tori Avey’s blog looked like it covered all the bases and I was intrigued by the use of chili sauce and horseradish, both of which I love. I substituted maple syrup for the sugar and water but if you do not have syrup to spare you could replace it with 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup water or rum. This would be my first choice if I want to use up some old chili sauce in the refrigerator or cold room.

We tried this on burgers and it was a hit!

Ingredients: 2 Tbsp butter or olive oil 1/4 cup onion, finely chopped 1/4 cup sweet pepper, chopped 1 clove garlic, crushed 1 cup ketchup 1/2 cup chili sauce 1/4 cup wine vinegar 1/2 cup maple syrup (or ¼ cup brown sugar and ¼ cup water) 1 Tbsp GF Worcestershire sauce 1 tsp prepared mustard 1/2 tsp horseradish 42 The Rural Voice

Ingredients: 1/2 tsp salt 2 Tbsp butter 1/4 tsp black pepper 1 cup onion, finely chopped 1/4 tsp paprika 1 clove garlic, crushed 1/4 tsp chili powder 1 cup ketchup Directions: 1/4 cup Dijon mustard Heat butter or olive oil in 1/4 cup cider vinegar saucepan and cook onion, sweet 1/2 cup maple syrup pepper and garlic until soft but not browned, about 5 - 10 minutes.

Stir in ketchup, chili sauce, maple syrup, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, horseradish, salt, pepper, paprika and chili powder.

Simmer over low heat for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, to let flavours blend.

Purée with an immersion blender if you want it to be smooth.

Pour into a clean jar and refrigerate.

Always place amount of sauce needed for brushing meat in a separate bowl and discard any unused portions so the rest of the sauce is not contaminated. Makes about 2 cups Nick’s Maple Rum BBQ Sauce Nick shared a bourbon BBQ sauce recipe from the LCBO magazine and I adapted it to my gluten-free kitchen. It is simple to simmer up a batch and it does not contain any modified corn starch or other grains. We loved this on grilled chicken breast halves and also on oven baked chicken legs (see next page).

The caramelized sauce Chicken with Southern Style BBQ Sauce (top) is grilled on the chicken was like to perfection while Mint Jelly (middle) is a perfect candy and I did not sauce for lamb. Ginger Syrup (bottom) mixed with soda water makes a refreshing drink for summer. waste a drop!

Recipes 1/3 cup rum (optional) 2 Tbsp GF hot sauce (adjust to your taste) 2 Tbsp GF Worcestershire sauce 2 tsp paprika, smokey if you have it 1 tsp ginger powder or 1 Tbsp grated fresh Directions: Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and add onion and garlic and continue to cook until soft but not browned, about 5 minutes.

Add ketchup, mustard, vinegar, maple syrup, rum, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, paprika and ginger and continue to simmer for 20 minutes more.

I blended the sauce with an immersion blender so it was smooth but this is not necessary.

Pour into a clean jar and store in the refrigerator. Remove a portion of the sauce to be used from the jar and discard what is left over so you do not contaminate the remaining sauce.

Makes about 2 cups Randi’s Oven-Barbequed Chicken Legs This dish is a guaranteed crowd pleaser and frees up the grill for other options if serving a crowd (I can only dream about serving a crowd again as I write this!). All that goodness and is easy on the pocketbook too!

Brush chicken legs with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake at 400° F for about 25 minutes.

Turn the oven up to 425° F and brush one side of chicken with sauce and bake for seven minutes, baste and bake again for seven minutes.

Turn legs over and baste and bake twice as above on the other side. If the sauce has not caramelized and chicken is done, turn on the broiler for a few minutes and watch carefully.

Lamb Rub and Mint Jelly A super simple outdoor meal is grilled lamb chops seasoned with an herb rub and served with mint jelly and foil baked new potatoes.

Lamb Rub This is my approximation of the Maison Cote seasoning mix from Granville Island. I was not sure how much lavender to add since I have not cooked with it much. It certainly was not overpowering at 1 tsp and

you may like to experiment with more.

Ingredients: 2 Tbsp brown sugar 2 Tbsp thyme leaves 2 Tbsp oregano, dried 2 Tbsp basil, dried 1 Tbsp rosemary, dried 1 Tbsp marjoram 1 Tbsp mustard powder or crushed seed 1 Tbsp savory, dried 1 Tbsp salt 1 tsp black pepper 1 tsp lavender, crushed (optional) Directions: Mix all herbs together and package in a small jar.

Rub seasoning generously over lamb chops an hour before grilling.

Grill to desired doneness and enjoy with some mint jelly (recipe follows)!

Serves 4.

Mint Jelly I remember as a teen seeing mint jelly on the certo instruction sheet and I convinced my Mom to help me make some with the wild mint growing at the artesian well across the road. Maybe because it was such a brilliant shade of green, (thanks to green food colouring) but, I was amazed that we could make something so beautiful with just a few simple ingredients. Maybe my love of mint started then but I always like to have a spot with some mint in the backyard. Cliff does not like its invasive properties so we keep it contained in an old cement tile and I can have fresh mint to garnish a refreshing summer drink or preserve as jelly to share with friends.

Ingredients: 2 cups fresh mint leaves, firmly packed 2 cups water 3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice 3 1/2 cups white sugar 3 oz liquid pectin 2 drops of green food colouring (optional) Directions: Place washed mint leaves in a blender with water and process until mint is finely chopped. Pour into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn off heat and let sit for about an hour.

Strain and measure liquid. You

should have 1 3/4 cups. If you have more, save it to liven up your tea.

Mix mint juice with sugar and lemon juice in a large pot. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 1 minute. Stir in pectin and bring to a boil again for 1 minute. Remove from heat and skim for 5 minutes.

Pour into sterilized jars and seal according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Makes about 4 - 250 ml jars Ginger Syrup I am a bit of a ginger beer enthusiast, trying every non-alcohol variety I see on the market. My favourites are Goslings (not available locally), Fever Tree and PC Jamaican Style Ginger Beer, which is happily stocked at the local Valu-Mart.

Although I like a little rum in a punch I like my ginger beer straight up with a squeeze of lime. Last summer when we were staying close to home, I wasn’t able to source ginger beer so I started to experiment with ginger syrups mixed with soda water. I never got close to the commercial formulas but found that using about 1:6 ratio of syrup to water created a refreshing ginger sparkling water. We bought a “Sparkle” soda water machine and ¼ cup of syrup in the 750 bottle makes a great drink.

Ingredients: 11 oz fresh ginger, sliced thinly no need to peel, about 2 cups 3 cups filtered water, reserve 1 cup to rinse out food processor 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed Directions: Place sliced ginger in a food processor with 2 cups of filtered water and process until ginger is finely minced. If you do not have a food processor continue with boiling sliced ginger in water.

Place emulsion in a saucepan and rinse container with remaining cup of water and bring to a boil then continue to simmer, covered, on low, for 30 minutes.

Strain liquid into another pot and add both sugars. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

Cool and refrigerate to add to soda water, tea or any other summer punch or drink. ◊ June 2021 43

Gardening Rhea Hamilton‐ Seeger is a skilled cook and gardener who lives near Auburn.

Native plants create a smorgasbord

I

n the early spring every sunny day counts, and for that matter any day that does not have a raw wind is a day to be outside. May and June are months of absolute madness for gardeners. From the raking, edging, digging, planting, moving, composting, fertilizing, and mulching, there are simply not enough hours in the day. And yet we practically dance our way outside ever so eager to get our hands dirty and revel in the simple joy of gardening.

I have been watching an Ontario Gardeners site on Facebook where everyone from the newest to the most experienced post questions and photos. The number of new gardeners posing questions, nor the many generous responses from the practical to the whimsical gardeners did not surprise me.

There are some very basic concepts to work with that will guide both new and experienced gardeners alike. The first one is sunlight. Not many of us have the luxury of starting a garden in the middle of a wide-open space. We have buildings, trees, and fences to consider. I have been monitoring when sunlight hits the new vegetable garden hoping that our site choice was a good one. There is a towering maple in the neighbour’s yard to the east that filters the early light but we are getting more than the minimum of six hours during the day. That is the golden number. Anything less is considered shade and anything more is a bonus.

The same is for the front garden.

44 The Rural Voice

It might be on the north side of the house but the sun catches the east edge for a large part of the morning.

So the large sun-loving hosta that is in there will be quite happy. The garden further out from the house gets far more light as it is out of the shadow of the house Another concern is soil. I want all my plants to flourish, who doesn’t?

But not all plants perform well with excess compost and moisture. I was planting nasturtium seeds in the edge of the new vegetable garden, which is built on well-rotted manure and covered in fine compost. It is remarkable the information you can find on a seed packet. The sowing instructions, seed depth, sun requirements, thinning etc. are important but in the case of my nasturtiums there was a cautionary note that flower production suffers if fertilized or planted in rich soil. So half of my pack went into the rich bed and the other half into the sunny perennial border that had not been amended with the good stuff.

Looking forward to the results.

More gardeners are looking at native species to fill out their gardens and encourage pollinators and

beneficial insects. Before you think you have to give up your peonies and iris, you can have both.

I brought into our new garden Monarda didyma or better known as Scarlet Beebalm, narrow-leaved Vervain, Penstemon digitalis or Foxglove Beardtongue, Mertensia virginica or Virginia Bluebells and Solidago caesia or Blue-stemmed Goldenrod. All native plants can make striking additions to your garden and the added attraction of enticing butterflies and pollinators alike.

The early blooming Virginia Bluebells seemed to come from nowhere in our old garden. There were two small patches and they seemed to be hanging on. They are part of the forget-me-not family so you can imagine the clear rich blue of the delicate bells. They started out pink and turn blue. The leaves are lovely rounded lobes. They are found in the dappled springwoods and die back when finished seeding. I have them in the same garden with assorted primula and hellebores, which all bloom in the spring and later pink Turtlehead, Chelone glabra, blooms for late summer

Bringing natives into your garden will attract bees, butterflies and birds. Above, Monarda didyma (left) is a brilliant red magnet for bees while Virginia bluebells (right) are early blooming. They start out as pink and turn blue and die back when finished seeding.

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June 2021 45

Rural Living

colour. Yes, it too is a native.

You might be familiar with Penstemon digitalis or Foxglove Beardtongue. Some years ago there was a Husker Red Penstemon that was quite popular with red-toned leaves, mounding habit and sprays of white tubular flowers. There are a number of both native and hybridized versions, all quite lovely. I had a little one appear on a wooded path in the garden. I staked it and moved it to a spot that gets late afternoon sun much like what it was getting before.

Mine is not very big, although I know this plant can reach two to four feet when happy. This one has lavender/purple blooms unlike the true native which is normally white.

Vervain, verbena stricta, is a tall statuesque addition to the garden. I discovered these some years ago and planted them behind the hostas making a lovely variation of height in the garden. They grow to two to four feet high with long spires of mini white and blue flowers along the stems. Mine were often four feet, liked dry soil and were perfect in the dappled forest garden. They got enough light and still performed well.

They are in a somewhat similar home here and withstood the move well.

The last two additions to your garden will be somewhat familiar.

Solidago caesia or Blue-stemmed Goldenrod and Monarda didyma or better known as Scarlet Beebalm bring wonderful colour in late summer into the fall. Who doesn’t love the fragrance of the beebalm in your hand?

There are at least 21 varieties of Goldenrod and since it blooms the same time as ragweed it gets a bad rap from allergy sufferers. While it is related to ragweed, its pollen is much heavier and not usually airborne.

Both the monarda and goldenrod are magnets for assorted bees and butterflies and should be in every garden. They both prefer full sun and due to their height look best in the middle of the perennial border.

On a final note we brought in wild strawberries and native ginger to plant in the boulevard in an effort to bring a bit of a smorgasbord for the creatures we share the land with.

Wish me luck! ◊

Advice

• By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot •

Life is hard but we need to stay positive Television reality star and experienced veterinarian, Dr. Jan Pol, encourages farmers with his pragmatic attitude

The Incredible Dr. Pol is a reality show offered on the National Geographic channel and its charismatic star, Dr. Jan Pol is a veterinarian with a “stay positive” message. He shared that message with viewers who signed up for free videos from the Canadian Dairy XPO, traditionally held in Stratford but hosted virtually this year.

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nyone who has watched The Incredible Dr. Pol on television knows the Dutch veterinarian is a “get it done” kind of guy so it’s no surprise he had lots of advice for staying positive during COVID-19 as the featured guest speaker at this year’s Canadian Dairy XPO. As the event was held virtually, Dr. Jan Pol’s presentation is available online via the CDX website, and while he is more personable live (CDX visitors were treated to his brand of humour live a few years 46 The Rural Voice

back) Dr. Pol’s unique personality and true love for animals was evident beyond the screen as he shared his message.

“There are a lot of hard times going on right now,” said Dr. Pol, now 79 and still a practising veterinarian at Pol Veterinarian Services in Weidman, Michigan. He is the star of The Incredible Dr. Pol which has run for 17 seasons on the National Geographic channel and is produced by his son, Charles. “We have COVID-19 worldwide, everyone is in a tizzy and we don’t

know what to do to stay safe. Thank goodness for our dairy and beef farmers who do not have it so bad and have animals that need attention every day.”

Farmers set a good example on how to cope through these times because they all have goals and a purpose, believes Dr. Pol. He recalls being 12 and living in the Netherlands when he decided to become a veterinarian. “I had to go through many tests and exams to be eligible as an exchange student to Canada but I did it,” he remembers.

Dr. Pol returned to the Netherlands for veterinarian school and because he was colour blind, he struggled viewing slides under the microscope.

“When they were coloured, they all looked the same. But I asked my fellow students what they saw and that was how I got through it.”

Exams were tough but perseverance awarded him a licence to practise as a veterinarian.

After he married Diane, the couple returned to North America which required more exams to be able to practise in the United States.

It took some clever arguing during the oral exam first in Ohio, then Michigan until he was finally granted Temporary License #19 and was hired by a veterinarian’s clinic in Harbor Beach, Michigan. “That was 50 years ago and I had a very strong accent so sometimes the people did not understand me as well as I thought they did,” he remembers.

Busy with work in the large animal practice, Dr. Pol soon found he was quite popular with the clients.

“The education in the Netherlands was hands-on and that paid off. I was at a calving with my boss and he was a big guy working hard to get a calf

Advice out. When he got tired, he asked me to take over. In the Netherlands, you take your shirt off and go in with both arms so I did that and five minutes later, I had a calf on the ground.” Dr. Pol said the farmer looked at him, at the big vet and at the calf on the ground and everyone wondered how he got the calf out so fast.

Working hard and smart is an excellent way to move ahead in life and Dr. Pol said he did that for 10 years before deciding he wanted to open his own practice. He purchased a practice in Weidman, Michigan and it was a challenging time. He and Diane had to learn to manage a business besides doing the work of a veterinarian and being a one-man show, the days were long and hard.

The practice grew to three veterinarians but sometimes it takes a while to find the right fit with another veterinarian and the practice dwindled back to just Dr. Pol for a time. “One Saturday I made 22 calls of which one had 53 pregnancy checks. The days were long but the farms were close together back then,” remembers Dr. Pol. Eventually, Dr. Brenda and then Dr. Erin came, both sticking to the practice and also becoming part of the show. “People at first did not look favourable on a female veterinarian but she (Dr. Brenda) was from a dairy farm. I did not think the Amish would accept her but the Amish women work as hard as the men and they did accept her,” said Dr. Pol. More veterinarians would come and go, some becoming good friends and others who launched their own veterinarian clinics, supported

by Dr. Pol. During all the good times and bad times, Dr. Pol said it is always possible to stay positive. “Do the things you want to accomplish in your lifetime,” he advised. “I say expect the worst but work for the best.” Also, embrace the unexpected.

When his son, Charles, said he wanted to start a reality show featuring Dr. Pol and his work as a veterinarian, Dr. Pol was surprised.

He wasn’t a young man any more.

Plus, Dr. Pol does things his own

way and his techniques were sometimes criticized by other veterinarians. Still, the show became a big success and Dr. Pol admits he does not want to quit. “People who write to us, the fans, come from all over the world. We hear the nicest things from them,” said Dr. Pol. He recounts the tale of a woman watcher who noticed a cow in pasture struggling to calve. She pulled into the rancher’s laneway and followed him back to the cow but the rancher said since the nearest veterinarian was over 200 kilometres away, the cow would likely die. The woman viewer declared she watched Dr. Pol and could get the calf positioned right for the birth. Which she did! A live calf was born and while the cow suffered a uterine prolapse and died, at least the rancher got a live calf and sometimes a live calf is just the very thing to make a whole day worthwhile, said Dr. Pol. From his lengthy career as a veterinarian and wisdom gained from age, Dr. Pol also advised viewers to be adaptable during times of hardship and stress. “When you work on a farm, not everything is easy and you have to keep going with the times,” said Dr. Pol. “For instance, in Canada when you want to dairy farm and cannot buy quota, I see people make cheese and other dairy products to adapt to the circumstances. This is very important.”

Also, take risks. He remembers when one of his favourite dogs, already 10 years old, started declining. He did an exam and found a huge tumour in its belly. It would surely kill the dog but so could such an invasive operation to remove it.

Dr. Pol said it was worth the risk and cut out a tumour so big it filled both his hands. “Now it is a year and half later and that dog is as happy as can be. It is amazing. And if you don’t try it, you will never know if it will work.” inally, Dr. Pol advised viewers to just go for it! Live life large.

This story may shed light on that approach. When working for a boss, he was given a truck to drive but the contents were disorganized and often dusty from the driving. So

F

when Dr. Pol started his own large and small animal practice, he purchased a station wagon. At one time, there were eight station wagons driven by the veterinarians and family members. On this day, a fellow vet was trying to help birth a foal which was stuck with its head way back in a big Belgian horse on an Amish farm. “Those foals, well they are as big as I am!” said Dr. Pol. He was called to the farm to assist and the Amish guy later told him he saw the door flew open, Dr. Pol’s shirt was flying off and his arm was already deep in the horse before the station wagon even stopped rocking back and forth.

Dr. Pol had many stories to share and the video is worth watching to hear more of them. He clearly was blessed with lots of energy, is infused with purpose and is able to find humour in many situations. His advice is well worth heeding during a pandemic lockdown when screens are the best way to learn and connect with other human beings finding their way through these tough times.◊

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Wellness

Finding healing in the present

Circles, paths and labyrinths are part are Reverend Vicki Cousins’ (left) work with

Spiritual Knapsack in Aurora bringing hope and healing to those struggling with mental health. ~Photo of Cousins from Facebook, labyrinth from Wikipedia

From labyrinths to equine therapy, Rural Talks to Rural investigates methods for wellness and mindfulness

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icki Cousins doesn’t remember the morning she disappeared and ended up in a circle of ponies. Her family did.

The story goes that when she was two, she was playing outside in the garden while her great-grandfather watched over her. However, he got busy hoeing and lost sight of Vicki who was drawn to a field of ponies beside the garden. When Vicki’s mom came to the garden, they noticed Vicki was missing.

“My dad arrived home and saw my mother and greatgrandfather running around frantically looking for me,” said Cousins, recounting the story. “He climbed on top of his truck to see better and when he looked into the field, he saw the ponies in a circle and knew immediately where I was. He hopped over the fence and gently made his way into the circle of ponies where I was quite happily sitting in the grass, soaking it all in.” Later, she learned many mammals will put their young in the middle to protect them from harm and so it was the day she was lost.

“Many times in my life when I have stood alone, I remember that story,” said Cousins. “I remember that through creation we are always surrounded by divine protection, love, healing and light.”

48 The Rural Voice

Cousins shared this powerful story as part of a fourpanel discussion on Rural Wellness and Mindfulness offered during the Rural Talks to Rural presentations.

Organized by the Canadian Centre of Rural Creativity (CCRC), Rural to Rural was a week-long series of presentations encouraging rural movers, shakers and dwellers to meet, connect and talk about rural issues.

Peter Smith, Project Director for CCRC says today’s “hurly burly world is leaving me a bit breathless” and asked the four healers on the panel to share their insights on how we can catch our breath and find healing in the present.

Cousins, owner of the Spiritual Knapsack in Aurora and Coordinator of Spiritual Care at Southlake Regional Health Centre, said circles and paths continue to play a role in her work. She sets up a portable labyrinth when working with patients to draw them down the path to the centre to find peace, rest and divinity. Then they follow that same path back out in the world. The structure of the labyrinth and the process generates feelings among people of all faiths. “I had a Muslim gentleman say the feelings he had in it were

• By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot •

similar to feeling he experienced on a journey to Mecca,” recalls Cousins.

Another panelist, Josee GallantGordon finds working with people and horses brings her a sense of spiritual connection. “Spirituality is about connecting, to notice how we share space,” said Gallant-Gordon, a registered clinical social worker who is the founder and owner of Elm Grove Centre in Prince Edward Island, which incorporates different modalities including equine therapy for mental health care. GallantGordon encourages the practice of being in the present moment.

“It takes intentional awareness to bring us back to the present and it’s an invitation of being rather than doing,” said Gallant-Gordon. “Part of my daily spirituality is sharing space with horses and people.” Like Cousins, she finds spending time with horses and watching foals being born on the farm instills hope in her and all who see the birth. anya Porter, owner of The Inner Space yoga studio near Markham, works with people to help them understand the value of each moment. Part of that is recognizing death and life work together to teach us what life is about.

She said people are so determined to control everything, including death, that they get locked into flight, fight and freeze positions. Instead, spiritually, people need to come into their parasympathetic nervous system. There, “we are with breath and our sense of safety can only happen from a position of moving beyond the desire to control everything to becoming comfortable and really embracing that we do NOT know.”

Porter uses yoga, meditation and drumming to meet that end and to be “alive in this moment” to bring one’s self to a place of wellness. ringing research into the discussion was Valerie Michaelson, a social scientist working with the Canadian Institute of Health. While conducting a study researching if spiritual health is a protective health asset to the mental health of Canadian children, she

T

found “a striking association between spirituality and mental health.”

The study looked at over 30,000 children and measured connections in four relational domains: ourselves, others, nature and some kind of transcendence. Finding a definition was difficult but by interviewing a cross-section of 80 young people representing rural, urban, all faiths and all provinces, they came up with this: Spiritual health looks different for everyone. It can involve a sense of purpose to life, and the experiences of feeling calm, joyful, balanced and being connected and true to one-self. It is also about how we connect with people. It is about being kind, respectful and forgiving, and helps you see past your own needs. It is about making the world better for others, not just yourself. It is about connecting with nature or the land. For some people, being religious might be an important part of it. It can impact your worldview and guide your moral choices. Life is full of stress and struggles. Having these strong spiritual connections can

help us overcome challenges, cope, and grow, even when things go wrong. These connections are part of what makes us human.

Guided by this definition, Michaelson said parents have the responsibility to protect children from adverse experiences but also give them tools and frameworks that are protective. Also, to listen. “We found the children were excited that adults wanted to hear what they had to say,” remembers Michaelson.

“They wanted platforms to talk about spirituality.”

Michaelson said the study was eye-opening but adults shouldn't be surprised that young people have “profound things to tell us. It’s not surprising that they can tell us what they need to thrive in the world.”

The panel brought a lot of ideas forth on how to achieve wellness. It revealed there are many ways one can find wellness in rural life and sometimes people have to incorporate multiple strategies to accept change, be in the present, and feel peace. ◊

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50 The Rural Voice

News

• By Tim Cumming •

Strangs named Conservationists of the Year By using cover crops and innovative conservation tillage, the Strangs build soil health and prevent erosion

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usable Bayfield Conservation has announced the winners of the Conservationist of the Year Award. The winners, in 2021, are Keith, Geoff and Mike Strang of Exeter.

Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority (ABCA) will present the award later this year.

Keith Strang, and his sons Geoff and Mike, are very interested in preserving the land which they farm.

The Strangs use cover crops, crop rotation and vegetative cover to build soil health and prevent soil erosion.

They have also established watercourse buffers and restored a wetland. This local farm family is innovative with conservation tillage, variable seeding, and fertilizing.

These local agricultural producers are also generous with their time in speaking to their peers at events related to agriculture and soil health.

The fourth and fifth generation of the Strang family are farming near Exeter. Strang Farms works about 2,400 acres in the area. Their growth strategy is to employ “conservation farming practices with the latest crop sciences and advanced technologies.”

“We are proud to announce Keith, Geoff and Mike Strang as this year’s winners of the Conservationist of the Year Award,” said Doug Cook, Chair of the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority Board of Directors. “They are leaders in their industry and they put best management practices into action to the benefit of water and soil in this watershed.”

The award recipients are to receive a handcrafted award made by Bob Hutson, of Windbreak Farm (windbreakfarm.ca) Custom Woodworks near Fullarton, Ontario.

The engraved dual-purpose board is a piece of art on one side and a serving tray on the other and is made from beech wood. In addition to the prize,

(Left to right) Keith Strang, Jeff Den Otter, Mike Strang, and Geoff Strang of Strang Farms are winners of the Conservationist of the Year Award in 2021. They are shown in front of a constructed wetland at Geoff Strang’s property. The agricultural producers from this family farm near Exeter build soil health and prevent soil erosion by using cover crops, crop rotation, vegetative cover as well as innovative conservation tillage, variable seeding, and fertilizing. They also share their experiences with peers and have restored a wetland and established watercourse buffers.

Ausable Bayfield Conservation is donating towards a tree and plaque at a Commemorative Woods.

Ausable Bayfield Conservation has presented the Conservationist of the Year Award since 1984. Winners have included community organizations, companies, nature groups, rural landowners and

residents, agricultural producers and farms, service clubs, and municipalities. Each winner is a business, organization, farm, or person residing in the watershed or having done conservation work there.

A nomination form and list of past winners can be found on the ABCA website. ◊ June 2021 51

Markets Scott Krakar is a Grain Merchandiser with LAC Inc., Hyde Park, 519‐473‐9333

It’s been a good year for planting and prices so far If you’re a cash cropper, the year is off to a great start. Prices for grain and oilseeds are booming. Planting conditions are great. Soils are generally dry (for this time of year) and the ground is working up well.

The crop is going in early and is off to a strong start, giving it excellent yield potential. Likewise the wheat crop is progressing well – it too has excellent yield potential. Not every

52 The Rural Voice

year do things line up so well to start, both prices and planting progress – it seems that 2021 should be a good year, but the verdict is not out yet.

We’ll see how the summer's weather is before we get too confident.

It is not only locally that the crop is being planted timely and ahead of average pace. On May 10 the U.S. corn crop was 67 per cent planted, compared to the average of 52 per cent at that time. Similarly with soybeans, on the same date U.S. soys were 40 per cent planted versus the five-year average of 22 per cent.

With such a rapid pace the assumption is that U.S. acres will grow compared to the initial planting intentions the USDA produced at the end of March. With planting progress and prices so good, who would not get acreage planted to capitalize on the opportunity presented?

With increasing acres in mind – prior to the release of the May 12 crop report – many in the agriculture commodity analysis business speculated as to how much corn planted acreage could be added. The largest increase in corn planting

occurred in 2007 when acres gained just over 2.4 million acres. Looking back to 1985 there were 20 years in which the planted acreage gained from the prospective planting report.

In these 20 years the average acreage increase was just over 850,000 acres.

If you assume the market does add record acres this year – it will still take record yields to hold ending stocks at the current inventories.

For soybeans, the largest increase in soy planting versus the prospective planting report was in 2014. That year soy planting was up around 3.3 million acres from the initial guess.

Comparing back to 1985, there were 22 years in that acres increased from the initial acreage estimate, with an average increase of about 1.2 million acres.

Brazilian weather remains a challenge. Currently the weather model continues to be in a La Niña pattern (although it looks to be fading). La Nina conditions usually bring South America dry weather, and as we have been discussing this is what has occurred throughout the second crop Brazilian growing season. Brazilian second crop corn production continues to see lower production estimates due to this ongoing drought. The crop was the slowest planted in 10 years.

April is reported to be the driest in the region for at least 20 years and unfortunately for the region, the drought has been occurring during the second crop corn's pollination period. By way of comparison, the Parana region of Brazil had a similar type drought in 2018. That year April rains were historically low, and May rains, while providing more accumulation than April's totals, were still below normal. The resulting corn crop came in at about 75 per cent of typical expectations that year.

It is without dispute that the crop will be smaller than normal, the question is to what degree.

The South American drought has also affected transportation routes, and the Parana River’s water levels have fallen to levels that limit interior Argentine soys from moving to the large soybean crushers on the Brazilian coast. Brazil supplies about 20 per cent of the world’s corn

Markets exports and about 50 per cent of the world’s soybean exports. As the Brazilian crop looks to be shrinking, world buyers have no choice but to come to the United States to meet their needs. This is exactly what is occurring currently.

U.S. exporters are having difficulty sourcing enough corn to meet their export commitments in some terminals.

The wheat crop in many areas still has enough threats to keep the market strong. The prairies and the Dakotas remain stubbornly dry, and so far forecasts don’t seem to be looking toward much relief. Likewise the U.S. plains are showing dry conditions as the crop heads toward a period when moisture is needed for yield. These production worries keep U.S. wheat prices strong as the market works to ration demand until the crop size and quality can be confirmed. This price rationing has caused U.S. wheat to become uncompetitive into world export markets. Currently with production worries and the expectation of a big wheat feeding program, U.S. wheat prices will be supported by corn values and will not follow world wheat prices closely.

Here at home inventories of grains and oilseeds are extremely snug. Old crop wheat inventories have been cleaned up and there continues to be interest from feeders for more wheat than is available in the marketplace.

From this one would expect that new crop wheat off the combine will be in demand as feed mills reach for grains to displace corn costs in rations. ◊

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Woodlots Donna Lacey is a forester with the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority

Am I harming or helping in the forest?

As a forestry professional, I believe that when I am working in a forest or planting a future forest that I am first doing no harm, as the medical professionals’ standard states.

Clearly, when I was working with my fellow tree planters to establish a new forest on a marginal piece of sloping farm field, a Cooper’s Hawk disagreed with our intentions. A Cooper’s Hawk is a small hawk that is mainly gray-backed, black-capped, and has a reddish, barred chest. Tree planting is mainly a spring activity

for us and as the trees are perishable, we must plant in a timely fashion.

Unfortunately, our tree planting season coincides with some nesting seasons. Throughout our two days of shoveling, this poor hawk perceived us as a threat to its nest in the nearby forest. Harassing wildlife is not a practice that we wish to get into, and we would have left if we could have.

As this hawk (or maybe the nesting pair took turns) kept coming out of the forest to yell at us I started thinking about the side effects of our actions. This was not a moment of enlightenment; I do have a strong understanding of our forest ecology and the effects of our actions. Really, while standing in the black flies digging holes in rocky ground, your mind needs to think about something and a hawk screaming at you can send your mind in a direction.

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54 The Rural Voice

years this field has been producing low quality hay. In my belief regarding the benefit of reforesting these areas, we have a wonderful thing. In the eyes of this Cooper’s Hawk maybe not so much.

As we change a field over to a forest many pieces of the puzzle will change. Obviously, this is over the course of a decade or more but let’s look at this particular situation. As hay fields are maintained, there is overseeding, fertilizing, growing, and cropping. At each stage in this management there are multiple opportunities for this Cooper’s Hawk to benefit.

Many small birds and rodents enjoy eating grass seeds. As we broadcast seeds that we can barely see, many creatures are awaiting the feast. When spreading manure on a field, we are attracting a lot of insects; many small birds rely on insects as a staple of their diet. While a hay field is growing there are multiple opportunities for small birds to feed: the flower nectar, the flowers attracting insects, or a feast of seeds.

These small birds coming into this hay field are quite possibly a major reason for the Cooper’s Hawk nesting in the nearby forest. This hay field is essentially a bird feeder.

Cooper’s Hawks feed on small birds.

Attract small birds and get a bigger bird.

I am certain that there are other predators that also take advantage of the disturbances that cropping a field creates. There are many creatures that make their homes in our fields as I am sure you are all aware. I purposefully do not look straight down when driving equipment or walking through a field as I do not want to see how many snakes there are in my path of travel. Looking out over the equipment or straight across when walking, many creatures can be spotted as they are flushed out. Just imagine the predator/prey reaction to this. Many times, when disturbing the old grass mat that is beneath the newly growing grasses, a mouse, or mole family will rush out to avoid the potential danger.

We unintentionally scare these creatures which flee in a panic. This mad rush may result in them being exposed for

Woodlots awaiting predators. Much like the Eastern Kingbirds that used to sit in our orchard when I mowed the lawn.

These birds seem to understand that my mowing meant that insects would be scattering and readily available for feasting on. The Eastern Kingbird is a medium-sized bird that has a black back and head, with a white band on the tip of its tail, and a white neck and chest. It is said to look like it is wearing a tuxedo. Their presence is similar to that of gulls which show up during plowing.

Back to the thought of first doing no harm ... I wonder if in my zeal to improve our watershed health through tree planting have I done a greater good? It is my belief that I have.

Over the years to come, the trees that I have planted will provide either a dense forest setting or a forest with meadow pockets within. Obviously, the meadow pockets will be either areas that were not planted or areas in which the trees did not survive.

These ecosystems that will result from this planting will be more diverse than that which was previously there in the actively managed agricultural field. As for the angry Cooper’s Hawk, well it should remain very pleased with the area in which it is nesting. Small birds will continue to come to the former field, now plantation, to feed off seeds and insects. The site will remain one large bird feeder for all sizes of birds.◊

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June 2021 55

Agrilaw John D. Goudy is a partner in Scott Petrie LLP Law Firm, and also farms north of London.

In search of lost roads Once a highway, always a highway? According to Section 26 of the Municipal Act, 2001, all highways that existed on December 31, 2002 continue to be recognized as public highways unless they have been closed.

Historically, highways (not just “highways” in the sense of a major paved road but also sideroads and concession roads, gravel or paved) could be established in a number of ways, including by passage of a municipal by-law or by operation of the common-law doctrine of “dedication and acceptance”. After

January 1, 2003, however, all highways must be established by bylaw of a municipality.

The doctrine of dedication and acceptance required that the owner of land on which a road was located formed the intention to dedicate the land to the public as a public road, that the intention was actually carried out by opening the road to the public, and that the road was accepted as such by the public. Dedication could also occur by “usurpation and long enjoyment” with the dedication by the landowner being inferred from the use of the road by the public.

While it might seem that establishment of roads by dedication and acceptance would have been an imprecise and uncertain practice (which it was) as compared with establishment of roads by municipal by-law, the fact that a municipal bylaw was once passed doesn’t always translate into the continuing existence of a road. Some roads that were established by by-law have disappeared. Some roads were never actually created. The circumstances surrounding the passing of the by-law

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56 The Rural Voice

and the plans for the road may be lost to history. Roads can be lost to history. Those seeking to prove the existence of a disputed road today often face a tall order.

An application decided recently by the Superior Court provides a case in point. The applicant landowner owned a parcel of land bisected by a river. The north section of the property, lying north of the river, was effectively landlocked and accessible by water only. However, the local municipality had passed a by-law in 1890 purporting to establish a public road through neighbouring property (also to the north of the river) that would provide land access to the landlocked parcel. The landowner applied for a declaration that the 1890 by-law established a road that ought to be opened up (through the neighbours’ property) for public use today.

The neighbouring owners opposed the application, as did the municipality. The neighbouring owners contended that there was no evidence of a road ever having existed on the ground through their property.

Land registry documentation did not disclose a road on the property. Some of the area where the road was supposed to have existed was now under water or part of environmentally sensitive wetlands. An aerial photograph of the area from 1926 provided no evidence of a road.

The municipality said the highway described in the 1890 by-law was never built; the municipality never succeeded in acquiring all of the land necessary for the road.

The applicant landowner took the position that the passing of the 1890 by-law, and its registration in the Land Registry, was sufficient to create a valid “highway” that continues to exist today regardless of its current physical condition. The by-law, the applicant submitted, described the boundaries with certainty. The applicant provided evidence of a land surveyor suggesting that the location of the road can still be established. The applicant also pointed to “visual evidence of a historical road in the area”.

The Court sided with the

Agrilaw respondents and dismissed the application. While Council Minutes from the 1880s and 1890s suggested there was substantial community interest in the development of a road across the neighbours’ property, and some steps were actually taken to create the road, the process was never completed. A survey for the proposed road was prepared. The municipality acquired some of the land needed for the road. There was even evidence that some portions of the proposed road were opened for public passage.

However, the full road never came to fruition and eventually, it seemed, was lost.

Apparently, some portions of the road that were constructed did not follow the original survey, which caused friction between landowners.

The municipal record contained reference to a “forced road” in one location where the road deviated from the planned route onto private property. The Court noted that there was ample evidence that sections of the proposed road were through wet and marshy land, which would complicate construction. Ultimately, the Court disagreed with the applicant that the location of the road could be described with certainty.

This was one reason for the dismissal of the application.

The application also failed because there was no modern record showing that the road ever existed as planned by the 1890 by-law. The evidence did not show that all necessary land was acquired by the municipality. The survey that laid out the road had been lost. There was no reliable historical photographic evidence that showed the location of what might have been a publicly travelled road.

The road, to the extent it ever truly existed, had been lost to history. ◊ ______________________________ John D. Goudy’s law practice includes real property and environmental litigation, expropriation law, energy regulation, and regulatory offences.

Agrilaw provides information of interest to the farming community, not legal advice. Readers should consult a legal professional about their particular circumstances.

MARQUARDT FARM DRAINAGE LTD ESTABLISHED 1968

“Being On Top Of What Goes Below” We provide: • Plastic and concrete tile installations

• Competitive pricing

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When outside,

be bite wise Ticks can cause Lyme disease Mosquitoes can cause West Nile virus The risk of getting sick from a bug bite is low.

But why take chances? Protect yourself and others:

Use bug repellants approved by Health Canada.

Wear long-sleeved tops and pants. Light colours are best.

Limit time outdoors during dawn and dusk.

Check your body for ticks.

Check your pets as well. www.hpph.ca 1-888-221-2133 June 2021 57

People

● By Gary West

Brock and Nairn named farm Champions Farm & Food Care awards Champion status to storytellers and educators who promote agriculture

Sandi Brock encourages empathy as she shares stories of her life on a sheep farm via her YouTube channel, Sheepishly Me. Sandi Brock and Paul Nairn share the 2021 Champion Award given by Farm and Food Care Ontario to honour those who tell agriculture’s story.

Sandi Brock o some Sandi Brock is seen as an outstanding sheep farmer from the Staffa area. Others applaud the 240,000 YouTube subscribers she has which gives an unfiltered glimpse into daily life on her sheep farm.

To those who know her, Sandi Brock exemplifies a truly giving

T

farm wife and mother who freely donates her time to promote agriculture online while encouraging the well-being of farmers in general.

The young Perth County mother of two was recently presented with a “Champions” award at the annual meeting of Farm and Food Care Ontario for her commitment to public outreach and her support for Ontario’s farming community. She, along with husband Mark, operate Shepherd Creek Farms which runs 1,700 acres of grain and oil seed crops south-west of Staffa, Ontario.

They added sheep to their business in Manufacturer of Precast Concrete Products Complete Infrastructure Supply • septic and holding tanks • sewer • watermain • concrete structures • hydrants and valves • hydro vaults • plow blades

www.porters.ca Lucknow (head office) 519-528-3537 Owen Sound 519-372-1636 Stratford 519-271-5554

58 The Rural Voice

Lucknow location also offers • septic pumping • ready mix • aggregate and decorative stone Division of J.A. Porter Holdings (Lucknow) Ltd.

2012, raising 400 commercial breeding ewes.

Sandi’s past also includes being leader of the Kirkton Dairy 4-H club for 13 years and a board member of Farm & Food Care Ontario for two years. She was also a provincial director on the Ontario sheep board.

Sandi states that she began her journey online to share her life as a mom, a wife, and a farmer and as a way to connect with others who share many of the same beliefs and values.

Her voice evolved into developing ways to create community and more specifically — “empathy”. She was recently quoted as saying that she has learned that “respect and empathy is earned. You have to first give it — fully, vulnerably and authentically — and then wrap it up after years of daily triumphs and struggles that has created value through storytelling.”

She said her community just happens to be surrounded by a few woolly friends.

Paul Nairn A Perth County man who has worked for the Ontario Federation of Agriculture for over 25 years was nominated by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture for the Champion award.

Most farmers know Paul for educating the public on modern farm practices. He has gained the support of many farmers in Perth County over many years.

The graduate of the University of Guelph grew up on a mixed farm north of St. Marys in Downie Township and was heavily involved in 4-H and Junior Farmers as a youth.

Paul began his career with OFA in 1995 as a member service representative in Huron and Perth Counties. In 2014 he became the manager of the OFA western region for member services. He is also famous for starting the Perth County “Gala” — an idea he put forward in 2014 after seeing other sectors

People

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Paul Nairn 2021 winner of the Farm & Food Care Champion Award celebrating their businesses. He thought that agriculture could also host such an event to celebrate agriculture in Perth County for farmers and agriculture businesses.

Money from the Gala goes to support scholarships for youth interested in pursuing a future in agriculture.

The well-liked “Agriculture promoter” says “there will always be challenges in agriculture.” One of the biggest concerns hat he sees in the future is getting labour — both on farm and in agriculture support businesses. “There will always be a need to ensure, encourage and showcase a variety of jobs available to youth in agriculture”.

He feels that farmers and the agriculture community will increasingly need to tell their story about farming and the food connection if they are to succeed in gaining support from consumers about farming practices employed in modern agriculture. Nairn also feels that Farm & Food Care Ontario and other local organizations and events such as the International Plowing Match and fall fairs can play an important role in telling the agricultural story. He says it’s great to have those platforms to tell the story of farmers “who are food producers and real drivers of the economy”. ◊

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PH: (519) 364-1010 TF: (800) 461-1020 150 7th Avenue, Hanover, ON www.hanoverhonda.ca June 2021 59

MORRIS SACHS SILO CONSTRUCTION New stave silos now available SILO ACCESSORIES SILOS DISMANTLED, REBUILT AND REPAIRS

519-363-3900 Cell # (519) 372-5375 R.R. #2 Elmwood, Ont. N0G 1S0

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BUSHELL’S AUTO SALES

TRUCKS

SUVS

2016 Chev Colorado ext. cab, 2 WD, 149,000 km...... 16,500 2015 GMC Sierra ext. cab, 4x4, 206,000 km ................$22,995 2015 GMC Sierra crew cab, 4x4, 224,000 km .............$19,800 2013 GMC Sierra ext. cab, 2 WD, 175,000 km.............$14,995 2011 Chev Silverado reg. cab, RWD, 161,000 km ........$9,995 $

CARS 2017 Chev Malibu LT 106,000 km . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$14,995 2010 Hyundai Accent 102,000 km . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$3,995 2009 Cadillac CTS 225,000 km . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$4,895 2005 Malibu Maxx 196,000 km . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$4,995

VANS

2018 Ford Ecosport 54,000 km................................$18,995 2017 Hyundai Tucson AWD, 129,000 km .............$18,700 2016 Chev Trax 18,000 km.........................................$14,400 2014 Hyundai Santa Fe LTD AWD, 123,000 km...$15,995 2014 Ford Edge AWD, 140,000 km ...........................$12,900 2013 Ford Escape AWD, 125,000 km......................$12,995 2013 Honda CRV AWD, 33,000 km...........................$17,500 2012 Mazda CX7 AWD, 162,000 km ............................$8,995 2011 Jeep Compass AWD, 145,000 km ....................$7,695 2011 Ford Edge AWD, 140,000 km...............................$12,900 2010 Jeep Commander AWD, 262,000 km .............$8,995

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2011 Dodge Grand Caravan 111,000 km . . . . . . .$11,700 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan 230,000 km . . . . . . . . .$4,500 2009 Chev Express 8 passenger, 152,000 km . . . . . .$8,995

2007 Ford Ranger ext. cab, 2WD, 197,000 km..........$3,500 2006 Chev HHR 114,000 km ..........................................$2,995 2006 Mini Cooper 180,000 km ......................................$2,995 2005 VW Jetta diesel, 370,000 km................................$1,500

Is your car in the Body Shop?

We have rentals available for most major insurance companies.

Give us a call today!

We have a good selection of used tires 12" to 20"

Financing and Extended Warranty Available On All Units Plus 13% Tax ~ UCDA - Buy With Confidence

www.bushellsauto.ca 60 The Rural Voice

519-357-6731

The

Rural Voice

Business Centre To place your ad call: 519-523-4311 or email: rvads@northhuron.on.ca

Horse & Livestock Car, Utility & Recreational any design, hitches trade-ins welcome super after sales service

Full service to all boats and marine engines

ARGYLE Marine & Small Engines Inc.

33973 Church Camp Rd., Goderich 519-524-5361 Email: argylemarine@cabletv.on.ca

Est. 1991

www.beloretrailers.ca 324025 Mount Elgin Rd. Mount Elgin, Ontario N0J 1N0 Jamie Belore

phone: 519-485-5358 toll free: 1-877-247-7227 fax: 1-519-485-6129 jbelore@gmail.com

Maitland Welding & Machining

• In-shop & on-site millwrighting • Custom fabrication • Steel & industrial supply sales

63 North St. Wingham

Ph: 519-357-2727 Fax: 519-357-4769 www.maitlandwelding.com rstute@maitlandwelding.com

• Farm Lanes • Campgrounds • Driveways • Horse Riding Arenas Brent Pryce

519-525-6295

KRAEMER CONCRETE LTD. Two Locations to Serve You!

5595 Road 130 Brunner N0K 1C0

220 Industrial Park Dr., Brussels N0G 1H0

Fax: 595-4903

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519-595-2343

519-887-8763

Toll Free at 1-888-RING-KCL June 2021 61

B U S I N E S S C E N T R E

MANUFACTURING STEEL ROOFING SIDING & TRIMS Leadership in energy and environmental design

519-363-3757

Devon Henry 84772 McDonald Line • Box 616 • Brussels

devonjhenry@hotmail.com 519-505-2473

2051 Bruce Rd. 19, R.R. 1 Chesley, ON N0G 1L0

Also Supplying Other Building Accessories

B U S I N E S S C E N T R E

PACKERS: WE BUILD RUBBER TIRE PACKER SPECIALISTS

Order Now Also large fold-up steel drum packers, lawn & estate rollers, custom manufactured

RR #2, Arthur, Ont. (519) 848-2799

Serving the area since 1999

STEVEN NIXON Broker WILFRED MCINTEE & CO. LIMITED

Bus: 519-357-2222 Cell: 519-531-0252 Email: nixon@execulink.com Web: www.stevennixon.com

It’s a Seller’s Market Need listings for houses and farms

318 Josephine St., WINGHAM, ON N0G 2W0

Farm Drainage Unique Ironwork Benches, railings, gates, furniture and more One-of-a-kind functional art Visit our website at

www.workingiron.ca allan@workingiron.ca 36854 Dungannon Road, Dungannon

519-529-3434

62 The Rural Voice

ROTH DRAINAGE LTD Quality Workmanship Since 1948 * Farm Drainage * Excavator & Backhoe Service * Municipal Drainage * No Obligation Quotes

Gads Hill 519-656-2618

Blyth 519-895-6367

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• GPS • Plastic • Bron Plow • Surveys • Maps Glen 519-291-0709 cell Dennis 519-276-9292 cell

Newton, Ont. 519-595-4545

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519-440-7384

Galvanized Roofing For Sale

519-531-0355 TEESWATER, ON

mike@steffenwelldrilling.ca

• Agricultural & domestic water wells • Well Cleanouts • Pump Testing • Camera Inspection • Irrigation Wells • Dewatering Services

SALES & SERVICE INSTALLATION & PARTS

Rissler KEITH SIEMON FARM SYSTEMS LTD. 81987 Perth Rd. 180, R.R. 4, Walton 519-345-2734 (anytime)

www.keithsiemonfarmsystems.com email: keithsiemon@tcc.on.ca For Free Planning and Estimates

Elwood Kuepfer 519-363-9493 Grey Rd 25 #581053, Chesley ON N0G 1L0

Landscaping & Wood Clearing has trees available for planting in all sizes.

Cedar, White Pine, Silver Maple, Norway Spruce, White Birch & Hackberry.

Lawn Seeding & Sodding Tree Pruning & Planting and maintenance, etc.

Natural & Coloured Mulch

Bush Lots Cedar Logging Yard Trees Stump Grinding

37452 Glen’s Hill Road, RR 2, Auburn, Ont. N0M 1E0

Tel. 519-529-7212 Snowblowers, Quick-attach Buckets, Sweepers, Woodsplitters, Crimper Rollers, Land Rollers, Stone Windrowers, etc.

Website: smythwelding.com Email: info@smythwelding.com

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

AUCTION -------------------------------------------Elmira Produce Auction – Hay and Straw Sales every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Consignors and buyers welcome. Call Lloyd Martin 519664-3356, 7400 Reid Woods Drive, Elmira.

-------------------------------------------CONSTRUCTION -------------------------------------------WE POUR: liquid manure tanks, bunker silos, foundations and pads.

All are 100% engineered. Serving Ontario since 1968. De Jong & Sons Ltd. 519-348-0523.

-------------------------------------------CUSTOM BALING -------------------------------------------Custom big square baling, rotocut, $1.15 per foot, no knives; $1.25 per foot with knives. Also custom combining. 519-377-2303.

-------------------------------------------Custom round baling. Paul Buttar 519-441-3067.

--------------------------------------------

CUSTOM WORK -------------------------------------------Barnhem Farm Services – solid manure spreading; variable rate precision application (optional).

Serving Bruce, Grey, North Huron and North Wellington. Contact for information: Herman Vinckx at 519881-7663 or Dylan Vinckx at 519881-8957.

-------------------------------------------Get your fields ready for spring!

Dudgeon Enterprises offers seedbed prep, tillage and air seeding. Call Jeff at 519-375-7235 for quotes and inquiries. Dudgeon Enterprises, your environmentallyfriendly tillage provider.

-------------------------------------------Janmaat custom bale wrapping.

In-line wrapping any size round bale and any size square bale up to 6 1/2' long. Call Cody at 519-9553384.

--------------------------------------------

CUSTOM WORK -------------------------------------------Custom stone picking. Let us harvest rocks so you can harvest crops. Serving Grey, Bruce, Dufferin and Wellington Counties.

Call Brendan Martin 519-503-1101. brendan.martin870@gmail.com -------------------------------------------DAIRY -------------------------------------------Screened bedding sand, delivered.

Call 519-625-8242 or 519-2741490.

-------------------------------------------FIREWOOD -------------------------------------------Screened hardwood slabs – 16" cut $30 face cord, 10 cord deliveries or pick up in Auburn. huronfirewood.com Call 519-5243493.

--------------------------------------------

Tell them you saw their ad in The Rural Voice June 2021 63

B U S I N E S S C E N T R E

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

FARM SERVICES --------------------------------------------

FOR SALE -----------------------------------———— Alfalfa hay mixtures, pasture mixtures, top dressing for pastures, and a selection of organic grass seeds. All mixed to your personal needs. Available at Courtney Grain & Seed (2015) Ltd., 225 Hwy. 21, RR 1, Ripley. Phone 519-395-2972.

Ask for Carmon or Mitch.

-------------------------------------------For prices on forage peas, forage pea mixtures and cover crop mixtures. Contact Courtney Grain & Seed (2015) Ltd., 225 Hwy. 21, RR 1, Ripley. Phone 519-395-2972.

Ask for Carmon or Mitch.

-------------------------------------------Rosco grain bins for sale – 19' and 14' diameter. Parts available. Used grain bins wanted for parts or reuse. Closed Sundays, 519-3383920.

-------------------------------------------1972 384 Leyland tractor, recent four new tires and clutch; 8 ft. 3 pt. hitch spring-toothed cultivator; in excess of 500 lbs. of electric fence wire, in good shape; 2 farm wagons; weigh scale for bags; many miscellaneous articles. Call Kelly 519-373-6521 or Carl 519534-3988 (Wiarton).

-------------------------------------------GARDEN TOURS -------------------------------------------Visit the largest Botanical Gardens, Garden Centre and Home/Garden Décor Shop in Southwestern Ontario. Explore 30 acres of manicured gardens within natural rock outcroppings, wetlands, meadow and forest. Shop for rare and unusual plants, unique garden pieces and quality home décor. www.folmergardens.com -------------------------------------------IRON & STEEL -------------------------------------------DISCOUNT STEEL: New second grade steel sales; 1" - 8" square tubing; 7/8" - 14" round tubing; Rectangle tubing, discount plate; New and Used I-Beams; Bar grating, rebar, angles; Custom cutting, welding, punching.

Listowel. Phone Aden 519-5957775.

--------------------------------------------

LIVESTOCK BEDDING -------------------------------------------MIRACLE FIBER Livestock Bedding.

Also, coarse wood mulch for horse and cattle walkways, wet areas around water troughs and bush lanes. Also available is dairy pack starter bedding. 1-877-773-8004.

Sittler Grinding. Rick Sittler.

-------------------------------------------LIVESTOCK FOR SALE -------------------------------------------LIMOUSIN – quality breeding bulls for sale. Delivery included.

Posthaven Limousin, John Post.

519-766-7178. www.posthaven limousin.com -------------------------------------------Red Angus, Simmental and Red Angus-Simmental bulls are finished test. See their results at AgSights Ontario. Bull Evaluation, Silver Spring Farms. James and Joan McKinlay 519-599-6236.

-------------------------------------------McKague Charolais Bulls, yearlings and two year olds, registered purebred, polled or dehorned. Some heifer approved.

Also heifers bred Charolais (calving ease), Wingham 519-357-3808.

-------------------------------------------Gelbvieh Bulls – reds and blacks, 16 months old. Ready to work and fully guaranteed. Mike Klages 519363-6307 or 519-379-4603.

-------------------------------------------Rabbit breeding stock. High quality genetics available in Ontario. Order your PS40 bucks and PS19 does today. CuniON@tcc.on.ca -------------------------------------------20 bred cows, bred to purebred Charolais bull Hicks breeding. Due April-May. Mostly herefords. Call 519-502-7294, no voice message please.

-------------------------------------------Ile-de-France cross mature breeding ewes for sale. Clinton 519-4417749 or 519-482-9948. rramaker84@gmail.com -------------------------------------------Limousin bulls, open and bred females available. Smart Limousin, Meaford 519-372-7459. smartlimo @bmts.com www.smartlimousin.com --------------------------------------------

EGGER FARMS CUSTOM BALING

• 3x3 Bales Automatic Acid Applications, Roto Cutter.

Individual Bale Wrapping 6' bales

Call Fritz: 519-292-0138 ------------------------------------------FOR SALE -----------------------------------———— Martin’s Nursery & Bee Supplies Etc. Large selection of flowering trees, shade trees, fruit trees and hydrangeas and other shrubs. We have the plants you need to make a living “privacy hedge” or snow fence or windbreaks. Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce, White Spruce, Pine and Cedars. Also… a Complete line of Bee Supplies for the commercial or hobby beekeepers. Order your (Nuc) Bees for spring 2021. We stock all wooden-ware (bee-hives) foundation, assembled and unassembled frames, smokers, suits, jackets, gloves, mite treatments and some extracting equipment. Honey containers, jars, pails, custom built wooden-ware.

Come visit our nursery and bee supplies store Monday to Saturday at 42661 Orangehill Rd., RR 1, Wroxeter, ON N0G 2X0, one km. north of Wroxeter.

--------------------------------------------

Discount Steel Great for barn posts, stabling or other build-your-own projects

Custom Welding & Machine Shop Custom Stabling Mfg. Open Tues. & Thurs. ~ other days by chance John A.M. Martin 1467 Grey Ox Ave., Lucknow

CAMPER FOR SALE 21 1/2 ft. 5th wheel, 1996 model, air, awning, microwave, good condition. Asking $5,000

519-527-1866

64 The Rural Voice

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

REAL ESTATE -------------------------------------------Selling or buying farmland, residential or commercial. All properties needed. Call Greg or Dwaine Nicholls, Brokers for GA Nicholls Realty Ltd. Greg 519-2910507, Dwaine 519-492-2002.

-------------------------------------------RESTORATION -------------------------------------------The Olde Tyme Radio Centre – antique radios, clocks, gramophones, telephones; sold/restored. (vintage autoclock radio, speedometer, tachometer repaired). Belgrave 519-357-4304, www.oldtymeradio.ca -------------------------------------------RETAIL & GIFTS -------------------------------------------Stitches with a Twist – 404 Queen St., Blyth, 519-523-9449. Yarns, needles, notions, patterns, books and lots more yarn.

-------------------------------------------SERVICES -------------------------------------------INCOME TAX FILING – for farms, small business, truckers and individuals. Will make house calls in the North Huron, Perth and surrounding area. Call Shirley in Wingham – cell No. 1-705-4348187.

-------------------------------------------Cronin Poured Concrete Ltd. Since 1976. Liquid manure tanks to 200'.

Heights of 8'-14' (1-pour). All jobs engineer specifications/inspections - guaranteed. Best firm quote in Ontario. Mark Cronin, 519-3489062.

Cell 519-274-5000. www.cronin pouredconcrete.ca -------------------------------------------TOWNSLEY BARN PAINTING – All farm buildings and houses, seamless eavestroughing, liquid rubber coatings, waterproofing, metal, concrete, wood, foam and bin flooring sealing. Serving Ontario since 1955. Call 519859-0097 or 519-871-0300 townsleypainting@hotmail.com -------------------------------------------Firearms and hunting training.

PAL & HUNTER ED. Ongoing courses available. Certified instructors. Call Greg 519-8879622 or 519-291-0507.

--------------------------------------------

SERVICES --------------------------------------------

UPCOMING EVENTS -------------------------------------------Virtual Clinton Spring Fair – Events happening during May 28-June 6.

Highlights include: Car Scavenger Tour, Online Auction, “Hats off to Heroes” Community Spirit Display, Sidewalk Chalk Art Challenge.

Submit fair entries to email: submitclintonfair@tcc.on.ca. Check website: clintonspringfair.com or Facebook for more information and updates for the fair.

--------------------------------------------

DONALD A ANDREW ACCOUNTING

Accounting & Income Tax Services for FARMS, BUSINESSES & INDIVIDUALS 296 Ross St., Lucknow

Ph. 519-528-3019

GLAVIN BARN & COMMERCIAL PAINTING FARMERS repaint your faded coloured steel FREE QUOTES ~ FULLY INSURED

RR 1 Crediton, Ont. N0M 1M0 (near Exeter)

Call: Jim Glavin 1-800-465-4725 519-228-6247 Eugene Glavin 519-228-6801

South Bruce Tourism’s Annual Father’s Day Vintage Tractor Tour Sunday, June 20 from 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Specializing in on Farm Pest Management Serving Southwestern ON, Golden Horseshoe, GTA Email: info@sgsltd.ca

519-692-4232 www.sgspestmanagement.ca

“A Daytrip Back in Agricultural History”

On-farm displays of tractors, automobiles and other vintage pieces.

Throughout South Bruce - Mildmay, Formosa & Teeswater, Ontario

More info and maps available at: www.visitsouthbruce.ca -------------------------------------------WANTED -------------------------------------------Scrap Cars Wanted – 20, 30, 40 yd. scrap metal bins available. We sell quality used auto parts. Wanted to buy – scrap cars, trucks, farm machinery, heavy equipment.

Kenilworth Auto Recyclers. 519323-1113.

-------------------------------------------Round bales of horse or cattle quality hay picked up. Call Riley Gorman 519-321-1012.

-------------------------------------------Farmland – Long or short term.

Cash rent, share crop. Contact Paul at Hill & Hill Farms, 519-2333218 or 519-525-3137 or email: paul.hillhill@tcc.on.ca -------------------------------------------Young farmer looking for land rent, sharecrop, or custom work opportunities. Good environmental stewardship and professionalism.

Short and long term. 519-200-7845 or hundt.chris@outlook.com --------------------------------------------

June 2021 65

National Farmers Union – Ontario NEWSLETTER Phone: 1-888-832-9638 E-mail: office@nfuontario.ca Website: www.nfuontario.ca

Strong Communities.

Sound Policies.

Sustainable Farms.

“Out” in the Field: NFU-O celebrates Pride Month by highlighting LGBTQ+ farmers In the early hours of June 28, 1969, the New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City, and sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighbourhood residents that lasted six days. This event is remembered as the “Stonewall Uprising”, and though by no means was it the only event of its kind, will forever be recognized as a turning point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States. Its legacy lives on in the celebration of “Pride Month” in June: a month-long series of parades, picnics, parties, concerts, and memorials, among other festivities, to acknowledge and celebrate LGBTQ+ community and queer histories.

Elizabeth Snyder and Maureen Bostock have been together for 39 years and began farming in northwest British Columbia where they met.

They kept livestock and grew vegetables at Crows Nest Farm until 2002 when they moved to eastern Ontario and restarted their vegetable operation at Sweet Meadow Farm near Balderson, ON. “From the very beginning we were determined to be out and proud and do what we could to foster pride.”

They were part of the Terrace Rainbow Committee, a group in northern British Columbia which took the City of Terrace to the Human Rights Commission when the city refused to acknowledge the celebration of “Pride Day”.

Throughout the process, Maureen and Elizabeth became more aware of the ways in which homophobia and transphobia presented itself; not just in overt harassment, but also through more discreet means including discrimination in the housing market.

The group won their case and in northern British Columbia “Pride Day” continues to be celebrated on July 5.

Above: Maureen (back) and Elizabeth (front) in the hay field at Crows Nest Farm, near Terrace BC. Right: Simone (left) and Celeste (right) are the owners of Slow Growing Farm and the organizers of Not Your Father’s Farm Conference.

Maureen and Elizabeth have, and will, always believe in honouring the reality of their life. “By living our truth, we have found that our friends, neighbours and coworkers moved past their homophobic fears and we’ve welcomed them as collaborators and supporters of our farming life.”

Since the days Terrace Rainbow Committee won their case, the country has come a long way. The Toronto Pride Parade – the country’s largest, typically held on the first Saturday in July – in recent years has had an estimated attendance of 100,000 people, all there to celebrate LGBTQ+ social and self acceptance, achievements, legal rights, and pride.

Still there is more conversation to be had about the acceptance and celebration of queer folks, particularly in rural communities where the majority of farming takes place.

Celeste Lopreiato and her partner Simone, own and operate Slow Growing Farm in Marketdale, ON, and are in the midst of planning one of the first farm conferences for folks

in the gender minority, Not Your Father’s Farm Conference. “As one of few BIPOC, Queer & Womxnowned farms and farm-adjacent businesses in our region, we hope the conference will connect our growing community, and provide a safe space to learn, and teach each other, how to create opportunities and a voice for ourselves in farming.”

Says Celeste, “To me, being a Queer farmer is part of radicalizing a very hetero-normative industry. The “traditional male farmer and his wife” is an archetype that is changing, and people who previously didn’t think their identity could include “farmer” are starting to see a space for them in agriculture.”

Celeste, Simone and like-minded other farmers are continuing the conversation Maureen and Elizabeth were having in the 2000s in British Columbia. They too value the ecological, small-scale approach to farming attributed to our idea of the “family farm”. Their vision for the future just conceives of a more inclusive family photo.

Happy Pride month!

A subscription to The Rural Voice is one of the benefits of being an NFU-O member 66 The Rural Voice

Stewart Skinner, President stewart@stonaleenfarms.ca / 519-492-2990

Perth County Pork Producers NEWSLETTER

* The Rural Voice is provided to Perth County Pork Producers by the PCPPA perthcountyporkproducers@gmail.com

Producer associations built community and get things done There is an old box of coffee mugs kicking around my parents farm that turned 25 years old this year. It’s a reminder of a different time when there were over 21,000 pig farms across Canada with almost 1,000 of those farms in Perth County.

Over 30 pig farmers would come out to the Wednesday night meetings at the OMAFRA building in Stratford tied by a common bond – wanting to get paid more for the pig.

Today the association, like the industry, looks much different. Farms are bigger, producers are compensated differently, and there are fewer farmers to share the load of volunteering their time and energy to a grassroots organization. This month we caught up with a few people who sat at the table back in 1996.

In 1996 all of the hogs were still sold through Ontario Pork on a single grid with most going through the pool. “We were all pulling in the same direction,” said Russ Danbrook, a member back in 1996. “The price of pigs was our shared concern.” Today marketing is done differently and that has led to a more diverse industry that sees many different product attributes and pricing structures. While this has opened many doors for individual farmers it has made it more difficult to generate interest in participation in a general association whose traditional primary role had been marketing.

If there is one thing that has been lost with smaller numbers and different times it is the meeting “after the meeting” that took place in the Sebringville Hotel. To Walter Bosch, now retired and living in Markdale, that social time was important for building camaraderie and gave people a chance to share ideas more freely.

“The discussions at Perth were progressive, they led to resolutions that pushed Ontario Pork.” Walter shared that lasting friendships were forged around the board table that carry on still today.

For Vince Hulshof, who is still farming in Perth, it was a chance to share ideas with fellow producers and learn from old veterans. “Willy Keller was very dedicated, and ahead of his time,” he said.

Vince also spoke of the friendships that were developed around the tables inside the Stratford OMAFRA building and the Sebringville Hotel. He acknowledges that it will be difficult to keep numbers out as farms continue to get bigger, “In the 1990s there were 15 or 16 farms on our road between Highways 19 and 23. Today there are five.”

Clare Schlegel is one of the few from 1996 still actively involved in the association and he believes there is an important role for organizations like PCPPA. He referenced numerous projects and studies that were undertaken by the group, like the animal health committee that successfully lobbied drug companies and veterinarians to lower prices on certain pharmaceuticals for farmers

across Canada. “There is still a role because there are certain things you can’t do on your own.”

Today there is a group of 10 to 14 producers who attend meetings and while there are fewer of us PCPPA is still having an impact. PCPPA members were the driving force behind Ontario Pork’s Farmer Gratitude Project that raised over $100,000 for anti-hunger initiatives and appreciation lunches for workers at Ontario’s federal processing plants last summer. Our BBQ committee stays busy each summer serving community dinners across the county while offering retail sales at multiple locations.

Looking ahead, a healthy PCPPA in 25 years will mean a renewed focus on finding unifying causes that can generate engagement. There may be fewer farms yet there are hundreds of people who earn their livelihood in the pig industry living here in Perth county. We would be happy for any and all to join us.

– Submitted by Stewart Skinner

With BBQ season just around the corner fill your freezer with local pork products. Order today from Tanya & Darryl Terpstra (519-291-7603) and Dave & Ruth Kloostra (519-347-2619) or visit Leis Feeds in Milverton, open Monday to Friday from 8 to 5:30 and Saturday from 8 to 12. BBQ services for large groups are also available, contact perthcountyporkproducers@gmail.com for more details

June 2021 67

St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1P9 Grey County Federation 446 10th519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551 grey@ofa.on.ca Website: greyfederation.ca of Agriculture * The Rural Voice is provided toEmail: OFA Members in Grey County by the GCFA

GCFA applauds Bill 216: Food Literacy for Students Act Society’s relationship with food is constantly evolving. Throughout the majority of human history, we have transitioned the responsibility of growing our food to fewer and fewer farmers, allowing people to peruse endeavours that have helped society develop.

At the beginning of the last century, the majority of individuals had a grandparent, an uncle, and/or a cousin that was actively farming.

Gardens were common and food preparation and preservation were routine skills. Research in the agriculture industry would suggest that skills which are passed down from family members to a younger generation can take just one generation to disappear.

This is most illustrated by the fact that canning would be a common skill among the population 70 years ago. Today the skill is so uncommon that a most popular course run by Grey Ag Services winter courses is canning. It has consistently sold out since its inception.

Although we don’t need to be expert canners to be healthy eaters, this does illustrate how fast common food skills can leave the general population. As a society, we have transitioned from cooking from scratch to prepared and convenience foods. Taste, cost and time are the most important factors when cooking at home. The food literacy attitude and awareness research

report states that only 28 per cent of teenagers know how to plan and prepare a quick healthy meal using only food that is already available in the household.

Unhealthy eating is estimated to cost Ontario $5.8 billion in direct healthcare costs and lost productivity by the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion in 2019. Everything we can do to increase food literacy is one step closer to lowering society’s cost and improving health outcomes for Ontarians.

We applaud Bill 216: Food Literacy for Students Act which is currently moving through Queen’s Park, as a step in the right direction to increase food literacy in schools.

Furthermore, we hope when Bill 216 is passed, the government will provide the resources required to make a meaningful investment to support its implementation.

Food Literacy is one step in the

ShedTalk 2021 GCFA is continuing to host member forums throughout 2021.

If there is a topic you would like to have covered at one of these events, please email: grey@ofa.on.ca with your suggestions. We look forward to hearing from you.

Grey County Federation of Agriculture

2021 MEETINGS • June 10

• September 9

• November 11

• August 12

• October 14

• December 9

Grey Federation of Agriculture

DUE TO COVID-19 GCFA Board Meetings have become conference/video call format.

Please contact the office if you are interested in taking part.

@ GreyFedAg

right direction towards a food secure county along with supports for local agriculture and increased access to fresh, nutritious food. Furthermore, we must also recognize that with one in eight families in this country food insecure, household food insecurity’s root problem is poverty.

Food literacy is an important part of healthy eating. Research that shows those of a lower economic status have lower food skills than the general population. ◊ – Michael Ryan GCFA Director

My Father My father was a farmer, With a great love for the land, He taught me how to love it too, As he took me by the hand.

From planting in the springtime, To harvest in the fall, Corn, beans, wheat and canola, Lessons about them all.

Caring for the livestock, From birth, their whole life through, Taking pride in a job well done, In everything you do.

Growing children, crops and livestock, Family, farm and field, Always caring for each other, Not just monetary the yield.

While having time for family, And friends along the way, Life lessons shared with me, I remember to this day.

So take time to think of father, Whether at your work or play , A big thank you for all he’s done, And to say “Happy Father’s Day”.

* The Rural Voice is provided to OFA Members in Grey County by the GCFA.

68 The Rural Voice

446 10th St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1P9 519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551

Email: bruce@ofa.on.ca website: brucefederation.ca

* The Rural Voice is provided to OFA Members in Bruce County by the BCFA

NEWSLETTER Opportunity is Knocking Any opinion expressed is that of individual County Directors or Representatives and may not necessarily reflect the views of the Bruce County Federation of Agriculture or Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

Your job is the same every year.

You plant the crop in the spring, nurture and care for it during the growing season, and harvest the crop in the fall, turning your grain into money at the earliest opportunity.

You are a Master of Production in your own right. After all, you have been doing this for a number of years – for some, a lifetime. You are known to take the time to research the best hybrids and use the most efficient means of planting and harvesting, all while being good stewards of the land. You always attempt to do your absolute best.

Unfortunately, there are some things that are out of your control.

Even after making your best effort, you are at the mercy of Mother Nature more often than not. Will it rain? Will it stop raining? When will the sun shine again? Knowing that you have no power to affect this vital aspect of production can be exhausting.

As cash grain farmers, you will always grow a crop and you will always have a crop to sell. This is known. Sometimes it does not work out as well as you had planned on, but you have always had something to sell at the end of harvest.

After weather, the biggest source of anxiety for many in cash grain farming is deciding when to sell your grain. If the price goes higher after you sell, you sold too much. If the price goes lower after you sell, you probably didn’t sell enough.

The past six months has proven to all of us that we should expect the unexpected. We have all been selling at historically excellent

values since harvest. Any other year we would be happy to brag about them, but those prices just keep getting trumped. We are all looking in the rearview mirror and wishing our hindsight had come as foresight this year.

Higher grain prices mean better profitability but also bring more stress and anxiety than low prices.

When the market is low, we feel everyone is suffering the same fate.

When the market is high, we become more paralysed in making a decision to sell for fear that we won’t nail it at the high. The fear of missing out is real.

Regretting a decision to sell does not mean that it was a bad decision – remember that! You took control of something and made a choice. You

did it for good reason. You turned your investment into good money at the earliest opportunity. After all, that is your job.

This is a difficult but profitable environment to make selling decisions in. Don’t let your emotions prevent you from taking control. It is time to move on and sell more.

Don’t allow yourself to become so distracted that you miss participating in the rally for new crop. The train we are all on will run out of track at some time in the future. Don’t be the last one on board when it happens.

Don’t spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity to sell, that you end up missing the one right in front of you. ◊ – Tammy Young, Director BCFA

Bruce County Federation of Agriculture

2021 MEETINGS June 28 August 23

September 27 October 25

November 22

DUE TO COVID-19 BCFA Board Meetings have become conference/video call format.

Please contact the office if you are interested in taking part.

* The Rural Voice is provided to OFA Members in Bruce County by the BCFA.

June 2021 69

Perth County Federation of Agriculture Email: perthcountyfedofag@gmail.com Website: www.perthcountyfarmers.ca Sue Shafer, Office Administrator 1-833-229-6834 Tim Halliday, President: 519-292-9533

OFA urges farmland preservation to maintain demand for locally-sourced food Long-term land use planning needs to focus on protecting agricultural land to ensure we have the resources available to continue producing food for the future.

Otherwise, we’re left asking the question, where will Ontario source its food products from in years to come.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) believes that agricultural land is a finite and shrinking resource we require in order to effectively produce food, fibre and fuel. Urban sprawl has threatened the sustainability and viability of our sector for decades. To put the problem into perspective, from 1996-2016, Ontario lost 1.5 million acres of farmland to development, at a daily rate loss of 175 acres per day. According to OMAFRA’s 2016 census data, the

average Ontario farm is 249 acres with many of our farms being familyowned and operated. Our province loses an average of five farms per week to development in an effort to keep pace with Ontario’s growing population.

Farmers continue to be the definition of innovation, producing more yield with less inputs. However, the reality is that farming in Ontario will always require arable land and an environment that supports the growth of our more than 200 diverse commodities. The rate at which our province is losing agricultural land is not sustainable, especially with the demand to increase the production of food, fibre and fuel for an evergrowing population, as our finite resources continue to diminish.

Preserving farmland can go handin-hand with housing needs. It can

Get involved in co-op education programs Local agriculture operations, including farms, have the opportunity to be more involved with local Co-op programs that are offered in our local high schools.

The Co-op Education Program in the high schools not only allows students to earn credits while working at a work placement, but also gain valuable work experience. These credits can help students obtain their Ontario Secondary School Diploma, while determining future career options. The student can work for a farm operation, gain work experience and maybe even decide to pursue a career in agriculture or agriculturerelated fields. This provides the student with knowledge about the industry, including related jobs and opportunities. These valuable work experiences also assist in developing a resume for future jobs. Our own farm has been involved with this program on our dairy farm and found it to be a great experience. We can mentor teens and have them exposed

to day-to-day agriculture practices and animal husbandry. Even those individuals with little prior experience were able to thrive with guidance and supervision at tasks such as to milk in the parlour, feed calves and gain work experience.

These students are able to do many different jobs and learned quickly to do the job well and unsupervised.

Often these students return to work in agriculture after the co-op placement.

To be involved in a co-op placement program you need only to contact your local participating high school. After an initial interview, an opportunity of a placement follows.

The student’s co-op teacher supervisor will stop in from time to time to monitor progress and ask for a progress report on the student’s performance. It can be a positive experience for all involved.

If interested contact your local high school or call 1-800-387-5514. ◊ – Submitted by Robert Martin, Director

include rejuvenating and renewing our cities, as well as infrastructure investment in our rural hubs. Ontario farmers need the government’s support to contain urban sprawl and to keep our domestic agri-food sector strong. Less than five per cent of Ontario’s land base can support agricultural production of any kind.

In 2020, OFA expressed concerns to Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing regarding the recent proliferation of Minister’s Zoning Orders. We cannot afford to prioritize urban development over that of farmland. Protecting and preserving farmland is the only solution to ensuring Farms and Food Forever.

Protecting and preserving Ontario’s agricultural land for the purpose of growing, harvesting and producing food has and always will be a main priority of our organization. The OFA will continue to advocate on behalf of our 38,000 farm families to ensure that farmland is not only preserved, but that farming is sustainable and profitable for the next generation of your family. ◊ – By Peggy Brekveld, President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture (Excerpt from article in OFA Viewpoint on January 11, 2021) Agriculture workers in Perth County now qualify for the vaccine through the Health Unit: www.hpph.ca Perth County Federation of Agriculture

BOARD MEETING Thursday, June 17 8:00 p.m. via Zoom Call Sue at 1-833-229-6834 to get information about or two participate in the upcoming Board of Directors’ Meeting

* The Rural Voice is provided to OFA Members in Perth County by the PCFA.

70 The Rural Voice

Index A.G. Hayter Contracting Ltd..........22 Argyle Marine & Small Engines......61 Backyard BBQ ......................13,15,17 BDO ................................................22 Belore Trailers ................................61 Bernie McGlynn/SB Flooring ........54 Bester Wood Products ..................54 Bill Walker MPP ..............................56 Bio-Ag ............................................60 Boonstoppel, Dave & Elly ..............37 BP Dust Control ..............................61 Brough & Whicher Limited ............61 Buddsteel Architectural Products 20 Bushell’s Auto Sales ......................60 Canadian Co-operative Wool ........18 Chalmers Fuels ..............................18 Cliff’s Plumbing & Heating ............32 Crop Management............................4 Cross Country Eavestrough ..........22 DJ Henry Homes & Renovations ..62 Donkers Agri ..................................21 Easy Lift Doors................................14 Egger Farms ..................................64 Elma Steel & Equipment................24 Father’s Day ......................................3 Gerber’s Workwear ........................62 Greenfield Global ............................8 Grey-Bruce Construction ..............32 GRK Products ................................24 Hanover Honda ..............................59 Hardi ..............................................59 Harold Jones Enterprises ..............62 Hayden Water Wells Co. Inc. ........36 Hill & Hill Farms ....Inside Front Cover Hunter Steel Sales Ltd ..........Cover 5 Huron Commodities ........................12 Huron Perth Public Health ......55,57 JA Porter Holdings Ltd ..................58 Jennifer Cook & Associates Inc ....24 Keith Siemon Farm Systems Ltd ..63 Kenpal Farm Products Inc ............53 Kingwood Bins ................................18 KMM Farm Drainage ......................28 Kraemer Concrete ..........................61 Kuepfer Farm Drainage..................62 LAC ................................................32 Lakeside Shelving & Racking........53 Lands & Forests Consulting ..........55 Layton Steve ..................................63 Live Landscape ..............................47 L-Wood Landscaping ....................63 M.P.W. ....................................Cover 4 Maitland Welding ............................61 Mapleview Agri ..............................50 Marquardt Farm Drainage..............57 Martin Farm Wagons......................28 Martin’s Nursery ............................45 McIntee Realtor - Steven Nixon ....62 Morris Sachs Silo Construction ....60 Motorcycles ....................................27 Nature’s Wave Inc ..........................39

North Huron Comm. Food Share ..34 Nuhn Forage ..................................36 Parker & Parker ....................Cover 3 Preserve & Store ............................31 Raynbow Signs ..............................62 RBC Ag West ....................................2 Ridgeway Metals ............................62 Roth Drainage Ltd ..........................62 Royal LePage - Steacy Den Haan 55 Rural Living ....................................45 Rural Voice Books ................Cover 6 RV Father’s Day Subscription Cover 7 Sauble Beach Motorsports ..34,37,39,71 Schmidt’s Farm Drainage ..............32 Schweiss Doors ..............................52 Sew & Save Centre ........................49 Sharp’s Creek Forge ......................24

Signature Crane ............................56 Smyth Welding ..............................63 South Bruce Tourism ....................65 Spring Gardening ........................9,11 Steffen Well Drilling ......................63 Stihl Ltd ..........................................40 Stumpy’s Tree Service ..................53 Superior Barn Painting ..........Cover 4 SWO Diesel Inc ......................Cover 5 TD Canada Trust ............................18 Townsley Barn Painting ................65 Triple P Consulting ..........................7 Trouw Nutrition................Back Cover Waddell Engineering......................27 WD Hopper & Sons Ltd ..................71 Williams Drainage ..........................37 Working Iron ..................................62

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June 2021 71

HURON

42 First Avenue, Clinton, Ontario N0M 1L0 519-482-9642 or 1-800-511-1135

County Federation of Agriculture NEWSLETTER

From the HCFA history files At the January 28, 1949 meeting the HCFA was paying seven cents per mile for mileage.

In 1950 the office rent was $50 per month.

In the historical records from the 1940s and 1950s the HCFA board had reports from the following committees: Farm Forum Committee, Field Day Committee, Office Committee, Educational Committee, Warble Fly Committee, Cream Producers, Hog Producers, Beef Committee, Resolutions Committee, Poultry Committee, Insurance Committee, Cash Crop Committee and Radio Committee.

In February 1950 the HCFA was

lobbying local MPs for price supports.

For the 1950 Field Day the following committees were involved: Grounds Committee, Luncheon Committee, Attractions Committee, Sports Committee, Parking Committee, Publicity Committee, Reception Committee, Refreshments Committee, Dance Committee, Fiddlers Contest Committee, Ladies Committee, and Finance Committee.

In 1950 the HCFA advertised in County papers and CKNX radio for applications for HCFA scholarships for students entering 1950-1952 year at Ontario Agricultural College. ◊

Have you seen OFA’s newest call for action?

Upcoming Election

If you are concerned about the future of Ontario Farms and Ontario grown food check out https://homegrown.ofa.on.ca/ The fact that Ontario is losing 175 acres of farmland every day to urban development is concerning (Census of Agriculture).

The OFA is working to help protect our farmland and food production for future generations.

Huron and Perth OFA members will hold an election for the OFA Board Zone 7 Director position this year.

Nominations for this position will be in June and details will be provided in the coming months.

If you are interested in further details about the process or for answers about the director position please contact OFA Member Service Representative Margaret Vincent at margaret.vincent@ofa.on.ca or 519 482 9642 ext 1. ◊

Save the dates for Annual/Regional Meetings The Huron County Federation of Agriculture Annual Meeting will be held virtually on Friday, October 22 at 8:00 p.m.

Please contact the office if you are interested in joining this meeting.

This is an opportunity to discuss resolutions coming from Huron County to the OFA convention. Resolutions that are time sensitive can be submitted sooner.

We will also have elections for the HCFA board at this meeting. ************ The OFA Regional Meeting will be held virtually on September 8 at 8:00 p.m.

This meeting will include updates on current OFA issues and ongoing efforts, in addition to elections for OFA Policy Advisory Council members, Delegates and Alternates to the 2021 Ontario Federation of Agriculture Convention in November.

Website: www.hcfa.on.ca Email: ofahuron@tcc.on.ca

Upcoming Events June 4-6 – Clinton Virtual Spring Fair.

Visit www.clintonspringfair.com for details.

June 20 – Happy Father’s Day! Huron County Federation of Agriculture

BOARD MEETING June 28

We anticipate this will be a virtual meeting. Please contact the office if you are interested in joining.

HCFA Scholarships Did you know that the HCFA provides One Award at each Huron County High School to a deserving student proceeding to a higher education in an agriculture related course.

Congratulations to this year’s graduates and good luck with your future studies.

Congratulations!

For its 80th Anniversary, the Huron County Federation of Agriculture is undertaking a draw every month from its membership.

Winner of the May draw for a local food gift certificate was Mike Ondrejicka.

OFFICE UPDATE due to COVID-19 Please call before visiting the HCFA office to determine if the office is open.

Please be assured that we are still available to address your concerns by telephone: 519-482-9642 or email: ofahuron@tcc.on.ca Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/huronfedofag and Facebook at Huron County Federation of Agriculture

The Rural Voice is provided to all OFA members in Huron County by the Huron County Federation of Agriculture

72 The Rural Voice

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400375 93

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