An Interview with Stephen Mazurek, Liberal Candidate
February 22, 2010
Property values in Westport are higher than in Smiths Falls. What’s going on in North Leeds?
North Leeds is a wonderful place to live. It is an absolutely beautiful part of the riding. I know people from all over Ontario love the wonderful waterfront, fantastic shops and great dining in Westport. It’s no wonder many people, especially seniors and young families, are choosing to move to this community. I suspect this increased demand is what has driven up the property values in that area.
Smiths Falls has been through a challenging couple of years; there is no doubt about that. We need to bring good-paying jobs back to that community and I believe we have the right economic plan and the right tax package to do it.
Mr. Harper and Mr. McGuinty have jointly created the 13% Harmonized Sales Tax. Would you explain a bit about what the HST will mean to voters in Leeds-Grenville?
The HST is just one element of the Liberal government’s comprehensive tax package that, taken together, will create 600,000 new jobs, increase business investment and leave more money in people’s pockets.
We are beginning to see signs of economic recovery, so governments have a choice. They can either choose to act, helping businesses create new jobs — or choose to do nothing, stand back and hope for the best. I am proud to say the Liberal government has chosen to act.
Moving to a single, value-added tax like the HST allows businesses, large and small, to be reimbursed for the PST they pay on the items they buy every day to run their business. Decreased costs for business will mean lower prices for consumers. In fact, a study by TD Bank showed that 95% of business cost savings will be passed on to the consumer within 3 years.
While businesses start hiring as their tax burden shrinks, people in Leeds-Grenville will also benefit from the $10.6 billion in permanent, personal tax relief which accompanies the HST legislation. We have already lowered the personal income tax rate on January 1st, cutting income taxes for 93% of Ontario taxpayers. Ontario now has the lowest income tax rate in all of Canada on the first $37,000 of income.
And while it is true that some prices on some items will go up, it is nowhere near what’s being suggested by some of my opponents. In fact, 83% of the things we buy will have no additional tax after July 1st.
Things exempt from cost increases because of the HST include basic groceries, prescriptions, clothing, children’s clothing and footwear, books, home cable and telephone service, cell phone charges, municipal water bills, your morning coffee and newspaper, restaurant meals, furniture and appliances, movie tickets, mortgage interest charges, prepared food under $4 and automobiles, to name just a few.
And finally, the people of Leeds-Grenville will also benefit from permanent, targeted tax cuts offsetting the increases on the remaining 17% of purchases.
Starting this July, and an integral part of the HST legislation, the new, permanent Ontario Sales Tax Credit will provide up to $260 for every low and middle-income Ontarian, paid out quarterly like the current GST credit. We are also doubling the Seniors’ Property Tax Credit to $500, helping seniors stay in their homes longer. And finally we also created a new, permanent Ontario Property Tax Credit that provides up to $950 for residents of homes, whether they rent or own.
We need a strong economy to support the high quality public services like hospitals and schools that we’ve all worked so hard to build. The government’s plan adds up to more jobs, greater prosperity and a brighter future for Leeds-Grenville.
In a recent article Mr. Runciman ripped Mr. McGuinty for his green plan, claiming that Hydro will have to pay out astronomical amounts to homeowners with solar panels. He claimed McGuinty’s numbers are “the stuff of fantasy”. Can you provide a more balanced look at the Green Initiative?
I think we can all agree that the days of cheap energy are over. Whether because of the economic or environmental impacts, we must turn to new sources of energy, harnessing the natural gifts of the planet – the sun, the wind, and our crops.
It is always amusing to listen to the Tories discuss things like climate change and energy production. Runciman is now part of a government that seems to deny that climate change is even a fact, and was part of a government, under Harris, that fought to keep coal plants open. This attitude was wrong then and is even worse now.
The Liberal government knows how critical this issue is, and has responded. We have already reduced Ontario’s use of dirty coal by one-third and will reduce it by another third next year. This will clean the air we breathe and improve our quality of life.
We also recently announced that we are protecting an area in Northern Ontario larger than Prince Edward Island from logging, which in addition to the Green Belt and our 50 Million Trees Program, will go a long way to turning back the clock on environmental destruction.
Putting the environmental reasons aside, I believe Leeds-Grenville is uniquely positioned to harness our natural elements to create the highly-skilled jobs we want right here at home.
While solar and wind power are seen by some as a pipe dream, the reality is the green energy revolution is happening right now and it is happening all around us. I was pleased to visit Upper Canada Generation Limited with the Premier just last week. That is a great example of a company that is creating the kinds of jobs we want by using leading-edge technology to turn the natural bounty of this riding into usable energy.
We must remember that leading-edge technologies often have upfront costs. I remember how much more computers cost 10 years ago compared to what they cost today. Wind turbines, solar panels and ethanol processing plants are no different. I think it’s important that we look at the overall cost, both environmental and economic, rather than just the specific rate for generation of a new energy source. While an initial feed-in tariff is needed to encourage investment in these right kinds of technology, I am confident that over time we will see wind turbines and solar panels dotting our landscape and benefitting both the environment and our pocket books.
An interview with Steve Clark, Progressive Conservative Candidate for Leeds-Grenville
February 22, 2010
How would you describe the northern part of your riding to an MPP newly arrived in Toronto from Thunder Bay?
Westport is a tremendously unique municipality in Leeds and Grenville. We all covet its waterfront. North Leeds also has a unique commercial component with the high-end shops in Westport and Newboro. When our friends from all over Ontario come to visit, they often drive up to Westport and Newboro for the shopping experience.
But to explain anything about North Leeds you must begin with the people. Last week I walked into Kudrinko’s Grocery Store, and whether they were going to vote for me or not, they welcomed me with a smile. Friday night I dropped in at the Junior B hockey game at the Arena. Westport and Gananoque were in this fiercely competitive game, but the fans were just so nice to me. It was one of the highlights of last week’s campaign, going to Westport and spending an hour or two watching the game. It doesn’t matter whether people are supporting you or not, people in North Leeds are very welcoming. Visitors here can’t help but appreciate this.
In North Leeds you still have this tremendous rural component. I have fond memories of the plowing match. I have advocated for the municipality with regard to the illegal fishing issue. I have worked with Rideau Lakes on some police budget issues. Demographically, forecasts show an aging population in all corners of Leeds-Grenville. I’m committed to work with staff to provide more effective services for our community as needs increase.
Sawmill owner Kris Heideman recently told us at the Kemptville Woodlot Conference that some American mills are dumping red pine on the Toronto market for less than Ontario landowners get for their timber. From your point of view as an aspiring MPP, what are the issues here?
Here is how I would attack the issue:
1. I would meet with the local folks to get the details of this incident.
2. We would use our office as an opportunity to talk to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade to find out what Ontario Government policies are in place which have allowed this to happen.
3. Because it is an American company which is dumping the product, I want to sit down with Gord Brown to see what Federal Government policies are in place that allow this to happen.
In a recent article Senator Runciman ripped Premier McGuinty for his green plan, claiming that Hydro will have to pay out “outrageous” amounts to homeowners with solar panels. He described Mr. McGuinty’s pricing as “the stuff of fantasy”. Are you prepared to stand by Runciman’s hyperbole, or would you care to offer a more balanced view?
I think Mr. Runciman does make a good point. As someone who is CAO of a municipality, I have received information from the Provincial Government promoting the installation of solar panels on our buildings at a rate of return far exceeding market value. The bigger concern that I am hearing at the doors is from seniors and working families regarding the impact on energy costs of the HST and the installation of smart meters.
Your opponent Steve Armstrong claims that manufacturing is doomed in Leeds-Grenville. Care to comment on that?
We have lost a lot of manufacturing jobs in Leeds-Grenville, no question, and I think in the future we need to be aggressive in promoting the idea that Leeds and Grenville is open for business. We need to work together at the municipal level to realize that not every municipality is going to build an industrial park and become a manufacturing hub. We need to find what works, and then promote the daylights out of it.
What I mean by that is that the tourist sector may continue to carry some communities. Others may find growth around cultural pursuits. The Biosphere Project has possibilities. We need to look at more than the traditional manufacturing model to spirit us out of the current downturn.
What issues do you see emerging in Leeds-Grenville over the next ten years (and how are you uniquely suited to face them as our representative in the Ontario Legislature)?
In the next ten years Leeds-Grenville will have to be innovative in the way we run our municipalities and economic development. We need a representative who can forge alliances between groups who may never have worked together before. My example is the International Plowing Match at Crosby in 2007. When I first made the pitch to host it in North Leeds, people told me that it would be tough to get groups who did not know each other to work together on a project of that size. If successful on March 4th, I think I will be able to bring all corners of Leeds-Grenville together to work on projects which will sustain us in the future.
When as a 22 year old I first knocked on doors in Brockville in the mayoral race, people told me I would have to attend the school of hard knocks before I would be ready. But I won. Now at 49 I have the same way of thinking in this campaign that I had 27 years ago. The number one thing I do at the door is I listen. I hear some really innovative ideas. I am excited by the energy I see in our community and I hope I can be the advocate of those big dreams after March 4th.
Stalking the perfect classified ad
February 1, 2010
I love want ads. I love the way they come out each day or each week in the newspaper, and I also enjoy sneaking up on them online. Each classified ad is a story of failure or aspiration, of a beginning or the completion of a phase in someone’s life.
Shopping in the want ads section of the newspaper is much more fulfilling than a wander around a shopping mall. First of all, prices are much lower. The items for sale are already pre-selected, and the previous owner is usually able to provide useful information about the product in question.
Bet calls my sometimes frantic wild-goose-chases “Rod’s retail therapy,” but I love hitting upon an ad for something I want and then tracking it down before an other buyer beats me to it.
For anything good, speed is essential. Once I hopefully went to the office and picked up a copy still wet from the presses. Surely enough, it listed a snowblower which would fit my tractor. I called from the parking lot, asked directions, and then raced to a remote farm north of Lanark, beating several other contenders for a rusty, but lightly-used Lucknow snowblower for $300. What I hadn’t expected was the delightful conversation I had with the vendor, a retired executive from the CBC who had moved to the country years before. “When you start raising beef cattle, you don’t want to do anything else,” he told me in all sincerity.
Sometimes a victory comes as the result of determined driving, as well as good navigation. One Friday night I pushed through deep snow on a side road outside Carleton Place to find a year-old Aeron chair. Turns out that wasn’t the real challenge, though. The vendor was a woman living alone with two large dogs who were protective and not very well trained. I wasn’t entirely sure I would get out of the house with my hide intact, but at a third of its retail value the chair has proven an excellent acquisition.
People who sell things through classified ads often understand my need for a trophy, and I have made more than one unwise purchase. For example I laboured all one Friday evening to drag a band saw out of a stone house west of Perth. Lovely elderly couple, nice dog, lousy bandsaw, and I had a much better one at home. They had played me magnificently.
It’s also possible to blackmail a buyer into a rash purchase. One master salesman outside Merrickville conned me into paying $700. for a useless restaurant stove. I believed him when he told me that twenty people had called already, and that I had better get the thing out of there before he got a better offer. Tony and I strained our backs lifting this thing out of his kitchen and across a snow-covered lawn in the dead of winter. This was expensive tuition, and I still have to walk around the useless hunk of iron every time I enter the barn.
Sometimes technology works for the ad-stalker, and sometimes it doesn’t. In a mad scramble for a Massey Ferguson 35, I asked the owner for his postal code and lot number in an area off the main road outside Almonte. I made an appointment for between meetings and dashed out from Carleton Place. I searched and searched, and eventually limped into Almonte almost out of fuel. My cell phone had run out of battery from repeated calls, but I simply couldn’t find his house. MapQuest in this case had done me wrong, providing an elaborate route to the west side of the highway, while his home lay to the east. Bless him, the vendor waited for me, and the other purchaser, an ambulance driver and much better navigator than I, was a gentleman and let me have the Massey. One of my students borrowed his dad’s pickup, his uncle’s trailer, and brought it to Forfar. It’s been a fixture on the farm for the last six years.
Strangely enough, I have found that footwear purchased online fits me better than shoes I have bought in shops. Bet can’t believe that I can walk into a shoe store, drop a big chunk of money, and walk out with shoes that don’t fit, but it happens most of the time. On the other hand I have good luck on eBay. I bought a used set of hiking boots because I couldn’t believe the photographs. Nothing could be that ugly. The owner admitted that the boots squeaked and the plastic external arch supports and pale orange colour made them a poor choice for casual wear. The things turned out to be by far the best boots I have ever owned. With them I could actually hike considerable distances without going lame. Away I went with a backpack sprayer through acres of tree seedlings. The problem lay in replacing them after a few years. $435. I’m still combing eBay for another pair.
Then there was the guy who advertised a 3 pt. hitch cultivator in perfect condition at an address southeast of Merrickville. He proudly claimed to be 94 years old, and kept with this throughout the sales pitch. A similar delusion seemed to govern his attitude toward the cultivator. It wasn’t all there. After a while I realized the vendor wasn’t, either, and I made my way home from a long and fruitless wild-goose-chase. You can’t win’em all.
Square Dancing Tractors at the Pennsylvania Farm Show
January 16, 2010
The guy at U.S. Customs burst into laughter when I told him we were on our way to see the square dancing tractors at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, but he promised to look them up on You-Tube and see for himself.
The morning’s drive south on Route 81 took us from sleet to radiant sunshine and temperatures in the low 50’s. The first thing Tom did when we arrived in Reading was get out a hose and wash the grit off our car.
Next morning, dressed in light jackets and no long underwear, off we went for the drive to Harrisburg to share the air with over 6000 animals on display in a million square feet of indoor agricultural exhibit.
Groups being what they are, our first stop was the lineups of the food court, but then we toured some equipment displays. Lots of people crowded the huge halls, ordinary folks with young kids in strollers, enjoying the day.
We made our way to the main hall well in advance of the noon show. I spent the next twenty minutes trying to figure out how to operate the latest credit card-sized Canon my son had left with me. Turns out the thing’s smarter than I am, and every adjustment I made to its programming made the pictures worse. In desperation I switched to movie mode, and tried to hold it steady as the show began and the battery gradually grew hotter and hotter in my hand. Charlie had warned me that if I wanted to avoid making my viewers sick I would have to avoid sudden movements with the camera, so I sat rigidly and framed the activity while to my left Bet and Kate dissolved into gales of laughter at the antics of the players in the drama below. They certainly seemed to be amused. I vowed to check the film later and see why.
The caller sang his instructions and the drivers did their moves in the large sand-covered arena. Tractor square dancing pivots on the ability of a row crop tractor to turn in its own length with the help of one-wheel braking. Someone undoubtedly discovered that a pair of these machines could do a fair approximation of many square dancing moves if the drivers knew their machines and had a fair bit of skill.
Leave it to an American to organize this into a sport. This was the fourth annual tractor square dancing competition at the Farm Show, with three teams competing.
First up were the Middlecreek Swingers from Pleasant Creek PA. They ran Farmall Bs for the girl’s parts and a John Deere M, an Oliver 70, two Farmalls, a C and an H, for the boy parts. The Bs mostly had two seats, which proved handy when they started to stall at various points during the show. The mechanic would walk out, switch seats with the driver, and have at it while the caller and the other tractors waited. Nobody seemed in much of a hurry. If this didn’t work, a couple of crew-members would come out and push the tractor off and another from the bull pen would take its place.
I should mention that the “girls” in the first group did consist of two women, one teenaged boy in work boots, skirt, and pink rollers over a wig, and one bald headed guy in a t-shirt driving a pink B who didn’t put much effort into his costume. The guys wore overalls, straw hats, and often sported large white beards.
The announcer segwayed into the next act by bringing another eight tractors, the Middle Creek Tractor Dancers, on to join the first group in a 16-tractor pinwheel. He admitted that there had been no time to practice this complex step, but started four machines off in a tight circle, then had the others come on by twos to balance the wheel as it grew. The outside tractors were moving quite quickly as the fourth ring took its place, and one John Deere needed to get to the other side of the circle to complete the dance. This required a burst of speed around the perimeter, wowing the audience.
This bootleg turn set the tone for the rest of the show, which became progressively less dance and more stunt driving competition. The Roof Garden Tractor Buddies didn’t bother with a caller singing instructions. Their announcer called the moves and these eight tractors executed them with military skill.
The prettiest tractor of the show was a 1944 Massey Harris Orchard Model whose driver obviously enjoyed the fresh engine’s throttle response. He did do-nuts when the announcer called for pirouettes, and while his turns left me gasping, they weren’t very dance-like. His fellow drivers seemed to enjoy seeing how close they could come to each other without sharing paint in head-on collisions. These guys drove very well, and the tractors were exquisite restorations which ran without a hitch, but they couldn’t capture the goofy charm of the first group.
So now I have to locate a row crop tractor light enough to tow behind my truck.
“Gee, do they still make wooden Christmas trees?”*
December 13, 2009
Not for the Fair Elizabeth is the blue spruce porcupine in the front yard or the desiccated Fraser fir at the local supermarket. There’s more than a little of the Charlie Brown in my wife, and for whatever reason she always insists upon an oddball Christmas tree.
It’s a ritual. Each year the spousal unit must be driven to reluctant feats of daring to acquire the object of this year’s artistic vision, so we plan our annual trek, most often in the late afternoon of a weekday, a stealth attack upon the wilds of Sam Campbell’s Tree Farm just outside Smiths Falls.
So at 4:00, trailer in tow, we pulled into Campbell’s in the gathering darkness. Sam greeted us with the usual balsam fir selections, but with an unfamiliar living room to decorate this year, Bet decided that we should find and cut one ourselves. Off we went with borrowed saw through the snowdrifts to the cedar swamp at the back of the farm.
We passed through acres of neatly trimmed spruce and scotch pine, but we were after a wild tree, and that meant a hike through surprisingly deep snow to the low land where on other expeditions I had been able to find the odd balsam among the cedars.
Turns out Bet had somehow never actually cut a balsam. Before long we found ourselves on a well-established rabbit trail through the still depths of the cedar swamp. She wasn’t too taken with the candidates:
“These trees are huge!”
“We can cut one down, then shorten it to whatever height you want.”
“They are all too big. Let’s keep looking.”
At least the wind wasn’t a factor. It was almost pleasant in there if you ignored the dead branches tearing at every move. Bet slid through the heavy undergrowth surprisingly well, though she was getting further and further from the road. At last she located a pair of candidates:
“How about one of these?” Surely enough, two tall but healthy balsams stood before us.
“Yep, if we trim twelve feet off the bottom of this one and about three off the top, we may just have a Christmas tree.” In an area like this balsam have to grow up above the cedars before they can develop their foliage, so they tend to be rather tall. I notched the trunk and cut it off. Then we had to pull the thing down through the entangling cedars, so Bet and I each grabbed a branch and hauled. Mine snapped, tumbling me end-over-end in the knee-deep snow. Laughter. A few more tugs and the tree was close enough to the ground we could shorten it.
I remember as a teenager reading an Ed Zern essay in Outdoor Life about the Swedish compass, a device a woodsman could rig up to ensure he didn’t get lost in heavy cover. Fellow hunters Frank Green and Cliff Whaley had just let me ramble on, wide-eyed and uncomprehending, about how a woodsman could be confident he wouldn’t get lost if he just cut a 30’ sapling and pulled it along behind him as he made his way through dense bush. Now I understood. The friction from the other branches anchored me in place and guaranteed that I wouldn’t get lost as long as I held onto this sapling. This “compass” wasn’t going anywhere until I had cut off at least half of it.
Thanks to the rabbit trail we found the road first try and then emerged into the gale for the trek back to the truck. Next time I’ll bring snowshoes, even in early December. The balsam proved surprisingly hard to pull through soft snow, so I picked it up. It wasn’t heavy, so on we went.
In fact, when we got the thing home we realized there wasn’t much tree there at all, just a frame of branches defining the space with a lot of air inside. Still, it was symmetrical and after several trims, fitted the tall ceiling of the living room.
Bet set to work and after a day of decoration decided that the reason the tree still looked funny was the white plaster wall behind it. In the previous house she had had dark oak panels as a backdrop, so the sketchy outline of the balsam was all she needed to fill the space.
It looks as though the oak boards I bought yesterday will soon find themselves cut into panels to make a backdrop for next year’s balsam.
*Linus, Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special. CBS.
Watching the fireplace channel
December 6, 2009
Tom and Kate arrived for a fall expedition to their cottage. After dinner somehow we discovered the fireplace channel and settled back to enjoy a few minutes of the flames and crackles of the sound track. Four hours later we were still watching.
The neat thing about this show is that someone actually fixes the fire. So we sat in our living room cave and like the subjects in Plato’s parable of old, sought to explain and predict the actions of the shadows behind us on the screen.
Kate’s comments quickly adopted the language and attitude of a figure skating judge: “In Move #1 he begins with the standard half-roll with the poker. You see how a loose grip with his right hand produces a clumsy stab, and he has to make a number of attempts to complete the roll. Then he follows with a half-block dropped clumsily on the fire. This is quite a slow beginning for the performance, though we can only hope he’ll get past the nerves and settle down in the more technical parts of the routine.”
Tom butted in with colour commentary: “He’s an unpaid intern at the television station. He was given this responsibility as a way to justify a passing grade after he had sat in the corner for a whole semester because nobody could think of anything for him to do. He’s not happy about this task. He obviously grew up well away from wood fires, and has no wood-burning skills whatever.”
I interrupted, “Nevertheless, the fire works really well.”
Kate just shook her head, “Our primitive nature makes it very easy to sit here and enjoy the fire. The guy can’t lose.”
Kate lapsed into her Brian Williams voice again: “That was Move #3, a slow, over-handed push left, with sparks.”
“So has he lost the nerves, or has he become more committed to his fire?” Tom asked.
I jumped in: Commitment comes with the process. Ask any new parent. Why shouldn’t the guy grow into this job?”
Bet asked, “How is this financed? There aren’t any commercials.”
Kate used to work at the local television station. “It’s a community service from the satellite channel. It doesn’t cost them much. They just turn the camera on, and they tell the college kid to put on the flannel shirt and do this, rather than going for coffee six times a night.
Tom had been watching the fire throughout this: “That chimney’s gotta be full of creosote the way the wood is burning.”
Kate, again: “The other thing they could have done is say: ‘Go out and make a film. We need a filler for twenty minutes which will run on a loop. It was his idea to do this because he was lazy. So he set wood on fire turned on the camera, and this is what they got.
“But I’m watching it.“
I tried the Brian Williams voice: “This was a two-handed poke. He’s definitely getting better at it. He just adjusted it.” Silence. I decide to leave the T.V. commentary to Kate.
“It should start from a cold fire, it’s so hard to come into a movie like this,” complained Tom.
Kate/Brian Williams again: “O.K. This is the fifth move of his routine. With the poker he flips the block and it flares suddenly to cheers from the audience.”
Bet commented: “There’s a lot of flame, but it’s not a pretty fire.”
Tom: “I like something more controlled, decorative looking. Look at it. It’s kinda like – sloppy.”
“So the intern gets low marks for structure, high marks for flame.” I tried to summarize: “And now we’re back to the beginning of the loop. So his routine consists of five or six adjustments to the fire, and he becomes gradually more proficient as he goes through it, but he gets sloppy at the end.”
“I didn’t like the way he left it,” Tom grumbled.
As host I tried to surf away from the looping fireplace film, only to be chased back in seconds by the yammering of network T.V. on a Thursday night. You don’t realize how soothing and pleasant the fireplace channel is until you switch to something else.
Back to our HD blaze just as the star performs the unsuccessful flip-and-roll. “I heard someone laughing at the intern,” quipped Bet. “I’ll bet you’re glad you drove seven hours to watch this.”
From the depths of the sofa Kate groaned, “I’ve got to stop watching this. I’ve seen it. I know the plot!”
“Wanta try the other one?” I asked.
“There’s another fireplace channel? Sure!”
You want the Ranger to what?
November 28, 2009
“Drive us around in the Westport Santa Claus Parade.” Liberal candidate Marjory Loveys was online.
“O.K. I’ll have it at St. Ed’s School by 12:30 and you will have until 2:00 to decorate it.”
I’m always looking for an excuse to take my utility vehicle on another adventure, and this would give me a look at the inside of a revered institution, the Westport Santa Claus Parade. I was also mildly curious to see how two engineers, Marjory and her husband, Tony Capel, would deal with a challenge like fastening a bunch of magnetic signs to the plastic body of a UTV.
I never thought I’d see anyone try to tape snow in place, but that’s exactly what Tony did. They arrived with their car chock-full of boxes decorated to look like Christmas gifts. I had told them the dimensions of the cargo area and they were prepared to fill it to overflowing. Then they unrolled the cotton batting, and they taped it and it worked. Keeping the very light boxes in place in Saturday afternoon’s strong breeze involved threading some strap clamps I found in my truck through the hinges of the tailgate to intersect with a spare seat belt at the front and back to the clamp. What can I say? It worked.
Marjory decided that the metal grate behind the seats and the front bumper both had enough metal to hold the signs, so on they went. Large red bows and a wreath went on to the roll bar with cable ties. Another bow discreetly clothed the trailer hitch.
We lined up behind David Blair’s stately 1970 Cadillac, a splendid ’34 Ford hot rod, and a very nice vintage Mustang. To my right the tractor guys were getting ready. Dale Lyons had a volunteer in charge of his recently-acquired Massey Harris 30.
“Why did you buy a Massey 30, Dale?”
“The guy wanted to sell it.”
A beautifully restored Oliver Row Crop Model required a push start, then a tow, and finally a parking space because it couldn’t be persuaded to run smoothly. That’s everybody’s nightmare in a parade.
Behind us two smiling ladies carried a banner advertising Artemisia, a Westport sign shop. Marching in front of them was a small human in a dinosaur suit. As the parade wore on, it was obvious that lugging that huge tail was a strain upon the small person, but he/she was not about to give up.
Finally, on the home stretch, I asked Tony to take the wheel and I dropped back to play columnist. Sharbot Lake resident Elizabeth Larocque, aged seven, was the figure in the T-Rex suit. Her mother had made it for her because the T-Rex is her favourite animal, but in keeping with the Christmas theme Elizabeth had requested and gained a set of reindeer horns to clip on over the top of the headpiece. So we were followed throughout the parade by a baby T-Rex disguised as a reindeer. I wish I’d had time to meet Elizabeth: she showed by her actions on that long stretch of street that she’s a trooper.
Driving Marjory Loveys around wasn’t at all what I expected. Forget about sight lines and Queen Elizabeth waves. Marjory wanted to meet everybody, so she was off on foot for the entire parade. Box after box of candy canes went out. It looked as though our would-be M.P. would soon be in a deficit because of the candy outlay, so she dispatched her finance minister, Sylvia Herlehy, to Kudrinko’s during a lull in the traffic. In an amazingly short time Sylvia returned with supplies to replenish the cargo box, and Marjory’s campaign continued. Photographer Moe Lavigne kept snapping away, but the high point of mischief in the parade no doubt occurred when Review-Mirror reporter Margaret Brand showed up and we decided to stage a shot with Marjory driving the unfamiliar Ranger. She hadn’t prepared for this, and her reactions had us in stitches.
As the floats returned to St. Ed’s we got a chance to look at some of the other participants. I burst out in laughter as a genuine dog-and-pony show worked its way down the street. What else would you call a lovely young golden retriever soldiering along next to a cranky, bucking Shetland pony on a cart? My dad would have loved the team of Belgians on a carriage which followed.
How was a Santa Claus parade different than a three-tractor procession down Hwy 15? The Ranger is much better behaved than an antique tractor. The V8’s ahead of us had to speed up or die, so we were soon left in their ozone. Marjory’s need to meet everybody sometimes left her a half-block behind and out of candy, but Tony, whose job it was to control traffic flow, just told me to go ahead, she would catch up. It turns out she can move remarkably quickly when she sets her mind to it.
It was a lot of fun participating in this parade. Westport certainly presents itself as a friendly and welcoming community. Maybe I’ll bring a tractor next year.
Fall madness
November 23, 2009
The trouble with fall is that one is pulled in a dozen directions at once as the calendar ticks down to freeze-up. That’s what fall is: a mixed metaphor. It is also the season which defines us as Canadians. Our smug claims to winter hardiness are just the result of a fall of anticipation and hard work.
Despite the balmy weather of the last two weeks, snow is coming, and everything has to be covered up. Six months of moving to a smaller house underlines a basic principle of physics: everything has to be somewhere. We are now moved in and the old house is sold, but three utility trailers still sit in the yard loaded with stuff, and I can’t think of what to do with it.
We dubbed the new greenhouse the Crystal Palace the first evening Charlie turned floodlights on inside it. White plastic glows rather well when illuminated from within. Now that the wiring is complete, maybe I can just screw in green and red light bulbs and write off the Christmas-decorations chore.
But all of the space is committed to boats and cars. There is no place for surplus chairs, an extra laundry hamper, the remains of twenty-five years of socket sets, even the half-finished lapstrake dinghy Charlie and I planked as soon as he grew big enough to do his side of the rivets. It has spent the last twenty years hanging on the wall in the garage in Smiths Falls.
Before I surrendered the pram to the pigeons in the haymow I took some photos and put them up in a scrapbook on the Net. Yesterday produced a flurry of messages from a guy in Boston. He wants the hull as a project to complete with his ten-year old son who wants to be a boat builder when he grows up. The only problem is getting a nine-foot boat to Boston.
Advertisers have convinced us that we can’t drive a car past the first of December without new-fangled tires with bits of walnut shell in the rubber and lots of slits to enhance wear. But that means new rims as well, and that’s expensive, so I consulted Kijiji ads for a week and then set off on one of my wild-goose chases. In the pouring rain I explored a Kingston suburb – do you know they count by fours when assigning lot numbers nowadays? I finally broke down and knocked on a door. The occupants directed me two houses down the street, laughing about the numbering system but apparently on good terms with their neighbours.
Now in the correct driveway at the appointed time, I discovered nobody home.
Princess Auto was only a couple of blocks away, so I drowned my sorrows in Friday-evening retail therapy for an hour or so, and arrived back at the tire place just as the young couple returned.
The tires and wheels were as advertised, and the owners recovered just over half what they had paid to equip their leased Camry for three months of winter driving last year. The moment of truth will come this week when I bolt them onto Bet’s car and take it out onto the highway.
But that doesn’t help the three trailers in the yard. What’s more, I no sooner get the fishing boats tucked neatly away in the Palace than Tony comes along to take his out for one more fishing trip.
At least the fall plowing’s done. But Bet wants her garlic planted before freeze-up…
A visit to Lostwithiel Farm
November 9, 2009
When agronomist Neil Thomas is not on assignment in Africa for CIDA or helping his wife manage a vineyard and winery in southern Pennsylvania, he works on the family property near Lansdowne where they tend to acres of grapes and the area’s largest black walnut orchard.
Everyone agrees that the black walnut is the gourmet nut of choice: it has a smooth, rich flavour, complex and nuanced. Nutritionally it scores off the charts on all indicators of desirability. The only problem is getting the kernel away from the shell.
The lack of affordable processing machinery has prevented the growth of a market for black walnuts in Canada, but over the last two decades Neil has used his contacts and reputation to arrange for the development of technology to fill this need.
The latest machine to emerge from a collaboration with the Engineering Technology Department at Algonquin College is a continuous-flow nut washer.
“This invention replaces a set of five hand operations based around a cement mixer, a large screen and a pair of rubber gloves which gave me an extremely sore back last year. When Brad Thompson and a team of fellow students confronted the problem, they designed a big, shiny, three-quarter-ton beast which looks a bit like a jet engine on a test bed. So far it has not thrust me out of the barn, but we haven’t used it yet.”
Today was to be the day for the test.
First up was a trailer load of nuts from Westport. Planted in 1937, Dr. Goodfellow’s black walnut trees have proven a reliable and abundant source of fruit, and current owners John and Delcy Marchand sought Neil out as the only processor in the area.
My job was to dump the bags and tubs of walnuts onto the conveyor and regulate the feed up a stepped belt adapted from the potato industry. At the top the nuts drop into a huller, a noisy machine consisting of a large cylinder with a series of rubber pads inside set up to remove the gooey outer hull of the nuts. The hulls are forced down through a grate at the bottom as the cleaned nuts make their way out the end, down a funnel, and into a flotation trough which tests each nut’s quality. If it floats, it is discarded.
Eager to try his new toy, Neil waited impatiently as I ran the nuts through and into the trough. With a large plastic shovel he scooped the hulled nuts out of the long trough and into the hopper of the washer. He turned it on and away they went, without fuss.
The washer consists of a large, perforated, rotating drum with a slowly counter-rotating auger inside to feed the nuts along through the machine. An electronic control panel provides infinite adjustment to the rate of feed.
In five minutes John’s crop of walnuts had been washed and deposited in the rack for moving to the dryer. I commented to Neil, “Your guys certainly did a good job. That thing runs as smoothly as a Honda.”
Personally, I fancy tools that keep me on my toes, demanding all my alertness and ingenuity just to keep them working. The new washer seemed discouragingly competent to me, but Neil and his sore back just beamed.
While he prepared lunch I subjected my host to the third degree on the walnut business:
What does the black walnut tree offer to Canadian food shoppers?
Black walnut is the truffle of the tree-nut world. The nut meat is rich, with a creamy texture and often pungent flavours. This means that far less can be used in cooking and you get a lot of taste for a few calories. There is less fat and more protein in black walnuts than in other nuts. Pastry chefs cherish them for their outstanding contribution to fine cuisine.
People are prepared to pay far more for black walnut products than for other nut types.
Why don’t more people plant black walnut trees?
Farmers in this area have spent two hundred years removing trees from their fields, and don’t want to put them back. There’s also the long product cycle. In fact, though, ordinary black walnut trees should produce nuts by the time they are twelve years old, a far shorter interval than growing trees for timber.
Can you make money from black walnuts?
I believe you can, because we have test-marketed kernel at $1.00 per ounce, far more than consumers are willing to pay for other nut types. We couldn’t keep up with the demand.
What will it take to make black walnut production a successful industry in this area?
It will take a critical mass of rural landowners establishing plantations so that we can sustain production with locally-produced nuts.
Separating out the edible kernel is really the challenge. Nobody wants chunks of shell in their muffins or their ice cream, so most of our technology development emphasis is on the machinery to crack and separate. In Missouri the Hammond Company uses a very expensive optical sorting operation which nobody can afford at the farm scale. So we need to find the trick of separating kernel and shell by a cheaper mechanical means and this is where most of our emphasis goes.
the Walnut Diary 