Gail Hamilton's Blog

Dell and Nancy were about to leave when Dell told Phoebe that if he could intervene on her behalf not to be backward to let him know.

“Well Phoebe, Aunt Helen is coming down to the farm for the long weekend. Could Nancy and I invite you up for Sunday supper?”

“Do you suppose, Dell, that I would be presentable by Sunday.”

“You are always presentable to us.”

So Mrs. Forester was Dell’s widowed aunt of two years. Her chartered accountant husband passed away very suddenly. Mrs. Forester was Aunt Helen to Phoebe as well. Phoebe often babysat for Dell and Nancy since they were very often on the trail in Dell’s constituency cutting ribbons, opening a new business or bridge or maybe presenting a hundred year senior citizen with a plaque.

Aunt Helen Forester was a tall, agile lady in her early sixties.

Phoebe told dad that she thought that she would be able to go to school the coming Monday.

“I told you ,kid, that I make you as good as new again with your mum’s beefsteaks.”

Bertha piped up, “And keep out of trouble with that temper that you have. I do not know where you get this temper from. It’s not from your dad or me.”

“Mum, you are all wet. That’s just where my temper comes from. I inherited a set of principles and ethics from you and dad and a temper to defend them.”

The party lines around Dunadry were hot with gossip. Not since Plunket’s old mule dropped dead at the junction of Temperance and Brewery Streets was there such a juicy drip on the grapevine. Back at school on Monday, some of the students were eager to have discussion with Phoebe about her ordeal. She sternly made it clear to them that she did not wish to have to have any discussion on the subject whatsoever. Some tapped her on the shoulder as they passed. There was the odd female known to Phoebe as a joy rider with Hector in his Austin Healey that gave Phoebe a dirty look. That is if their eyes ever made contact.

There was a lot of anticipation concerning the approaching exams and summer holidays. Phoebe and her two close pals were having a milkshake in the cafeteria when Jackues Lenard said, “Gee, Phoebe, I hate to bring this up, but we are glad that you came out of your ordeal in good shape.”

Linda Sinton was a little redhead. “Phoebe, my brother, Ned, happened to see you in Mrs Broughton’s car and he said that you looked to be a total wreck.”

“I felt a total wreck as well, but thank God my father took over and recycled me. I’m not saying how he did it but he did.”

When Phoebe got home from school she found that Sinton had called and left a message about Sunday for supper. She said she will call.

Phoebe was looking forward to her visit with Aunt Helen when little brother, Earl, piped up. “You’ve had it pretty soft for over a week, big girl. Don’t forget, before Sunday that wood box has to be filled up and five barrow fulls of firewood brought up to the woodshed.”

“You know big brother how it was.”

“I know you scared the heck out of us.”

 It came Friday night once more and Phoebe was to choir practice. When Phoebe and Jacques Lenard arrived at the church, most of the choir were there. Most of their eyes were on Phoebe. Big Irish Sam Gipson, an accomplished tenor, was choir master. He reached out his hand which was more like a paw.

“Welcome home Phoebe.”

Phoebe, with that mischievous grin of hers, said, “Surprise, surprise, Sam, and I’m all in one piece.”

After some drivel of gossip, Sam called the choir to attention.

“Now as you all know, Easter Sunday is coming and we should try and put on something special. Does anybody have any suggestions?”

Alfie Gardiner rose to his feet.

“I would suggest part that Mrs. Liddle and Rob Gipson give a duet for the first of the service and for the latter part that Phoebe give a solo. I’m sure that the congregation would enjoy that.”

Phoebe rose to her feet. “It sounds good and I wouldn’t mind, doing it but i think that on account of the controversy that is going on at our school, and it is not over yet, so on that account I decline.”

Mr. Gipson said, “I’m inclined to agree with Phoebe, but like the rest of you I really like to listen to Phoebe’s soprano voice.”

That behind her, Phoebe was looking forward to Sunday to be with her second family; Aunt Helen, Nancy and Dell. Come Sunday, Nancy picked up Phoebe in their Essex . Aunt Helen gave Phoebe a big hug.

“Thank God that you are not disfigured or maimed.”

Dell told auntie that she should see the other guy.

Nancy was setting the table and interrupted Dell. “You be careful Dell. Whatever Phoebe cares to tell Aunt Helen js up to her.”

Phoebe felt quite at ease and free with Aunt Helen and felt that her Aunt Helen was too reserved to question her for any detail and, at the same time, Phoebe felt that she ought to know.

“Aunt Helen, is there anything you would like to know about that fracas I got into and out of.”

“Indeed ,honey, I would very much like to know, first of all how did it all begin and what was the cause of it all?”

“Well, Aunt Helen, this boy has lots of money, prestige and charisma. He thinks that his B.O. doesn’t smell, thinks that any female in the county is falling over herself to ride with him in his Austin Healey to anywhere he chooses to park. Anywhere in the province.

“Well, one Monday morning on the ten oclock break I was retrieving a notebook from my locker. As it so happened, there were only two grade nine students deciphering something farther up the hallway. I could see this slob or hulk a long way down the hallway in the opposite direction fiddling with something. The door of the locker opened to my left obstructing my observation of that gigolo to my left. I could see that something had drawn the attention of the other two girls as they were looking intentionally down my direction.

“Before i could ever catch my breath i was tightly held in the arms of this Don Juan. I pleaded with him to let me go. Instead, he became more personal and aggressive. I think maybe, to his surprise, I got my hands on his chest and made one desperate lunge and freed myself from his strangle hold. I nearly fell to the floor. Instead of running away as I could or maybe should have, I didn’t hesitate one second. I flew at him and punched him on the snout. He said, ‘You bitch’, and started to slap me on the face. I drew back and with two swift kicks to where you can guess, Aunt Helen, I floored the critter. When the principal got there he was lying there with head his between his knees. Nancy knows the rest.”

After supper Aunt Helen was questioning Phoebe as to what she had in mind after she graduated.

“Well, Aunt Helen, it’s a mixed kettle of fish. I have given it a lot of thought. I have got all summer to hash it over.

“Could give me an idea, Phoebe, of what ideas you are going to. be toying with all summer?”

“Maybe, Aunt Helen. I have bright ideas. I was thinking maybe I could be a school teacher or a nurse. I’m not sure that I’m cut out to be a teacher cause I might lose my temper with some of those spoiled and impudent kids. I have saved up a nice little bit of money. Now down in Kingston there is a school of nursing. There is also a teachers’ college. If I were to be accepted in either one of them, there is a possibility that i might be able to make it home here to Dunadry on weekends. That would be quite a saving on my expenses. I can always dream, you know, Aunt Helen. I can still pick eighty bushel of tomatoes a day or label cans when the snow blows.”

Phoebe left Aunt Helen one of her snaps (photos) that Esther took of her before dad applied the beef steaks. Dell took Phoebe home. Aunt Helen thought Phoebe was quite a girl.

A new item has been added to my web site: the ongoing episodes of Fearless Phoebe the Super Model written by my dad when well into his nineties. I suspected my father had wanted to write but after leaving school at fourteen and battling for existence as a farmer all his life, there was not much opportunity.  He did produce some little stories and satirical verses for fun.  However, in his later years, after he got to retire, after he had outlived his wife and two best friends as well as his driving license, he found himself idle on the farm with time to kill.

Tired of TV and shutting off his favourite CBC radio, he hauled out the old Smith Corona typewriter and set to work. Pecking away with one finger,  day after day, he wrote up the thrilling tale of Fearless Phoebe the Super Model. I knew he was thumping away at something but it was not until after his death that I found the foot high stack of brown envelopes all about Phoebe and realized the scope of the work.

Access was another matter. Due to dimming eyesight and iffy grammar, he typed everything in capital letters with no breaks and no punctuation save commas wherever he thought one took a breath. Each page was a solid block of single spaced lines with mistakes covered in whiteout, often in thick layers. Digitizing it was certainly a challenge.

I did not give up. Eventually, I got a large chunk of it into the computer. And, as an experiment, I am putting episodes online.  I have done the basic, sorting out who is talking to whom and what action is going on. Rather that further editing, I am putting it online as is, repetitions, creative spelling and all. Just the way dad wrote it. The tale is set in 1932. Despite its flaws the work is a window into the Depression era in rural Ontario by someone who was actually there. And also a look into the surprising things that go on in an old farmer’s head when left alone with a typewriter.

Dad picked a lot of tomatoes and pitched a lot of hay so the least I can do is put his magnum opus out into the world and see who wants to read itl

Dunadry was a village situated in the heart of the tender region of Eastern Ontario. It was also the home of Dan and Bertha Croiner and their three children; Earl, eleven; Esther, thirteen and Phoebe, nineteen. In her final year of high school, Phoebe was often referred to by her pals and friends as Fearless Phoebe all because she took on Hector Symington.

Burford Symington, Hector’s.father, owned the largest canning factory in the county, employing about 100 persons nine months of the year, then maybe about twenty-five the rest of the winter labeling and shipping out canned goods. Old man Syminton was a pillar in the community.

Phoebe Croiner was a model of a girl, five nine, weighing probably one-thirty-five, all muscle and sinew from picking fruit all summer and periodically helping her father fall trees and buzz up firewood. Phoebe had a personality that was admired by all that knew her, whether that was church or on the athletic field.

This one instance in her graduating year will be as fresh in her mind as her graduation. It all came about as she scurried between classes to retrieve a notebook from her locker for the next class which was English. There were two other juniors there comparing notes. It crossed her mind that she should get this notebook fast, as she observed playboy Hector Syminton fumbling with something farther down the locker room. She thought maybe it was another decoration for his Austin Healey car.

Phoebe sported a fine pony tail of her jet black hair. Her locker door blocked her view of Hector Syminton. But she could see the two juniors, staring at something. Then in an instant, Hector had Phoebe by her pony tail. She pleaded with him to let her go.

“Oh Phoebe you feel great in my arms.”

He held her tight and then tried to force his hand down between her breasts, but when he tried to force his hand up her skirt Phoebe thought it was time for action. Like a professional freeing himself from a head lock she made one determined physical lunge and freed herself from his hold. Instead of running for her freedom, she turned about and flew at him like a panther. Apparently, this was unexpected by Hector. Phoebe punched him right on the nose. Immediately the blood came squirting over his shirt.

In a raging mood he says, ”You bitch!”

In the meantime, one of the junior girls ran to get the principal.. Cowardly Hector made a few swipes at Phoebe right in the face, which later turned out to be two black eyes. Phoebe wasn’t beat yet. She played her shoes to him right in his crotch. He went down to the floor like a tranquilized bear, moaning and curled up like up like a shelled clam. She was standing over him when principal Hendry got her by the arm.

“Phoebe darling, what happened to you?’

Phoebe looked at Mr Hendry as though she were dazed.

“I’m undecided, Mr. Hendry, if I should choke him to death while I have the opportunity.”

Mr. Hendry took hold of Phoebe’s arm and he could feel the tremble in her body. He told one of the junior girls to go to first aid and tell Miss Rundle that she was wanted in the locker room .

“Then go on down the aisle and bring Mrs. Broughton to the change room in the locker room.”

Mr. Hendry told the two junior girls not to leave the school as he wanted to find out from them just what they did see and not to be concerned as they will have to just make a statement.

Poor Phoebe, she looked a wreck as Mr. Hendry took her by the arm down to the change room.. Het nice black ponytail was all tattered and teased around her shoulders and face. Her very low neck and her under slip showing down to

her knees. They were just into the room when Mrs. Broughton came in.

“Oh my good gracious, darling Phoebe what happened to you? Mr. Hendry, I think that she needs a stimulant.”

“I haven’t the time, Mrs. Broughton, to go into details with you as I have other urgent business to do right now”

He could see that Miss Rundle had a wheelchair up beside Hector Symingon.

Miss Rundle asked Mr. Hendry, “Do you think that you and I can get him into this chair.”

Miss Rundle put the brakes on the chair as tight as she could. Mr. Hendry and, Miss Rundle each put one arm under Hector’s and told the two junior girls to hold the chair as firm as they could.

Miss Rundle said, ” Here we go Hector.”

It was quite a lift for the pair of them.. Oh how Hector groaned with pain before he got seated.

Mr. Hendry said, “Now you two nice girls go down to my office and have a seat and I will be with you shortly.”

Miss Rundle said, “What we will do is open the end door of this locker room, go partly across the gymnasium and there is a door that opens right into the first aid station. That way we will not be disturbing the students.

Mr. Hendry said, “Miss Rundle, do what you have to do. I’ve got to run.”

“Have a seat over there till I have a peek.” Miss Rundle opened Hectors pants. “I think, Mr. Hendry, that this is a case for the doctor. “

Dr Mercer examined Hector and called the ambulance. He instructed the ambulance to come directly to the high school first aid door.

“And come as quietly as you can. We want no commotion around here. “

Mrs. Broughton volunteered to drive Phoebe home.

“Oh Mrs. Broughton, what am I going to tell my mum?”

Phoebe repeated that lament all the way home. Mrs. Broughton tried to assure Phoebe that this would all blow over.

When Mrs. Croiner first set eyes on Phoebe she repeated several times, “Oh my god, what has happened to our Phoebe.”

Phoebe holding back the tears a as best she could, was trying to explain.

“Never mind, honey,” said Mrs. Broughton as she took her Phoebe by the arm and placed her in a chair. Mrs. Broughton sat between Phoebe and mum. “Now Mrs. Croiner, this is not so serious as you may think.”

“Do we know him?” asked Mrs. Croiner with vengeance in her expression.

“Just let us leave that till later, Mrs. Croiner. Mr. Hendry will fill you in on it all in a later date.”

“When my Dan gets home and finds out who did this to our Phoebe, he’ll go and borrow a shot gun and make a dead partridge of the dirty scoundrel!”

“What really happened, Mrs. Croiner was this certain know-all tried to act fresh with Phoebe, the biggest mistake he ever made. Believe me, Mrs. Croiner, your daughter can take very good care of herself in any situation.”

Mrs. Broughton looked at her watch and stood up and told Phoebe it was lunch time. She would be in touch with her. Phoebe asked Mrs. Broughton if she would be kind enough to stay and have a bite of lunch with them. Mrs. Broughton was very glad to accept the invitation, seeing how Mrs. Croiner had settled down.

Great minds think alike as Phoebe felt the same relief after lunch . Mrs. Broughton felt inwardly distressed at the whole situation. She thought to herself that this episode is far from over. She excused herself and asked if she could come back later and meet Mr Croiner. Inwardly Phoebe felt that some pressure was been eased as she appreciated her meeting her father.

“Very well, Phoebe, I will you later.”

           Mrs. Broughton made it her business to call at Principal Hendry’ s office. Well, she told Mr. Hendry, she had better be back at the Croiner home when Mr .. Croiner returned from work.

“How did you fmd things there, Mrs. Broughton?”

“Well, fragile and delicate. That is why I feel that someone should be there when Mr. Croiner returns from work.”

“Well, according to the information I got from those two grade niners, you have to hand it to Phoebe. She could have been free but instead she chose to get revenge and she got it. Those two girls were so shy it was very difficult to get them to express themselves. I said, ‘Now girls this is very serious. I know that it’s hard for you to tell me all that you have seen’. “Well, Syminton got the hold of Phoebe and was holding her very tight. She was pleading with him to let her go but he wouldn’t listen. It was when he…” Then the girls clammed up and put their hands over their faces. One said to the other, ‘You tell him!’ The other one said, ‘no you tell him.’

After a pause, one of the girls said that Hector Syminton tried to put his hand up Phoebe Croiner’s clothes. That was when Phoebe Croiner made a lunge and freed herself from his hold on her. She nearly fell on her face. She sprang to her feet and like a cat defending her kittens.”

“That’s when I run to your office to come quickly.”

“The other girl said that Phoebe Croiner punched him on the nose and it started to bleed right away. He said, ‘You bitch,’ then started to swat her on the face. Phoebe Croiner then gave him a good kick. Then Hector began to crumple up. She gave him the second one before he hit the floor. He doubled up, moaning. By then he had his head practically between his knees.”

           “That’s when you, Mr. Hendry, came in.”

I would say, Mrs. Broughton, that she whittled him down to her size.”

At the Croiner house, sister Esther, in her first year at high school, came bubbling in from school. Seeing her sister, she asked,” What happened to you Phoebe.? Did you run into a revolving door?”

“No Esther, I stepped on a springboard and it came up to meet me”

Anyway, Esther was bubbling with curiosity.

“Know something? The ambulance came to school today and picked up somebody. Nobody knows for sure, but there’s lots of rumors going around. Some say that somebody broke a leg in the gym. Some say that there was a big fight in the school yard.”

Mrs. Broughton came back and she was glad that she did. Esther was beginning to feel that there was something very wrong. It was going on five o’clock and, what do you know, Burton Syminton pulled up to the door demanding to see that flirting girl that lived here. He looked very impressive and authoritative stepping from his new 1930 Packard car. It was one of few Packards in the county. He looked like a bull in a china store.

Mrs. Broughton had warned them all to keep their cool. .

“That girl is not fit to be to be associated with moral and normal society,” Burton roared. “She lured my son along then, when she couldn’t have it all her own way, she fouled him in the dirtiest, devious way that she could contemplate. I’ll see to it that she pays the penalty for her evil ways!”

Mrs. Croiner did her best to reprimand him but she was tripping over herself for loss of words. Phoebe was invisible in the background, chomping on the bit to get Involved. Syminton’s face flushed, stymied on how to get revenge and satisfaction. He was about to return to his car when Mrs. Broughton asked him if he cared to see what his son done to the girl.

Mrs. Croiner called Phoebe. Syminton was anxious to see this flirt so that he could reprimand her and warn her of his reprisals. When Phoebe showed her face, one eye partly closed, she was still wearing that defiant smile – that is, if you could decipher it. Syminton took one look, cleared his throat and headed for his Packard. Being the shrewd and aggressive business man that he was, he hoped they wouldn’t take pictures of her as just this could turn out to be a court compensation challenge, maybe a financial judgement against him.

I hope that they don’t take any pictures of that hussy. He swept that from his mind. Those local yokels wouldn’t have brains to contemplate that.

Dan Croiner arrived home and nearly blew his top.

“Who in the world did this to our Phoebe? Tell me and I shall go and get a gun and let him have it!”

Phoebe held dad’s hand. “Never mind, this will all blow over.”

Bertha Croiner sat beside her husband. “Now Dan, keep your cool. We have a lady in our house that can explain it all to you.”

In the back of Dan’s mind he was thinking of something else. Away back in school days, when one of us boys got a black eye, we put a cold coin to it, but the fastest cure was a slab of beefsteak.

Mrs. Broughton had a long, eye-to-eye talk with Dan and made him promise that he do nothing foolish. She felt good thinking that she had probably prevented a nasty situation developing. Phoebe told Esther to go up to Gilliard’s drug store and bring a film for the old brownie camera.

“Who knows, I may have to present proof that I was at school that day.”

           Dan Croiner had just finished his cup of tea.

“Never mind, Queen. We had lots of shiners in my school days. I shall bring back your beauty in no time flat. Bertha, you go down the cellar and bring up one of your beefsteaks and cut it in halves”

Phoebe lay on her back on the couch. Dan placed a steak eye and sat patiently beside her as though he were waiting for it to be rare or well done. At intervals, Dan would remove the steaks and replace them with two very cold fifty cent pieces. By Tuesday morning, the black was reduced to a very light brown and the swelling reduced by about sixty per cent.

Esther returned from her school all full of gossip.

“Phoebe they know all about it. It’s all over school.”

On Wednesday, Reverend Liddle called to see Phoebe. Reverend Liddle was a very young and energetic minister, very well received and accepted by the younger members of the congregation. After some lamenting on the situation, he got around to telling Phoebe that he had been to the hospital to see Hector Syminton.

Phoebe interjected with that defiant grin.

“He still surviving?”

“Yes he is, Phoebe, and he is very remorseful for what happened. He told me to tell you that he is very sorry for his actions that brought this all on.”

After all, the Symintons were big subscribers to the church and Mr. Liddle had to keep the sunny side up as best he could. At the same time Phoebe was a very very popular member of the younger congregation. He as heard of her, in quiet undertones, referred to as Fearless Phoebe.

Phoebe’s mum was going around the house doing her usual chores when Rev. Liddle asked Mrs Croiner if she would come over here and join him and Phoebe in a word of prayer.

“Oh God, in all his mercies, bless this family. Let us give thanks for Phoebe’s complete recovery and no after scars to remind her of a darker day.”

Phoebe’s mum was taking it all in graciously. Phoebe was thinking on a higher plateau.

“You hold the lines, Mr. Liddle and I will do some shoveling.”

Then he went on to ask us to forgive and forget our malice to those who wronged us, but rather let us turn the other cheek and accept their humble apologies. Amen and amen.

Mr. Liddle thought that he would try his weight on the ice and venture to ask Phoebe if she had any feeling for forgiveness in her heart.

“Mr. Liddle it is like this; live to fight another day. Some people fight and run away and it just so happens that i didn’t run away. In the meantime, Mr. Liddle, if you should be talking to that slut, tell him that I said that he got of darned lucky.”

So far for prayers hitting the ceiling.

In Wednesday’s mail she had by a card from Charlie Conway, choirmaster, signed all seventeen members of the choir, and another one from her highland fling club, a cartoon showing a girl tossing the caber. The following Wednesday ,who should drop in very unexpectedly to Phoebe, was Brian Berwick.

Brian was a twenty year old who ran a purebred dairy herd with his   widowed mother. He was the only boy who ever made love to Phoebe. Phoebe loved   him too, but so far it was very limited. On Thursday evening, who   should call on Phoebe but   Dell and Nancy Sinton. Dell was the MPP for the riding   of Lower Phelps.   Dell and Nancy and were   all on a first name basis and Dell could see at a glance that Phoebe was very much her old self.

            “How are you, Phoebe?”

“As of now, I feel pretty good and I’m still in circulation.”

Dan and Bertha Croiner were getting more information out of this conversation than they could squeeze out of Phoebe.

Dell said, “Phoebe you better be more careful. I don’t want to have to come down here and bail you out.”

“You know, Dell, that critter thinks that he is Gods gift to women. When I resented his passes, he goes and called me a bitch.

This was the juicy part that Dell and Nancy were eager to hear.

“Then I let him have it right on the snout, and the blood started to run. He started to plaster me right in the face. I completely lost my temper and floored him. If Principal Hendry had not showed up when he did I might have choked the slob to death.”

Dell said, “Phoebe, you’re a humdinger”

Phoebe jokingly replied, “You know, Dell, the taller they are, the harder they fall.”

Nancy said to Phoebe, “I heard through the grapevine that Symington is out of hospital and walking on a cane.”

“Well, Nancy, at least he is making progress. They took him in on a stretcher.”

They belong to another era and were a fix-it solution for ground too stony to drive in a fence post.  When my father bought the farm, back in the 1940s, he found his acres of pasture land consisted of a thin layer of grass and gavel over limestone bedrock less than a foot down.  And the place needed fences everywhere.  Deadmen, as the neighbours called them, were the local creative solution to anchoring wire fencing.

creative

A deadman consisted of a circle of posts containing, at the centre, rocks loaded in to the height of about five feet and held together by iron rims from old buggy wheels. This whole sat atop the ground relying on the weight of the rocks to  keep it upright.  Fence wire could be attached and stretched taut without pulling the heavy structure over.

Deadmen belong to a bygone day but some still stand where the fence corners were.  The posts for the circle are salvaged from an even older time when split cedar rails made fences. The whole side of the farm along the road was fenced with cedar rails until Hurricane Hazel came through and blew them down.  The very back field has remnants of the still earlier fence of intertwined pine roots the first settlers used to keep livestock in.

A fallen hero spilling the many heavy stones laboriously gathered to build it.

However, the day of the deadmen is long gone and many have simply collapsed where they stood, spilling their stones back to the earth and letting the grass grow up around them.  Yet these relics remain a testament to the hard labour and ingenuity of former generations. And I know each of these stones was painstakingly collected and hauled from the plowed fields of deeper soil by my dad.

Modern page wire fence with steel posts jackhammered into the bedrock.

Remnants of an early rail fence. The rails might already have been a hundred years old when salvaged to build the deadman.

Part of an original pine root fence from first pioneers. Put up before they could split rails.

It’s September and time once again for our county fair.  Picton Fair, one of the oldest in our province, has been going strong since 1831.  Even during Covid, when the Fair turned into a lively set of drive through displays, the county spirit did not falter.  Rain, thunderstorms, blistering heat or chill winds do not keep the crowds away. This year, with only a few showers, the weather smiled, the crowds poured in.

Food is always part of fair delights.

The secret of its attraction is that, true to its roots, it has remained a genuine agriculture fair.  There are horse competitions, English, western, barrel racing, and kids on their spiffed up ponies trotting proudly round the ring.  The cattle show is extensive, dairy and beef and the 4H youngsters leading the heifer or steer they have carefully raised and trained from a wobbly calf.

From kids on their ponies to daring barrel races, horses are the stars.

The hockey arena has long tables laden with all the fruit, vegetable and flower competition entries. At the side, safely behind glass, the pies, cakes and preserves sit temptingly, with the ribbons they have won.  In the curling rink there is the dog show in which dogs compete for longest tail, cleverest trick, best costume while at the other end, the arm wrestling trials go on. Earlier in the day there was a baby contest.

Exotic chickens you will only see at the Fair.

Naturally there is a midway, just the right size for our town, rumbling merrily away while riders shriek their delight. The little kids swirl sedately, the big kids spin way up in the sky, lights flash and molecules are shaken up for the rest of the year.

Mama pig and her piglets for town children to see.

One whole room of the arena is filled with local handicrafts. Wood works, knitting, crocheting, holiday items, and tables of work from the senior’s retirement homes.  And, of course, a whole wall of incredible quilts from out quilters.

The work of quilters gets more amazing every year.

As for me, for some reason I like the far corner exhibition the best. In a separate building you can find the exotic bunnies, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and even pigeons while along the edge in small pens are goats, calves, piglets and a pony for children to get up close.

Skilled baking takes the cake.

And lots of creative fun with vegetables.

I went to the fair as a kid to stuff myself with cotton candy and hot dogs.  Now it’s sausage on a bun, fries and ice cream with a bag of mini donuts for later snacking and perhaps a daring sampling of a deep fried pickle. I hope the Fair continues for another two hundred years and that there will still be cattle and horses and exotic chickens, pies and quilts and an arena full of plump vegetables for the great great grandchildren to see with wonder.

Female bee entering nest hole to deposit pollen as food for larvae when they hatch.

This spring I noticed some dull-coloured, inconspicuous bee-looking insects working in the masonry grooves between the chimney bricks. On closer inspection, they were filling the grooves with what looked like mortar and flying back and forth to holes in it. Puzzled and fearing for my bricks, I had to look them up.  I knew honey bees and bumble bees but this was my first encounter with mason bees which had chosen my chimney as their next project. 

Bee ready to lay eggs on the pollen she has stored in the nest.

I learned that mason bees are our pals, considered beneficial and highly desirable as pollinators. Just ten mason bees can pollinate a whole fruit tree. They are only active from four to eight weeks at blossom time. Males emerge, mate with females then, poor fellows, fall dead. Females build solitary nests in suitable holes using mud with a high clay content. They fill the nest hole with pollen, lay eggs upon it, and seal up the hole with a concrete-like plug. Then they, too, die.  No wonder I had never noticed them before.

Bee sealing her nest hole with concrete-like mud.

The eggs hatch into larvae which feed until the pollen is gone, then spin a cocoon and wait through the winter months to emerge as new bees in the spring for their short, busy life outside. Males have no stinger. Females only sting if strongly provoked so they are considered safe for children. Honey bee larvae breathe through microscopic openings in their wax seal. I assume mason bees do the same through their clay walls.

A row of sealed nests from which new bees will emerge in the following spring.

There is a whole thriving subculture of bee enthusiasts who raise mason bees for fun and gardening. You can order mason bee cocoons, mason bee houses, mason bee books, get instructions on how to build your own mason bee houses, collect suitable nest materials, join mason bee groups, learn to deal with pollen mites and much, more. Who knew!

Marchmont in Belleville with latest batch of children to place out.

After writing two historical novels dealing with the birth of the British Home Child emigration movement and its effects in Canada, I can still be surprised. This movement, created by social reformers, swept up destitute, abused and abandoned children and sent them off as farm and domestic workers overseas to new lives in Canada. This activity went on from 1870 to the 1940s.

To me and many others, this is all in the past.  Yet whenever I have been out in public with my books, The Tomorrow Country and The Accidental Bootlegger, I am regularly approached by people wanting to tell me about the Home Child in their family. “Grandma was placed on a farm near Consecon and she had never seen a pig before.” “My great grandfather was born in Liverpool.  He never found the brother that was sent to Canada after him.” “My father would never talk about where he came from.  I think he was one of those Home Children.”

Youngsters were found in terrible poverty.

The frequency of these stories can be explained by the site of the distribution home, Marchmont, in Belleville, in the centre of the Quinte region.  Every year dozens of British children would arrive at our little train station and march to the large building waiting for them.  Their stay would not be long.  In a rural land hungry for labour, there were multiple applications for each child.  Buggies and and wagons would line up outside waiting to take their scared little worker home. From the beginning, Marchmont placed over 6000 children in the region so it is no wonder their progeny abound.

In return for chores, the children were to receive food, shelter and schooling. Some lucky ones were treated like family.  Too many others were exploited, abused and never saw the inside of a school.  Some children were kept working hard during the busy season and returned to Marchmont when things were slow. This meant a child could go from placement to placement and never find stability. Others turned defiant, horrified upstanding farmers with their light-fingered street urchin ways or ran away to disappear altogether.

Party of youngsters heading off to unknown fates.

Contrary to popular belief, only a small number of these children were orphans. They were gathered from the streets or from families who, through sickness, accident, loss of work or the breadwinner, could no longer feed their young ones and were forced to give them up to keep them alive.  Siblings were not kept together.  Contact was lost.  Heartbreak and loneliness was often the lot of the Home Child.

To make things worse, Home Children were periodically attacked in the press was off-scourings of British gutters and carriers of disease foisted on Canada, filling the little strangers with shame and making them further outcasts. Many joined the army in WWI just to get to England to look for the families they had been torn away from.

Despite these tribulations, Canada offered many opportunities impossible in Britain.  Most of the Home Children grew up to become fine Canadians and raise families of their own. Too often their hid their origins so that only now are descendants discovering they have a Home Child in their family. With new enthusiasm they can research online the newly opened records of the emigration organizations to find out who great grandma really was.

Today, with over four million descendants in Canada from these brave little emigrants, their stories continue to echo through the generations. If you have a story, keep it, tell it and pass it down so that those who come after you will never forget.

I don’t know why I am fascinated by this battered yard sale sale acquisition but I can’t stop delving into marine knowledge of another era.  The book is a highly detailed manual of everything one needed to know to become a serious sailor in 1913. Well-thumbed, taped together, the book contains study notes, in real ink, browning at the edges, of its long-ago owner, one Francis Walsh of Nova Scotia.

Francis owned this book just before the First World War. Perhaps he went straight to the navy and used Tait knowledge to help Canada win.

From the book I learned how to deal with accidents during squall, how to adjust a sextant, how to send up a topgallant yard and rig out a jibboom, how to stow jute or cotton cargo, how to put out all lights and ban hobnailed boot with metal nails when powder or dynamite is coming board.  Using a hand lead line, the helmsman must call out, “by the mark 5” when at 5 fathoms.  (Mark Twain took his pen name from riverboat soundings.)

Rocket apparatus to rescue crew and passengers from another vessel in distress.

At the back are the Master’s Civil and Legal Duties and Board of Trade requirements. There is a fine of £500 for carrying passengers on more than one deck below the waterline. Should scurvy break out, issue a double allowance of lime juice and preserved vegetables such as cabbage and onions. Sighting of a derelict vessel must be reported to the Lloyd’s agent at the next port of call. A large red flag must be displayed on a destroyer or gunboat when submarines are exercising in the area.

An early barometer.

The original wind scale made by Admiral Beaufort in 1805 has become obsolete in consequence of the changes in the rig of ships. With a hydrometer is found the draught which a ship should be loaded in fresh water of any density so as to have a given draught in sea water.  In a heavy squall to the windward under reefed sails, lower away and furl the upper topsails. Use a clove hitch for hitching ratlines to the shrouds.

Communication is a big concern for all vessels.  Morse Code, for example, is laid out, letter by letter,  ready for learning, only a part of skills to learn.

Just a sample of the dozens of flags and flag combinations a sailor must know to keep the vessel safe.

British semaphores as opposed to French semaphores. A whole alphabet can be done by flags. How ships talked to each other before wireless.  At night they used lanterns.

Lots of other useful information abounds.  A fathom is six feet, a league is three miles, a ton of fresh water is 210 gallons, a cable is one tenth of a nautical mile. A ship’s coal consumption varies with the cube of the speed. The diameter and lenses of anchor lights should not be less than eight inches. The amount of water a vessel displaces is equal in weight to the vessel and cargo. A single vessel approaching a squadron of warships would be well advised to keep out of the way.

A vessel in distress can fire a gun or explosive device at one minute intervals, display a square flag above or below a ball or sound the fog signal continuously.  Did the Titanic sound its foghorn for help?  It must have had a big one which surely would have carried to ship it could see on the horizon.

Study notes of Francis Walsh who faced a stiff exam.

And so the fascinating  information goes on and on. I sincerely hope Francis passed his tests and eventually rose to captain.  If he learned everything in Tait’s he would certainly be well qualified.

I am so pleased to announce I have two historical novels just out. The Tomorrow Country, in a second edition, deals with the tumultuous beginnings of the British Home Children emigration movement sending destitute children to new lives in overseas. A fiercely warring crew of do-gooders, social climbers, crooks and rebel misfits battle it out to create Canadians-in-the-making. Lots of intrigue and hustle here as ambitions clash amidst the vast social upheavals of nineteenth century Britain.

The Accidental Bootlegger continues the story into young adulthood in the 1880s and is set in rural Prince Edward County, Canada where the Home Children face risky new challenges that could tar them  to the neck with scandal should any choice go wrong.  It is a tale told with humour and delight, involving a practically useless Englishman, a malevolent pig, an amorous circus sharpshooter, a sinking schooner and a village full of irate women who will do their duty if it kills them. You don’t want to miss the action!

A lot of research went into these books and a lot of effort into making them a lively read with new adventure at every  corner.  After all, it is really only reader enjoyment that counts.

Both books available at Books & Company in Picton, the Demorestville Café, and on Amazon. Enjoy!

I seem to have my own little flock of turkey vultures.  There are five of them and no matter how far they fly, they inevitably return to their favourite spot to rest and watch the neighbourhood.  That is the roof ridge of my barn. From there they eye me speculatively though I am still far too fresh to be lunch.

 Years ago there were no turkey vultures to be seen so, like other newcomers to the county, they were quite a novelty.  Now there are plenty of them wheeling about in lazy circles, scarcely needing to flap a wing.

Atop the barn, they stretch out their up to six foot wingspan to bask in the sun.  Large as the birds are, up to two and a half feet tall, they weigh only about three pounds.  A great help, I imagine, for that effortless glide.

Though I hardly see anything except some road kill, there must be enough dead creatures in the county to support this population of scavengers. With stomach acid a hundred times stronger than that of humans, they can digest just about anything with no ill effects. So turkey vulture poop is corrosive to whatever it lands upon.  They use smell to locate suitable carcasses.  They are so good at smelling that oil and gas companies inject a stinky chemical into their pipes and then find leaks where turkey vultures gather.

When freeze up comes and smells go away, the vultures set out for southern climes. The sure sign of spring here is the first sight of those dark silhouettes back doing circles in the sky.  Perhaps there is a bonanza of thawing winter kill awaiting them that the foxes and coyotes have missed. They will indulge in a little romance, make a nest on the ground and get on with raising the next generation of county vultures.  Or perhaps youngsters to keep spreading northward.  Meanwhile, they are welcome on the barn ridge and keep watch so long as they remember I am not quite edible yet.