My apologies for being absent from this spot last week. Terry and I took a few days off to visit our daughter who had rented a “cottage” in Kawartha Ice Cream country. I still have a problem calling a $450k property, with air conditioning and every modern convenience aside from a wine fridge, a cottage. However, I know I’m in the minority, having been around when cottages were simple affairs with iceboxes and coal oil lighting. Modern values aside, it was wonderful to get away, visit with family and enjoy something Glengarry is sorely lacking… the revitalizing calm of morning lake mist and the haunting call of the loon.
Euchre Heroes
My last official act before climbing in our car and heading out for the Bancroft/Haliburton area was to play host at the DRA Euchre Luncheon… an event that proved to be full of surprises.
The first was the disappearance of our euchre-meister, Ann Stewart. It turns out that Ann’s daughter and son-in-law spirited her away on a spur-of-the-moment road trip to Quebec City. Luckily, Dytha Dixon and her partner Doug “Tigger” Benson stepped up to the plate and organized the tournament side of things. The couple hails from Bourget where Dytha is president of the Nation Area Seniors Club. The group organizes dinners at the community hall in Fournier once a month and has a bowling league that meets monthly in St. Isidore.
The second surprise was the turnout. By 12:05, the DRA Hall was virtually empty. Only eight players had shown up and we were beginning to suspect that we’d have heaps of food left over. At that moment, the doors burst open and players began pouring in, including a foursome all the way from Cornwall led by former Dunveganite, Donald Clark.
The third surprise was the crowd’s ravenous appetite. They descended on the luncheon buffet like a swarm of extremely polite locusts. Terry and I even had to make an extra loaf of sandwiches for the post-tournament lunch. Which was grand. It takes virtually the same amount of effort to serve eight people as it does twenty-four, but the bigger crowd is a whole lot more fun for all concerned.
After the main meal, the euchre enthusiasts got down to work and put in a solid two-and-a-half hours of sprightly card play. When the dust settled, Estelle Brazeau walked off with 1st prize, Claire Van Putten took 2nd prize and Helen Bellefeuille claimed 3rd. Gabriel Meloche won the “Most 4s” prize and Doug Benson took home the door prize. Winners of the 50/50 Draw included: June Raymond, Colombe Raymond, Helen McCormick, John Van Putten, Dytha Dixon, Eileen MacGillivray, and Miles MacEachern.
While Dytha and Doug were heroes of the day for pulling the tournament together at the last moment, I also want to thank the unsung heroes that make DRA Euchre possible… month in and month out. Without Ann Stewart, Linda Burgess and Robert Campbell, the whole house of cards would fall apart.
Missed the “Stitch”
The other downside of slipping away a couple of weekends ago was that we missed A Stitch in Time at the museum. Held this past July 16th and 17th, the event demonstrated how large a part the lowly “stitch” (and spinning, weaving, knitting, rug hooking and quilting) played in the lives of Glengarry’s pioneers.
Unlike the 2014 Quilts & Fibre weekend where volunteers battled bouts of bad weather, this year’s fibre arts celebration was blessed with sunshine. However, despite this, attendance was down by over 50%. “It would have been nice to have had a larger crowd,” event organizer Eleanor Sides told me, “but 205 attendees was better than none.”
At the end of the day, the event raised approximately $2,500 for the museum. And it attracted many new faces, especially from Quebec. Equally important, Eleanor reports that all four vendors, Flair with Fabrics, Hooked on the Lake, Apple Hill Alpacas and L’Art des Fibres par Linda D were very pleased with the event and are ready to return if the museum holds another A Stitch in Time weekend.
Eleanor wanted me to publically thank all the museum staff and volunteers who helped make this event possible… including those who donated items to be exhibited, as well as Sandra MacPherson, Karen Henry, Ruth Stanton and Eurda Lodge who demonstrated making penny rugs, Swedish weaving, crochet and tatting. “The Twistle Guild of Glengarry, The Martintown Wild and Woolly Rug Hookers and the Highland Quilters Guild also deserve a big round of applause,” says Eleanor. “They were well represented throughout the two days, demonstrating their crafts, answering questions and encouraging visitors to try hands on.”
Given all the hard work that went into this event, I think the low attendance was a real shame. However, it’s hard to get people out for an event if they don’t know about it. I know the Stitch in Time organizers were working with a shoestring budget, but I think that not placing ads in the “Coming Events” sections of the local papers was false economy. Even inexpensive, word-only ads would have been better than nothing. Social media has its place, but in a rural community like ours it’s not always the be-all and end-all… especially given the target demographic.
Electric Apple Comparison
A few weeks ago, a neighbour from Dunvegan West forwarded an e-mail to me that compared the cost of electricity in Ontario with that of some other provinces. You may have seen it, as it seems to be making the rounds. The disparity in the cost of 1,000 kilowatt/hours (kWh) was shocking, but as the e-mail quoted no sources, I thought it would behoove me to look for the headwater. The search took me to an April 7, 2016 letter to the editor of the Orangeville Citizen from Fred Brailey. While it echoed the forwarded e-mail almost word for word, Mr. Brailey also failed to give the source of his data. So I decided to dig a bit deeper.
This led me to the web site of Randy Hillier, MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox & Addington (www.randyhilliermpp.com/hydro_facts), which is where I chose to drop anchor. What Mr. Hillier has done on his “Hydro Facts – Ontario Most Expensive in Canada” page is compare the per-province cost of 1,000 kWh of electricity for a rural residence.
If you look at Ontario’s “Energy” charge (which is the only one the provincial Liberals want you to consider in Hydro one’s apples-to-oranges comparisons), Ontario doesn’t look too bad: $114.60. This figure is based on 200 kWh at the peak rate of 18¢, 200 kWh at the mid rate of 13.2¢ and 600 kWh at the low rate of 8.7¢. But that’s only HALF the story. On top of this, our hypothetical Hydro one customer is on the hook for… a “Line Loss” charge of $11.19 … a “Basic Monthly Charge” of $24.07… a “ Regulatory” charge of $6.71… a “ Delivery” charge of $30.88… a “Distribution Volume” charge of $29.80… a “Transmission Connection” charge of $4.80… a “Transmission Network” charge of $6.80… and, to add insult to injury, a “Smart Meter” charge of $10.38 for something that often doesn’t work out here in the sticks. This adds up to a grand total of $239.23 for 1,000 kWh of Hydro one rural residential electricity service.
How does this compare to our fellow Canadians? Well, the next most expensive province is Prince Edward Island with an all-in price of $162.52 for 1,000 kWh, followed by Saskatchewan with an all-in price of $155.43. However, if you’re looking to really save money on your electricity bill, you might want to consider moving to Manitoba, Quebec or British Columbia. There, the all-in prices for 1,000 kWh of rural power are $81.38, $89.62 and $106.67 respectively. Compared with Ontario, it’s like Manitoba is holding a 3-for-1 sale on electricity.
Granted, by staying in Ontario you have the privilege of helping to pay off $307,733,295,397.00 worth of provincial debt (as of 12:29 PM on July 25, 2016). But I’d bet you’d be willing to trade that for not having to break the bank each time you turn on a light… or for that matter, NOT turn on a light. As all too many Hydro one customers have discovered, even if you turn absolutely everything off, you’ll still get hit with a whacking great bill. Or, as Leonard from the hit television comedy The Big Bang Theory put it in one episode, you’ll continue to be “attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis.”
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