Reader Ken McEwen was quick to comment on last week’s brief look at when radio came to his family’s farm in 1939. Ken agreed that the advent of this new technology brought information and entertainment to the countryside. However, he took issue with my statement about radio serving to “slowly dissolve the social fabric” of the community. From his observations of life on the farm, there was “no significant change in neighbourhood social relations and community life in general.” Until Ken left home in 1952, tasks such as threshing, corn blowing and wood cutting with a circular saw, continued to involve community participation… just as they had for eons before. “Fourteen, fifteen or so men for threshing, seven or eight men for corn blowing, and two or three for cutting wood… these activities, though work related, also were neighbourhood social interaction.”
Ken’s email propounded that the agents of change came somewhat later. In his opinion, the real culprit was the introduction of labour-saving equipment like combines, forage harvesters and chainsaws. These new technologies permitted farmers to do things on their own… tasks that previously had required more manpower.
And he’s right. The impact of radio was subtle when compared to the new farming technologies introduced decades later. However, I see rural radio as a milestone event that helped set the wheels of change in motion. And hot on its heels came rural electrification, affordable cars and trucks and the resultant demand for improved country roads.
It can all be seen through the lens of progress. However, today this continuum of change has brought us to tractors and harvesters that drive themselves and robotic dairy operations that can be run by just one person. My point was that all this progress comes with a societal price. Communities like Dunvegan et al have long lost their cohesion (at least outside farming circles) and some more than others have devolved into little more than a loose collection of strangers.
In passing, Ken identified yet another linguistic divide between these two solitudes. Just like calling a rural highway or byway a “street’ instead of a “road,” Ken says that how one approaches the word “to thresh” or “threshing” reliably separates rurbans from rurals. “No farmer would pronounce it as spelled,” Ken told me in his email, “(it’s) pronounced ‘thrashing’.”
Bessie to pick winner
As I mentioned last week, the Glengarry Pioneer Museum has announced that there will be a fall festival this year. The date is to be Sunday, September 12th from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Of course, this year’s festival will be scaled back and masks will be required whenever social distancing cannot be maintained.
While there won’t be a live Horse Parade, FallFest 2021 will feature vintage harvest machinery demonstrations; heritage trade demonstrations; children’s activities; music buskers; and a harvest sale table with preserves, garden produce, flowers and plants.
New to the Festival this year is “Cow Pie 50/50 PLUS”. The down and dirty raffle is being modeled on Cow Patty Bingo, a crowd-pleasing formula that countless organizations have used to raise funds. If you’ve never seen one, a grid is painted on a field and each square is numbered. On the day of the raffle, a cow is turned loosed on the grid in anticipation she will leave a “deposit” on one of the squares. If you’re the lucky so-and-so who bought the raffle ticket with the number that matches the square with the cow pie, you win.
I’ve learned that the “PLUS” in the name of Dunvegan’s Cow Pie raffle refers to the fact that, in addition to the grand prize winner, four bonus prizes of $75 will be awarded after the 50/50 winner has been chosen. Organizers hope to sell all 400 squares at $10 each. After the amount of the “Bonus” prizes has been deducted, ½ of the remaining ticket sales will awarded as the 50/50 prize and ½ will go to the Glengarry Pioneer Museum. Before you lose sleep over what happens if the first eligible cow pie lands on an unsold square (banish the thought), the prize will be awarded to the holder of the closest square. If two or more ticket holders are equidistant from the unsold square with the “cow pie”, the winner will be chosen using a smartphone-based random number draw. For those policy wonks out there, be advised that a full set of “Cow Pie” rules is in the works and will soon be posted on the GPM web site. They’re just waiting for it to be translated into Holstein, so Bessie can re ad it.
Last week, I wasn’t sure if the Kovid Kops would allow the sale of baked goods at the Fall Festival. But Harvest Sale co-ordinator, Barb Newman, has received the green light. So she’s asked me to urge you to get out your bowls and mixers and fill the FallFest tables with Glengarry and area’s finest pies, breads, cakes, cookies and squares. She also desperately needs donations of preserves, pickles, garden produce and plants. For more information on how to make a contribution to the Festival’s popular Harvest Sale venue, please call Barbara Newman at 613-361-2703. In a similar vein, if you have an antique collection you’d like to display, or are willing to demonstrate a heritage trade or exhibit a vintage farm machine, please contact Clay MacWhirter at clay.macw@gmail.com or call 613-306-2578.
Sunday trifecta
Interim moderator Rev. Jim Ferrier has asked me to remind the Dunvegan community that this coming Sunday, August 29th, the worship service will be conducted by members of Kenyon Church’s Session and congregational members. The service starts at 11:00 am.
Rev. Jim also wanted to give everyone a heads-up that Dunvegan’s annual day of remembrance — the Memorial Sunday service — is fast approaching. Sunday, September 5th is the formal time when family and friends from both near and far return to Dunvegan to commemorate and celebrate loved ones who have been laid to rest in the Dunvegan graveyard. It’s a day when the churchyard is awash in colour from the many memorial flowering plants and bouquets. Worship starts at 11:00 am and donations will be welcomed in support of the church’s cemetery. For your protection, Covid-19 protocols will be followed.Unfortunately, this means that no Memorial Sunday luncheon will be offered this year.
Last but not least, please don’t forget that starting Sunday, September 12th and continuing to the end of the calendar year, worship times for Kenyon and St. Columba churches do the big switcheroo. Worship at Kenyon Church will be at 9:30 am, and St. Columba’s service time will be at 11 am.
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