Dunvegan’s 2nd annual Smith-in Blacksmith Festival may have only attracted a fraction of the visitors as the Harvest Fall Festival does these days, but the 200 folks who did pony up the price of admission seemed to be having a wonderful time.
As advertised, there were a dozen blacksmiths from all over the map: Georgetown, Vermont, Montreal, North Lancaster, Martintown, Beaverton and Ottawa. A few of them even camped out at the museum and, on Friday and Saturday evening, would have probably eaten out at the Dunvegan pub, if we had one.
While the smiths worked on everything from gun barrels to fireplace pokers, they appeared to really delight in answering questions about their craft. For example, I spoke at length with Robert Vaughan, a blacksmith from Ottawa, about his antique anvil from Britain.
I learned that, despite appearances, anvils are much more than an oddly shaped lump of cast iron. They actually consist of two types of metal: iron for the bulk of the tool and steel for the working face. Back in the day, to fasten the steel top plate to the anvil body, both had to be white-hot. When they were, the smith and his assistants welded the two together with repeated blows of their hammers. They only had a working window of about 90 seconds before they had to reheat the anvil.
Once the weld was complete, the finished anvil had to be strengthened and hardened by reheating it, through and through, to a lower temperature (red hot this time) and then plunging it in water to cool it quickly. This process is known as quenching. The welded steel surface not only added durability, it also returned some of the energy from each of the blacksmith’s blows, causing the hammer to bounce back. This saved the smith some of the work needed to raise it each time. If you’d like to learn more about Mr. Vaughan, I’d strongly recommend visiting his web site: http://web.ncf.ca/bk681/
Rounding out Saturday’s visitor experience was a collection of arts and crafts vendors selling filigree metal sculpture, leather goods, woodworking, pottery, organic honey, pure maple syrup and millinery goods. Plus artisans from the Twistle Guild of Glengarry were on site to demonstrate their fibre art techniques. By the way, I did stop by the Cheese Factory and was just in time to grab one of the last chili dogs they had left. The “Michigan dogs” as they’re also known were, in a word, delicious!
Meet & greet great!
Another event that is finally coming into its own after a bit of a slow start is the Dunvegan Recreation Association’s “Meet Your Neighbours” get-together. We weren’t able to attend this year’s version this past Sunday — the sixth since it was introduced in 2011 — but I’m told over 50 people did, including three newcomers to our little community: Michael Bertrand, Anne Forrester and Louise Quenneville.
While not exactly summerlike, the weather did cooperate enough that the event could be held in the DRA Park this year. And “twinning” it with the church’s June post-service Coffee Hour worked out very well for both groups. According to a report just in from DRA organizer Kim Raymond, “Mona André and Bobbi Jo MacLeod had several terrific outdoor games for the many children in attendance, including sack jumping, bubbles, a bean bag game, a fishpond and a really fun-looking parachute.”
Heather McIntosh from the Kenyon Presbyterian Church handled the coffee detail. While Kim and Heather Raymond brought their famous edible “caterpillar” made from cupcakes. This year, the larva-like construction even had baby caterpillars alongside it. Kim tells me she and her daughter Heather had a great time making the cake, probably as much as others did eating it.
A big round of thanks to all the Church and DRA volunteers who made this increasing popular community-builder a success, including: Sean Burgess, Erica-Rose Bugera and Amber Kilgour, the team that set up and took down the tent and tables.
Boondoggle of the week
That’s basically it for now. However, before I sign off, I wanted to mention an item from June 1st of this year that Dunvegan’s Bob Linney sent me entitled “Smart Meter Savings Skimpy.” He found it on Blacklock’s Reporter, a unique reporter-owned and operated newsroom in that covers stories you won’t find anywhere else.
According to Blacklock Media Services, a recent University of Waterloo analysis of more than 20,000 customers found demand for power in peak daytime hours declined by a only fraction… despite the fact the Ontario Liberal government spent $1.9 billion to convert 4.8 million utility ratepayers to so-called “smart meters” to encourage them to save by using electricity in off-peak times.
The study examined actual usage by customers in southwestern Ontario before and after meters were introduced. They found that power consumption in peak hours declined by just 2.6 percent.
The geniuses that dreamt up this scheme had predicted the meters (installed at a cost of over $500 apiece) would save the province $600 billion over 15 years. But, in 2014, Ontario’s auditor general dismissed these projected savings as completely inaccurate.
Prof. Catherine Rosenberg of Waterloo’s Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty, co-author of the study, said the Ontario program was poorly designed, and failed to accurately set peak usage rates at periods of the day when energy consumption is at its highest level. Peak rates in summer months were calculated weekdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, though actual demand peaked at 6 pm, according to data.
Ontario sait faire!
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