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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1981-05-20, Page 3• Wawanosh man: case A West Wawanosh farmer has won his bid to farm his land as he sees fit after a court battle with the Ministry of Natural Re- sciurces in Goderich recently. Jim•Moss was acquitted on a seldom-laid charge „under- the federal fisheries act of doing work that would result in "the harmful alteration. disruption, or' destruction of a fish habitat." If found guilty the 32-year-old pig farmer would have faced a fine of up to 35,000 or up to two years in jail. Judge William Cochrane of Goderich provincial court ruled that the ministry had• failed to prove 6 fish, habitat existed in the tributary of the Maitlandm: started river about on the d5layx Moss was charged. It years ago when Mr. Moss faced a, problem with beavers in the creek 'that doubles througb'his tad acre property east of St. Augustine. After contacting ministry officials he was told he could do what he liked with the beavers. The ministry gives farmers with a beaver problem a free hand to dispose of the ro- dents. Ministry, officials Roy Bellinger and Warren Knight pointed out that they suggest., farmers' have trappers Mile in the late fall and trap the beavers for their pelts but many farmers have a prob- lem in the spring and want the animals out then. The pelts are of little value in the the ,spring. Mr. Moss had the• beavers removed several times and they persisted in coming back. The beavers floo,ded a 12 acre section of the farm that Mr. Mois 'had had', drained with tile. In an. effort to provide an outlet' for the tile and discourage the beavers he had a contractor, Hannit- Hamilton, move in with a baCkhoe and straighten 225 metres of creek. Mr. Moss. with the aid of a bull-dozer, cleared the bank, transplant- ing some of the trees , to around his house. Ministry officials were - called in by an -unknown fisherman on the day the dredging was taking place and, laid' the charge 'of de. stroying a natural fish habi- tat. Thus began a two year court battle, which curie to an end this month with the not guilty verdict for Mr. Moss. According to ministry offi- cials Bellinger and Knight. the law was created in the late '70's to help protect fish spawning grounds. The num- ber of trout using cold water creeks has been dropping in the last few years. Mr. Bellinger noted that a permit is required for anyone Who intends on doing any work in a creek. In a year approximately 400 drain permits were reviewed. Of that 400. ,350 are straight forward 'and the are , is approved. About 25 ,involve minor points such ai seeding back the banks and another 25 need ministry Involve- ment. Mr. Knight pointed out that with a little planning farmers can save dollars in the longelin. By not disturb-" ing the banks when a creek needs dredging,' silting and erosion which will clog up a stream quickly can be avoid- ed., making the need • for ..additional dredging in the ' future minimal, Both Mr. Bellinger, and Mr. Knight said that they try to work with farmerst real- izing that in an agricultural area most farmers, need drain outlets and• the creeks are the best way to get rid of the excess water. The ministry tries to engineer. the prob- lems with • solutions satis- ' factory to both parties." . The ministry also rec.- ' ornmends that a two year storm pattern be Used and downstream flooding has to be considered in providing drain outlets. . The length of creek Mr. Moss cleared has not been re-planted but the creek is clear with a gravel bottom. BY RHEA HAMILTON If you are puzzled at how you can help in this year of the disabled, look no further. There are local organizations that can use'your time. talent or materials as well as gen- erous donations to keep them Operating for our own ment- ally and physically handi- capped people. The Jack Reavie workshop in Wingham has been in operation since 1975 and helps 15 people learn living skills as well 'as providing them with Some form' of employment. making their lives useful and by far more enjoyable. After an expansion last fall in the form of a mobile classroom.. 'the program has grown from 12 trainees, in cramped quarters„ to 15. Under the guidance of Connie Jamieson. workshop Manager. trainees partici- pate in Work and training programs to help raise money for the workshop. The jobs-entail contract work for local business and industry to domestic cleaning, raking lawns and rewebbing lawn chairs. The trainees are paid for their work. Although the amount is small it allows them spending money of their own. The rest of the funds make up the 20 per tent of the workshop budget. The other 80 'percent, is funded through goioernment, Chris Dickson works in the life skills building. Here the trainees learn' the basics of keeping house, grocery shopping. and educational training in speech and community awareness, As well as personal hygiene and physical fitness, everyday items like, how to cook an egg, and preparing a com- plete meal menu to shopping to cooking, are covered. „The biggest fundraising event the workshop plans is their Christmas craft sale. Usually held the first week in Decetriber. Connie is con- sidering moving the date back to November to allow early Christmas shoppers to take advantage of the crafts the group has to offer. This year Wingham is planning Western Hoedown Days and the workshop is planning to have. a table set up on the main street to sell some of their work. At pre- sent they are working on quilted placemats and quilt- erraccessories for the dining table. With only one other part time person. Joan .Hamilton. a student from Fanshawe College. the group sorely needs more volunteers for the life skills program. They try' to work on a one-to-one basis but it is sometimes nearly impossible with the shortage of volunteers, Con- nie noted. The workshop takes in trainees from a 30 mile radius, including Teeswater, Molesworth and Blyth. From Blyth there are four taking part in the programs. Those taking, part have to be 18 or older. The main objective of the workshop is to have the handicapped take part in the community where they live and for the community to become more aware of the problems and how they are overcome. Walks downtown and trips to grocery stores or restaurants all help. For their craft business they are always on the look out for materials most people feel are not worth anything , and throw away. Connie listed old Christ- mas cards, pieces of cotton, yarn, lace, ribbon and trim- mings. as well as pine cones. ivory liquid bottles, quilt batting and even those blue bags around home deliveries of the • Kitchener-Waterloo Record as items that can prove useful. The Jack Reavie workshop is one of three working places for handicapped people in Huron county, The Flowers of Hope cam- paign in ',Myth raises funds for the Wingham and Disdict Association for the mentally handicapped. For more in- formation or a donation, contact Joan Clark, Blyth. Workshop helps 15 people, live and learn • 1" HAND SEWN PLACEMATS — Mary. Lee Rooney, Blyth is an active trainee at the Jack Reavie Workshop, Wingham. The work produced is ,sold to help cover costs and support the workshop. The organization is always In need of volunteers or materials. This is the year of the disabled and concerned people can help out with their time., • (Photo by Hamilton) THE HURON EXPOSITOR, MAY go, loot A nice place, with strong tray • N • artists who live all around us, Somet h ing to say Hu ron t Co m n es ty's no Shirker wen co to prodtfcing good crafts, fine music and by Susan White • stories fashioned linsey-wolsey life, last summer in Strat- there are good books DON'T YOU DARE TAKE THAT PICTURE — This menacing female claims_ that she is actually Tom Phillips, but everyone who knows the respectable and serious Mr. Phillips, PUC manager and a dedicated fireman, knows that this surely cannot be him! (Photo by Rimmer) It was a w hoopdedoo celebration. foot stomping. food munching. craft learn- ing fun. But it was also a pride builder for people who've taken a lot of hard knocks. It was the Appalachia.n Festival in Cimicinati. Ohio vi 'are visited. 1444 41_,019P -6"onit Xennieky, hist week. , A huge fout of organiza- tion, the;fcs.tival runs )i .ftgrr• mo t 00o the:',WOrftetAt', ho 1f' It -cOlO,Pf.w; a., mountain', culture. - One that's beinglept alive de- spite strip .mining, violent strikes, and moves 'to the cities to find work., There are seminars on furniture and musical instru- ment making. on -quilting spinning and weaving and Appalachian history. You can' learn to clog dance or step dance, to tell stories mount- ain style. to make toys or corn husk dolls. To make something beautiful and en- tertaining out out of very little, in fact, which about sums up the Appalachian way of life. . But, after some prompting by a Kentuckian sheepshear- er, wool-spinner and weaver, we came to the 'Appalachia Festival to have a good .time. But we weren't -prepared fOr the size of it all. The, constantly changing' .performera_an the big stage in one corner of the hall can be heard all over the place. It's terrific toe tapping music, and if you stop long enough you can watch fancy dressed dancers aged from three to 75. Some of the best music makers from the mountains appear over the festival's four days. CRAM . But, the music spurring us on. it was the crafts that kept us going. Everyone who • -hooks 4, booth to sell voeav- ing, ,carving$ .whatever, must either the. Appa- !aOhlanS ttow gr ha YR !flogpt.- Oti 1 ..the htrgdreds of craft , thetittg. Not a teprodnetiOn in ,the place. We heard duleinam, sweater ' then' sugar, for "shugah" ..as the% say in Kentucky) . sass f,1111: walnut and cherr% furniture that would not ha+1.• been out of place in a rich person's home. We saw a lug cabin doll house. complete with porch. rocker and granny; we saw toys that dance. toffs that wobble, toys that pull apart, all made out of wood. And quilts. and clothes and weav- ings and hangings. And something that failed to thrill this former occupant ()La coal mining town. intritately carved jewelry made from coal. We saw stained glass we wanted to wrap up and take home (they wanted money) fine hand dipped candles and - stuffed toys that'd be called soft sculpture and bring big prices in a Toronto gallery. -Up and down- the rows of fine handmade things and friendly interesting people the funniest thing we saw was a little old lady in an old dress. white pinafore and cap. hooking a rug. Behind her on the wail W0'5,4 tIOOk"ra - 'AO App4100nin foolv.at 'kite slogan • •""Thee ' Happy„!, hanging. a .setf portrait,ly ah. Hooker"•, fought' 04 are sttlj gOlIte,Ott WS of struggles hale eat , There 'S a ..ecititts stile tq Them to restore: Mountain streams and landscapes after decades Of ho-OY thohering- And in southern Mucky strip-mining and poi ling. there's a mining strike that's bringing out the guns on both sides: Of course there's the continuing struggle for' dignity in the cities who call mountain pepple hillbillies. There are booths set up explaining Appalachian hist- ory but perhaps a better place to learn is the small Appalachian Museum in Berea. Kentucky and the excellent for browsing Council for the Southern Mountains bookstore also in that college town. SOME PARALLELS It's a culture that fasci- nates me. and though we're not nearly so isolated or hard times prone as the mount- ains, I see some parallels between those people and I4uron Cdunty, Ontario. I felt that too and so did my friends When we saw Huine Cronyn's play Foxfire, about the Georgia mountain MISS,GLADTSIIIONISON Miss. Gladys Thompson of 41' 'Church St.. Seaforth. died Sudden ly Monday at- her home. Born in Seaforth, she was a daughter of the late James B. Thompson and the former Jemima Noble. She had been a school teacher all her life retiring to her Seaforth home in -1956. She was an active member of Northside United Church and of the Seaforth Hospital Auxiliary. Surviving are two sisters, Mrs. H.C. (Ruth) Lindsey of Ingersoll. and Mrs. G.A. (Sado) Stewart. of Toronto. Friends were received at the Whitney-Ribey Funeral HoMe, 87 Goderich St., W.. Seaforth, where a service was held 2 p.m. Wednesday conducted by her minister Rev. Vanslyke. Burial was in Maitlandbank Cemetery when the honourary pall- bearers were J.A. Stewart, J.F. Scott, Sam Scott, Jud Walker. Cliff Broadfoot and, Clare Reith. about the area-if you want to learn more; Harry- CaucliKs. 'Night Comes to. the Cumber- lands is a clasSie and M901 t",.. • •Wcitten.,by -Kathy.:Kalin GScroeteto, , Brent arid BradDuns' tow 'and' 4aCk add( DaVid ALBERTA MARIE FEENEY Alberta Marie Feeney died in leaforth Community Hospital May 19. She was 55. She was the daughter of the late Gregory and Mary Bader of Detroit, and is survived by her husband. Lorne Feeney. - and four children, Ronald, Stratford; Lawrence. RR1 Dublin; Thomas and Robert. both at home, and one grand- daughter. She is also sur- vived --by one sister, Sister Ina. Denver. Colorado and- three brothers. Gregory, David and Bernard of Detro- it. She is predeceased by two brothers, Leonard and.Fred- erick. She was a member of St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, Dublin. She is rest- ing at B.S. Box FUneral Home, 47 High St., Seaforth. Prayers will take place to- just read en this visit, Nice place, good strong traditions. It's exciting that Huron may be starting a celebratien tradition ,of its own this weekend, Clinton's Klotmen, Fegst Saute ,day, maybe w. I'll .00 .,'..44forht°.,f0titt4. (*Ir0r4tirv1194c,?Ls,. Cemetery. Correction Because of equipment fail- ure, photographs, taken for the Expositor 4H achieve- ment night did not turn out. We regret they can't be published and our apologies to all those whose photos' were taken. Every week more and more people discover what mighty jobs are accom- plished by low cost Huron Expositor Want Ads. Dial 527-0240. Fish, beavers, involved ford. Perhaps it's the self-reli- ance and independence of 1,09.1110t- And. 40041 Ike -don't promo*, tho ,Very ' , • ' PallheirerS kvete rank 7 night at 830 The 4Orak.', _servtegaVill be at St* `Patrick's-. Roman Catholic Church, Dublin, with Father. T.4.' Dill officiating on Ptiday. May 22 at 10:30 a.m. Burial will -boat St. Patrick'S Roman Catholic June -tensuswill show hoiv. farming has been, transformed The word "plough" in- illustrates the rapid adopt- variably conjures up, in the ion of engine power on minds of those of us who Canadian farms. In 1921, were raised on Hollywood farniers reported 47,455 westerns, the image of a tractors. Byten years later, Jean, leathery farmer and this figure had more than his lathered horse strugo- doubled to 105,360. ing to keep the wooden After the Second World plough on course while War, advances in farm gouging , out rows of technology and rising furrows for spring planting. wages for farin labour It is a long way from that accelerated the mechani- Stereotype, man and horse 'nation of farms even more versus the land, to today's and tractors rapidly replac- reality, with Canadian ed horses as the main farmers comfortably source of ,power in NO- , mounted on mechanical culture. Between 1931 and monoliths, some of which ,1956, the number of consume as much energy'' as tractors increased five-fold, the members of a four bed- with almost 500,000 report- room household. ed in the 1956 census. The ' In just over 50 years, the majority of farms had tractor and other more converted to tractor power. sophisticated farm Only 135,000 additional machines_ have drasticallY tractors were reported 20 transformed the face of years later. Canadian agriculture. The 1981 census will ask, While to some this agri- for the first time since 1941, culture is perhaps less for a breakdown of tractors romantic, most will agree by horsepower or kilowatts, that it is a more efficient This classification by size way of producing food. will give- a more precise , Farm mechanization has measure of the extent of 'had far-reaChing effects on mechanization in agri- the economy, on rural life, culture. on demand for labour, on Mechanization has con- energy dependence in siderably reduced .the agriculture, and on the demand for labour in rural scale of production. , areas. In 1911, farmers and The Census of Agricult- -,their' paid labour averaged we has recorded the his. 37.6 weeks of work per year for every 100 acres of (aun-tory and impact of mechan- ization oil farming and the land. By 1956, the workload rural community since 1911 was reduced by almost one- when h 714,646 farmers and half and, in, 1976, farm 2.6 million horses worked' labour totalled only 12.6 110 million acres of farm- weeks a year per 100 acres. land. By the time the 1971 In total, between 1931 census was taken, only and 1976, farm labour has 354,297 horses remained decreased by 461,413 man- and many of these animals Years. This number is equal were being kept for recre- to approximately one-half ation rather than for farm of the number of people, • work. now unemployed in Cana- Prom census to census, da. In addition, more than The 1981 Census of Agri- questions on farm one-third of farm operators culture wilt present an up- machin- ery have had to become have branched out into to-date picture of Canadian more detailed as farmers some off-farm work, plat- agriculture with reaped to turned tO such sti , cialize ing a further strain on the mechanization and energy eb market use. comreve equipment as larger grain to because , of the exodus of source of This information on combines, swathers and farm labour, the rural agriculture is one of the large hay balers. , commuillty— has changed country's most ialuable A comparison of the dramati cally dramatically in'the last 50 tools in the production of an number of tractors reported years. In 1931, nearly one, adequate and dependable from 1921 through 1976 third of the population of supply of food. Canada lived on farms, compared with only five per cent in 1976. 'The increasing capital input needed for sophisti- cated farm machinery has become an important con- sideration in the develop- ment of farm policies and in decisions made by the operator or potential operator. Farm operators, particularly younger dries just starting out, increas- ingly require substantial loans in order to commence farming. Mechanization has also been an important factor in the trend towards larger farms and the. increase in the number of Corporate farina., Average farm size has grown from 124.1 acres in 1901 to 499- acres in 1976. The 1981 census of agri- culture will measure the present mechanization and energy dependence of ' Canadian agriCulture. Al- though the number of tractors may have risen only slightly, the census will show the relative importance of the different size categories of tractors and other farm machinery. With the current energy situation, this type of infor- mation will be even more critical in the future. It is very.> likely that policies focussing on energy conser- vation and nit will have to be developed in the years ahead. We they 'see in the future a greater acceptance of alternate 'methods of farming, such as minimum tillage agriculture. It is possible that horses may be put back to work for less intensive jobs.