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The Brussels Post, 1976-07-07, Page 2Barns in Shadow Amen by Karl Schuessler Feeding the Birds. I'm no saint I am. Nor am I hardly a St. Francis of Assisi either. I'm not the sort of person who'd ever think of going out into the country and preach to the birds. At this moment about the only thing I'm ready to do is to talk to them with a shot gun. You see, it'sa my cherry trees. Note. I said my cherry trees. Those feathered aviators think my cherry trees are for the birds. I like my cherry trees. I love my cherry trees. We've grown up together on my one acre. We both arrived in Brodhagen abOut the same time. We were both Mississauga transplants. Plant out trees. that's the first thing I did when I came to the country, even before we put the broom and hammer and nails' to the run-down church. Everyone knows it may take a man a year or so to get his new home in, order. But trees, well, trees take time. Years of time. As I said, I'm not exactly a St. Francis kind of man. Trees. Bees. Birds. But who else would take up good gardening ground and put down trees? Who else would til, weed, prune, spray and pray over all his sapling trees? - I would put in apple, pear, plum, peach and cherry. Yes, those two cherry beauties flourished most of all. They outgrew every other tree. They dwarfed all the other trees in Because each spring my orchard gets smaller. Each year I dig out more of my trees, been. my orchard. uprooting them in their tender youth and putting them to the fite. Oh, did those trees have great potential. Oh, what might have I use the word orchard with hesitation. .But you must Understand. I'm a generous man. I provide every mouse and rabbit in the district decent nibbling pastures in the fall. And when winter sets in, I let them have all kinds of chewy'batk to gnaw on, And not just, all around the trunks eithet. Who else would ever let the winds pile up banks of snow around the frees? So all the hungry creatures can climb up on frozen snow and chew on the branches? And t his kind of charity doesn't end in the winter either. It goes on and on in the summer. Take my cherry trees. For two summers now those two cherries have come forth in fruit. And do you think I've ever eaten a single red cherry? If I'd be content with a few green ones, maybe. Maybe I'd possess a few. But those birds get so anxious they pick them off before they're pink. Believe me. I've tried to put a damper on my generosity. I've hung silver aluminum pie plates in the branches to dazzle the birds away. I've tried putting an old fur pelt on the ground. That's supposed to scare them away. I've considered staking out Pepper and her three kittens around the cherry trees. I've looked all over town for the latest: a hair net for trees. A plastic net you tie around the tree and say no-no to the birds. It sounds perfect -- and perfectly expensive. But no garden store around here ever stocked them. I couldn't even give thema try. I Wish tbirds would understand. I believe sharing. But But there's such a thing as fair ha But they won't listen. They keep flying down and swooping up my green cherries, They know they have God on their side. Doesn't the Bible say the birds are freeloaders? They keep on chirping and taking and quoting the Sermon on the Mount: "Look at the birds of the ait; they do not sow and reap arid store in barns, yet your heavenly' Father feeds the nt 4° The heavenly Fathet feeds them? NOW wait a minute, there.. Who feed§ them? geAttsinIgs: allittille ile6re8'dtit Fwi'4htiisit8'sudt ulleb.elieve 10 IRUSSELS WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 1976 ONTARIO Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario by McLean. Bros. Publishers, Limited. Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association • CNA Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $6.00 a year. Others $8.00 a year, Single Copies 15 cents each. pliiiii111.11.114 N.ISTAILISMED 1072 4Brussels Post Incentives conserve energ Experiments in the U.S. are showing that there are ways to get all the electricity that modern households need without necessarily building more and bigger power plants. We hope Ontario Hydro is watching. When a New York State utility company asked customers if they would change their household routines to take advantage of lower electricity costs; eight out of ten said yes. If night time electricity, (it's not a time of peak use), was made cheaper, or day time more expensive, the same way 'that long distance phone calls cost less at off peak times, people said they'd reschedule their washing, baking, ironing and showering to take advantage of the bargain. We're sure that an Ontario Hydro survey would find the same thing here. If the incentives are there people/will change their habits. Right now, with Ontario Hydro still 'offering lower rates to high volume customers, there's little reason for wasteful 'consumers to change their ways. And as long as electricity consumption doesn't drop by much Hydro can still claim we need bigger and better, preferably nuclear, power plants. Power demands can be spread out. Wasteful uses of power can be eliminated. Several American communities where utility companies have tried have proved that consumption can be cut. Let's see a provincial policy, passed on to Ontario Hydro, seriously offering incentives to make our use of power as efficient as possible now. Then we'll talk about 10 year forecasts and more nuclear plants. All work is important . As part of their course work, medical students at Harvard university are working at a nearby hospital. They work with janitors and clean walls and scrub floors. They empty bed pans. They. work along side the receptionist who takes incoming calls. They work as dietary aides in the kitchen. The idea is to teach doctors to be, Who will eventually be at the top of the medical pyramid that their jobs aren't the only ones that are essential to good patient care. It's a good idea that shouldn't stop with doctors and bed pans. Judges would spend the night in the jail's drunk tank or a week as a pseudo-juvenile offender at a training school. Politicians could spend time licking some of their own envelopes in an election campaign. Newspaper editors could work on the mailing crew in a post office. Doctors could spend an afternoon, as patients of course, in-their own waiting rooms. How long Wou Id they put up with the crowded conditions and germ transfer that goes on because they have their time badly scheduled? Businessmen could try doing the work that secretaries do for a while. Store owners could clerk, store could spend a Week doing the financial juggling that's needed to keep many small businesses going these days. We can all use a little humility: Anyone who does one job for a long time tends to forget that his work is only possible because a large number of people work just as hard as he does at their jobs. its a lesson to learn: That his time is just as valuable as yours; that she Works just as hard as you do; that their Working conditions are a heck of a lot worse than yours will ever be. Let's see this good idea from Harvard spread.