The Rural Voice, 2003-12, Page 3About this issue
Help for the holidags
The Christmas season is upon us and with it, one of the
happiest times of the year — at least for those who are
blessed with good fortune. For people under financial
stress, however, the holidays can bring extra pressure. Our
society, through TV specials, glossy ads and catalogues and
stories in the media, paints a picture of perfect Christmases
that can be hard to live up to if cash is short. There's
pressure to provide children with the kind of gifts their
friends will be getting.
With the BSE crisis and low hog prices, pressures are
mounting for some farm families just as Christmas arrives.
With that in mind we spoke with some counselling
agencies this month to get advice and to discover what help
they can deliver.
Being short of money for Christmas is nothing new on
the farm. In her Christmas short story called The Mary
Dress, Barbara Weiler tells of a little girl's dream of a
special dress to perform in the school Christmas pageant.
Once the railways were an important part of rural life in
midwestern Ontario but now they are gone. Believe it or
not it's already 15 years since the last trains ran on many
branch lines. Only the railbeds remain today. John R.
Hardy held a deep love of trains dating from growing up on
a Goderich-area farm through which the trains travelled
daily. Early on he began taking photos of trains and 15
years ago this month he set out to capture on film the last
train on the Goderich-Guelph CPR line. We have an
excerpt from his book Rusty Rails which tells the story of
the last days of that rail line.
For those who grew up in the days of the movie and
television "western", Texas Longhorn cattle have a special
place in the imagination. In those days they seemed so
exotic compared to our Hereford or Angus cattle. Today
though there is an enthusiastic group of Longhorn owners
in Ontario and Elyse DeBruyn talked to some of them for
this month's issue.
It's a time for honours to be given out and among those
being honoured at the recent Huron County Federation of
Agriculture annual meeting was former Ontario Minister of
Agriculture and Food Helen Johns. The story is on the
People page.
In her gardening column, Rhea Hamilton Seeger tells of
the joys of growing orchids. Bonnie Gropp this month
features elegant, stress -free holiday recipes.0
Update
Huron to set a coyote bounty
The article we featured in our November issue on the
high cost of wildlife damage included disturbing tales of
coyote attacks on livestock, including valuable dairy cattle,
in Huron County. Now Huron County council has voted to
institute a $35 bounty on the animals.
At its November meeting, council voted to proceed to
consult with local municipalities and the Ministry of
Natural Resources in order to prepare a bylaw to allow
hunting for compensation.
Council acted after complaints by Ben Van Diepenbeek,
of Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh back in August about
dairy cattle and sheep killed in the area between Dunlop
and Nile. A survey of other municipalities showed
problems in Howick, North Huron, Central Huron, and
South Huron.
Nathan Kirby of the MNR had warned councillors
bounties were not effective with coyotes because female
coyotes compensate for a lower population by having more
pups. He did, however, spell out a procedure the county
would have to go through if it wished to allow hunting for
compensation.0
TM`Rural Voice
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Editor & Publisher: Keith Roulston
Editorial advisory committee:
Bev Hill, farmer, Huron Cty.;
Diane O'Shea, farmer, Middlesex Cty.;
Gerald Poechman, farmer, Bruce Cty.
Contributing writers:
Bonnie Gropp, Carol Riemer, Ralph
Pearce, Bob Reid, Mervyn Erb, Sandra
Orr, Janice Becker, Larry Drew
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