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42 THF RURAL VOICE
Book Review
The `Letters' keep coming
Reviewed by Keith Roulston
Most farmers probably never
think that their lifestyle is the stuff to
win humour awards. But when
Harriston-area writer Marsha Boulton
issued her Letters from the Country
in 1995 it went on to win the Stephen
Leacock Medal for Humour.
It's typical of farm humour that
Boulton, in the foreward to her new
book More Letters from the Country,
chooses to poke gentle fun at her
own award. One neighbour, she says,
reminded her not to get a swelled
head because, after all, she didn't win
an Academy Award, while a little
boy at a local book signing during
the 1996 Summer Olympics, saw her
silver medal and said if she'd swum
faster she'd have won the gold.
It's a gentle kind of humour that
both books bring out. In a way, the
books are more a warm-hearted
observation of rural life than an
attempt at side-splitting humour.
Like the stories about the comments
on wining the award, Boulton's
stories have a sense that the story is
probably based on truth, with perhaps
a bit of stretching added in — the
kind that's been part of rural story
telling for centuries.
Boulton wasn't always a rural girl
though she tells, in one touching
story, of memories of visiting her
grandmother's house in Staffa as a
child. She grew up in the suburbs,
attended school there and began a
career in journalism there before
giving it all up to move to the
country and fulfill a dream of
farming. Well, perhaps it wasn't so
much a dream as being caught in a
weak moment, as she tells in one
story, by a sharp real estate agent
who made a career out of selling
visions of country bliss to urbanites,
and making them think rural
properties were a scarce commodity
that would run out by the end of the
day if they didn't snap up the
property he was offering.
Boulton pokes fun at herself more
than at those around her. She
remembers gleaning her early farm
knowledge from OMAFRA fact
sheets, then driving an ag rep to
distraction by her vision of the farm.
She tells a fun story about getting
capons from a hatchery, then having
to use a hypodermic needle to let the
air out of the birds after they had
bloated following their sex -change
operation. And she chuckles at the
naivete she and her companion, "The
Moose", brought to
their early introd-
uction to haying —
and the fun it brought
the neighbours.
After nearly 25
years on the farm,
Boulton has learned a
lot, but her stories
<. indicate she still farms
with an eye more on
what she wants to do than what will
be the best economic decision. So
while sheep make up the main source
of income (or did, before her writing
career took off and she scaled back),
her stories show her dabbling in
domesticated wild turkeys, Old
English Game Hens, Indian Runner
ducks, guinea fowl, chickens and, of
course, her beloved palomino horses
— farming for the love of it, not just
profit.
But More Letters from the
Country shows the wider aspect of
rural living as well. There is, for
instance, the story about "The
world's largest, all -female marching
kazoo band". Born in a local bar, the
idea of a guy trying to find an excuse
to talk to some attractive female
patrons, the band grew to 100 strong
for the local Homecoming Parade.
There are also the realities of
country living, from problems with a
wandering dog to the fear of chimney
fires to livestock on the lam. There
are small pleasures like fishing in the
creek or finding good, old-fashioned
thick flannelette sheets. Country
people will recognize things from
their own lives. Some urbanites will
no doubt find it a life to envy, and
perhaps that legendary real estate
agent will have some more customers
this summer.0
()oan/r•1,
More Letters from the Country: by
Marsha Boulton, Published by Little
Brown Canada, 222 pages,
paperback, $14.95