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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1981-10-28, Page 34Times -Advocate, October 28, 1981 AROUND THE CAMPFIRE — Dressed in buckskins to fit the role of blackpowder shooters are (from left) Larry Mason, Tom Blyde, Jody Mosurinjohn and Ed Lindenfield. purvey shows 'grim reality' The dream of establishing an independent family farm never becomes a reality for many young people. The financial burden alone is too much for most recent graduates of agricultural colleges. And even with fun- ding, training and some farm experience most new farmers need additional sup- port. "The only way most young farmers can defy the finan- cial odds of the 1980s is if their parents have a large enough operation to absorb them," says John Stephens, the Head of the Business Management Section at Cen- A LUCKY GIRL — Jill Betties was happy when she was able to purchase a doll at Saturday's bazaar sponsored by the Coven Presbyterian Church Women. T -A photo t r a l i a College o f panded its operation when Agricultural Technology. the son entered either by "We've found that even acquiring new land, more though some have the fipan- livestock or more equip- cial means to start farming, ment. they would find it difficult Also, spouses employed without the assistance of off the farm provided a their families a n d steady income during the neighbours." first years for 50% of the Stephens has suspected young farmers studied. this grim reality for some Stephens says the informa- time, and a study he recently tion from the study is being completed with 50 young used at Centralia and other farmers in Perth, Huron and agricultural colleges to rein - Middlesex counties con- force in students' minds the firmed the reality. Over two- need for family cooperation. thirds of the farmers who Parents who attend short started their careers courses at Centralia are also between 1972 and 1975 had shown the various ways they parents who were farming can help their sons or full-time. The parents of daughters. another 10% were farming part-time. Stephens says that the graduates of agricultural colleges, such as Centralia, .have very little opportunity to save enough to start their own farm. Any savings they do accumulate are negated by inflation. The few who are able to borrow enough money to make it on their own had other previous in- vestments. The study showed that parents can help in several ways; cosigning loans, trading equipment for labor, entering into income sharing agreements, and assisting the inexperienced farmer with decision making. In some cases the family ex - AT KINETTE CRAFT SHOW - Sally Snedden of the Exeter Kinettes is shown watching over Marilyn Wnldeck's croft table at Saturday's craft show sponsored by the Kinettes. Brussels boars best William J. Turnbull, Brussels, had the two highest indexing boars in the large group of 119 boars which completed tests recently at the R.O.P. Seine Test Station, New Hamburg. These two top test station "graduates" had station in- dex of 146 and 142 and were sired by a station tested Shu Gain McFlannel boar in the Ontario A.1 Unit at Woodstock. Both boars com- bined low backfat thickness of 10.6 mm (.42 inches) and 8.7 mm (.34 inches) and good average daily gain on test of .94 Kg. (2.07 lbs.) and .80 Kg (1.76 lbs.) per day. Highest indexing Lan- drace was from the herd of Dennis Foerster, Neustadt, and the top Hampshire was from Belldoon Farms, Iona Station, while the top index- ing Duroc was from William Weaver, Dresden. Others among the top in- dexing ten boars were Yorkshires from Belldoon Farms, Iona Station, Thamesbend Farms, Tavistock, and Sunny Cedar Farms, Cambridge as well as Landrace from Kingswood Farm, Kingston and John Boehm, St. Jacobs. A total of 28 boars, all with indexes of 100 or higher (above the group average on overall performance);. were approved for physical and structural soundness. These boars will be offered for sale at the test station on October 22nd at 7:30 p.m. This sta- tion tested boar sale is spon- sored by the Ontario Swine Breeders' Association St phen Central Tiger Times It sure has started out to be a good year. Here are a few more events that happened this week. Keep posted. This is the prrrrrfect cat and I'm signingoff. -Tony Tiger. Guidance Program • At our school. each class is trying to incorporath a guidance class into their program. In this program problems and concerns of the students are dealt with. Some rooms have a Personal Journal for each student to write in. Its only for the teacher and the stu- dent to read. In grade six, there is a special activity called -Child of the Week". The teacher picks a name out of a box and that child brings things from home to display. Riiss Finkbeiner Kindergarten Assistants - About a week ago Miss Wallen picked five people to help with dressing the kindergarten children to go outside. helping out during Environment week1 rainy recesses, playing games with them. cutting paper. sharpening pencils, changing paint and decorating bulletin boards. The five people she picked were Karen Schade, Denise Benning. Laurie Stanley, Dwayne Butler and Wayne Denomme. These people will work through the year with Miss Wallen during recesses, noon hour. and the skating program. - Lorie Vincent. Popcorn sole - A popcorn sale was held by the grade sevens at Stephen Central School on October 22. All children attending the school could buy some. The popcorn was sold at lunchtime for 154t and 25c a bag. The proceeds from the sale haveone to the Camp Sylvan Fund. - Allan Cottel. Storytime at Stephen • On November 3 from 2:15 to 3:15. a storvtime hour of listening to stories and colouring pictures will begin in the Stephen Central Library. The age of your child has tb be 4 years in 1981. This special hour will be held every other Tuesday. Mrs. Furtney. our librarian. will be conducting this ac- tivity. If your child wants to join. simply contact the school. - Jim Payne. Cheerleader tryouts - This year there will be five new cheerleaders chosen altogether. Two seniors and three juniors. It will be a hard decision since all of the girls are very good. They must do the cheer Hullabaloo to make it. The tryouts were Friday. - Susanne Smith. Environment Week • Many special activities were planned for Environment Week. Room 1. - Posted posters in the hall for En- vironment week. Some of the topics included learning, stewardship, and global responsibility etc. Room 2 - Room 2 involved Environment week in with their Science class. Room 3 and 4 - These two rooms went on a trip to the Pinery to study parks and wildlife. Room 5 - A poster on the study of air pollution .was done by room 5. Room 6 - A movie called 'Splash' was provided for room six. The movie was about rain and clouds. Room 7 - A talk about animals (how pollution effects wildlife) and a study on energy at home and at school was done by the students in room 7. Room 10 - Room 10 also watched the film of Splash and talked on the subject of animals and participated in some art activities. Room 12 - Students in room 12 had a storytime, Not Hun- ting for Fun, and a talk about cleaning the environ- ment. - Juanita Young. It's a way of life More than a hobby Close around the camp- fire, beneath the teepee's dew cloth, protected from both smoke and a chill Oc- tober wind, Larry Mason ex- plained the Indian's view of the world. Mason, of Dashwood, belongs to a special interest group which calls themselves Coureur de boas - runners of the woods. The group dresses in buckskins, shoot and hunt with black powder muskets and some, like Mason, have their own Indian style teepee's for cozy weekend campouts. To the early Indians the world was the back of a giant turtle swimming in a pond. If the waters were polluted, the turtle died and in dying, it would roll over. For the coureur de bois, the goal is not to bring back the past, or live like Cana- dian Indians, it is to relive the lifestyle of the early whitemen who travelled among the Indians to trade for beaver pelts. In doing so, they learn how the Indian survived and his beliefs about the world, and about pollution. "A lot of the old arts are lost - and we're trying to revive them," Mason said. Mason doesn't feel we should (or could) return to the past but he notes there are things we're missing. Indians he has talked to have a much closer relationship to the world around them. They know what herbs are good to cure what ailments. The Indian killed only when hungry and Mason says. "I don't think an Indian ever died of a heart attack worrying about money". "I don't think we have to go all the way back, but we don't need everything we've got," Mason added. He at- tributes a lot of Canadians' problems to mismanage- ment, as many people com- plain about high interest rates while still eating out and drinking beer. As he speaks, Mason weaves technical informa- tion, folklore and opinions. Earlier in the day, as Mason supervised the erec- tion of an 18 foot Cheyenne teepee, he explained some of the traditions behind it. The Indians usually placed the door facing the east. In the prevailing westerly winds, smoke will naturally be drawn out through the smoke exit above the doorway. Functional perhaps, but less clear is the tradition of wrapping the teepee poles at the top with rope: four times around in the direction of the sun. Over the framing poles goes a canvass cover which doesn't quite touch the ground. Inside the teepee, a second cloth, called a dew cloth, is placed from the ground up to about three feet around the perimeter. A gap between the two cloths allows outside air to draft between them. When the fire is lit near the centre of the teepee, the updraft and the outside air draws the smoke out through the smoke flaps. The interior below the dew cloth is smoke-free and warm. Mason said the coureur de boil group had put on a weeklong display in Ottawa this summer. He was not present when PrimeMinister Trudeau visited the display, but he wished he had gotten a picture taken with the prime minister outside his lodge. He would then caption the picture: Look what in- terest rates did to me! Mason pitched the teepee at the Exeter Claybird gun club for the last time this year, October 3. The club was preparing for a turkey shoot the next day and as the day progressed, club members dropped by to say hello and join in camp- fire discussions. Amidst explanations, jokes and some good natured swearing, the teepee was smoothly erected. The hobby is like skidooink Mason quipped. First you buy a machine and then you need a snow- mobile suit - well first you get a blackpowder musket, then a coonskin hat and soon you need a buckskin suitand then a teepee. After setting up the lodge, Mason began to light a fire, while other members of the group began lunch. For Ed Lindenfield of Exeter, who with Mason owns the -teepee, lunch was a bucket of fried chicken. Mason began the fire by striking a steel bar, curved in the shape of a knuckle duster, on a piece of flint. The sparks were caught in a piece of charcoaled cotton and then applied to wood shavings. The sparks caught and flamed in a piece of birch bark (Indian gasoline) Mason called it. As the teepee had in the Hanly elected new director Huron County administrator -clerk William Hanly has been elected a new director of the Associa- tion of Counties and Regions of Ontario. The association, and the Rural • Ontario Municipalities Association, will become sections of the expanded Ontario Municipal Association when they merge Jan. 1. Middlesex County's administrator -clerk, Ron Eddy was acclaimed presi- dent of the counties and regions association at its final annual meeting Mon- day at Chatham. The association also re- jected a Perth County resolution seeking federal financial assistance for homeowners who want to remove urea formaldehyde insluatlon. STARTS FRI., OCT. 30TH-NOV. STH SHOWTIMES: FRI. i SAT. 7 L • SUN.-THURS. a P.M. PHONE S?1.7811 AIR CONDITIONE morning, the fire dominated the afternoon's coversatlon. Staring into the fire would remind Mason of another story or aspect of his hobby. He began with an interest in firearms and black powder shooting. "It is now more than a hobby it's almost my life", Mason said. It is what Mason called a working hobby. The teepee travels in the back of his pickup truck and thus goes where Mason goes. Summer weekends are spent at area gun clubs and coureur de bois rendevous. Groups meet to camp out, trade items and compete in shooting contests. Many events restrict dress to those in buckskin only, though Mason admits the original coureur de bois wore a variety of items. It would be hard to tell what is original as the Indians wore what they had. For most it is a buckskin suit, decorated with beadwork and animal pelts. Members of the group can get involved in a variety of special activities. Some are into beadwork, others blacksmithing, but for Mason the challenge is the shooting competition. While knives and tom- mahawks cut playing 'card targets, shooters use simple targets and more complex, like shooting an egg off a beer bottle (drinking the beer if successful; and wasting a full bottle or eating a raw egg if you miss) and even snuffing out candles in the dark. Mason has dabbled in blacksmithing and has chipped out some flint arrow heads, but his main interett Is the shooting and the guns of the time. The group holds an annual meet at Fort St. Marie, Midland, in December. . There they have a big smorgasbord meal serving bear, beaver, and squirrel meat. Dressed in buckskins, Mason said the group often "gets in the backdoor". Walk into a fort in buckskins he added and people bend over backwards for you. "Too many people in this world are existing," Mason said, "not doing what they want to do." I'm doing all the things I want to do," he adds. Weekdays are spent driv- ing a Pepsi truck, but most of Mason's weekends are spent camping out, joining in rendevous or going on canoe trips. - And while the blackpowder shooters still indulge in fried chicken, be- ing "20th century animals" they don't ignore the pre- sent, there is still an ele- ment of survival in the group's activities. The fire died fora moment and had to be relit. Having trouble with his flint and steel, Mason blamed the chicken for the problems. .The coueur de bots group has been asked to show their techniques to the Canadian army in a January survival exercise. Mason is confident he could survive on his own. Not for long maybe he ad- mits, but ionger than most people could. The Indians have a saying CHEYENNE TEEPEE — Shown with their weekend home at the Exeter Clay Bird Gun Club are Ed Lindenfield, Tom Blyde, Larry Mason and Jody Mosurinjohn. Mason said, "the sons of the long hair will come back to us, but It will be too late." And while most of the sonsof-the-long-hajr worry about inflation and interest rates, Larry Mason and the other members of the coureur de bois are keeping us in touch with the past. Not to lead us back, but to make themselves more aware of the earth and .•impler needs. It may not be WO late. Party for Mark Stire Oct. 30 For more information callI 237-3342 J too South Huron Rec Centre Activities THURSDAY Minor Hockey 5-10:30 p.m. ' Mom's & Tots 10-11 a.m. Figure Skating 4-8 p.m. Mohawks vs. Zurich 8:30 p.m. FRIDAY Figure Skating 4-8 p.m. Hawks vs. Port Stanley 8:30 p.m. SATURDAY Minor Hockey 8 a.m. - 1 p.m. Public Skating 2-4 p.m. Minor Hockey 4-7 p.m. Open Ice Time from 7 p.m. on.. SUNDAY Hockey Practice la a.m. - 2 p.m. Pubik Skating 2-4 p.m. Minor Hockey 4-7:30 p.m. Open Ice Time from 1:30 on... MONDAY Figure Skating 4-9:30 p.m. TUESDAY Moms & Tots 10-11 a.m. Minor Hockey 5 - 6:30 p.m. Hawks 6:30 - 8 p.m. Rec League 8 p.m. - 12 COLONIAL HOTEL RESTAURANT & LOUNGE GRAND BEND OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK SERVING BREAKFAST - LUNCH - DINNER EARLY BIRD SPECIALS Served 4 p.m - 7:30 p.m. MONDAY - "BBQ" Ribs TUESDAY - Liver & Onions WEDNESDAY - Roast Pork THURSDAY - Roast Chicken FRIDAY - Filet of Sole 5.95 Above Specials Include Our Salad Bar, Bread , Potatoes Vegetables, & Coffee or Tea. OUR FULL MENU IS ALSO AVAILABLE ROD & GUN ROOM Featuring Sports On Our 6' T.V. Screen 238-2371 GABLES TAVERN Open Every Fri & Sat. With Entertainment Oct. 30 & 31 Good Question 238-2393 1 s r