Times Advocate, 1989-07-26, Page 5Back
in time
10 years ago
•A fire at the Exeter Police Station netted more than $50,000 in
damage to the structure and contents. The fire was caused by paper -
jammed in the station's photocopier that set the copying fluid on fire.
Council wasn't sure whether the building was structurally sound
enough to be rebuilt.
•A strike among Bell Canada technical workers continued with no
end in sight at the bargaining table.
20 years ago
•The Times Advocate estimated roughly 93.7 percent of area
residents watched the live televised event of the Apollo moon landing.
Some surveyed local people were concerned about whether the
astronauts would be able to blast off from the moon's surface for their
return home. •
•Safe crackers made off with more than $2,000 in cash after they
broke into the safe at Tuckey Beverages in Exeter.
50 years ago
•"The store on Main Street occupied by Mr. and tars. Campbell
who conduct the Exeter Tea Room and owned by Mr. W. E. Middle-
ton, has been sold to Mr. A.E. Wuerth. Mr. Wuerth intends remod-
elling the front part of the building for his shoe repair business and the
living quarters will be occupied by the family."
•In another real estate deal the McKnight brothers who ran the
Massey -Harris dealership in Exeter, bought a building formerly
known as the "Exeter Opera House Block" from a Mr. Arthur Jones.
100 years ago
•Ailsa Craig: "The School Board are having the Public school
painted, both inside and out; they also intend placing a hot air furnace
in the basement so as to heat the rooms in the winter."
•"Name and Object This organization will be called the Exeter.
Board of Trade. The object of this Association shall be to promote the
commercial interests and the general welfare of the Village of
Exeter."
•The Advocate ran a notice of how the homeowner could make his
own hand grenade. Actually, the recipe described a liquid concoction
to be kept bottled in the home and to be thrown in case of fire as a form
of fire extinguisher.
Times -Advocate, July 26, 1989
,ts .
Your
Business
A market
garden in
Biddulph
Summer help - Jennifer Reymer
of Lucan is one of two students
hired on the O'Shea farm to
help manage the pick -your -own
operation. While the O'Shea's
prefer visitors do choose their
own produce, some ripe pro-
duce, like this sweet corn, is
gathered for sale at the Strat-
ford Farmer's Market.
Mapped out - Dianne O'Shea
shows how she and her hus-
band have arranged their pick -
your -own vegetable plot so the
customers have little trouble
finding what they are looking
for.
Sidewalk celebration -.Tracy Johns (left) and Shauna Becker, em-
ployees of Shaw's in Exeter, wore special shirts for last week's
Sidewalk Sale event promoted by the Business Improvement Area.
The three-day sale might have made parking a little more difficult
and traffic might have been slower, but judging by the numbers
of shoppers on the streets, the event is still a big attraction.
Nearly 100 liquor
seizures in Grand
GRAND BEND - The village's
summer detachment laid nearly 100
liq`Ar charges this past week. A
number which police say is high
for this time of year, but is repre-
sentative of the crowds flocking•to
• the resort in the hot summer
weAther
"ft we control the alcohol then
that takes care -of the damage to
property and thefts," said Sergeant
Lorne Smith.
----' rear/r/uPPaTho arrest-
ed :10 people for being drunk in a
Bend
public place, as well as laying mi-
nor charges for mischief, damage to
property, and a theft from a boat
docked at the river. .
Smith said that with the peak of
the summer vacation season, more
families are arriving in Grand Bend,
.},,t theta Ire till Pnfnrcetrient
problems posed by weekend visi-
tors.
The detachment also investigated
two minor vehicle accidents, but
reported no injuries in either.
Watch
for faulty lights
TflT (Thrrn yv..u.tvu
Minicter Fri Felton today warned ..
Ontario motorists against buying
daytime running light systems that
do not conform with CSA stan-
dards.
rx.a
that there have beencomplarnts
from motorists who have.nstalled
certain after -market devices to turn
their running lights on automatical-
ty wncn the car is started. These
may ovPtl..ad.or short.onl the..c.Ar's
entire cle;trical system.
The Ministry of Transportation
has been recommending that Onta-
rio motorists use their low -beam
$ ,n4I ,,he• . A-nthar Rabic
in daylight. Jtausucs snow unit life'
lights .reduce accidents because of
the improved visibility of the vehi-
cle.
Pick-
your -
own
a growth
industry
By Adrian Harte
BIDDULPH TOWNSHIP - With
fluctuating market prices threaten-
ing the stability of the family
farm, many farmers are being urged
to "cover all the bases" by diversi-
fying their operations. That, says
Diane O'Shea, is exactly what she
and her husband Mike have done
with their Biddulph Township farm
by developing their pick -your -own
vegetable market.
The O'Sheas saw the direction of
agriculture in the 1970s as a move
toward specialization of the farm
operation. With the 1990s around
the corner, they predict farms are
going to have to be more diverse
just to survive.
This is the fourth year of a pro-
ject that began with a half acre of
cucumbers planted to see if cus-
tomers would come right to the
farm to pick cucumbers where they
grew. Now the O'Sheas have more
than six acres of their cattle and
cash crop farm devoted to the idea.
"We knew it would take a while
before people would know what we
were doing," said Diane O'Shea.
They now offer the pick -your -
own enthusiast everything from
sweet corn to peppers, various
beans, squash, peppers, pumpkins,
beets, onions, and the inevitable
carrots, tomatoes, and potatoes.
The cucumbers are still there, both
for slicing and pickling.
fes host like an oversize garden,"
said O'Shea, explaining that while
fewer homeowners are taking the
trouble to care for-ilreiP 'ge=
table patch these days, there is still
a demand for fresh vegetables
straight from the field.
"We doubled our clientele last
year, so if we can keep moving in
that direction..." hinted O'Shea. credits hex r-hnchary1'.c er-
:viauug uie crops on 'the
pick -your -own patch with much of
atasncccsc:-. Mso,--three of the four
O'Shea children help out with the
sales and other tasks involved in
running the business. The O'Sheas
also hire two summer students to
help manage the operation as well
O'Shea speculatedthatmuch of
the success derived from the pick -
your -own industry is that as the
general public become more and
more removed from their food sup-
ply, it becomes more of a novelty
to visit a farm -and work in the
fields. She also suggested some
parents find a pick -your -own expe-
dition is educational for their chil-
dren, who otherwise see th food
source as the local supermarket.
The O'Shea operation is well
planned, with maps and brightly
painted markers on display for cus-
tomers to find their way around the
patch.
The yellow and green "Irish pick-
le" logos the O'Sheas use come
from their start in the pick -your -
own business -with cucumLci;
s
;,;
alkirrinly product. The idea was to
emphasize their Irish background as
well as that of the immediate arca.
O'Shea said the pick -your -own
operation works well because it
gets them closer to their consu-
mers, while saving time, labour,
anti firm n.h ....: t ' r v
vegetable operation.
"It works for us because we're
still carrying On with the rest of out
farming operation," said O'Shea.
•
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While the ministry of agriculture
publishes a book listing the prov-
ince's pick -your -own operations,
O'Shea said it doesn't bring in
many customers.
"I don't know just how many
people know that book exists," she
said, explaining that most of their
visitors come from London and Lu -
can and discover their farm through
advertising or word-of-mouth.
Although the O'Sheas once
thought about expanding into the
strawberry trade, they found they
don't have the right soil. O'Shea
said she thought blueberries might
be in their future as another means
gpge
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•
tbank fou
To those who participated in the
Your hard work towards the success of the event
was greatly appreciated
-....,.s_..MOMMI
Exeter: Business Improvement Association.
BAi
of Hensall Ltd.
79
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