Singing praises
RD: I read the interesting story on Michael T. Wall, “The Singing Newfoundlander,” in the Jan.-Feb. edition of Rural Delivery magazine, and really liked it. Thanks to Mr. Fred Isenor and thanks to Rural Delivery for a very interesting magazine full of bits and pieces of everything.

Nancy G. Ford
Pickering, Ont.

RD: I am sure that when Marianne Finley of Dartmouth, N.S., submitted her recipe for Sunshine Pudding (RD March, Household Notes, page 43) she could not have foreseen what lay ahead. I say “Thank you” to her for a recipe that I have shared widely with almost everyone in my address book as I tried to spread a bit of sunshine during this pandemic. Her recipe has been enjoyed by a more than usual number of homebound cooks!

Roberta MacDonald
Oakland, N.S.

RD: I was pleased to find the May issue of Rural Delivery in my mailbox and look forward to reading everything from cover to cover.

An article that impresses me is Dan Haartman’s Mechanically Inclined column. Knowing nothing about welding, I was going to pass it by, but I knew I couldn’t do that. Was I ever surprised. The article was enjoyable and informative (plus the drawings), but I was even more pleased with the style of writing. The articles quickly became a favourite of mine.

Mechanically Inclined wasn’t in the May issue, and I hope it’s due to the circumstance we are living in, and that Dan Haartman continues to write.

Norma Murray
Gaspereau Forks, N.B.

RD: I am renewing my subscription to Rural Delivery and adding a friend. I know so many people who would thoroughly enjoy your magazine as I do. I look for it in the mail each month and read it cover to cover. I always learn something new. So many incredible people out there quietly adding their knowledge, intelligence, and sense of beauty for us all to share through your magazine. Thank you to all of them, and to the folks who write letters. We may not all share the same way of thinking, but can all learn from one another. Thank you also for carrying on from Dirk van Loon with your thought-provoking editorials.

As a 1970s “back to the lander,” we moved to the North Mountain in the Annapolis Valley area in 1975. Forty-five years later, we are still here. We lived the first 15 years without electricity or running water. Your magazine was such a blessing to us in those days, too. Being “green” city folks, we needed all the help we could get to survive in the woods of Nova Scotia.

I have recently been cleaning out my attic, getting rid of anything I no longer use. I was so surprised to find boxes of Rural Delivery dating from the very first one. I do not think I missed many all these years. The first one, published in 1976, looks a little old, but the rest are not too bad, considering how well-used they are. There is still so much relevant information in every copy. Anyone who saves such things is welcome to my boxes of RD. If not, I will hang onto them a while longer.

We no longer raise animals, and our children are grown, although we do have little grandchildren around. We still do a big garden, but that is well integrated into our lives – partly thanks to you all over there. This is a long thank-you for being there all these 45 years. Can’t wait for the next copy.

Cindy Rosser
Kingston, N.S.

Change – at what price?
RD: I would like to respond to your editorial in Rural Delivery of June 2020 (“Making the future,” pg. 6). May I suggest an alternate way to “make the future” by observing history a little closer to home.

Our cousins to the south fought a long and bloody civil war over the question of slavery. In Britain the abolition of slavery was brought about democratically, but it was a close-run thing. In order to achieve it, monetary concessions were made to the chief opponents of abolition. Is this not better than civil war?

My take-away from this is that democracy is a very blunt tool for bringing about the more civil society that most of us aspire to. A functioning and progressive democracy to bring about societal change requires leadership, diplomacy, and concessions to opposing views.

We all need to remember this in addressing Canadian civil society problems. It is much easier to state them, much harder to propose, achieve consensus, and bring about the solution. This applies to both slavery and its direct descendant: racial inequality.

David Wildish
Bayside, N.B.

Bathroom convictions
RD: I love Rural Delivery. The April issue had so much from people I knew or felt close to. It’s sort of like a family. Could you please tell Gary Saunders how much I am enjoying his book, My Life with Trees. I am reading it for the second time, along with his book on identifying different trees. (I am having trouble with the evergreens.) This man is so amazingly productive! How much he has done, and written, and drawn, and cut and burned wood, and planted tons of trees too. What a guy! Please convey my admiration and appreciation for all this wonderful work.
My name, Sylvia, means “from the woods,” (thanks, Mom), and she didn’t nickname me “Monkey” for nothing. I used to be able to climb. Being 86 means I am on the ground now, but I can still love trees.

Not too long ago, I got a message from the U.S. group SumOfUs, about how the Boreal Forest was going down the tubes (literally). Then I went to Costco to do some shopping. I watched as cart after cart had huge bales of toilet paper stuffed in the bottom. And this was before the COVID-19 outbreak caused people to pig out on all available toilet paper. “There goes the Boreal Forest,” I thought. That fact’s effect on me, my children, and grandchildren really hit home.

The Boreal Forest is a huge carbon sink. We can’t afford to badly influence climate change in this manner! I could no longer use toilet paper myself. Instead, I foraged among household rags and discarded dish towels for suitable items. (My mother, originally from what is now Ukraine, threw out as little as possible – I try to copy this habit of hers). I did not have to buy anything. I am on furosemide to wrest liquid out of my system, so my heart is spared extra work. I require about seven wipes a day. However, they are small, and a week’s use produces about a not-pressed-down cubic foot of material, which I put in two net bags for washing. I add oxygen bleach to the wash water, and wash these wipes with my regular laundry. After all, one washes one’s underpants with the regular laundry too.
A shape of about four by five inches seems to work best for me, although some wipes are sort of three by six. The materials I have used are as follows: an old, stained, terry towel – one layer (thicker terry would be better); a very old pair of work pants, doubled, with a layer of cotton T-shirt material inside – these are a bit rough, I will not use work pants again, and on that basis I rejected worn-out black jeans. Other materials included a red, knit cotton shirt, lined with old linen shirt pieces; those old dish towels, folded in four so the holes were inside (nice); my grandson’s old, stained, cotton-knit muscle shirt, lined with linen (good); an old towel, worn very thin, with linen shirt piece inside (good); and probably something else, which I have forgotten. At first, I used these things just folded, but they sort of came apart on washing, so I sewed them together – around the three raw edges, and crossed in the middle. These work quite well.
It seems that a lot of people who are using reusable wipes are putting the used ones in closed plastic containers, and from these emanate stinky odours. I am putting mine in a cardboard box, lined with an old, open pillowcase. I am old, but I think I still have a pretty good sense of smell, and I don’t get any odours from my arrangement. The rest of the family has not complained/commented. By the way, I don’t use the wipes on poop. In the bathroom is regular toilet paper for the use of people with different bathroom convictions.
One can buy commercial, washable wipes online. France seems to be big on this. Google “reusable washable toilet wipes.” There are several sources. These sources charge from about $1.75 to $3 each. They are very well made, in attractive patterns, with the edges finished off nicely. There is a variety of fabrics used, some of which I am not familiar with, but also plenty of familiar cotton. So, other people have thought of this before me, and made businesses out of it. This may seem like a lot to spend, but I am sure they will pay for themselves in the long run, as they are used again and again.
A glance at the March 2020 issue of National Geographic shows that there is plenty of material out there from which to make wipes. The cover shows a mountain of silk. (Good grief!) I am sure the situation with cotton is similar. One can get “wipes” at Frenchy’s – a tight little bale, about 12 by 12 by 18 inches – inexpensively. These are intended for garages and places like that, but a good wash will make them useable for more personal use. As I recall, they are classified as to fabric content, so you can get a little bale of cotton.
One wipes one’s nose too. For that there are handkerchiefs, which take up almost no room in the washing machine, and work very well, and spare the forest also.

Sylvia Mangalam
Bedford, N.S.