Food for thought, 10 times a year
RD: Thank you for doing such a great job! We are not farmers, but we enjoy most of the articles. Your magazine is educational and keeps us up to date on ongoing projects.
I would like to keep reading about local legends of music. Growing up, my father played mostly country and western records on our record player (yes, I am that old!) – Hank Snow, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, etc. Hank Snow was a good friend of our former mayor, Curtis Rogers. All gone now.
Can you guess? These are wonderful ways to make a person think and get to meet some of our older friends and neighbours. Also, Household Notes is great, and the note that goes with the person that sent in their recipes and suggestions.

The last three months (of Rural Delivery) were of great interest to me. I learned about cranberries, solar panels, windmills, building with straw, to name just a few. COVID-19 gave all of us time to learn something new. No one should be bored; time on our hands can be used so many ways. I’m cleaning out drawers and filling boxes for my son. Most items are his, and now he can share his past with his children.
Is there any up-to-date news on bats? Our summers are full of blackflies and mosquitoes – they should be well fed. In November, I loved pages 18-19: “Organizing your hardware,” (Mechanically Inclined, by Dan Haartman). It could apply to small items as well, i.e., buttons, threads, straight pins, and even bathroom drawers. My husband does a great job storing his hardware, different tools, and items that could be found on the What’s That? page.
Please, more Echoes of the past, and more articles about women in their jobs on the farm, in the fisheries, in education, etc.

Sharon Holt
Petitcodiac, N.B.

CPR for the hospital lottery
RD: Thanks for that excellent editorial regarding the annual QEII Lottery prizes (“Fully furnished,” RD Nov., page 6). Spot on! I seethe every year when that promotion hits the papers. I fully expect jet skis to be on the prize list soon. Seems they might be better off with a 50-50 draw if convincing people to part with money is so rough.
Richard Rachals
Lunenburg, N.S.

RD: Being that I am a vendor at the outdoor Village of Gagetown Farmers’ Market (our last market day was Dec. 19), I’m usually so busy I often barely glance at my copy of Rural Delivery when it comes in. It is a shame, because I really enjoy it.

So it is now January and I am going through the November 2021 issue. Your “Fully furnished” editorial caught my attention. I have such mixed feelings about the hospital lotteries. I bought one ticket over the years, not because I dreamt of instant lifestyle change, but because I felt guilty for not supporting the hospital.
I am wondering, with all the return-to-the-land and desire for a simpler lifestyle we hear about these days, if the lottery gurus might change their focus and offer a different type of prizes. If I just take my case, I would go for an addition to my house – a modest one that I could manage myself, or a summer kitchen (which would make the preparation of the preserves I make for the market easier on my aging bones), a new septic system, an orchard, or a grandparent suite on the land when it is time for me to retire.
Our hospitals need help, that is for sure. Maybe the lotteries just need tweaking.
Thanks for persevering over the years when rural was not cool.

Diane Bergeron
Village of Gagetown, N.B.

Forging on
RD: I am writing to thank you for Dirk van Loon’s very positive review of my book on Nova Scotia blacksmithing that you published in the December 2021 issue of Rural Delivery (“A well-wrought tribute,” page 34). I particularly appreciate his remarks on the section about where folks might be able to come in contact with blacksmiths practising traditional techniques around the province. One of the main reasons for writing the book was to try to raise the general level of awareness that this is still going on (hence the book’s title: What Once Was Lost).
His note about the small size of details in the images of the design sketches of the Port Royal Habitation reconstruction is right on point. This has been an ongoing and frustrating issue with Parks Canada, the source of these images, since I first saw them in one of their in-house publications. The original drawings are apparently buried somewhere in an archive in Ottawa, and after some months of attempting to gain access to these I had to give up and go with the poor resolution of the ones to hand. The main point of including the images, along with the photographs I took of some of the domestic ironwork at the Habitation, was to emphasize that the forged reproductions that were actually made from the design sketches closely match the intended designs.

Frank Smith
Portuguese Cove, N.S.