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Severn Bridge Area - 5:30 p.m. – Wednesday
Particularly hard hit by the flooding this afternoon was Bagley Road, just off Graham Road, located at the most southern boundary of the Town of Gravenhurst. Many of the year-round homes and cottages located on Bagley Road are completely surrounded by water and authorities are called for a rise in the river over night - Photos by Fred Schulz
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SITUATION BAD, BUT HOLDING. THE REPORTS ON FLOODING CONTINUE TO BE HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE - PAINFULLY SHORT OF FACTS
AS AN EAGER BEAVER NEWS WATCHER, I AM TOTALLY FRUSTRATED BY THE POOR QUALITY OF MEDIA FOCUS, ON THE FLOODING OF THE MUSKOKA RIVER, IN BRACEBRIDGE DURING, THE PAST WEEK. THIS UNDOUBTEDLY READS, LIKE A BROKEN RECORD SOUNDS. I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHAT FOLKS, WHO HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY AFFECTED AND INCONVENIENCED BY THE FLOOD, THINK ABOUT THE MEDIA COVERAGE TO DATE, AND THE UNIMPRESSIVE PHOTO SPREADS IN THE LOCAL MEDIA….WHICH FOR AN OLD NEWS REPORTER, SEEM TO MISS THE POINT ENTIRELY. I USED TO RUN PHOTO SPREADS IN THE HERALD-GAZETTE ALL THE TIME, IN MY TERM OF OFFICE; BUT ON SERIOUS NEWS MATTERS, THEY WERE THE BEST OF ALL THE NEWS FLICKS OUR REPORTERS CAME BACK WITH…..NOT FEATURE NEWS PHOTOGRAPHS, THAT LOOKED LIKE SCENICS MORE THAN SPOT NEWS, HAVING AN IMPACT OF NOTHING LESS THAN…."OH WOW, LOOK AT THAT. THAT'S HARD TO BELIEVE." IT'S BEEN THE SAME ALL WEEK, AND IT'S GOT TO BE A NEW TREND WITH THE MEDIA THESE DAYS, THAT EVEN HARD NEWS IS MADE TO LOOK SOFT…..OR DOWNPLAYED BY LESSER COVERAGE, OR FEWER SECONDS OF TELEVISED COVERAGE. CAN THEY SPARE IT? THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF DAMAGE OUT THERE, AND MANY LIVES AFFECTED, BUT HONESTLY, BY THE COVERAGE I'VE READ AND WATCHED, IT'S MORE LIKE A CURRENT EVENT THAN SOMETHING DEVASTATING, TO A LARGE CHUNK OF WATERSHED, WHERE GOOD FOLKS HAVE BUILT THEIR HOMES, COTTAGES AND BUSINESSES. AND THEN, I HEARD TODAY, THAT THE RAIN WON'T BE A PROBLEM AT PRESENT, BECAUSE IT WILL JUST BE SOAKED UP BY THE UNFROZEN GROUND. WHO COMES UP WITH THIS STUFF? THE GROUND DID NOT HAVE A LOT OF FROST BUILT-UP OVER THE WINTER MONTHS ANYWAY, AND WHEN WE HAD TORRENTIAL RAIN LAST WEEK, THE GROUND SHOULD HAVE SOAKED UP THE WATER AS WELL…..EXCEPT, LIKE TODAY, THE GROUND IS SATURATED, AND CAN NOT ABSORB MUCH OF THE PRESENT RAINFALL. I DON'T NEED TO GO TOO MUCH PAST MY OWN LAWN, WITH A SANDY SOIL, TO SEE THAT THERE'S WATER RESTING ON TOP…..SIMPLY MEANING IT HAS NO WAY OF GOING DOWN; SO INSTEAD IT WILL GO TO THE LOWEST POINT AND BUILD-UP THERE. SO WHETHER THEY BELIEVE THIS OR NOT, THE RAIN WILL ADD TO THE RUN-OFF SITUATION, AND THE RIVER VOLUMES, EVEN IF ONLY IT ACTS TO DELAY THE WATER LEVELS FROM RECEDING. ON THE NIGHTLY NEWS, EVEN THOUGH BRACEBRIDGE IS STILL UNDER A STATE OF EMERGENCY, IT'S LUCKY TO EVEN GET A MENTION FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE NATIONAL OR PROVINCIAL AUDIENCE. THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG IN MEDIA CIRCLES THESE DAYS, AND IT HAS SHOWN ITSELF DURING THIS MOST RECENT CATASTROPHE OF TOO MUCH WATER, TOO SOON.
ONCE AGAIN, WE ARE THINKING ABOUT THOSE FOLKS SURROUNDED BY WATER, OR WHO HAVE HAD TO BE SHELTERED AWAY FROM THEIR HOMES, AND WHO HAVE SUFFERED SERIOUS PROPERTY DAMAGE DURING THIS SERIOUS FLOOD OF 2013. I HOPE THE MEDIA WILL TAKE UP THE INITIATIVE TO HELP WITH THE FLOOD RELIEF, THESE PEOPLE WILL NEED, WHEN THEY ARE ABLE TO RETURN HOME TO BEGIN RESTORATIONS.
THE COOKBOOK FEVER RAGING
Suzanne is used to my mood swings and excesses. She knows when I get that wild look in my eyes, when I'm explaining a mission I want to embark on, that her commonplaces of the day, week, or month, will be compromised in some way. When I talked about establishing a cookery collection, and a new business venture for our retirement recreation, she made mental notes that the worse was yet to come. Not that the idea was a bad one, just where and how it came about.
I often get one of these mission statements from God, I think, and become so consumed by the possibilities, that I totally forget the humans who are left to put it all together. Suzanne has shouldered many of my great ideas in the past, and although she's kind enough not to remind me of my failings, I'm aware when we chat, that she's holding a lot back, with what I would say was Devil's Advocate material. So when I went all gonzo about this new idea, to develop, get this….."an old idea" we had ten years ago, I started the dialogue in the parking lot of the local grocery store here in Gravenhurst. I'm like that, you see. I am spontaneous. Terribly spontaneous. That was good when I was playing hockey and baseball, because it's part of the game. Being spontaneous about starting a cookery collection, for fun and profit, isn't really a good way to get the ball rolling so to speak. I could have called a meeting of the board, or made "an intervention" on Suzanne, asking her to abandon all other interests, to follow me into the oblivion I sometimes dwell. At home. Comfortably so. Not in the front seat of the van, where I couldn't even find space to put down my soap box. She has a sweet look in her eyes you know……as if she really does sense that my intentions are good and kindly, when not just wild and wooly.
The truth of the matter, is that we both have been toying with this idea for the past decade. We just didn't know how to execute it, and with Suzanne working full-time, and with antique business obligations, we just couldn't get enough down-time to put the essence of a good plan onto paper. So when I started beating down the door, to get this idea its modern day exposure, with Suzanne, she was already on the same page. I was kind of disappointed, that she didn't make me fight to defend my idea…..like usual. She thought it was a workable plan, and that there was enough time, to make the required acquisitions of cook books, and reference material, to make our collection worth noting. Satisfying foodies today isn't easy. So the bar had to be set a lot higher, than if we were just selling some old cookbooks from our shop here in Gravenhurst. This was going to be different, because it will eventually include a reference / resource component for our customers…..who hopefully will be professional types, chefs, home cooks, researchers, authors and food lovers from all over God's half acre. We want to measure up to all kinds of demands…..and this is what I mean, about my penchant for getting involved in mega projects, as the next great idea for family enterprise.
The demands of this current book finding project are enormous. Like building a library in six months, collecting one book at a time. Truthfully, we did start with a reasonable collection of old and out of print cookbooks, and many hundreds of handwritten recipes dating back to the middle of the 1800's. Suzanne, an amazing cook herself, was a long time teacher in the Home Economics department of our local high schools in Muskoka. But she has been involved in so many hands-on food related events, in the past, including as a caterer with her high school students, doing the food for major events; she worked the church circuit and helped the local Lions Club in Windermere, run their special community suppers, and bake sales. She comes from a family of outstanding home cooks, dating back to the Shea and Veitch family homesteads in Ufford, on the shore of Three Mile Lake. So my partner knows all about food preparation, and you should see her personal stash of heirloom cookbooks and handwritten recipes from family sources. Well actually, you will be able to see them, and get some copies of fabulous recipes right from these 1800's family homesteads. This however, is only a small component of what we want to offer, via our private (not for sale) collection, and those books we are willing to part with.
The biggest task I placed before Suzanne, was the acquisition of cookbooks…..thousands of them. As a book collector and seller with three decades of experience, she knows that I will deliver on my promise to fill her book shelves; and not with just any old cookbooks. No matter how many I drag home, in overflowing boxes, she will have the final say, whether they are up to her standard or not. At least the ones she wants to use as part of her permanent collection, to be offered as reference material for the benefit of our patrons and guests. She may agree to sell books based on the fact I might start crying otherwise, but generally speaking, she is the head book selector, and I'm just the guy who hunts for them throughout the region.
I want to keep you informed about what we're doing, with this cookery collection, so you can get an idea just how wild we are, about creating mountains just so we have something to climb over, day to day. I can honestly say, that this will be, without doubt, the biggest and most ambitious project, as a book collector, I've ever faced….and I'm no stranger to crazy deadlines and wild objectives. This will test me like never before, and sure, there's a chance it will fail….well maybe at first. This is a longterm project for us, so the short term failure wouldn't be too bad. I've got some time yet, to hunt and gather, as we have set the Canada Day holiday, as the starting point for our cookery adventure, as part of our little antique business in Gravenhurst.
Suzanne Currie's Cookery Nookery. It's all coming together but I'm still about a thousand cookbooks shy of what I want to have for day one. I've got two months to pull off a miracle. Suzanne was just reading this paragraph, over my shoulder, which I hate…..and slapped me on the top of the head, as if to say, in the words of "Oliver Hardy," "Well, that's another fine mess you've got us into Stanley!"
I'll give readers regular updates on the way we are gradually achieving this cookery resource collection…..and folks, if I fail, you will be the first to know.
Thanks for visiting today. I hope if you happen to be one of those affected by the high water in our region, that you're safe at least. You've got be careful out there.
If you would like to visit my other blog site, "Muskoka as Walden," you can visit by clicking on http://muskokaaswaldenpond.blogspot.ca/
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