The Grand River Navigation Company

During the early 1800s, the Grand River connected the Welland Canal at Dunnville with the town of Brantford, a distance of about 60 miles.  Remnants of a succession of dams and locks remain.  While walking or navigating the river, visitors can discover these dams and locks between Indiana and Oneida, a distance of approximately nine miles.  Additional locks appear at Bunnell's Landing near Brantford.  The whole ascent gained by the locks was 33 feet.


P. 122 The Grand River Navigation Company, Bruce Emerson Hill, 1994.

Tomorrow:  Commerce on The Grand

Smile for Today ~

On the Grand the Morning Sun...

Krista & Scott ~ Twisted Lemon Cayuga

(Elizabeth & Rebecca w/Grandma, courtesy of Vavoom Photography.)

Fisherville ON  May 26, 2013 lbw

Grand River Banks Cayuga

Love is the passionate and abiding desire
on the part of two or more people
to produce together conditions under which,
each can be and spontaneously express his real self; to produce together
an intellectual soil and an emotional climate
in which each can flourish,
far superior to what either could achieve alone.

~ Author unknown

Congratulations to a special couple today on their wedding day.  Krista and Scott, wishing you all the best always.

Cayuga-on-The-Grand




Ed & Barb Thomson Your Hosts ~ York on the Grand

 Banners and Posters for The Day of 1000 Canoes are appearing around the village and in the media.  The festival on the Grand River coincides with National Paddling Week, June 16 to 23rd.

www.1000canoes.com   To register or participate in the various events along the river.

Peaceful Setting Village of York

There are spots on the river where the whole world seems to go away and one is left with only the sights and sounds of nature. lbw

Smile for Today ~

"Novelists are better off than playwrights.  You can't boo a bad book.  Or if you do you run the risk of being regarded as eccentric."

"There is a deep-rooted conviction in the profession that a good text is one that is easy to learn.  I don't believe it.  I think that in common with most good things a good text is one that is difficult to learn, but even more difficult to forget."

~ Peter Ustinov (1921 - 2004)  English Actor, playwright, dramatist, author, film maker, newspaper & magazine columnist.
Quotable Ustinov, Doubleday Canada, 1995.

The Grand River Conway Park Cayuga

Conway Park Restaurant is Open ~

Follow the river below the Cayuga bridge and just beyond Bob Baigent Park and the Kinsmen Pavilion there is a little family restaurant.  All-day breakfast $4.75 (incl. coffee or tea) or perch dinner while enjoying the view.  Menus available.

Picnic tables on the riverbank or sit indoors by the window.  Open daily 8:00 to 8:00.

River View From the Window

(Photos taken May, 2012 lbw)

Her Majesty's Chapel of the Mohawks 1785

Brantford

The Heritage Grand River  

Each stop along The Grand has its own beauty.

Available at The Neat L'l Bookshop

Grand Valley Trails Celebrated 40 years.
Visit www.gvta.on.ca

From Rock Point Provincial Park to Alton, ON (near Orangeville) hikers have helped establish a popular trail focused on the Heritage Grand River.

Village of York on The Grand

All Your Gardening Needs

Cayuga and District Chamber of Commerce ~

has a new President, John Edelman, owner of Haldimand Motors.  A whole new movement is afoot!  Cayuga businesses are actively participating in a cooperative media blitz to show the wonderful services available in our district.

Many of you already have a Facebook profile.  Good or bad ~ is it any different than most things?  Facebook is a powerful tool when one wants to reach potential customers.  Facebook is even holding tutoring classes on Parliament Hill for members of Parliament.  There's gotta be something to this.

Check out Cayuga-on-the-Grand, Haldimand Motors, Grand Attractions, etc. and be amazed at the opportunities right here in our community.



Remnants of Pioneer Days ~ Haldimand County

Pierre Berton ~  "I had always seen this quartet of books ~ The National Dream, The Last Spike, Klondike, and now The Promised Land ~ as an epic story that began with John A. Macdonald's dream of a continental railway."

Describing the Winnipeg railway platform, "a gateway to the West" Berton calls it a "symbol for those two formative decades in the country's history...The platform had known the tread of many feet....a springboard for settlement."

Let us forever keep Victoria Day honouring the history of our Canada

* Pierre Berton (1920 - 2004) Non-fiction Canadian Author, best known for his Canadiana and Canadian history.  The Joy of Writing, Doubleday Canada, 2003.



Bring me the sunset in a cup,
     Reckon the morning's flagons up,
And say how many dew ;
Tell me how far the morning leaps,
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
     Who spun the breadths of blue !

Write me how many notes there be
In the new robin's ecstasy
     Among astonished boughs ;
How many trips the tortoise makes,
How many cups the bee partakes, ~
     The debauchee of dews !

PROBLEMS by Emily Dickenson

Photo:  Mount Olivet, Haldimand County

by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

IF I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

American poet (Dec. 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886)

Photo:  Mount Olivet, Haldimand County, May 2013. lbw

These beautiful pictures of Mount Olivet are courtesy of Kimberly Jeffrey of Grindstone Creek Gallery.  Taken on her iPad Mini, May18, 2013.

Mount Olivet Rd., Haldimand

www.grindstonecreekgallery.com

All is Quiet

The New Bridge?

All is Quiet on the Waterfront ~ Some wonder what is happening with construction of the new bridge...

(Photos:  Friday, May 17, lbw)

Lundy's Lane

"During the battle of Lake Erie in 1813, Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, was so badly damaged that he was obliged to abandon it and row to the Niagara.  after finally forcing the British fleet to surrender, Perry made no reference to the exigencies of the battle in the dispatch announcing his victory.  It read simply, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours."

{Perry's words are memorable, but have become immortal through the parody on them by Walt Kelly's inimitable cartoon character, Pogo: 'We have met the enemy and he is us.'}"

*Oliver Hazard Perry, (1785 - 1819), US naval commander.

~ THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, 1985

(Photos:  Lundy's Lane, Niagara Falls, ON. Click on Photo for larger image. lbw)



Josie Penny Author

Josie Penny

The Neat Little Bookshop

Today, Thursday, May 16, 1:00 p.m.

Josie Penny

author of So Few on Earth

Refreshments, tea & coffee

Informal ~ Everyone Welcome

(Photo:  Josie Penny at Selkirk Heritage Day, 2012. lbw)

Mount Olivet Lilac Drive-Thru~

Among the lilacs, Saturday, May 18, Pie Social, Silent Auction, Yard Sale.  Hot dog BBQ ~ a special day in the little country church.

Sachem Offers Opportunity ~

The Sachem

There are many deserving Cayuga and District Businesses that would welcome recognition in the Sachem's 2013 Readers' Choice.  Take a minute and nominate your favourite local business ~ imagine over 100 categories!

Throughout the year The Sachem has written stories, printed submitted articles and photographs for us.  This is our chance to support this local paper in their efforts to recognize excellence.

www.sachem.ca

Everything coming up blue & white ~

HALDIMAND MOTORS showing support for the Toronto Maple Leafs

www.haldimandmotors.com

"Only in Cayuga..."

Peter Worthington, Sun News

(1927 - 2013)

The devastating announcement of the Toronto Telegram closing in 1971

left staffers scrambling for jobs.

A small group including Peter Worthington, Don Hunt and Douglas Creighton

began plans to produce a tabloid eventually named the Toronto Sun.

"None of us had ever rented a building, found a press, bought newsprint or started a company.  Hardly any of us had dummied a tabloid paper before.

"It has been argued that every successful enterprise requires three leaders; a dreamer, a businessman and a son of a bitch.  Well, we had all three...I'll leave it to the reader to fit us into the proper category." ~ Douglas Creighton.

The Sun was to be "unintimidated, aggressive, accurate and irreverent."  In his autobiography, Sunburned - Memoirs of a Newspaperman - THE SUN,* Creighton describes the dream, the trying days and weeks of establishing the new tabloid.

*Little, Brown and Company (Canada) Limited, 1993.

"Get dis shack cleaned up!"  Mommy yelled "De mission boat's comin."
I was six and didn't know how to clean up yet.  Clean up what?  I glanced out the window and saw a large schooner coming around the point.  The fancy hospital ship was carrying Dr. Charles Curtis.  Suddenly, Spotted Island was alive with activity.  People milled about in a frenzy, tidying up for the doctor.  Mommy shouted at us to wash our faces.
"Racing to the porch washstand, I scooped cold water from the barrel into the basin, then took the corner of the already filthy towel from its nail and rubbed it over my face.  It was cold and there was no soap, but I did the best I could and placed the towel back on the nail.
"Whass de doctor comin fer, Mommy?" Marcie asked.
"Donno, maid, he jus coms."

~ Excerpt from So Few on Earth. Dundurn Press, 2010.

Author Josie Penny explains that most people say that they have never met anyone from Labrador.  "That's because there are so few of us on earth," she says. Josie lives with her husband in Dunnville.

Josie Penny will be in the bookshop

Thursday, May 16, 1:00 p.m.

"Everyone Welcome"

Coffee Pot's always on...don't miss it!

"...while I was a child her great affection for me, and her intense care for my welfare, made me love her and gave me that feeling of safety that children need...Her fearlessness, her public spirit, her contempt for convention, and her indifference to the opinion of the majority have always seemed good to me and have impressed themselves upon me as worthy of imitation."

~ Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872 - February 2, 1970)  British philosopher


"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."

~ Henry Ward Beecher

(Photo:  Cayuga Street, Sunday, May 12 lbw)

A Prayer for Mothers

Marjorie Flagg Holmes wrote ~

A Prayer For Cross Mothers

Oh God, I was so cross to the children today!  Forgive me.  I was discouraged and tired ~ and I took it out on them.  Forgive my bad temper, my impatience, and most of all, my yelling.  I am so ashamed as I think of it.

I want to kneel down by each of their beds, wake them up and ask them to forgive me.  But I can't.

They wouldn't understand.  I must go on living with the memory of this awful day; my unjust tirades.

Hours later, I can still see the fear in their eyes as they scurried around, trying to appease me ~ thinking my anger and maniacal raving was their fault.
Oh God, the pathetic helplessness of children!  Their innocence before the awful monster ~ the enraged adult.

And how forgiving they are, hugging me so fervently at bedtime, kissing me goodnight.

All I can do is straighten a cover, touch a small head burrowed in a pillow and hope with all my heart that they will forgive me.

Lord, in failing these little ones whom you have put in my keeping, I am failing you.  Please let your infinite patience and goodness replenish me for tomorrow.

MFH (1886 - 1976)  American English & Latin teacher, civic activist.

(A Dear Friend, Janice Wingrove, gave the above to me after we shared a soul-searching discussion on the difficulties of stay-at-home Moms.  My friend died of cancer and I have only recently been in touch with her beautiful adult children, Cheryl, Lorna and Justin.  Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  I hope that Marjorie Holmes' writing means as much to someone out there as it did to my friend and to myself. lbw)

The Neat Little Bookshop Cayuga St.

"What a neat, little, bookshop" ~

the title read in The Dunnville Chronicle article by Angus Scott ...dated Jan., 24, 1990.

"...inside [the bookshop] is one of the most interesting characters in Haldimand ~ owner Herb Martindale."

Herb opened his bookshop around the year 1976.  Herb's gone now but there are a lot of folks who still fondly remember "the most interesting character."

It will be eight years ago on Mother's Day that John and Lorna re-opened Herb's Neat Little Bookshop.

"In a way, every day is a separate adventure. In general, you only see the best people, because only the best people like to read."  ~ Herb Martindale quote.


(Photo:  11B Cayuga Street. lbw)

Author, Zane Grey Wrote:

To bear up under loss;
To fight the bitterness of defeat and
     the weakness of grief;
To be victor over anger;
To smile when tears are close;
To resist disease and evil men and base instincts;
To hate hate and to love love;
To go on when it would seem good to die;
To look up with unquenchable faith
     in something ever more about to be.

~ Zane Grey (1872 - 1939) American author, best known for his westerns.  Grey set up a dentistry office in New York under the name Dr. Zane Grey; however left the practice for his writing.  His house on the Upper Delaware River, Pennsylvania, is maintained as a museum.

(Photo:  Wikipedia)

Josie Penny

Thurs., May 16, 1:00 p.m.

Readings from  So Few on Earth

Autobiographical

Jose Penny grew up in Labrador

"Coffee Pot's always on..."

Everyone Welcome

Room in Stephen Leacock's Home Orillia

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island.  Best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life!"

~ Walt Disney, (1901 - 1966) American film maker