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Today we made the move to down near Parry Sound to visit some friends from university (oh so long ago). I met Brad and Harvey in residence in first year. Liz and Terry were a year behind us but we eventually were all part of a large group of friends that hung out together. Brad (and Liz) and someone who shall remain nameless got an apartment together once we moved out of residence. As we all live in the Toronto area we have been getting together about every year or two to catch up.
Harvey’s family has a farm in Dunchurch. During our university years and for a while afterwards we would come up for a weekend in the summer for the Dunchurch Fall Fair. Since this year we were in the province at the right time we essentially invited ourselves up and encouraged Bard and Liz to come as well.
After Harvey’s parents died the farm was divided up between his siblings and they are all either have built, are building or are going to build houses here to retire into.
Harvey’s house is in the being built stage. He is trying to do a lot of the work himself and during the summer he spends about half his time here. When he need a qualified tradesperson there always seems to be a family member or local friend with the necessary skills.
There is a lot of space for us to park.
The outside is mostly done and the current project is to get the rest of the siding up before the winter.
The inside is framed and insulated but not much more.
They have a balcony looking out over a pond and their beach. The ground is mostly sand here.
They stay in a trailer and bunkie out back while they are here working.
The great back porch which will eventually be closed in with sliding glass doors but the centerpiece is a huge stone fireplace created by a local stonemason.
Harvey and Terry’s kids and a work friend of Harvey’s, Jim and Lise’s family, that always come up for the fair, were here as well. The garage became our dinning room and kitchen. I am kicking myself for never getting a group picture.
After everyone arrived we went over to the fairgrounds. Our first stop was the community hall to see all the crafts, baking and produce being displayed and judged.
One person judged all the baking and had to sample a piece of every entry.
The jams and preserves.
The kids craft tables had some rock collections.
Terry had a lot of items entered but her pride and joy was a hand stitched quilt that she made for her son and new bride.
As they are a very science oriented family the quilt has the periodic table of elements embedded in it.
It will be a while before her son can have it because it won first prize and will go on to the district competition.
Then we went outside to see what was going on around the fair grounds.
The “kids” (now adults) went off by themselves.
You always have to have a crown and anchor game.
The sign out front had advertised tractor races. It was not quite what I expected.
There was a band playing, made up of local people, that sounded very good.
The fair office.
More standing around. We watched a kids hay toss and the adults trying to load hay bails on a trailer as fast as possible.
By now most of us were pretty tired from the sun and our drives to get here so we headed back to have dinner at the house.
Later we gathered around the bonfire to burn up some of the construction waste from the house.
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