All yours: a great meal plus a piece of rural-church history

This is one of my favourite images from past Turkey Suppers at St. Andrew’s United Church: the giant-sized potato masher (wielded by a strong woman) getting the job done to feed the crowds.

Readers, I can’t imagine a better way for you to spend the latter part of this coming Wednesday than to come to beautiful little Queensborough and to head up to St. Andrew’s United Church (812 Bosley Rd., just up the way from the Manse) for its ever so famous annual Turkey Supper.

Cars lined up all the way from St. Andrew’s down to the Manse for a previous Turkey Supper.

Now, many’s the time I’ve sung the praises of the wonderful old-fashioned suppers (the Ham Supper around Easter, the Turkey Supper just before Thanksgiving) at historic little St. Andrew’s. You probably don’t need me to tell you all over again how great the turkey dinner with all the trimmings will be, not to mention the stupendous selection of homemade pies for dessert.

For many people, the selection of homemade pies is the highlight of the community suppers at St. Andrew’s United Church.

But, you know, I just did anyway.

However: we have two special added features to the Turkey Supper this time around! And that’s kind of exciting.

A historic rural church: St. Andrew’s United, opened in 1890. (Photo by Dave deLang)

The first is that diners will get a chance to see the recent renovations our congregation has done in the church kitchen and hall (where the supper takes place). A worn-out vinyl floor has been replaced with a sturdy and attractive wood-look laminate; and the walls have been painted an elegant and attractive soft green colour. It was a big undertaking, and quite something for a small rural church; we’re proud and excited about the results. Here, have a sneak preview:

The new look at the St. Andrew’s Church hall, just waiting for you to come see it.

Another view of the renovated hall.

When you’re there for the Turkey Supper, take a few moments to examine some of the interesting pieces of history that adorn the walls of the hall. Here, for instance, is the collection of Sunday-School-related pictures and artifacts:

And here are some closeups. This stuff is pretty cool.

This typewritten note, more than 70 years old, is on the back of the large print of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. John and Barbara Anne Patterson were the small children of The Rev. W.W. and Cora Patterson. Rev. Patterson and his family made a big mark on St. Andrew’s and Queensborough; they were here during the difficult years of the Second World War, and they have been fondly remembered ever since. If you click here you can see a great photo of the young family outside the very Manse where Raymond and I now live; other posts I’ve done that feature the Pattersons are here and here and here.

I love this photo, which shows the members of the Sunday School at Cooper United Church in 1932. Cooper was one of the three historic churches in the United Church of Canada’s Queensborough Pastoral Charge when my dad, The Rev. Wendell Sedgwick, became its minister (and my family moved to the Manse) way back in 1964. Sadly, the Cooper church was closed by United Church Central in Toronto in 1967. I love this photo not just as a memento of that little church, but because of the astounding number of children and young people who were in that Sunday School. Wow! (If you click on the photo you’ll get a larger image that will allow you to read the names.)

“For King and Country”: The names of young men and women who’d attended the Sunday School at St. Andrew’s United (in those days called Queensborough United) who signed up for service in the Second World War. A lot of familiar names here.

Here is another grouping of church artifacts on our newly painted walls, this one featuring photos and drawings of St. Andrew’s, churches with a connection to it, and other local churches:

I also wanted to show you this, and before you say, “That looks like a piano in a closet,” let me explain: Yes, it is a piano in a closet, and here’s why it’s there. A member of our congregation, Terry, who does an enormous amount to ensure the church building is running as it should, realized that the piano’s normal spot in the church hall meant it was in the way for Turkey Supper visitors, particularly those who might use walkers or wheelchairs, and especially if they needed to visit the church washrooms. So get this: Terry (an engineer by profession) did a bunch of research and designed and built a little wheeled rig (at very low cost) to allow the piano to be easily moved into and out of that closet as need be. Talk about ingenuity and initiative in a good cause!

The church hall’s piano, moved out of the way to make extra space for diners at the Turkey Supper. In its temporary closet home it also serves as handy shelving for leftover pieces of new flooring.

But listen, just because I’ve given you a guided tour of the renovated church hall, don’t think you shouldn’t come see it for yourself. It’s a lot better in person!

Also: if you come, you have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to own a neat little piece of St. Andrew’s history. Here’s the scoop.

After some deliberation, our congregation has decided to clear out some vintage wooden folding chairs that have been in use in the St. Andrew’s church hall for many, many decades.

This vintage folding chair can be yours!

The folding chair, folded.

The chairs have a great midcentury design and are very sturdy, but they are a little too low for people sitting on them to be comfortable at one of the Turkey Supper or Ham Supper tables. So we’re going to replace them with newer chairs – and that means that if you’d like one or more of the old ones, you may have them for the low, low price of $5 each. (Bulk discounts available; and if you’d like to donate more for a chair – hey, all proceeds go to help the work of our church – we’ll accept it gratefully.)

I thought I’d do a little digging into the history of these chairs, and began by checking them for a manufacturer’s stamp. Sure enough, I found it:

The stamp on the underside of the St. Andrew’s folding chairs. It tells us that they were made by the Globe Furniture Co. of Waterloo, Ont., and also that the chair’s model name was #7.

Then I poked around the internet to see what I could find out about the Globe Furniture Co., and came upon this very enlightening article from the Waterloo Region Record, headlined “Globe Furniture’s products went to churches around the world.” I learned that the company was founded way back in 1889 (a year before St. Andrew’s opened) and was in operation until 1968. I learned that Globe Furniture “was known for the ornate wooden pews, altars and pulpits it made for churches in Canada and as far away as Peru and South Africa” and that it “also made school desks and theatre seats.”

Now, “theatre seats” is close to how Globe Furniture marketed the chairs that have been in use at St. Andrew’s for all these years. Further internet digging (I searched for “Globe Furniture Co. No. 7 chairs”) located a wealth of information about the company made available by the Waterloo Public Library. (God love public libraries.) And more specifically, an article including this vintage advertisement which, in its lower half, features our very chairs!

There it is! The No. 7 Portable Folding Chair! The words in the blurb below the photo are partially cut off, but I think I’ve got it right in filling in the blanks: “This chair is especially well adapted for use in School Assembly Halls, Town Halls, Lodges and other places where the chairs are frequently to be stacked to clear the floor. Backs and seats are cross banded birch veneers. Legs and stretches are solid Birch.”

So there you go, people: you can own a piece of Ontario manufacturing history and of St. Andrew’s United history, and provide your home or cottage (or School Assembly Hall, if you happen to have one) with one or more sturdy birch folding chairs. At the bargain price of $5 each!

And hey, if you can’t make it to the Turkey Supper but would like a No. 7 chair or three, contact me (leave a comment on this post, or email me at sedgwick.katherine@gmail.com) to make arrangements. We’d prefer it if you could come get your chairs, but if that’s not possible and you’re not too far away from Queensborough, I’m fairly sure Raymond and his red truck can be pressed into service to deliver them to you.

But vintage chairs or no vintage chairs, you owe it to yourself to come for the St. Andrew’s Turkey Supper. All the details are below. And if you come, please say hi! I’ll be there helping out, as always, under the direction of the church women who (unlike me) know what they’re doing. A good time, and a great meal, will be had by all.

Welcome to Blue Sky Country

The Black River in “downtown” Queensborough on a recent sunny September day.

I’ve started noticing something about the photos I take here in the Queensborough area. It’s that despite what the ostensible subject of my photo is, there’s very often a surprise guest star – to wit, the sky. We have great sky around here.

In some ways I’ve kind of recognized that ever since Raymond and I bought the Manse. I well remember the 4½-hour drive we’d make from our then-home in Montreal on a Friday night, and the awe I would feel when first stepping out of the car here in Queensborough and looking up to see a dark, clear sky – far from the bright lights of the city – absolutely sparkling with a universe-sized blanket of stars. It was awe-inducing then; it still is.

Another time, shortly after we moved here permanently, I did a little post (it’s here) specifically about the great big skies that you notice as you’re driving past the farms and fields around us. This is the photo I used in that post, which celebrated the gorgeous clouds as well as the huge blue sky:

The McKinnon barn (Queensborough Road just west of Queensborough) under a glorious late-afternoon sky.

But I got thinking more about our clear blue skies toward the end of this past spring, sparked by a comment from a friend and former Montreal Gazette colleague. I’d done a post about moving the very last of our stuff out of the Montreal house, which we’d finally sold, and in it had used some photos of scenes that greeted us at the Manse when we arrived here with the last truck- and carload. They included a few along the lines of this one, featuring the elm tree we planted a while back…

… and this one, featuring the clothesline that I love so much:

In response, Charles (who is a science buff), commented:

“Look at that clear sky. If you and Ray haven’t at least thought about getting a good-size telescope, you aren’t doing the Manse site justice. If I lived there full time, I’d build a massive Dobsonian.”

In the months since then, I’ve been paying more and more attention to the beautiful clear skies here. I especially notice them when we visit, or drive through, Toronto; I am unfailingly astounded by the smog and haze that one encounters in the air even when you’re almost an hour out from the city. It makes me appreciate the fresh clear air of my Queensborough home that much more.

Anyway, let me show you a few photos I took recently that weren’t supposed to be about the sky at all, but in which the blueness and clearness made the surprise guest appearance that I mentioned at the start of this post. I should mention that no filters have been used on any of these photos; what you see is the real thing.

This photo was intended to be about the attractive metal sign over the historic cemetery at Hazzards Church, which I am pleased and proud to say was made right here in Queensborough by master craftsman Jos Pronk at Pronk Canada Inc. Queensborough Machine Shop. But when I looked at the photo afterward – man, that is about as blue as ever a sky could be!

The skies over the parking area at the recent Hastings County Plowing Match at the McKinnon Farm just west of Queensborough.

The most beautiful of blue skies over the scene of the recent Feast From Farm local-food event beside Stoco Lake in the village of Tweed.

I took this photo to show low water levels (caused by the ongoing drought in Eastern Ontario) at Queensborough’s popular swimming spot, the millpond on the Black River. But when I looked again – that’s a pretty nice skyscape. Not to mention its reflection.

The view from the Manse’s front porch – where I’m writing this post – on any given summer day.

This one was intended to show the just-starting-to-wane Harvest Moon that shone brightly over the Manse this morning as I left for work, about 7:30 a.m. But it also shows the brilliant blue of the sky that the moon is in:

Here, just in case you’re interested, is a closer look at that morning moon:

Last but not least, here is some late-summer, late-day sun on the monumental red pine that’s across the way from us. Raymond and I adore that tree; we call it the Tree of Life.

I think the perfect clear blue of the sky makes the colour of the sunlight in the upper branches that much more glorious.

So I hope I’ve made my case about the beauty of the skies around this magical place that Raymond and I have chosen to live. Now: a little Willie Nelson, anyone?

In which we eat locally, and well, in glorious surroundings

Visitors check out the amazing selection of different kinds of organic garlic grown by Elly Finlayson (behind the counter, left, aided by her mum, the artist Jean Finlayson) at her Railway Creek Farms operation – which, I am pleased and proud to say, is just up the road from Queensborough in the hamlet of Cooper. Note the brilliant blue skies and the setting right beside Stoco Lake. Pretty nice!

Many’s the time I’ve told you about how good we are, here in the Queensborough area, at serving up great community meals. Whether it’s the famous St. Andrew’s United Church suppers (the Ham Supper in the spring and the Turkey Supper in the fall, and more on the latter at the end of this post), or community potlucks, or pancake breakfasts, or barbecues that are part of special events, or the food booth at the recent Hastings County Plowing Match – well, let’s just say that if you are fortunate enough to be in Queensborough when there’s a meal to be had, you will go away happy and replete.

Yesterday there was just such an event in our little hamlet, but before Raymond and I could even get to it, we had the opportunity to eat very, very well just a few miles away. The occasion was the annual Feast From Farm event in the village of Tweed, where local food producers show off their bounty – vegetables, beef, pork, lamb, chicken, herbs, baked goods, and so on – and we lucky visitors get to sample delightful dishes made by local chefs with these local products.

Palmateer’s Meats of Tweed has been in business a long, long time, and there’s a reason for that – great-quality local products. Yesterday people were lining up for a taste of sausage freshly made by Tara Palmateer (left). It was delicious!

So I’m going to show you some photos from Feast From Farm, and then carry you on into a much lower-key but also delightful food event that happened later in the afternoon right here in Queensborough. All to show you that we really know how to eat and have a good time around here.

The booth of the Enright Cattle Co., a farm just outside Tweed that produces beef that’s in demand in top Ontario restaurants. We enjoyed an amazing snack – Hoisin Glazed Enright Cattle Beef Taco with Srirachi Aioli – prepared by the folks from the excellent Capers Restaurant in Belleville. Yum!

Also at the Enright Cattle Co. booth: a display of the gorgeous handcrafted bags made from the carcasses of the farm’s cattle. I am lucky enough to own one of those bags!

A lineup (which Raymond was in, though toward the back) for treats made from Langevin Sheep Company lamb.

I like the fact that there’s a sheep farm not far from us – it’s between Tweed and Flinton – and I also like their pretty sign! Raymond, who loves fresh lamb, likes all of this even more than I do.

Another thing you can do with locally grown food products: carve them! The kids were enjoying this.

Aside from all the good food we got to enjoy, I have to say the beautiful early-fall weather and the glorious lakeside setting made the event that much more enjoyable.

Beautiful trees (I believe they are ash) tower over the lakeside site of Feast From Farm.

The Potter Settlement Winery booth was a popular spot, where lineups formed as soon as the sun made it over the yardarm. Don’t worry – I don’t know what “the sun’s over the yardarm” means either, and I’m not sure anyone does. Basically it think it means  it’s a respectable hour to taste some amazing wine made with grapes grown right here in central Hastings County. The owner of Potter Settlement, Sandor Johnson, was on hand to pour and talk about his products, which are very quickly gaining wide acclaim. Just check out this recent splashy article in the Toronto Star!

Another look at the Potter Settlement Winery booth. Raymond and I were lucky enough to be able to purchase a case of the fast-disappearing 2013 Marquette, which is an absolutely outstanding red. And made right here in our neck of the woods!

So after all this tasting, we headed back to the car with a case of Potter Settlement wine, some fat, fresh Hungarian garlic from Elly Finlayson’s Railway Creek Farms, a bottle of Kricklewood Farm Cold-Pressed Sunflower Oil, some recipes and business cards to aid us in future purchases (fresh lamb, yum, says Raymond) – and very full tummies.

But the eating wasn’t over yet!

This friendly cornstalk scarecrow welcomed visitors to the Queensborough Community Centre corn roast.

Next on the agenda was the annual corn roast hosted by the Queensborough Community Centre committee, of which we are members.

What a lovely garden! It was planted by children taking part in the annual summer youth drop-in program at the Queensborough Community Centre. There’s a mix of annuals and perennials, including some from historic local gardens. Since the summer program ended at the start of August, volunteers have been carefully tending to the garden.

The QCC holds several events throughout the year, and the corn roast is probably the most laid-back of them all. On a sleepy September Sunday afternoon, 10 or 12 dozen ears of fresh local corn are boiled, a few dozen hot dogs barbecued, and people come, grab some nosh and a drink – all free of charge – and sit down for a spell on one of the benches that have been set out under the trees in front of the community centre, our village’s former one-room schoolhouse dating from the dawn of the 20th century.

Did I mention that these food events were taking place in beautiful locations?

Yesterday as we sat on the benches under the trees, we shared stories and news and gossip with our neighbours as we enjoyed the simple but good food. People came, people went; there was a quiet buzz all afternoon. At the corn roast you almost always meet someone from the neighbourhood whom you didn’t know before, and that’s really nice.

A relaxed way to spend the afternoon: enjoying hot dogs and fresh corn on a bench under the trees at the historic Queensborough Community Centre (formerly the village’s one-room schoolhouse).

I would like to think that right about now you are saying to yourself: “My gracious but there’s a lot of good stuff going on in the Queensborough area! Notably when it comes to food. I must visit one of these times…”

Which is exactly what you should do. And I will tell you exactly when.

Homemade pie is the specialty at the St. Andrew’s Turkey Supper on Sept. 28.

The St. Andrew’s United Church Turkey Supper – at which you will enjoy a full turkey dinner, including our absolutely fabulous homemade pies – takes place Wednesday, Sept. 28, from 4:30 to 7 p.m. It’s held in the hall of our church, at 812 Bosley Rd., and this year while you’re eating your amazing turkey dinner you can also take in the renovations we (the St. Andrew’s congregation, that is) have done to the hall over the past summer: a new floor, newly painted walls, and a fresh look overall. The ticket price for the supper is $14 for adults, $6 for young people aged six to 12, and free for children under six. All proceeds go to support the work of St. Andrew’s, a vibrant little rural church.

It’s an event about food and community, in equal measure. It’s in Queensborough. In lovely surroundings. What more could you ask for?

Everyone loves a good apple. But what kind is it?

The first apple I picked from the apple tree that Raymond and I acquired when we bought the property next door to the Manse. This photo of it proved ever so popular on social media. Now comes the important question: what kind of apple is it?

The goldenrod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
with fruit are bending down.

Did you learn that little poem in your school days? I certainly did, sometime early in my elementary-school career at Madoc Township Public School, when I was growing up right here at the Manse. It was one of the poems we students were required to memorize and recite out loud, back in the time when such things actually happened in elementary schools. Longtime readers might recall a post I did some time ago about my younger brother John and his youthful recitation of this poem, hampered by a missing baby tooth or two: “The goldenwod is wullow…”

Anyway: despite the terrible drought that has gripped Eastern Ontario this summer, the trees in apple orchards really are bending down with fruit this September. Or actually – I can’t speak for the orchards, because I don’t know of any cultivated apple orchards around Queensborough. But the apple trees in people’s yards, and at the edges of farm fields and fence lines, and along the roadsides, are most certainly bending down with a bumper crop of fruit. Maybe drought is good for apple crops? Hard to imagine, but there sure are a lot of apples.

The branches of our very own apple tree are laden with fruit.

Including, I am pleased to say, on the apple tree that graces the property next to the Manse – a property that Raymond and I bought about a year ago. It’s from that tree that the apple you can see me holding in the photo at the top of this post was picked about five seconds before the photo was taken. I posted the photo on Instagram and Facebook a couple of days ago, with a few words to the effect that it was the first time I’d ever picked an apple from our own tree, and that it tasted really good. (Which it did. Super-crisp and perfectly sweet-tart.)

Gracious, the number of likes and comments that came in! From old friends and new, from all over Canada and the U.S. Perhaps it’s the season: late summer turning to fall, when apples are at their best and people are thinking about them. Perhaps it was a reminder for some of the childhood treat of picking and eating a just-ripe apple from your family’s tree, or that of a neighbour. Whatever the reason, I was inspired to carry on with the apple-tree theme for today’s instalment of Meanwhile, at the Manse.

One of the nicest responses I had to posting the photo on social media was a reminiscence shared in person yesterday morning at church (St. Andrew’s United in Queensborough). A neighbour and friend said to me: “That apple tree – I remember walking under it on the way to school.” The tree stands on the edge of the property, alongside Queensborough Road and the narrow sidewalk along which generations of children once walked every day to and from classes at Queensborough’s one-room schoolhouse, which stands maybe a hundred yards west of the tree.

The old one-room schoolhouse in Queensborough, now the Queensborough Community Centre.

I will always regret missing – by just one year – the chance to attend that one-room schoolhouse; it was closed the summer before six-year-old me was to start school, which is why I ended up at much bigger and fancier (for those days) Madoc Township P.S. But regrets aside, I love the image of schoolchildren decades ago stopping to pick apples from the very tree that Raymond and I can now call ours.

A view of the apple tree as a kid would see it walking home at the end of an early-fall schoolday. I would think those easy-to-reach apples would be pretty tempting.

And I love the idea that our apple tree is an old one. Because – well, you folks know me. I’m a sucker for history, and for stuff that’s been around a long time. Like the Manse. And the apple tree. And the house on the property next door, the property where the apple tree grows:

The house on the property next to the Manse, commonly called the Kincaid House after the family that lived there for many, many years. This beautiful picture is by Queensborough photographer Dave deLang.

At the moment we use the house for storage, primarily of our large (to put it mildly) book collection. But someday, someday… a bookshop, maybe?

But back to the apples. One question I got as a result of my apple-photo post on social media was what kind of apples they are. Wealthy was one suggestion, and I have to say I had never heard of that variety before. (I have since learned a bit more, thanks to various websites including this one from Maine, which says that the Wealthy “is considered to be a standout among pie apples.” Sadly, as my friends know, pie-making is not my forte.) Another suggestion was Northern Spy. My own first guess was McIntosh, since those are common around here, but my friend who remembered the tree from her Queensborough school days was doubtful about that. As this site (from an apple-growing outfit a bit southwest of Toronto) indicates, all three varieties are to be found in Ontario.

But if you’ve ever looked through the criteria for discerning apple varieties (as Raymond did, when I posed the question to him of what our apples might be), you’ll find that the variables are many, and coming up with the right answer is pretty darn hard. So, readers, it’s your turn.

Does anyone familiar with our Queensborough apple tree know what kind it is? Or are there any apple experts out there who can identify it from my photo?

And hey, if you need a taste in order to come up with the answer: stop by and pick one yourself! You just have to reach over the fence – like many a schoolkid before you.