Pop-up parade brings some Christmas cheer
Decorated vehicles rolled through area communities this season
You’ve probably heard of pop-up shows and pop-up shops. In the former, a group of quietly organized performers break out in song and dance to the delight of passersby. In the latter a retailer displays their wares in a temporary locale.
Well how about pop-up parades? Such a phenomenon appeared in OSM Township this year when smaller communities decked out an assortment of vehicles and rolled through their neighbourhoods in festive style.
One parade happened a week before Christmas in Stewart Hall and on Christmas evening another parade cheered up residents in Lang.
That’s the spirit!
Diary of an Otonabee Farmer
The journals of John Graham Weir (1844 — 1925) were donated to Trent Valley Archives by the Mitchell family of Stoney Creek.
1886 Jan. 4, Mon.
Wilton Tennyson came here this morning and I went with him to the little barn for a load of peas. I put 26 bushels on the wag on. Coming through Duff us’ ploughed field some places there was no frost and the wheels sunk to the hubs. The horses had a hard pull to get through. 1886 Jan. 6
We went to town after dinner today with the cutter and had a miserable ride. The road was rough and scarcely any snow. Very cold last night and today.
1887 Jan. 6, Thurs.
I took a load of wood to Mr. Butcher. In the evening Lovina and I went to Edward Bowie’s and I went to the Orange Lodge. It was twelve o'clock when we got home. This is a lovely night. The moon is almost at the full and the snow is on the trees and roofs and fences and everything looks so pure and white.
1887 Jan. 8
I went to town with a load of straw and there was more hay, straw and wood on the market than I ever seen there before. There was at one time fourteen loads of hay standing on the market and beef too was a drug on the market.
1887 Jan. 10
I took twenty bushels of spring wheat to market and sold it for .85 per bushel, that being the highest price paid this season. I brought home a load of stove coal.
1889 Jan. 10, Thurs.
Last night and today we have had a fearful storm of wind accompanied by some snow. Terrible damage has been done in and around Niagara. The Suspension Bridge was blown down last night and it alone is a loss of $200,000. Many lives have been lost and many large buildings have been blown down in the wake of the cyclone. Letitia and Charley Lowes of Manitoba were here for dinner and tea, also Robert and Isabella Mitchell.
1897 Jan. 4, Mon.
Yesterday we went to church and the weather has been so warm and spring like that the little “pussycats” as we used to call the little downey blossoms on the willows are out as they are in April. Today the men each took a load of stones to the canal and I took a load of rye to McBain’s storehouse. At noon it commenced to rain and rained all the afternoon. The roads are deep with mud. 1901 Jan. 7, Mon.
I had Hazlitt, M. Fitzgerald, a man from Duffus and my own two men cutting peas with the straw cutter all day. Splendid weather. Snowed enough last night to make sleighing. We went to church yesterday in the buggy and heard a splendid sermon given by the Rev. Mr. Wilson. 1901 Jan. 8
John Wicker, Walter Tully and I were cutting wood in the swamp. This has been another splendid day. Hazlitt’s straw stack fell this afternoon and covered a horse and two cows and we helped get them out.