Mandatory reading break
RD: Lots of informative articles. There’s not enough about baking, I love the recipes, keep them coming. We have tried and enjoyed lots of them. We both enjoy the magazine; all work stops so we can read it when it arrives.
Irene and Orville Edwards
Stayner, Ont.

The elusive N.S. cougar?
RD: I have long enjoyed both my Atlantic Forestry Review and Rural Delivery. Please find enclosed a cheque to renew both.
I am also enclosing a photo. This photo was taken by my cousin James Thibideau with a trail camera in 2016. If you would, I request you forward a copy to Bob Bancroft. I do not know how to contact him. I have listened to him on the radio in the past, and know he talks about cougars in Nova Scotia. The animal in this photo looks like a cougar to me. You can publish the photo if you think it would be interesting to your readers.
Noland Mullen
Weymouth, N.S.

(Thanks for sharing that photo with us, Noland. Looks like quite a muscular critter. We did run the shot past Bob Bancroft, but he said the image doesn’t provide enough information on which to base a positive identification. A clear view of the tail would help, when it comes to cougars. Keep setting those trail cameras! DL)

Illuminating hidden gems
RD: Thanks for the great story on Moffett’s Hardware in Sussex, N.B., in the January-February issue of RD (“Two pounds of nails and a lightbulb,” by Megan de Graaf). Much like the story on the Earltown Store in the July-August 2017 issue (“Reinventing the country store,” by David Boehm), one wants to go visit.
I’m well familiar with the Earltown store, having lived there for a time in the 1980s, and we’re still landowners there. Moffett’s may be worth a road trip this summer, back to my father’s home province. Dad used to say “the weather is always better in New Brunswick.” It was a little surprising (and disturbing) the number of times when we were going to visit my grandparents in Campbellton that when crossing into that province the skies were clearing and a sunny drive ensued.
The picture of Ralph Paris weighing out some nails sure reminded me of what Walker’s in Truro, N.S., was like. There are, no doubt, other gems in the Maritimes to write about, and RD is just the place to read about them. Keep up the good work!
Tom Miller
Green Hill, N.S.

More value than meets the eye
RD: Thanks for the free classified ads for subscribers, and here’s why: from my last ad for a typewriter I got two electric typewriters, but they had special one-time carbon ribbons in patented carriages! (I need a rewind ribbon). I met great people who had electric typewriters.
One thing I learned meeting a typewriter owner in Grand Pré is if you have a field in pheasant country to cut, trench beside it so pheasants won’t nest in the fodder, because chicks get chopped up come cutting time. Pheasants like trench bracken above open fields.
Dan Hogan
Lawrencetown, N.S.