Feels like summer in Carp

The flowers are up, the river is down, the kids are playing in the creek and the dog is sleeping on the grass - I know its almost a month away but it definitely feels like summer to me.

Last weekend we had a huge breakthrough (literally). For a couple years now we have been attempting to navigate from the east to the west across the Carp Ridge on mountain bikes, ATVs and other wheeled devices - we have been turned around, gotten lost, gotten stuck, gotten wet and never actually made it through at all.

Well - it appears if you hang a left at the big rock, navigate down the small cliff over the dead trees, then wade or spin your way through the abandoned beaver dam at the halfway point, that you can actually make it through. Bring a winch though, because I got buried past the fenders and it took about half an hour to get it out.

The only disappointing thing is that when you finally get around Hidden Lake you run smack into a big construction site that poses it's own unique challenges for navigation. But, we love it here, so it follows that more and more people would want to live in Carp, so we don't really mind having to hop, skip and jump through the rock and dirt piles. :-)

Carp Fair - That's A Wrap!!!

Awesome weekend of sun and fun at the Carp Fair in Carp, Ontario...we all had a blast and it was packed with events, music, rides, games, shows, exhibits, and more. I think everyone who attended would agree that the saddest thing is having to wait a whole year before we can do it all again! Pictures and more posted online at www.carpfair.ca

The Carp Fair is X sleeps away...

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Carp Fair website is finally finished, and that there are some pretty big changes from the site you knew in previous years. In addition to creating a very easy-to-use and logical navigation for the site, we also added a ton of new features, including:

• Forms for registration in all fair classes, including heavy horse, light horse, sheep, cattle, homecraft and more.
• Forms for sponsorship and concession booths
• Slideshows from previous years and special events
• A newsletter subscription offering to get regular updates from the fair
• Revised fair calendar, maps, directions and more to find the fair

Take a look at the new Carp Fair site, and let me know what you think.

Maybe we have to really BUY the Village Green...

So it would appear that our work to "Buy the Village Green" as part of a non-profit, user-driven, consortium of loosely coupled villagers may not actually work out.

The Honeywell family, well within their right to do so, are proceeding with the rezoning for at least the first part of the land.

I have a suggestion that I am going to throw out there. What if, rather than doing it through fundraising, non-profit style, we actually create a coop and come together and actually buy some of the rezoned land and maintain it. Here are some proposed uses for the land under this scenario:
- public gardens - thanks Jake Hunt, for your awesome suggestion to have a space where we could start public gardens. A small plot for each of the coop members used as a public garden would allow the villagers to really "go local" on things like produce etc..
- economuseum - yes this was in the original plan for the Village Green but it was pretty cloudy as to who that would be and what would happen and when or if it would ever happen
- park space - I would be more than happy to donate part of my coop share for public use. I think this brings up insurance and liability issues - probably all of this does - but I am sure that these are not insurmountable.

It really is too bad that no big donors other than the Carp Agricultural Society tipped in over the 5 figure mark. That could have made all the difference, and would definitely have been a great investment in a lasting legacy for the "green investor". But seriously considering the coop model, I am wondering if I am not actually on to a better investment scenario. If you decided to leave the village or lost interest in your share, or didnt keep it up properly, then it could be sold.

There are thousands of examples of things like this working.

For the record, I am COMPLETELY supportive of the Buy The Village Green model, and I spent a lot of hours trying to make this work. Now I am worried that the opportunity will slip through our collective fingers. There is $40K there already and that could be allocated towards the "public portion" of the coop. The rest would be up to the best of Carp...I mean you.

Comment. I will push this forward if I get more than two positive responses.

Carp Fair Website Gets a Facelift

The Carp Fair has been trying to get their website updated for a long time. They wanted to let all the exhibitors, vendors and sponsors register online. They wanted a calendar of all the things going on at the fair, and at the fairgrounds, and they wanted a site that could easily be updated and they wanted to provide one consistent way to get around the site.

Well, we've done it! Check out the new Carp Fair website at http://www.carpfair.ca

One thing to watch out for. The old site which was located at http://www.carpfair.on.ca will still work for a while but eventually all traffic will be directed to the new Carp Fair website.

More Carp History

Carp is a small village west of Ottawa, Ontario, in beautiful Canada, where James Paul, an Irish shoemaker, about 24 years of age, purchased some land to make shoes way back in history - actually around the 3rd of August, 1844. James bought this half an acre near the present Swan Pub (mmmm...Swan Pub), and on that site began to operate his shoemaker business. This is the first proven non-agricultural business on a site in what is now referred to as Carp.

Three years later, in 1847, James Paul moved his shoemaker business to Pembroke - possibly since all of the locals now had quality shoes. The reality is that the actual origin of the name Carp has never been established - yet.

Early pioneers told me that there never were carp in the river, but that there were thousands upon thousands of suckers and mud pout in the river. For the people who live by or near the banks of Carp River in the 1860's and even right up until last fall, the suckers were literally "meat on the table".

Another account, The Carleton Saga, written by Harry and Olive Walker, gives the following conjecture (p.422):

"When the writer researched the origin of the name Carp as it applied to the river and the village, a student of nomenclature in Montreal, Herman J. Rolland, wrote the following possible explanation: 'The French word for sucker is "carpe", and it would seem to me that coureurs de bois may have given the name "Carpe" to the river, as they must have known of its fishing conditions, and later on the village possible adopted the name of the river.'"

How will we ever know if there were ever carpe in Carp?

Carpology

If you take a day in Carp (or seize it) should it be Carpe Diem?
If we share rides in Carp, would we Carp-ool?
If you need something built, do you call a Carp-enter?
Should you park in a Carp-ort?

These and more important issues when we return...

You are going to have to buy the Village Green

Hello Carp.

If you don't buy the Village Green, about 100 other people will buy it, and they will build small houses on it, and move in.

Then they will overcrowd the school.

There will be no bananas left at Faith's Foodliner.

The good videos will be gone at Carp Video.

Your order from Carp Valley Chinese Food will be late.

The Carp Fair will have no parking.

Might seem minor, mostly because I chose minor issues to make it seem minor. What would be better is if none of the above happened, and we had the central area of Carp preserved forever as a park, museum, school expansion, etc...for all the residents of Carp who bought a square foot of the Village Green, to save it forever, in their name.

Start buying it up so that you can't move there now!

http://www.buythevillagegreen.com

Please?