Glenn Ells happily flogging a new book with a 29 year history

 

What a guy that Glenn Ells is

  It was Shakespeare who said:

  All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

  They have their exits and their entrances;

  And one man in his time plays many parts.

Glenn Ells is one of those guys. Born into the proud farming community of Sheffield Mills where he represents the seventh-generation, he studied agriculture and then put on his straw hat. Then back in the 70s he got interested in politics and ran for office, becoming MLA for Kings North. He also served as minister of environment. That was, he says, his insane period.

If the Liberal government of the day hadn’t been defeated, Glenn says, he would have been a backbencher watching former Premier John Buchanan spend all the money they had saved. Glenn says this would have driven him crazy.

So in 1978 he happily went back to being a farmer. Over the years Glenn switched his specialties from being an orchardist to a squash consultant to a viticulturist.

Early in 1994, premier John Savage called Glenn, as president of Kings Produce Ltd., about trade prospects in Cuba. It only made sense if Cuban squash were ripe when our winter supply had run out. Glenn and his wife Leta began a series of annual visits to the island nation and in doing so they made a lot of friends.

In 1985 he started writing a newspaper column for this paper called On the Farm. Glenn continued his weekly contributions for 29 years.

Once he got the writing thing down and always interested in history, Glenn went on to formulate two novels, Starting Over and its sequel, Second Chance. While his first novel was designed to explain family history to his 13 grandchildren, he obviously enjoyed reinventing the past.

The Ells family has some pretty interesting ancestors. His forefather, Joshua, a weaver by trade, was among 8,000 Planters who came to the Cornwallis Township and other townships in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick over 250 years ago.

While Glenn got sidetracked by cataracts from writing more fiction, he didn’t stop writing. His third project, accomplished over several winters, was his own autobiography. It is entitled Life According to Glenn.

The latest project of this energetic 85-year-old is a compilation of his popular columns from The Advertiser. This new book offers readers a good deal of insight into rural life in Kings County beginning in Glenn’s childhood.

Even though I know zilch about farming, Glenn’s stories of the late Roy Pearle teaming oxen, for example, capture my interest. “Every once in a while someone came along that knew animals. They immediately established an understanding with the teams under their care.” Roy was one of the great ones.

Glenn also shares his memories of men in the agriculture community that I remember well too. There were giants like Howard Fuller, Charles Eaves and Gerald Smeltzer. He wrote about climate change as early as 1993.

Community tales, like the Sheffield Mills Orchestra, make great reading too. He also gives credit to the rural schoolhouses attracting “women that came to teach and stayed, had much more influence on the community development than the school house building.”

Remembering the deported

His record of the seasons is important. I can practically taste the maple syrup Glenn wrote about in March of 1994. There are eternal memories for those of us in the Annapolis Valley of snowshoeing, skating outdoors on frozen ponds and rum in the woodhouse.

He has such great perspective on life. “When people get older sometimes they think that they get wiser. Now that I am older, you will notice evidence that I suffer from this delusion” and he goes on to discuss land use.

Glenn ends with some interesting observations following the end of his column in 2014. He looks most optimistically at “young people seeing the benefits of a lifestyle that meets their needs and dreams and is friendly to the environment at the same time.”

This is really a treasure trove of a book. No wonder Glenn is happily spending the fall peddling books. I  saw him just last Wednesday with a table at the Kentville Farmers Market.

This column was previously published in The Valley Journal Advertiser

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