So this is interesting and I can't wait to see how it all pans out over the next decade or so.
I'm not a gambling woman but I would put money on my guess of what is going to happen to the Ontario Livestock exchange, hell the whole St. Jacobs Farmers Market that we have all grown up to love. From where we live there are basically only 3 different ways to make it into town. 1 way we take if we need to enter on the south side, a second way if we want to make it dead center in the middle of the city and a third way if we need to do some shopping in North Waterloo. The third way I don't use very often but this morning I happened to need a few things from the feed mill which happens to be in North Waterloo. I thought too that I would also stop at the grocery store to pick up a few chili ingredients for dinner. I grumble because the nearest grocery store is known to be a little more high end = more expensive. Then that little light bulb over my left ear flickers on as I remember that they had just built a brand new Walmart in North Waterloo. Perfect! They carry everything that I need for my chili and lucky for Walmart, my saving a couple bucks is more important than worrying about the couple of bucks I do spend are going to 'rollback' directly to The U.S. of A.
I grab my chicken feed, spot Walmart (I know, hard to miss) and pull up the newly widened (from one lane to up to 4 in some spots) road noting all of the construction activity taking place around me. At a red light at the entrance to the parking lot I sing along to a Taylor Swift song and read down the long list of 'coming soon' store names to my left. Dollarama, Payless, a Gaming store, The Hilton (??). Hmmm. Then I turn my head to the right and I am looking at the several rows of barns housing countless numbers of horses, cows, pigs, chickens, goats, sheep and on the odd occasion even some more exotic animals like Llamas and giraffes (no, just kidding about the giraffes) but you get the idea. A big pot-hole filled, dusty parking lot sits between Walmart and about 400 tons of manure and cattle flatulence. Neat! I have been to the Livestock Exchange often, buying and selling horses, I've seen the poo! I wonder how long the sale barns are going to last in Walmartland. Also sharing the parking lot with the barns is the (what started out a quaint gathering spot for all of the local farmers to bring out their harvest, homemade jams and stewing hens turned HUGE, tourist attraction, amped up version of ) farmer's market. They hung onto the title "Farmer's" because "Made in China Market" wouldn't fit on the sign.
Anyway, Sorry I'm getting a tad vent-y here but can you see what I see. You could buy some hand-made birdhouse from the box of farmer Ted's pickup in the dusty parking lot or you could 'pick one up' made out of a lighter, more eye sore plastic for 1/3 the price at Walmart. Or hey, go one step further and pop into $1.25arama, they have got to sell birdhouses'!
So next time any of you need to pick up some hair conditioner, an area rug, some rabbit pelts, garbage bags, a rooster, some sharpies, a bike, a Holstein cow, some home-grown blueberry honey, and need to rent a room at the Hilton just let me know and I'll give you directions.
Someone sure had their thinking cap when they unrolled the blueprints for that one!! Way to go Canada!
