Highland Grove knows how to celebrate its achievements and this week the community came together to celebrate the grand opening of the Kidd Schoolhouse Museum. MP Barry Devolin and MPP Rick Johnson joined local dignitaries, the Schoolhouse Historical Society members and locals who came out to celebrate the opening of a small dream that has fi nally become a reality. The day brought warm breezes, some toe tapping music, a variety of vendors and pony rides for the kids, while the adults turned their attention to the offi cial opening ceremony.

A Minden man has pleaded guilty to abandoning pelts and been given a suspended sentence. R. Shayne McKelvey pleaded guilty to abandoning the pelts of eight eastern coyotes. As part of a plea agreement, he has made a $1,000 donation to the Haliburton Highlands Outdoors Association. The coyotes were seized from the disposal site and will be used in research by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Court heard that an investigation into the report of abandoned wolf carcasses revealed that eight eastern coyotes had been discarded on private property in Minden.

Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, the famous painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, is quite a work to have yours compared to but when I do just that on viewing artist Lana Jean’s Phoenix Rising she laughs and states simply ‘someone else said that, too’. The painting, still on the wall of Jean’s living room, is dramatic in size and content. At 8x4 feet it fills the space; vivid hues of blue, brown, purple and green merge and swirl in an abstract composition that is at once inspiring, while also a little daunting.