Today (Monday) was the official due date for my cows to start calving but I’m hoping they hold off for a couple more days since it looks like the temperatures might be a bit more tolerable. I’ve been getting up every few hours in the night since Feb. 1—just in […]
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Growth is important. My son was 19-and-a-half inches long when he was born—a very appropriate size for a newborn. But he had to grow! He grew to be six feet tall. Then he stopped growing and that was good! What if he had gone on–seven feet, eight feet, nine feet. […]
Funny how minus-20 and minus-25 feels warm compared to minus-40 and minus-50! No complaints but I will take some warmer days and nights! I notice the cows mostly sleep on warmer nights. But when it was cold, they seemed to be up eating—trying to stay warm and likely keep their […]
The Stupor Bowl—that pretty well wraps it up. There were some entertaining commercials, enthusiastic fans, and even a decent half-time show—sans a costume malfunction. The colour commentary, as usual, was pretty inane. Too bad there wasn’t a football game to go with it all. Like most, I was mystified at […]
This past week, the Ontario Liberal government announced it intends to raise the minimum wage to $11 an hour. The raise, if passed, would see an increase in the minimum wage by 75 cents and would be the first the province has seen since 2010. It also would ensure future […]
Give a child a mountain of dirt or snow and a group of children can be amused for months. In climbing to the top of a dirt pile, the only one disappointed is the washerwoman who has to clean ground-in dirt. When climbing to the top of snow piles, even […]
I’m not a fan of winter. I suppose I was an enthusiast at one time, when building snow forts was obligatory, throwing snowballs unavoidable, and careening down the hill on a long wooden toboggan or aluminum flying saucer was requisite—all part of the natural rights and privileges of childhood. But […]
This week past was a tough one. On Friday, the Veterans Affairs office in Thunder Bay closed its doors for the final time. It was an undignified slap-in-the-face to local veterans and those across the country. Over the past year, NDP MPs joined with the Public Service Alliance of Canada […]
Those of you back home reading my column probably have heard enough about all the fishing that I’ve been doing in warm and sunny Florida over the past couple of weeks, but that’s what I’ve been doing. The first bass tournament of the 2014 FLW Tour season starts this week […]
I am a big fan of knitting. Do you knit? I taught myself to knit when I was 20. I call it therapy—perfect therapy—but at 20, I didn’t know it was therapy. I thought it was just a bunch of stitches cast on that took a few tries to get […]
My childhood home was the second one built on the 800 block of Third Street East in Fort Frances. Art Debenedet had built the first home, which stood at the corner of Third and Frenette Avenue. There was another home at the corner of Third and Shevlin without any between. […]
Ice fishing. I tried it for the first time two weekends ago, and all I’ve thought about since is how much fun I had and “When can we go again?” Where have I been all my life that I didn’t try ice fishing until now? I live in Northwestern Ontario […]
