Recognize the name? Maybe not. Try Poplar, Trembling Aspen, Popple, Asp, and White Poplar. These are all common names for the same tree. The scientific name (Populus tremuloides) is the same all over the world. This poplar is one of four which can be found in Northern Ontario. Some of […]
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I ended up with 12 calves last week, and they seemed to enjoy the colder weather. Luckily, I ended up making an extra calving pen in the barn since I could see the weather was going to turn and I had a fair number of cows very close. It looks […]
This past week, the staff at the Fort Frances Times went through intensive training on new software.You will not see a great deal of difference in the paper, but the changes were required because the software we were using was becoming very dated. By dated, I’m admitting the software was […]
This past week in Ottawa was a busy one, with continued uncertainty surrounding Harper’s plans to change Old Age Security (OAS), a key vote on the long-gun registry, and a meeting with my fellow New Democrat MPs from Northern Ontario to discuss the new riding redistribution scheme that’s coming to […]
Walter Cronkite spoke to my father every weekday evening with the CBS Evening News. My father sat in his green chair, placed at just the right angle for the television, his legs crossed, right over left, leaving a small V-shaped spot in his chair into which I fit perfectly. I […]
The time slot for this column seems to appear out of nowhere, like the next guy’s electric bumper car in a race around the track at the fair. All of my time is spent trying to figure out what just happened, and then I look at the calendar and it […]
This week I am participating in a “Poverty Challenge,” organized by Making Kenora Home, a group that advocates on behalf of the homeless in Kenora. The purpose of the challenge is to raise awareness of the difficulties of living a balanced and healthy life on social assistance rates, and I […]
Darn that Jennifer Jones. If it wasn’t for her rink sneaking in through the back door in the Manitoba playdowns to make another appearance at this year’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts, which gets underway Saturday afternoon in Red Deer, Alta., this would have been arguably the most wide-open field in […]
The past week went by in a blur for me but it was one of the highlights of my life. I participated in my first-ever pro-level bass tournament, fishing the FLW Tour Open at Lake Okeechobee in Florida. The past week included a three-day practice period where I had my […]
I read the obituaries. Not often, but sometimes. I see a life I knew, or knew of, that ended and I ache for those who are obligated to carry on. I see the commercials on TV that warn us to “Make death wait.” But sometimes death won’t wait; death just […]
In the home I grew up in, the use of vulgar language was never tolerated. Even the use of descriptive terms to identify bodily functions would result in a strong verbal reprimand. We used numbers instead to describe those functions. As I grew up, other words came to our attention […]
One of the most important issues to me is consumer awareness of hydro and natural gas retailers. Energy retailers are privately-owned companies that buy electricity or natural gas and then resell it to homeowners at a profit. Unlike public utilities, where the price is regulated and based on the cost […]
