I sometimes feel a conundrum in that the child version of myself is obligated to exist inside this aging body that I am carting around these days. I seem to know or understand less about this human race we are part of than I did when I was eight years […]

Prison gardens foster rehabilitation and healing for incarcerated men, according to a study funded by The Canadian Institute of Health Research, reported on in 2019. Many agriculture programs in the correctional system focus on the financial benefit of offsetting institutional costs, but in Canada, a prison garden program engages incarcerated […]

If you’re feeling down about the state of the world, and there certainly is good reason to these days, I have another antidote for you—join a community group of gardeners. It’s a failproof remedy for all the troubles in the world. That may seem to border on hyperbole, but I […]

Summer is coming, though it seems doubtful, judging by the temperatures here in Nova Scotia. My heat has been on all but one or two days for the entire month of May, and with those chilly temperatures, rain has tagged along. I will not complain about the rain since most […]

I’m still trying to convince myself that I am a watercolour artist, with tongue in cheek. The qualification in my case is laughable, but what a lot of fun I am having. Something that interests and confuses me is the colour names of watercolour paint. I found one source that […]

Someone I love has started down the path with dementia. No one wants to take that road; we would put up our hand and say no thank you, but we’re not always driving the bus. I hear friends and neighbours express the shock of how many of us fall victim […]

Do you believe poetry can change the world? Your immediate response may not support that premise. I’m certainly not a poet, but after stumbling upon the poetry of Daragh Fleming late last year, as I wrote in a column, I changed my position. Recently, I collided with Harry Baker’s poetry, […]

Yesterday was Red Dress Day, observed every year on May 5 as a National Day of Awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and Two-Spirit people, a response of mourning and a demand for action. The Red Dress is a powerful visual symbol. The first colour used in […]

Lately, I seem to spend too much time pondering the concept of being elderly, and if I qualify. We like to label each other, that’s for sure, and no less when it comes to age – toddler, teen, millennials (who seem to me to get a bad rap), middle-aged, and […]

Sometimes I like to imagine how I would have spent my time if I had a second run at living my life, given the chance. The exercise may sound laced with regret, but on the contrary, the imagining is just for fun. There would be a few things I would […]