Wendi Stewart – Wendi with an ‘eye’

I am moving. I sold my beautiful property with the maple syrup trees and the Ginkgo tree and its history of 270 million years and the Butternut rescued from my friend’s back yard. I leave the blueberries and the blackberries that grow in abundance. I leave my pony buried beneath […]

I am having a mixed green salad for supper tonight. I’m not expecting your applause for my healthy meal choice nor do I think you should care about what I am eating, but I do hope you care about what I am going to tell you about the dressing I […]

I bet you thought I was going to write about dandelions, those yellow works of art that began popping out on my lawn yesterday (May 11) as I write this, like sunshine in the grass. But I’m not going to. I wrote about dandelions in my very first column back […]

It is spring today. Not because the grass is growing. Not because the trees are straining to burst into leaf. Not because the pussy willows have come and gone as has the maple syrup. Not even because the frogs are singing to me at night, my window lifted enough to […]

While I was in Vancouver I met a friend at Queen Elizabeth Park, which is a “horticultural jewel” according to the City of Vancouver’s Parks and Recreation Department and I would have to concur. The park is at the geographic centre of Vancouver. The park is a former rock quarry […]

I love hats–hats on other people. I can’t do a hat unless it is a ball cap and I’m hiding a frightening hair day. You have to have a certain sort of panache to pull off wearing a hat. The word panache is derived from the historical reference to a […]

I am in Vancouver. It is spring here. The magnolias are in bloom and the grass has been cut, rhododendrons are popping out in big loud colour here and there and everywhere, while at home in Nova Scotia the brown wintered grass is buried in snow and the trees are […]

Years ago I heard an interview with Martha Stewart (no relation) and the only statement she made that stuck with me all these 20-plus years was the answer she gave when asked who helped her get to where she was going, who inspired her, who gave her a hand up […]

I love the stories my daughters share about the antics of their wee ones. My grandchildren are learning to maneuver through this crazy world and the stories of them make me smile, giggle and guffaw on a regular basis, even the tales that involve emotional meltdowns. The beauty of being […]

I’m not sure there are many tasks I find more gratifying than making maple syrup. It’s a bit like magic. It’s called sugarin’ season by some but whatever you call it, the act of collecting sap and putting it on my wood stove makes me happy. I have a gargantuan […]

I may have been watching too many spy movies lately. Let me explain. I was walking one morning last week, checking my maple tree buckets and shaking my fist at Mother Nature, who promised ideal temperatures that week. I got an eyelash in my eye and I was fussing and […]

I love an umbrella and not for the obvious reason of keeping dry in a downpour, though I suppose that reason may play a part. And it can’t be any umbrella. It must be an umbrella that looks as though it has a story to tell, a secret perhaps, and […]