A few weeks ago, two old friends of mine turned up at the farm unannounced for a visit. Without thinking, I invited them into the house and they sat on the couch in the living room – the first … [Read more...]
OPINION: Today, everyone is an expert but I see red flags unless expert talk includes humility that inspires confidence and trust
Last month my cardiologist put me on a beta blocker to lower my blood pressure and asked me to take daily readings with the little Chinese-made monitor I keep on my desk. After a week, I was alarmed … [Read more...]
Like Manna From Heaven
About five years ago my eldest son developed a keen interest in mushrooms, and suddenly our front yard and garden were littered with stacks of logs he had inoculated with various strains of edible … [Read more...]
OPINION: Got the supply chain blues that only a guy from Georgia with a garbage can bacon smoker can cure
This whole past year has given us a steady diet of bad news about supply chain issues, with hungry factories, tight inventories, shipping bottlenecks, resource shortages and thousands of people who … [Read more...]
OPINION: What is it about rural living? Moments of clarity for the exhausted
I have a friend who moved out of the city with his wife 30 years ago to pursue a career as an editor and a shepherd on a small farm near Peterborough. He was thoroughly urban and, I would assume, … [Read more...]
OPINION: The best driver ever
Just reading in this newspaper about teenage drivers heading out on the road without licenses because the province can’t deal with the enormous backlog in testing created by the pandemic. My own … [Read more...]
Road Rage Comes to Town
Last time I picked up a prescription, the poor pharmacist put his hands to his forehead and wailed, “This used to be a quiet little town!” But progress has come to my little rural community since the … [Read more...]
OPINION: The best ideas come from old guys
Just celebrated my 70th birthday last month. We attach great importance to decades only because of the calculations of some forgotten Byzantine astrologer, not because there is any cosmic significance … [Read more...]
