Columns

In the cold winter season, we look forward to comfort food to sustain and fulfill us. For some of us, vegetables are hard to include in our comfort foods, but quite often, we do need ...

Recently, I attended a workshop that was offered by the Bruce Grey Woodlands Association. The instructor was actually one of the two people that signed off on my Cutter Certification in 1992. This training session reminded me ...

I've been making News Years' Resolutions my whole life. They've moved from a determined stance to stop biting nails and get up everyday at 6:30 to more esoteric announcements...

As I travel in Huron County I'm amazed at how many of the old farm houses have been demolished and replaced by modern structures. Sometimes, knowing the house was small or simply built, I'm not surprised. At other times, knowing ...

December usually finds me reflecting on the year that was. What worked, what didn't work, what remains a mystery, what should have had more focus, and what really doesn't matter ...

When crumbs of soil from prime farmland sift through fingers of my right hand, I conclude that it should be used to grow food crops for human consumption, while maintaining or improving ...

Fruitcake is one of those things where you either love it or hate it. If you are not a fan of dried fruits, there is not much to enjoy. You may claim I am "nuttier than a fruitcake" when I tell you this, but I love the stuff...

You sit down for a minute with acoffee and think, "I'll just watch a few videos" and next thing you know, the coffee is cold and you've wasted an hour. It's not just teenagers who can't resist the lure and addictive qualities of reels.

All around the world, in December each year, there's a good-hearted example of fraud as we raise the fiction of Santa Claus again for the benefit of our own children and the children of our community.

"Heavens, it's only December and I'm sick of winter already -- and it's not even officially winter yet!" Molly Whiteside complained as she delivered menus to the fellows' table the half-light of one morning at Mabel's Grill.

We will soon enter year five of what climate scientists tell us will be humanity's decisive decade. Unless we navigate a global change of course before 2030, they warn, we risk doing such irreversible damage to ...

Brace yourself, this is not going to be a happy good news column.
It is time to talk about yet another scary creature on our doorstep ready to attack our fruit and forest trees. We need to watch for this one as it is looking at our grape vines..

Over the years, I have been involved in many cookie exchanges. There have been many new favourites added to my recipe collection along the way. I have saved many magazines and cookbooks dedicated to Christmas bars and cookies.

My farm is little and part of me felt like the tugboat amongst a sea of freighters with the group taking the Environmental Farm Plan workshop in Kirkton this summer.
Amongst

It's a bright early Fall day shortly before Thanksgiving and it's a beautiful day to be outside. I'm in our yard, doing a little work. It's warm. There's absolutely no breeze. Across the road the neighbour's two horses whinny occasionally...

Checking out what is going on at your neighbours' places seems to be a common thing for most farmers. Whether you messed up planting... or are putting up a new building... or tearing down an old one... you can be sure you will see the slow drive by ...

We had an opportunity to rent a cottage in Shrewsbury, the little hamlet on Rondeau Bay in Chatham-Kent, in early September. There is a canal at the back and a launch nearby, a convenient location for the small wooden sailboat I built ...

" Here we go to another long, cold winter," George Mackenzie sighed as he took up a menu at Mabel's Grill the other day. "The winters seem to get longer every year!"

Though only 32, chef Zach Keeshig is already making waves in the culinary world while re-discovering and re-inventing Indigenous food with his high-end pop-up restaurant in Owen Sound, Naagan.
Naagan is pronounced...

It sits, alone on the laneway, deteriorating a little every year. Tires are flat. Seat is missing the cushion. Grease has coagulated into a dirty mass and rust is creeping along every metal joint...

In one of the other farm publications I recently saw that the Ross Butler collection is being discontinued and disbursed. Oh how it made me feel my age.
I remember, decades ago, going down to interview the artist's son David for The Rural Voice...

Grab a tourist guide for Newfoundland and there will be many "must see" things that make headlines -- Gros Morne National Park, whales, puffins, Vikings, kitchen parties -- but we discovered many things not listed in the guides that made...