I am not a fan of the term “Self Care.” One definition for it is: Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental emotional and physical health.…

By Jim Poling Sr. I am standing on the deck drinking coffee and surveying the domain. Down at the lake one of the young folks is on the family-built rink stick-handling a tennis ball while…

I struggled this year with what to give up during Lent. Lent is the roughly six-week period of penitential preparation leading into the Christian celebration of Easter. During Lent many Christians abstain from something they enjoy…

By Jim Poling Sr.    The bad boy virus COVID-19 is on Canada’s doorstep, trying to smash down the door. The betting is that it will break through and spread into communities across the country.…

By Jim Poling Sr. I can’t think of a better person to put on future $5 bills than Terry Fox the most inspirational Canadian of the last half century. The Bank of Canada is redesigning the…

By Jim Poling Sr. The hit movie Parasite winner of this year’s best picture Oscar may be fiction but it reflects what is happening in real life today. Parasite tells a story of class prejudices…

I know that February is Heart Month. Given the business that I’m in I feel every month should be heart month. As one website stated February is the month for the world to celebrate the heart.…

Perusing news from the U.S.A. I learn that people now go to a library more often than a movie theatre. A Gallup poll taken just before Christmas found that people visit a library on average…

By Laurie Sweig There’s a bunch of confusing information around whether eggs are good or bad for our health. I love eggs. Scrambled sunny side up or in a sandwich. While I don’t eat meat…

By Jim Poling Sr. The first week of February is a time of reflection for me. A time to remember a shocking – yet inspiring – tragedy that occurred on the North Atlantic a lifetime…

By Laurie Sweig I recently had the opportunity to try jackfruit. It is the chicken alternative in a butter chicken dish. I haven’t eaten chicken (or any other meat) for years. It sure tasted good…

As if we didn’t have enough worries about the environment here’s a new one: wild pigs. These beasts considered one of the world’s most destructive invasive species are well established in the Prairie provinces and…

By Jim Poling Sr. My first glimpse of the bird has my mouth watering. It looks plump and juicy and I imagine it sitting in a roast pan plucked and sprinkled with rosemary needles and…

By Jim Poling Sr. The new decade dawned with many of us hoping for change. Or perhaps for the way things used to be. Arriving with the new year was a film version of the…

By Iim Poling Sr. Many Christmas Eves have passed since the one years ago when I heard the voice of an angel. It was a voice I can never forget; a voice that gave me…

By Jim Poling Sr.   There’s news this week that an electric eel named Wattson is being used to help light up a Christmas tree at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. This would be wildly…

The best position in hockey surely is the centre. The centre player not only needs to be a fast skater but a fast thinker capable of quickly grasping and assimilating the thinking of both left…

By Jim Poling Sr. Three brittle jeers break the blessed stillness of the woods. I am found out. I was enjoying the stillness feeling totally alone and unnoticed. Observing presumably without being observed. Now I…

A whopping majority of we Canadians believe that climate change is real despite the fact that we are not well educated about the topic. That’s the conclusion I draw from a new study published this…

November is the saddest month. The second last month of the year carries a realization of growing old reaching an end. Everything is dying or about to die and the crying starts in the form…

By Laurie Sweig When I was in Grade 7 my mother insisted that I took typing as one of my classes. It was definitely not in my top three choices. Neither was Latin but I…