By Steve Galea Like many hunters and anglers, when it comes to hunting and fishing gear, I have a lot. I actually have so much that you could probably do a two-part episode of Hoarders…
A merry-go-round of scams
By Jim Poling Hey, Beverley J. Karl@aliciablong05@gmail.com. I am emailing to let you know that I am returning your nose. I found it sniffing around my business the other day, looking for ways to relieve…
All that is old is new again…
By Fay Martin Housing is unaffordable, we read and hear everywhere, and that is jeopardizing our economy and discouraging the younger generation. Ah, hasn’t it always been thus? In Middlemarch, George Eliot’s novel published 151…
The buck stops here
By Steve Galea f you hunt deer, two things are for certain: first, there will be times when you are sitting with a perfect wind in your face at a spot where your trail cameras…
A bureaucracy gone mad
By Jim Poling Sr. I have confirmed that COVID-19 is not a respiratory disease. It is a mental disease that makes some people more stupid than they already are. I confirmed this during yet another…
The splendour of the woods
By Jim Poling Sr. The lights dim. The audience turns to other spectacles.Nature’s annual autumn show is over. It was a spectacular one. Certainly one of the most vibrant in years. Crimson and golden hillsides…
Wondering about Ma Bell
By Jim Poling Sr. I’ve been wondering a lot recently about Bell. You know, the telephone company now into mobile phones, internet service, digital television, radio and television news, sports and entertainment programming, plus TV…
Birds for better health
By Jim Poling Sr. Probably the best thing anyone can do after listening to a morning newscast is to go outside and listen to the birds. Studies show that birds are beneficial to our mental…
They’ve got me numbered!
By Jim Poling Sr. We Canadians love our bureaucracy as much as we love our maple syrup. If we didn’t why would we swallow so much of it?I’ve been asking myself that after a recent…
Waiting for the ‘big one’
By Jim Poling Sr. Thunder Bay, Ontario – I’m sitting on the Hillcrest Park stone wall overlooking the city where I was born and raised. The view of Lake Superior and the Sleeping Giant is…
Living with beaver
By Jim Poling Sr. Thinking about putting the dock away for winter brings painful memories. And, nasty thoughts about Canada’s favourite rodent – Castor canadensis, commonly known as the beaver.Every fall I tow my dock…
Mice on the move
By Jim Poling Sr. And so begins the annual invasion of the mice. They are on the move, searching for cracks and gaps in homes, cottages, garages, sheds and other buildings where they can find…
Observe and report
By Jim Poling Sr. This week marks a special anniversary. It’s of little interest to anyone but me, but I’m writing about it anyway. Sixty years ago this week I walked into the second-floor newsroom…
Time for a different trip
By Jim Polling Sr. The world is on the move again after two and a half years of COVID. I’m itching to do some travelling but can’t decide where to go. I’ve considered Tasmania to…
Summer: going, going …
That voice is in my head again. It sneaks in every August; a throbbing, melancholy voice sighing sad words about loss and change.“All the rainbows in the skyStart to weep and say goodbyeYou won’t be…
Growing food, not lawns
By Jim Poling Sr. My lawnmower has been put away for the winter. I doubt if I’ll bring it out next spring.This year I didn’t cut the grass until well into June. It grew to…
Beauty in a marshland
By Jim Poling Sr. I was having one of those bad days that everyone has. Hot water tank gave out, thunder storm took out satellite service and a boat flying a flag with an obscenity…
Good advice from Norman
By Jim Poling Sr. The best advice given the way the world is recently came from a man celebrating his 100th birthday.Norman Lear, who produced the famous 1970s Archie Bunker show titled All in the…
The monarchy: A needed tradition?
By Jim Poling Sr. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words.I’m looking at a picture that tells me everything I need to know with one seven-letter word – madness.It’s a wire…
Turn on the audio
By Jim Poling Sr. It’s the time of summer craft sales and I find myself in a sunlit park helping a daughter display and sell some of her artwork. I’ve tossed some of my own…
Give them our respect
By Jim Poling Sr. A friend is ill and not doing well. I’m watching her closely and, if the illness looks incurable, I will end her life.The friend is not a human, of course. She…