Saturday Photo: Full Moon, Clear Skies
The forecast is for rain but the full moon is hanging around just now. Nice to see….
Mary Soderstrom
Saturday Photo: Pumpkins…and Pumpkin Pi
Just returned from scouting pumpkins. Thomas and Louis (5 and 17 months) are coming over today and we’re going to make a pumpkin, or maybe two. We currently have two…
Saturday Photo: Hibiscus in October II, Inside
The plants were brought in, there was a little frost Tuesday morning, but the temperatures shot up considerably at the end of the week. Because of this–or despite it, take…
Saturday Photo: Hibiscus in October
For years I’ve had two hibiscus bushes that have bloomed perhaps a half dozen times when the conditions were just right. I put them outside in the summer, but even…
Coming Soon to the Atwater Library: Road through Time
Hope to see you at 12:30 p.m. Thursday October 12 at the Atwater Library when I’ll be talking about Road through Time: The Story of Humanity on the Move (University…
Saturday Photo: Happy Thanksgiving…
A little fall in the air, finally, with some leaves turning colour! Nice… This weekend in Canadian Thanksgiving, a feast I like a lot. The idea of giving thanks to…
Saturday Photo: Stars on Earth–Asters
Before the rain we had on Thursday, our little front yard was filled with bouquets of native asters. The flowers are a lovely shade of mauve, and bloom at the…
Saturday Photo: Belles dames Or Painted Ladies?
Somewhere in there are a couple of lovely butterflies. At first, when they appeared in mass about a week ago, I thought they were Monarchs, but it turns out they…
Saturday Photo: Rock of Ages, How Concrete Built the World as We Know It
This is the week that I start work in earnest on my next book, tentatively titled Rock of Ages: How Concrete Built the World as We Know It. Now that…
Saturday Photo: Le Jardin botanique, Montreal’s Jewel
A good friend is visiting from out of town and we did something we hadn’t done in a long time: visit Montreal’s Jardin botanique. What a delight! Our friend had…
Saturday Photo: Or What Happens When the Internet Lets You Down
No picture this weekend, to show my profound disappointment that we didn’t have internet for 24 hours this weekend. Amazed at how much we have come to fit regular views…
Saturday Photo: Bees….
My overgrown, mostly-indigenous garden of perennials has been hosting a bumper crop of bees this summer. Glad to see that, given the current worry about the fate of bees in…
Saturday Photo: Pear Harvest
It’s been a wet, rather cool summer but the two pear trees in our backyard have loved it. There are more pears than the squirrels can eat, and I harvested…
Saturday Photo: The Grand Antonio, and Electricity
One of the grandkids favourite stories is that of The Great Antonio, a Montreal strong man, by Elise Gravel. He pulled buses with his teeth and other feats of strength.…
Saturday Photo: Dry Falls and the Forces of the Earth
On our trip West in July, one of the most interesting places we stopped was at the Dry Falls State Park where the ancestral Columbia once ran. Or maybe it…
This Just In: Full Page, Back Cover Ad for Road through Tiime in the NYReview of Books!
It was a quiet evening yesterday until my husband shouted from upstairs that I had to take a look at the new New York Review of Books. So I scurried…
Saturday Photo: Fiat Lux at Grand Coulee Dam
Back from nearly two weeks in British Columbia and Washington State with kids and grandkids. Many excellent adventures, you can be sure… This photo was taken just as the sun…
Saturday Photo: The Western Edge of the Continent
Summer is vacation time, and I’m thinking of the trip we took to the West Coast a few years ago. This is photo taken on Vancouver Island, showing the abundance…
Saturday Photo: Fruit!
We’re not quite there yet (the photo was taken a couple of years ago) but it looks like we’ll have a bumper year for raspberries and pears–if the squirrels aren’t…
Saturday Photo: Bonne fête nationale, Happy St Jean Baptiste Day
So, I’m actually posting on Friday, not Saturday. That’s because it seems like the weekend already. Jeanne’s school was finished yesterday, so she and Elin spent the night, after a…