Sisters of Charity and Other Things: Nuns on the Firing LIne
One of my prouder moments came during my trip to Africa in 2001 when I was out walking on morning in the West Usambara mountains. I’d left the lodge where…
Mary Soderstrom
More Friends from Out of Town: A Flash from the Fresno Past
Summer is the time when people travel and we’ve just enjoyed a visit from old friends of Lee’s from his youth in Fresno. There was much talked about the class…
That Strange Thing Crying? It’s a Racoon, Or Why Messing with the Food Chain Presents Problems
We’ve been bothered by a family of racoons–count ’em, one adult and six young ones–for the last several weeks. They cry at night, they get caught in garbage cans, they…
Will Twits Make a Difference in the Quebec Election?
Much talk these days about what impact Twitter and Facebook will have on elections. Since last Wednesday Quebec has been in provincial campaign mode, with everything being analyzed right and…
Saturday Photo: Drought, But Great Produce
Lot of talk about drought this summer, and certainly the photos of drying fields are enough to make one weep. But for food-lovers there is an up side: flavour. The…
Well, I Always Say I Feel 35 When I’m not Feeling 19
Congratuations to Braydon Beaulieu of Essex who just won the Litpop 2012 contest for fiction! But I must add that I was on the short list, as M.S. McGowan (the…
An Interesting Blog about Canadian Literature
It never hurts to post about oneself on Facebook, I guess. If Fred Stenson hadn’t, I never would have stumbled upon his very interesting blog about Canadian literature, Along with…
Pause for a Little Refeshment…
Lunch for a friend’s birthday at noon, out of town guests this afternoon. Much fun, but no time to blog. See you tomorrow!
Road through Time, or Roads in Time: World Heritage Site and My New Book Project
Now that I’ve put aside the short story collection Desire Lines: A Geography of Love that I’ve been working for the last several months, I’m back to working on the…
Fleeing: Today’s Front Page and Yesterday’s Back Story
This morning I spent a long time looking at a photo of a group of people in the back of a truck fleeing the Syrian city of Aleppo. What can…
Saturday Photo: Fountain under Repair or Being in the Game for the Long Haul
Parc Outremont is one of the lovely smallish green spaces in my neighborhood. In its center is a fountain which I had always thought was done by a Quebec sculptor,…
Mick Jagger and Jean Drapeau on the Montreal Olympics: Scratch Your Beard and Get Stoned, Or How a Man Can Get Pregnant
Today the Oympics begin in London, with much hype. It remains to be seen what kind of legacy this orgy will leave in the troubled UK (look how Greece’s Olympic…
Lawn Not Doing Well: Could Be Hairy Cinch Bugs, and Another Reason to Plant Something Else
Got yellow spots on your grass? Could be your neighbors dogs, could be the drought, but they also could be due to bugs living in your lawn, Le Devoir reports…
For the Young at Heart: Images and Songs
Love this photo, as well as the song by the marvelous Chico Buarque. For lovers of all ages.
Life without Papers: Campaign to Register Children in Burundi
More than ten years ago now, I spent an amazing few weeks in Africa, particularly in Burnundi in the central Great Lakes Region. I was doing rsearch for the book…
Another Hot Day: Parks in the Early Morning, and Paul Krugman
Another hot one, and this is what it looks like about 7:30 in Parc Outremont. Nice, eh? But these hot summer days are worrying. Where are we going with climate…
Saturday Photo: At the Park Jeanne Says ‘Partage!’ Or the Beginnning of the Common Good
This was taken about 7:30 a.m. in a neighborhood park where we’ve spent several lovely afternoons this summer with Jeanne. We go with sand pail and shovel, which she tosses…
More Municipal Ridiculousness
One of my neighbors who just spent a pretty penny to landscape her small front and back yards tells me that our borough administration wouldn’t give her a permit to…
The Plants Counter-Attack: What’s New in Urban Agriculture
Yesterday’s post about a small Quebec town forbidding front yard vegetable gardens sent me thinking about the urban agriculture movement. It certainly is alive and well in Montreal–there will even…
Why Not Vegetables in Front Yard Gardens?
A couple in Drummondville, a town about 100 km from Montreal, have run into problems with a city bylaw that limits vegetable growing in front yards. Drummondville would like to…