Category: FreeForm

  • Making noise

    The consequence of keeping your mouth shut is that you never get to meet the people that you agree with. A lot of us keep our mouths shut a lot of the time. You might never guess it from the number of fringe-dwellers that have started to speak up out here, but a lot of…

  • Book review: Diabetes Rising

    Diabetes Rising by Dan Hurley (Kaplan Publishing, January 2010) Let’s start this way: I picked this book up at random at the public library yesterday morning and finished it at 2 o’clock this afternoon, even though we had a ‘home sick’ day today. There might have been Backyardigans involved in the rapid read. I will…

  • Climate Whining

    Hey! For an interesting change of pace, it’s not about climate change. I’m just plain ol’ whining about my weather. I had to wear my winter coat yesterday on the 31st of May, while y’all were posting about your heat waves and beach trips, and I was a little chilly in the blustery wind. I…

  • Poem: Headline

    Headline (c. 2002) Through the slick-slack wipers, I see the transport ahead of me Fishtail. But what passes before my eyes Is not my life, but my Headline. And what does it say, this epitaph By which I will be known To the City of Toronto (if only for a day)? Scientist? Writer? Singer, lover…

  • Poem : Forest Meditation

    Partial perception, Mine, Hears a snake approach in a rustle of leaves and ! Startles The birch behind me Snakeless (like the rope) Laughing.

  • Control that Lawn!

    My day today included a scythe, a push mower, and the digging of garden beds by hand. I also made a REAL pound cake: butter, sugar, eggs, flour, one pound of each. I added a pinch of salt to the flour and a splash of lemon juice. No baking powder – it wasn’t invented yet…

  • Frugal by Habit

    I got a really sweet love seat from Freecycle the other day, so I now have a nice looking sunroom for the bargain price of… oh, $6 of gas to run to town for the couch. Everything else was already in the room, but this was the key piece of furniture necessary to ‘anchor’ the…

  • A Room of My Own!

    This post is coming to you via the wireless network from my studio! My own room! Woo hoo!

  • By Its Cover 2

    On my quest to resurrect little used books and expose myself to some new authors, the next book on the list is: Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. John McFetridge It’s another Toronto book. That was an accident, I swear. It may just be that the obscure authors that don’t circulate are all Canadian. Could have…

  • Persistent or Stubborn?

    Only time will tell. I just planted asparagus for the fourth time. I think… it might have been the fifth time. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I’m sure that this set is going to be the one that takes. As I was digging, amending, adding perlite, building up the beds rather than trenching, chasing…

  • Review: Acting the Giddy Goat

    As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am reviewing old books that have been languishing on the shelves. I am picking these books entirely by the content of their covers (no peeking inside), to determine for my own edification whether one can, in fact, judge a book by its cover. So far, so good.…

  • Gratitude in the World

    The last four years have been an opportunity for me to explore my gratitude for the work that is done in the world on my behalf. I was finishing off the buttons on a pair of pajamas for my daughter last evening, and I was thinking about what an ‘economically’ unviable activity it was. In…