Neighbours can qualify as good in several ways:
For me, peonies fall into the fussy-flower category, so I’m grateful someone else has the patience to nurture them. Like the magnolia blooms that survive the squirrels, they’re lovely at every life stage and from every angle.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
I know right well what you are
Hanging on the leaves so near
Like a diamond you appear
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
I know right well what you are.
Or so I think, as the sun lights up the water drops on my backyard flame bush. Intermittent rain showers mean that these twinkles won’t last long. Something will ruin the effect: another rain shower, evaporation, or the sun going behind a cloud. I hustle to get my camera. Continue reading
Never go to bed with dishes in the sink.
– Life’s Little Instruction Calendar Classics
No idea whose sink this is.
Ever woken up to dirty dishes in the sink? No matter how bad they seemed the night before, they’re worse the morning after. I didn’t need a calendar to tell me this, but I guess I did need one to make me go beyond the literal to the figurative meaning. Continue reading
Dazzling! Easy! Unequaled!
Have marketeers completely commandeered public discourse?
Indispensable! Instant! Guaranteed!
In this world of New Proven Free Bargain Premium Solutions, it can certainly seem as if marketing hype has invaded every aspect of our lives. That’s one reason why even a short visit to Mud Lake, within the Britannia neighbourhood in west Ottawa, is therapeutic. I mean, Mud Lake? Not Azure Pond? Not Emerald Lagoon? Not even Mud Mere? Continue reading
Everyone has their own reasons for keeping their vehicle cleanish, I suppose, but I know of none so compelling as this: You never know when you’ll happen upon a reflection-photo opportunity.
Then it’s all about playing the angles, while trying to stay the heck out of the frame. So far, that’s the most compelling reason I know for staying reasonably agile.
It’s an honour, you know? I mean, how many ordinary citizens ever get to make an official announcement of any sort, much less of something they’ve spearheaded? How often does any level of government accept a recommendation from an ordinary citizen and then do them the courtesy of recognizing their contribution?
I don’t want to seem immodest, but I figure we’re talking here about something that will permanently enhance Canada’s tourism prospects as well as Canadians’ view of our country — quite a legacy, for those old enough to care about such things. Continue reading
Even at the slight elevations the Big Guy and I are capable of reaching in our hikes, it’s clear that there’s no time to waste. Spermatophytes from shrubs to grasses live by a clear principle:
Make baby plants while the sun shines.
And while I resent any interlopers in my city garden, I appreciate wildflowers in, well, the wild. Continue reading
Only you
can prevent forest fires.
Having grown up with Smokey the Bear‘s exhortations on public service announcements and on posters in American national parks, I was surprised in the 1970s by the notion that not all fires should be suppressed: that fire was both an inevitable and an indispensable player in the natural environment. At that I was only three decades behind the ecologists, who had talked about this since the 1940s. Continue reading
Here’s an interesting article about someone I’d never heard of — Andrew Jackson Higgins — and something I’d never thought about — the landing craft used at Normandy. It’s appropriate for the week which saw the 75th anniversary of D-Day, even though I saw it too late to include in last week’s email notification.
Day to day, this is the sort of thing that brings me up short: tripping over the back story to something I took entirely for granted. Like that moment in the diner years ago when I looked at the metal rack for the single-serving jam packages (from multiple suppliers but all one size), and got a faint intimation of the industrial coordination and cooperation required to make that system work.
Not that landing craft are in the same category as jam holders, but you see what I mean. I’ve seen photos of that landing innumerable times, and never stopped to ask where they got boats so perfectly suited to the task. The answer, of course, is that someone saw the coming need and designed them to meet it.
Posted: 2025 Jun 21
Thanks to John Whitman for this slightly dismayed face from downtown Ottawa.
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