Irish Cobbler potato plants looking good, June 7
Let’s look on the bright side again.
Let’s plant some seeds of hope.
Let’s do what we can, where we can, while we can.
Here at Cathedral Drive Farm, surrounded by Hope in reality and spirit, the garden is starting to look good. I can look out my second-floor office window and see multiple rows of sweet corn that a week ago emerged, including quite a bit of seed left over from last season. Continue reading
The “new garden” at Cathedral Drive Farm, Hope Ness
Sometimes, in the absence of joy that comes from being in love, or otherwise feeling down for whatever reason, you just have to keep going.
Yes, there’s something to be said for simple endurance and survival, for just putting one foot in front of the other, for the knowing from experience that your life will get better, possibly in the very next moment.
That old chicken coop, or rabbit hutch, or whatever it used to be is long overdue for demolition, I tell myself for the umpteenth time, as I look outside my second-floor, office window. It’s an eyesore, even if it is somebody’s home.
Lately, I’ve noticed a groundhog has borrowed it. That’s my way of putting it anyway. The groundhog itself would regard it as a long-term residence as long as I leave her or him alone. Continue reading
I’m beginning to wonder if we’re watching the steady and painful (for bees and beekeepers) death of Canada’s once flourishing honey industry, as honey-bee colonies “collapse” with many millions of bees dying at an alarming annual rate, especially in Ontario.
The Ontario Beekeepers Association says the loss rate in Ontario during the winter of 2013-14 was 58 percent, three times the national rate, and much higher than the average annual rate of 15 to 18 percent before 2007. The association says that corresponds to the large increase in corn and soybean field crops planted in Ontario and the widespread use of neonicotinoid pesticides.
There are concerns about the high rate of collapse of honey bee colonies in the U.S. as well. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the State of California are cooperating with Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency in a “re-evaluation” of the approvals for the use of neonicotinoids, sometimes called simply “neonics,” to kill insect pests that might otherwise do costly damage to cash crops.
Initially, when first approved and put into use, primarily in the late 1990s, neonics like imidacloprid, now the most used pesticide in the world, were thought to be less toxic to birds and animals than previous pesticides. But neonics have become increasingly controversial in recent years as a growing body of research finds evidence of the deadly threat they pose to bees and other beneficial insect pollinators. Continue reading
Coincidentally, I was having my essential morning coffee and listening to my favourite public broadcasting, information radio programming when I caught an item about how some people, children especially, get painful ear infections, while others don’t. The medical specialist being interviewed referred to the use of antibiotics to treat such infections. He mentioned bacterial infections that get into the tiny bones of the inner ear are “difficult to treat.”
I can relate to that, having had a bone infection in a finger a few years ago that was not stopped by antibiotics. I ended up having to make several trips to London, Ontario, the last for a surgical appointment to remove the infected bone. Otherwise the infection would have spread.
I say “coincidentally” because for a couple of days before I caught that radio item I had been immersing myself in an important news topic: the recent discovery of a new gene that has sent shock waves through the medical-scientific world community. The worry now is that because of its make-up and method of transference from one genetically different bacteria to another, the gene, called MCR-1, will eventually make all medicinal antibiotics ineffective. Continue reading
If you live in a rural area, as many of us in this area do, you’ll maybe know the old saying, “the (insert name fruit or vegetable here) want picking.” Well, I’ve got rows of beans that “want picking,” and hundreds of pounds of potatoes virtually crying out from underground to, “please, please, please dig us up soon or heaven knows what we’ll do.” Continue reading
I was going to write about municipal conflict of interest this week, you know, with what’s happening in the Town of South Bruce Peninsula and all, because of Mayor Carl Noble’s financial interest in wind energy through a small energy company with a test wind turbine on his farm property near Mar. And then there’s his strong support for wind energy in general and specifically for another company’s controversial plan to develop a wind energy farm near Kincardine. Continue reading
I’ve always had a lot of respect for traditional farm families, those people who have devoted their lives to the backbreaking and often heartbreaking job of trying to scratch a living from the ground, day after day, year after year, sometimes generation after generation. A good part of my childhood was spent living with and amongst such people, and I’m sure it taught me a lot about what life is all about for most people who live on this earth: hard work, the planting of seeds, and plenty of hopes and prayers that the sweat of one’s brow will be rewarded with a bountiful life-supporting harvest. I believe those things apply to any honest work a person might take on.
Finding Hope Ness 