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The Front Porch Light
Yesterday I learned that the number of days I can go without posting here before kind-hearted readers reach out to inquire about my well-being is 7. This blog, it seems, on top of whatever else it...
View Articlethe small town podcast
The second season of the small town podcast has dropped:In the second season of the small town podcast, host Monica Lacey conducted a series of interviews with artists who are based on Prince Edward...
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Robert Downey Jr.’s River
I’d all but forgotten that Robert Downey Jr.’s rise and fall (and rise and fall) (and rise) included a star turn on Ally McBeal in 2000, a role that resulted in a credible rendition of Joni Mitchell’s...
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"They sleep 'neath ocean afar from home..."
Don Jardine has been posting stories about Island shipwrecks on his Island Climate blog, and this morning it was the tale of Schooner Emeline, wrecked at Broad Cove in 1870:The schooner, Emeline left...
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My Christmas Gift to Myself
I booked myself an appointment with my therapist for Boxing Day at 9:00 a.m. It was my Christmas gift to myself. I was chatting with a good friend this fall about therapy; he was resistant to seeking...
View ArticleMad Meccano
I just picked up a grocery order from Sobeys—the fancy one across the river in Stratford. It was my first time ordering groceries online, but COVID times, and being responsible to a “steady 10” bubble,...
View Article“We’re still vaporizing each other with our voices.”
Of all the writerly discoveries I made last year, James A. Reeves has emerged as a favourite:Nobody’s sure what they should be doing, plague-wise. Uncertainty hangs in the air alongside the virus....
View ArticleSharon MacNeill
Sharon MacNeill died on Christmas Day after a good and full life, an inordinate amount of it living with metastatic breast cancer.Sharon was a great supporter to Catherine, and to me.Sharon sent me...
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Cold Ride
On Tuesday morning it was -26°C with the wind chill, and I was in Freetown on horseback. This was not what I imagined when I tentatively sent an email in June of last year:I’m a 55 year old widower...
View ArticleA Case of You
The great Doug Cameron gives us the gift of a rich cover of A Case of You.Doug CameronJoni Mitchell
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Storm Bagels
The gift of a “make your own smoked salmon bagels” kit from Tyler and his crew at Gallant’s, knowing that Olivia would miss our long-established routine over the holidays when they were closed, was an...
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In the end there was nothing cooler than Barbra on a chicken eating a cake
My friend Stephen B. MacInnis posted a work-in-progress a few weeks ago, a delightful painting that appeared laser-targeted to hit me in the my sense of humour pleasure centres.So I pre-ordered the...
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There Will Be Brighter Days
I returned to the print shop this afternoon to produce my first work for 2022, There Will Be Brighter Days. It’s one in a series of prints that I’ve been making through COVID: Remember Other Places?,...
View ArticleA Casual Referral Run Amuck
Last year my friend Martin mentioned that he had a friend whose wife had died; as I’d recently started listening to the Widow We Do Now? podcast, and was finding it helpful, I suggested Martin...
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We ride at dawn…
I’d resisted asking someone to take a photo of me riding Jack the Horse until today: I was, I think, afraid of what I might look like, afraid of being seen in a position of vulnerability, afraid I’d...
View ArticleThe Real Dennis King Stood Up
In today’s Prince Edward Island COVID briefing we saw Hon. Dennis King at his best, speaking without briefing notes from his heart, about where we’ve been and where we’re going.It was appreciated.I...
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Salted Chocolate Covered Dates
An easy dessert to make at the last minute, a gift of my friend Silva: chop up some dates, press them into a pan (I used a small spring-form cheesecake pan). Melt chocolate and pour over top. In...
View Article“Almost all squirts are preventable…”
From this month’s Skyline Type Foundry update:Last month I spent half a day up on a ladder flaking several years of accumulated type-metal off the ceiling of the foundry. When molten metal escapes from...
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