Editor’s Note: We’re reaching into Michelle’s Smith’s archives for posts as useful now as when they were first published.   What to do this week This week, I want to do a checklist for putting your garden to bed for the winter. Some of the items on my list haveRead More

Editor’s Note: We’re reaching into Michelle’s Smith’s archives for posts as useful now as when they were first published.   What to do this week You might need a garden shovel or something similar in the next month or so, who knows, but generally, this is the time of yearRead More

Hired guns CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke’s executive assistant Mark Bettens (he of the exorbitant travel expenses) and spokesperson Sheilah MacDonald have taken paid vacation to work on Clarke’s re-election campaign. I confirmed this with CAO Marie Walsh this week. There’s nothing to stop them doing this — other than theRead...

Editor’s Note: We’re reaching into Michelle’s Smith’s archives for posts as useful now as when they were first published.   What to do this week I think we had better talk about planting garlic. It’s getting to be that time. I know it doesn’t feel like it because it’s warm, butRead...

The fires are still burning here in Oregon. There are eight confirmed dead with almost 5.000 structures lost. Whole towns were substantially destroyed (look up Detroit, Gates, Blue River, Phoenix, Talent). Forty-thousand people were evacuated. This was not an ordinary year and although there was a terrible nexus of conditionsRead More

Editor’s Note: We’re reaching into Michelle’s Smith’s archives for posts as useful now as when they were first published.   What to do this week From the chill in the air it seems that this week is a good week to talk about fall activities in the garden. Between nowRead More

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Campaign Trail Mix, the Cape Breton Spectator’s weekly round-up of municipal election-related news and views with the odd non-campaign item thrown in to keep things interesting. We still have a few bugs to work out — like the logo, which I made yesterday morning in GIMPRead More

Editor’s Note: The Spectator is reaching into Michelle Smith’s gardening column archive for some weekly advice that is as relevant now as when it was first written.   What to do this week This time of year there is a lot going on for gardeners. You may be very busy figuring out howRead More

Editor’s Note: The Spectator is reaching into Michelle Smith’s gardening column archive for some weekly advice that is as relevant now as when it was first written.   What to do this week The main thing I am doing now, besides harvesting, is dealing with cover crops. I’m crimping or otherwise destroying theRead More

The New Yorker’s ‘Talk of the Town’ recently reported how, in the depths of the Big Apple’s COVID-19 lockdown, musician David Mansfield discovered a rusted hatch in his overgrown backyard. Prizing it open, he descended a ladder to a nuclear fall-out shelter, a claustrophobic capsule – or “David Bowie tinRead More