The most controversial item on CBRM council’s agenda last night was dropped like a hot potato just hours before the meeting. The initial version of the agenda included a staff recommendation that the municipality sell 1,002 acres of land (in the form of five adjacent lots in the Coxheath area)Read More

Summer, for me, has always meant time spent in the woods. I would like to say I was the type of child who paid attention to the trees and the lichen and the moss and the mushrooms, who learned their names and their lifecycles and could distinguish white spruce fromRead...

Developer Joneljim Construction has come to CBRM council twice recently, asking for modifications to the 2012 purchase and sale agreement under which the company bought the 120-hectare Cossitt Heights Industrial Park on Sydney’s Upper Prince Street with the stated intention of turning it into a $51 million residential subdivision. JoneljimRead More

Author’s Note: In a future edition I hope to review Christopher Nolan’s movie of the moment, Oppenheimer, exploring the rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the top-secret Allied ‘Manhattan Project’ to build the Atomic Bomb. In a July 26 interview in Nature, nuclear historian Richard RhodesRead More

Editor’s Note: This column last appeared on 10 August 2022.   What to do this week Let the serious harvest begin! (Depending, of course, on what you have planted.) Many of us plant garlic, and mine is about ready. You can tell for sure when the stalk is two-thirds yellow.Read More

Meet the landlord Nicole Sullivan has a story in the Post about a CBRM landlord who has informed his tenants he will “no longer be supplying oil” to their units because “the costs have quadrupled and this will no longer be part of your rental income.” (I think he meansRead More

Editor’s Note: This column last appeared on 22 July 2020.   What to do this week This week is a good time to talk about pruning tomatoes and hilling potatoes. Perhaps the most talked about controversy in home gardening is whether or not to even prune tomato plants in the firstRead More

Editor’s Note: I thought I’d revisit a few stories I’ve covered this year to see how things have been coming along.   Blowin’ in the wind Capitalize Albany Corporation (which does not, sadly, exist purely to stamp out lowercase spellings of the New York State capital but is the city’sRead 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 first appeared on 10 July 2019.   What to do this week The heavy work of planting should all be done by now. Until it’s time to plant coverRead More

Ayn Rand Revisited I went through a brief period in high school when I thought Ayn Rand was someone you had to read to be considered well read (I blame a Sydney Academy debater who used to quote her regularly) and since being considered well-read was pretty much my life’sRead...