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. This column was first published on 26 June 2019.   What to do this week By now, the bulk of the spring planting should be accomplished,Read More

I was unfamiliar, until very recently, with the work of Mahone Bay-based “journalist and author” Quentin Casey, who seems to specialize in a type of “journalism” (I call it “Capitalist Hagiography”) that gives me hives. Casey writes fawning portraits of rich businessmen (they all seem to be men) under headlinesRead...

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. (This column last appeared on 16 June 2021)   What to do this week This week, I would like to talk about adding fertility to theRead More

Vienna Ikea Big box stores are designed for cars. I was going to say “for people with cars” but more and more I’m coming to the conclusion that our world is designed more for the vehicles themselves (and the companies that produce them, and the companies that provide their fuel)Read...

Every once in a while, if I’m in the microbiology lab in A wing at Cape Breton University, I remember the late Dr. Erwin Zodrow, walking by with a fossil or microscope slide in his hand. In his last few years of research at CBU, he had a geology researchRead 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. This column was first published on 12 June 2019.   What to do this week My plum and pear trees are blooming nowRead More

Editor’s Note: I’m reprinting this column from 11 May 2022 because it deals with frost and we’ve been dealing with frost lately, too.   What to do this week The unseasonably cold weather lately doesn’t encourage planting, but soon the days will warm enough that gardeners will engage in theirRead More

Editor’s Note: This week’s Fast & Curious is less random than usual because all the items relate to sharing, whether ownership or living space. The random part is that I didn’t set out to research the subject, I just happened across each of these items individually this past week whileRead...

Editor’s Note: This column last appeared on 27 May 2020.   What to do this week Having got the early spring planting well underway, it is time for me to turn my attention to orchard chores. The trees are budding out and many are already at the green tip stage. ItRead More

I have seen the name EllisDon on signs attached to the fencing around the under-construction NSCC Sydney Waterfront Campus but I didn’t actually know anything about the company until this week, when I got interested in it as part of an entity called SHIP.ED which submitted a proposal to developRead More