Reading Time: 3 minutes I was raised by a collection of adopted uncles and grandfathers down near Larkspur, on a drumlin farm in Persephone Township. My mother, who was a single mom and busy trying to make a career to support her kids, often handed me into the care of the farmers of the Seventh Line for weeks at […] Read more
Heaven Helps Them
A Caesar Salad At The Kingbird Café
Reading Time: 3 minutes For reasons I have outlined in this space on a number of occasions, the Kingbird Café is not a place to go for spiritual refreshment in mid-January. And it’s not just because of the weather. January is the month when farmers know everything. All the data is in. There is nothing left to speculate about […] Read more
A Walk In The Dark
Reading Time: 3 minutes Statistics tell us that most accidents happen in the home and usually to me. I keep all the safety shields in place on all farm machinery but I still haven’t given up my habit of walking through the children’s rooms in the dark in my bare feet. Last week we celebrated Hallowe’en at Grandma’s down […] Read more
Between A Rock And A Hard Place
Reading Time: 3 minutes You will recall that the untimely death of short-order cook Mac Mackenzie last month sent the community into a tailspin. The Kingbird Café suddenly closed its doors after 30 years and spilled the farmers of the valley out onto the side roads to shift for themselves. We were all gathered in the basement of St. […] Read more
The Kingbird Flies South
Reading Time: 3 minutes Last Thursday morning, I shooed the kids out the door to the school bus and walked down the abandoned railway allowance to the Kingbird Café for a morning blast of caffeine and to check the news. The parking lot was full as usual, but for some reason, everybody was standing outside the front door in […] Read more
The Wait For Opening Day – for Apr. 14, 2009
Reading Time: 3 minutes My neighbour Vern Bunton doesn t fish very much any more but when he was a kid, he roamed the length and breadth of Petunia Valley with a dog and a fishing pole and a Daily Mail tin full of earthworms. As he grew older, Vern found the wait for Opening Day was worse than […] Read more
A picnic in a panic
Reading Time: 3 minutes I have been moving back and forth between the barn and the television the past week, keeping one ear tuned for news of fresh disasters. My wife always turns on the kitchen television during periods of global calamity, which seem to occur with depressing frequency these days. For hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist attacks and market meltdowns […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
