Ahh, spring
    Isn’t spring wonderful when it finally arrives? A friend in New Hampshire writes to say, “Winter was great. More snow then normal, but no serious below-zero cold. The wood stove burned all of January and February. A 3 a.m. feeding is a small price to pay for not having a cold house in the morning. It carries the whole place. Easter morning the loon came back, landing on a narrow strip of open water. That afternoon, the entire basin opened and was free of ice.

Killing country
    Finn Poschmann, of the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, published a column in the first week of April about the importance of innovation, a central theme in the most recent federal budget. The word cropped up frequently in the budget, Poschmann pointed out, along with “a related concept – the cluster.” “Now, economists have known for ages that incomes and output per person are higher and tend to grow faster where people and businesses bunch together in cities,” Poschmann continued.

The fat lady is singing her heart out…
    Guess what. After 40-plus years, DvL is no longer owner-publisher of the company that grew out of the need to find some way to pay dental bills. It was April 1976. I had published Papeek, a children’s story, with JB Lippincott seven years prior. That must have sold a dozen copies. Following that, the fiction well was plumbed to greater depths and found dry. There were odd jobs.

Shuddering bricks!
    Characterizing our dairy supply management program as “a scheme” without a strategy beyond protectionism, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, of Dalhousie University, has suggested in a widely published commentary (including in Canadian Grocer and the Chronicle Herald) that President Trump might be in a position to trigger a necessary “complete overhaul.”

Welcome two thousand seventeen!
    Growing up, as much as I accomplished in that department, we always anticipated what was known as “the January thaw,” a few days of spring-like weather such as we’ve just experienced – and that the weatherperson says will come to a sudden end this evening. Mother would say “winter’s letting go for a new hold.” We will soon have our shoulders pinned to an icy mat and be begging for mercy from beneath drifts of snow.

Smelling roses
    A new heifer calf born among the ferns last evening is a joy to behold. While there is a guarantee of good food in the smallest-scale farming and gardening the likes of which we practice here, there’s no money in it. There are profits, though, like coming on a new calf, the arrival of a box of chicks, and time to smell a rose or two. There was none of that for the dairy farmer asked if there were any cats on his farm.

Crunchy lawns and wizened berries
    When the lawn crunches underfoot and your blueberries dry on the bush and second-cut forage does not materialize, it’s dry times in the Maritimes. When the jet stream shifts to break this drought, break out the boots and sump pumps. As noted before in this column (by a little-known yet brilliant amateur meteorologist), climate change is curdling the weather.

Dry times in the merrytimes
        For the second year in a row a rabbit is helping itself to my vegetable garden. Like Elmer Fudd, I find myself outsmarted by the long-eared imp who, in fact, is not a rabbit but a Snowshoe hare and one that can find the tiniest hole in chickenwire enclosing the garden. There is little vegetation to spare right now after three weeks without rain – super weather for making hay, for those not thwarted by the odd thunder shower.

Whopper schools for Hub City

    May 7 we’re heading down to Halifax for dinner with writer David Boehm at the Atlantic Journalism Awards dinner and gala. David has been nominated for best “Enterprise Reporting, Print” for his “Lobster on a roll” feature in the Oct. 2015 issue of Rural Delivery. Congratulations to David who has written a number of outstanding stories for RD over the years, including a fisheries-related follow-up titled “Keeping independent fishermen afloat” (Jan-Feb 2016).
    Another good story close to home is about Bertie and Bill Nickerson, Canada’s longest-married couple, 80 years this past December, whose grandson Stephen Nickerson is our longstanding production and graphic design person, one of their closest relatives by blood, and their closest by geography. When Stephen, whose parents died several years ago, is not laying out a magazine or creating an ad, you may well find him across town shopping for his grampies or checking in to see how they’re getting on. Bertie and Bill, age 98 and 101 respectively, are still in their own home, fixing their own breakfast, and getting on with life. Stephen’s devotion to his grandparents’ well-being is inspiring.

April - no foolin’ 
Planting season’s on its way

    While I have crocuses blooming in a sheltered corner of the house and Barred owls hooting at night in the tree outside my window, all signs of spring, Prince Edward Islanders have another way of heralding the change of seasons: the annual Easter Beef Show and Sale that brings out scores of Islanders ready for a good time. That is especially what the sale is all about, as friends, neighbors, and the business community enter into friendly competition to see who can out-bid the other for the the winningest cattle.
    Four generations of the Sanderson family on Prince Edward Island have been raising cattle and showing the cream of their herd at the show and sale that this year took place March 3 and 4 in Charlottetown. And so it was fitting that Randy Sanderson’s Spud Island Farms’ steer was judged grand champion (and went on to sell for $5.75 a pound to a couple of P.E.I. businessmen). Trevor MacDonald’s story about the show and sale can be found on Atlantic Beef & Sheep’s webpage at www.RuralLife.ca.

Barn swallows and the Zika virus
    The same week our provincial daily published a story about Brazil stepping up measures to control the Zika virus carried by a species of mosquito and suspected of causing a birth defect resulting in babies with small heads (microcephaly), it carried another about the disappearance of Barn swallows.
    Swallows and other birds that sweep insects (including lots of mosquitoes) from the air while in flight are in serious decline. We are encouraged to do what we can to provide Barn swallows nesting sites, and many do. But is the population of swallows dwindling because there are not as many old barns around as once was the case – as some believe – or is it mosquito abatement programs in Latin America where our birds spend their winters? Already, in the panic over a suspected link between Zika and microcephaly, pressure builds to release more genetically modified male mosquitoes in more countries to breed with Zika-bearing females and cause them to lay eggs that die, and there are calls to unleash DDT.  

“Year in Review:”  It’s free!
    Happy New Year! In celebration, a first issue of DvL Publishing Inc.’s “Year in Review” has been included as a bonus with your subscription to Rural Delivery. This first-ever review is a collection of stories, photos, commentary, and other gleanings from 2015, intended to provide a taste of all four of our rural life magazines. The idea for the review came from Chassity, our general manager, who marshalled the help of everyone else in the organization to put it together. Our thanks to advertisers who made it possible to publish and distribute the “Year in Review” at no cost to readers.

Fall harvest
Lingering doubts about global warming have been dashed once again on this shore. A foot of snow, we hear, struck  Riviere-du-Loup last week, but here cattle are still on pasture and, but for a couple of mornings, there has been no need to break out the windshield ice scraper. Hot dog.
    Ducked into the garden last evening to harvest late carrots, leeks for dinner, and to dig up a clump of parsley to move to the greenhouse where we might have a fresh sprig or two longer into the season. The greenhouse is not heated and before long most of the vegetables growing there will take a frigid bow and exit the stage. New lettuce may survive beneath row covers.

Great radio takes a hit
Stan Carew dead at 64

    Stan Carew, who ruined sleeping-in Saturdays and Sundays for many years by providing one of the most entertaining radio programs on CBC, has died. He announced in May that he would be retiring in September. We were planning to invite readers to contribute to a tribute to Stan in a coming issue. 
    It never came across that Stan was just doing his job as he spun records and in later years CDs on his “Weekend Mornings” show. There was no microphone between him and his Maritime-wide audience. It was more like a great big family gathered around his kitchen table sharing stories, wishing family members well, and guessing the names of mystery artists – often on the basis of little more than a couple of notes or words to an old song. Over all those years I never guessed the name of a single Mystery Vocalist, yet around that table there was always someone of sharp ear and mind ready to nail the answer.