by Pat Asling For many folk, the news of the week was the weather, which affected much of North America! Of course, along with other things Canada got the blame for, that came out of the Arctic, a location much in the news lately for other political reasons. Thankfully, we are more used to this cold than many of the parts of the US to our south. The only thing hot there is the politics, which leaves me colder! I must apologize for no news last week due to a computer glitch. I

By Pat Asling Now that 2026 is underway, things seem to have slowed down a little, but this is likely just a brief pause. After the holiday rush and a bit of overindulgence, people are catching their breath. Before long, lunches, meetings, and events will be back in full swing, and life will feel busy once again. I hope everyone is carrying good memories from the 2025 Christmas season and the start of the new year. Sadly, the world has entered 2026 in a time of great turmoil.

by Pat Asling Here we are, one week into a new year! Do you feel any different? The last couple of weeks of December have brought us back to old-time winters in regard to snow. There is a song which says, “as high as an elephant's eye,” but the snow drifts have been as high as the corn left in the field! Personally, I am tired of shovelling or thinking about shovelling, and this is early yet. At least we did have some melt and more forecast for this week. Snowmobiles and skie

by Pat Asling In church today, the candle of Joy was lit! It’s hard to be joyful when so many horrible things are happening around the world and suffering is so great. It is hard to be joyful when your friend had died, another is diagnosed with a stroke, or has only a short time to live as diagnosed by doctors, an unbelievable number of countries around the world are war-torn, hundreds driven from their home by war, floods and other catastrophic natural disasters, all created

by Pat Asling By the time you read this it will be getting close to the middle of the month. There is lots of excitement with buying presents, preparing food, listening to Christmas music and so many events happening. For sure nobody in our area can complain that it doesn’t look like Christmas because we certainly have plenty of the white stuff and it keeps coming! I am still working on that first big dump. Did you see the last, biggest closest full moon? It looked beautiful

by Pat Asling The big news this week would have to be the amount of snow our area received over the past weekend. Yes, we have had some snow before, but this dump hit hard and fast for those hoping for Indian summer and a few more days to finish up outdoor work. Saturday morning was a winter wonderland to look at and photograph with snow like thick icing on all the fir trees and everything else capable of holding it. The birds were in a panic, fluttering around trying to get

by Patricia Asling What a rather dreary month this has been! Either too cold or too damp to do the many things outside that need to be finished up. My “to do” list never gets any shorter, since anything I manage to scratch off immediately gets replaced by something else. It’s been a slow week, socially speaking, compared to some. The main event was the full turkey lunch for Seniors on Tuesday. Kudos to Mary’s Country Kitchen and staff for a great meal! The guest speaker was J

by Pat Asling Can you believe more than half of November has passed? Unfortunately I have little to show for it since the weather has been so unpredictable and unfavourable for work outside. Like many gardeners I was hoping for a few days of “Indian summer”. I wonder where that phrase originated? I know it has been a long awaited period of autumn which many look forward to. Weather forecasts do not look all that promising! Did anyone see the spectacular phenomenons in the sky

by Stuart Beaudoin UXBRIDGE: On Sunday, November 30th, at 7 p.m., St Paul’s Anglican Church in Uxbridge, Music at St Paul’s, will host a performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. The performance will be in English. The Cantorei sine Nomine choir and Orpheus Symphonietta orchestra under the direction of Stuart Beaudoin along with soloists, Leslie Higgins, Shannon Coates, Benjamin Done and Sebastien Belcourt will sing this marvelous setting of the Christmas story. Director Stu

by Pat Asling On Saturday morning, a short Indigenous Remembrance Day service was held at the Uxbridge Cenotaph. Rev. Karen Croxall opened the ceremony, and a wreath was placed by Jim Franklin, an 87-year-old, partially disabled, full Indigenous Veteran. Following this, each participant was given a pinch of tobacco, which they then placed on the wreath. Following up on this theme, at Sandford Zephyr United Church on Sunday morning, we had a short service of readings, includin

by Pat Asling Its Sunday night, the night of the morning of time change so everything is a little strange again. I hate getting up in the dark but don’t like it dark before the afternoon is half over. At least when I lived in the Caribbean it was pretty much the same both ends of the day, no switching about. Living in the north it’s going to be dark either end no matter what we do. Of course, since I lived in Jamaica for 2 years I was very concerned about my friends there. Fo

by Pat Asling Since last week's news was written on Thursday, this is a longer piece to cover, and it has been an exceptionally emotional time for various reasons. We start out happy, as Saturday evening, St. Paul’s Anglican hosted a presentation by John Haines, assisted by 3 other musical friends and a wonderful pianist, who recreated what it would have been like to attend the “silent” movies. The movie itself was silent but was accompanied by a pianist who endeavoured to pl

by Pat Asling Well, this is a very short week since Monday was the Thanksgiving holiday, and this is being written on Thursday evening! I hope everyone has recovered from all the Thanksgiving eating! There are beautiful colours in the trees just now, but a lot of trees have not started losing many of their leaves yet, so looking at a large bush is very satisfying with the various colours. We know it is autumn, though. Even when the sun shines brightly during the day, the cold

by Pat Asling Well, it’s been rather quiet this week, giving us time to consider all that needs doing to prep for Autumn. Those frosty nights sure had many worried and a few gardeners did lose some tomatoes and other tender vegetables and flowers. It seems that those in town were hit harder than those of us who live on the hills outside! The clear nights also gave us the opportunity to really see the Hunter moon in all its glory for several nights in a row, and at a time when

by Pat Asling Hasn’t it been loverly! I suppose we can’t expect it to last, but it would be nice if it did. Because it’s so nice, I keep...

by Pat Asling What more could be asked for than a continuation of the weather we experienced this past week? A good soaking rain and...

by Pat Asling Only birthday celebrations this week! Firstly, a big congratulations to Fred Wilson, who conquered 93! Still active,...

by Pat Asling There were quite a few celebrations of various types again this week! We start with Geoff Carpentier, our outstanding...

by Pat Asling Before proceeding, I must make a clarification. A week or so ago, I mentioned Joan and Rod Sine and the contribution they...

by Pat Asling Sunday, the last day of August! Well, it sure felt more like November these last couple of mornings when the temps were +6C...