Terry has insisted that I start off this week’s column with upbeat news. That’s a bit like asking a leopard to change its spots, but I’ll give it a try.
In bird related news, our household had a flock of fourteen robins hopping around on the front lawn this morning doing their strange ‘cat on a hot tin roof’ dance. Songbirds, too, are returning in droves to the feeders outside our kitchen’s bay window. Friday past, we were graced with five cedar waxwings. What an elegant bird they are. Nothing flashy. Just streamlined grace and under-stated beauty.
And speaking of the subtly good looking, our resident female cardinal has finally learned to take to the air and dine while perched on our tube feeder, rather than settling for scraps on the ground. In all the years we’ve been shovelling seed-shaped money down the gullets of our fine-feathered friends, this is the first time we’ve ever had a cardinal (regardless of its gender) actually use a feeder. Yet just about every one we sold in the bird shop we once owned had a picture on the box of a plump male cardinal perched on the feeder. In real life, not so much.
Nevertheless, in the wasteland of a January afternoon — when all one can hear is the occasional crow and the thin howl of the north wind – I always long for the return of the euphony of the songbirds’ mating calls. It’s music to my ears.
The above may sound like pretty thin gruel when it comes to good news, and you’re right. But these are strange times, and getting stranger with each passing moment.
Verboten: playground use
With so many spending March Break at home this year, families with young children are making higher than normal use of playground areas around North Glengarry, including the one in Dunvegan. Given the new normal, this could increase the risk of COVID-19 exposure for children and their parents. The Dunvegan Recreation Association has been informed the Township will be posting signage on playground equipment advising users that it is not sanitized and reminding them of the Eastern Ontario Health Unit safety advisories. So, while the Clark-MacIntosh Park in Dunvegan is not officially off limits, users are cautioned they do so at their own risk.
Museum Potluck bites the dust
If you’ve been wondering when, or even if, the Glengarry Pioneer Museum’s potluck and annual general meeting will be held, it won’t. I asked curator Jennifer Black about the rest of the museum’s season and she replied, “We have not pulled the trigger to formally cancel any events, other than the AGM, so far.” However, she strongly suggests that you check the museum’s website for updates and possible cancellations before attending an event. Jennifer also admitted that they are anticipating pulling the plug on the events planned for June, and possibly the Textile Weekend too. But this is not official yet. In the meantime, I will be working on a spring edition of the museum’s Timelines newsletter. I’m told it will include an article on the history of Glengarry Cheese Factories, a report on a doll conservation project, a contribution from John Downing and much more. It’s something to look forward to and I‘ll tell you how you can obtain a copy when it’s ready for release.
Social claustrophobia
Terry and I are professional homebodies. Even with the recent social distancing strictures, nothing really substantive has changed in our lives. We rarely went out, even before “they” closed the world around us. But as my wife remarked, and I concur, it somehow feels different knowing that you are not allowed to enjoy a restaurant meal or see a film in a theatre, even if you have no intention of doing so. It’s socially claustrophobic, if you will.
As we ‘boomers’ stand on the precipice of experiencing, firsthand, the blackness of the 1930s that so affected our parents, it’s the speed with which our society hit the wall that’s so truly shocking. While the Feds attempt to pour oil on the roiling waters with talk of an 82 billion dollar aid package, we should remember that 55 of these billions are earmarked to help business liquidity through tax deferrals. That leaves $27,000,000,000 in direct supports. Sounds impressive, until you divide this sum by the approximately 37 million Canadians who live here, or are making their way home. This works out to only about $730 per person, or less than one month’s average rent.
Perhaps if successive Federal and Provincial government wastrels had stayed the course set in 1994 by then Finance Minister Paul Martin, we’d be much better prepared to weather this storm. However, to end this column in the positive spirit with which I started, here’s good news for Greta fans. There’s little doubt we’ll be able to meet our Paris Agreement commitments on carbon dioxide emissions given that our economy is rapidly shrivelling to a blackened crisp.
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