Are you dealing with sciatica pain?

Fit to Farm: Combined with soft tissue massage these movement practices could help provide some relief

Sciatica is a common complaint, but it is often overdiagnosed. It seems to now be a catch-all for physicians to diagnose sciatica when there is any complaint of pain in the hip and leg, without giving solutions outside of pain masking. Sciatica symptoms include shooting pain or numbness/tingling down the leg stemming from deep in […] Read more

This attractive potted Christmas cactus has been flowering annually for 20 years. Success is in the know-how and Ted delivers some ideas and helpful hints.

Singing Gardener: How to get Christmas cactus to put on its best bloom display

Plus, reader feedback on problem deer control

Thanks for taking time and coming by to join me with this my final Grainews column for 2018. December is the month when some folks are saying happy holidays but I hold to joining those who stick to established tradition by wishing each person a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Red is such a predominant colour […] Read more


Lemon maple cranberry butter tarts.

Fowl supper? Fall supper?

Whatever you call them, they are a delicious Prairie harvest tradition

We gathered at my parents’ house on a mild autumn evening, clucking over Mom and Dad’s recent renovations, sipping Dad’s homemade wine, letting our appetites build for the fowl supper. Our neighbour Ken commented on the lineup he’d witnessed en route. “Halfway down the street and around the block,” he claimed. I was disinclined to […] Read more

After 40 years what matters most?

After 40 years what matters most?

When you figure that out and what you really want in your life, that will affect your intentional choices

The clouds at 30,000 feet are keeping me company as I write and reflect. My ears hear Celtic tunes of praise while I contemplate the lessons of the last four decades. November 10, 1978 marked the first day of my move to Boissevain to serve farm families with Manitoba Agriculture as an extension home economist. […] Read more


The museum on the edge of Spiritwood has a large collection of items from the past as seen here.

Rural museums keep history alive

It’s not only the collections they hold but the stories they tell that are preserved

Almost every town has one — sometimes standing alone on the Prairies. In train stations without tracks and fading catalogue homes the treasures lie, but it isn’t just the museums themselves, it’s the tales of another time in that specific place. “Objects are seldom important in and of themselves. Rather, they are like props in […] Read more

The inside of the porchetta.

This pork porchetta is sure to please

First We Eat: Traditionally a whole pig would be roasted on a spit but here’s a smaller oven version

I visited my sister and brother-in-law in the Toronto area for Thanksgiving this year, the first time, perhaps ever, that I wasn’t home to cook the feast for my favourite holiday. But even though I wasn’t in my home kitchen, food played as large a part as usual. “We have errands,” my sister said soon […] Read more


When kids have always received something, whether it is money, assets or help, they can come to expect it.

What if adult farm children don’t behave like adults?

Refuse to interact when you are being talked to in a disrespectful manner

As founders we all want our children to be happy and successful, but when kids have aged into adults we hope they are grateful for opportunity and don’t take advantage of our generosity. When kids have always received something, whether it is money, assets or help, they can come to expect it. A sense of […] Read more

legs older person, Knee Pain, elder osteoarthritis

What’s knee pain all about?

Usually the problem is actually coming from the hips or feet


After seeing an older woman in the clinic a few weeks into her post-knee replacement rehabilitation, her daughter approached me saying she knew she was headed in the same direction as her mom as she was already having knee and hip pain. She wanted to know if there was anything she could do to prevent […] Read more


Ladybird poppy always generates a lot of comment. Brilliant-scarlet flowers with central black blobs provide a wonderful splash of colour during early summer. Ladybird is a sow-and-forget poppy that self-seeds annually if it likes your garden.

Singing Gardener: Remembrance Day 2018

Plus, a houseplant that may help you get a good night’s sleep

Hey! Hello my fellow Canadians. By the time this issue of Grainews arrives in your mailbox, Remembrance Day 2018 will be close at hand. I’ve always appreciated a spot set aside in the garden for growing poppies, especially Ladybird Flanders poppy. Even during midsummer, poppies remind me of Canadian doctor, surgeon and teacher John McCrae who is best known for […] Read more

Cooking the foods of our ancestors keeps heritage alive

Cooking the foods of our ancestors keeps heritage alive

First We Eat: And what better way than with a pot of homemade soup?

One of the great truisms about food is that by cooking the foods of our forebears, we maintain or re-establish a link with our heritage. My mother’s antecedents were off-colony Hutterites who arrived in Saskatchewan at the turn of the previous century from a colony in South Dakota. Earlier, my great-greats and their babes had […] Read more