Keith Dryden

Garden hoe A garden hoe is a remarkably adaptable implement. You can lean over pea fences to destroy between-row weeds. You can reach under trees and around vegetables. Anywhere your garden cultivator can’t go is hoe domain. But by far the most important function of a hoe comes when you fold your two hands over […] Read more

The rock We visited the rock of Gibraltar this spring and, in spite of the insurance advertising, it isn’t as solid as is claimed. Indeed, the rock has 30 miles of caves and caverns, some of them provided by Mother Nature, but more hollowed out by British engineers seeking a safe haven for munitions and, […] Read more

Premium offer “Special to the Man of the House.” This was the title of a letter that once went out to Western Producer subscribers, a copy of which was handed to me in church recently. The Man of the House in this case was Joe Gariepy of Lac Vert, Sask., but I noted the coupon […] Read more

Boot sale Boot Sale on the Common, Saturday. Garage Sale, Friday through Sunday. I attended both of these. The first didn’t sell any boots and the second had no garage. The first we saw from a respectful distance near Bath, England. People with treasures (long stored junk) they wished to sell pulled their cars into […] Read more

Rivington sports The next two years should see the mother of all celebrations – just because the calendar is clicking to another millennium. Some celebrants have picked this year to do their partying because there are so many special events planned for 2000 that they’d have trouble getting noticed. Recently I got an information sheet […] Read more

Dime language L.A. Wotherspoon of Swan River, Man., sent me some coin rubbings to show me the relative sizes of a small five-cent piece and a large one-cent coin back in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The rubbing of the one cent has an imprint of the head of Queen Victoria and is dated […] Read more

The fishermen The only things I remember being taught in school about Spain related to the Spanish Main and the Spanish Inquisition, Christopher Columbus in 1492, and some brief mention of Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his dictatorship. In March we visited Spain and were impressed with the richness of the history of that country. There […] Read more

Error in column Back in the Feb. 11 issue I noted the passing of a neighbor, Dave Willness, but made a couple of historical boo-boos in the process. Dave’s wife, Florence, reminded me that it was a beef marketing board that Dave and Johnny Minor were campaigning against back in the 1960s, and not a […] Read more

Durable horse Jonathan Fox III tells me that 1999 is the 100th anniversary of his family’s involvement in breeding Percheron horses. Jonathan and his wife, Molly, now live at Kamloops, B.C., but occasionally check in at the original Justamere farm at Lloydminster. When I was a lowly scribbler and flash gun flasher for The Western […] Read more

Web suits The internet is a library of useful, useless and sometimes damaging information and this is causing concern for the legal fraternity. We’ve all heard of the spread of child pornography by the internet. Charges have been laid by police in cases of this sort but where are the enforceable laws to convict? There […] Read more