It's 2:30 in the morning and I can't sleep. My body aches all over and I think I'm a little bit heat-stroked (if that's a word).

You see, we have our friends Nicola and Rob visiting for a couple of days and it's been really fun. But Rob, who is knowledgeable about all things natural, has also introduced me to a nifty new tool: a set of Fiskars loppers that can cut two-inch-thick branches off trees effortlessly. These things are magnificent. I wish I had them last summer when I started trying to get our tree problem under control. What took me days then would probably take only hours with these new loppers.

Rob also loves to prune trees (it's part of his job back in Ontario) and he and I decided yesterday to tackle the massive cedar trees that dominate our front yard. Our goal: to raise the skirts of these out-of-control trees to six feet off the ground and to clean up what's underneath.

With the loppers, the remains of a Fiskars pruning saw (we managed to break two of the wretched little things in the course of two hours) and Rob's expertise, we managed to get the job done in a single afternoon. It's really quite amazing. And it's stunning how much wood we ended up with lying around the front lawn (okay, piled up around the front lawn).

Unfortunately for me, we decided to do this in 30-degree weather with the sun beating down on us. Unfortunately as well, Rob is in much better shape to do this kind of work than I am. So now I'm paying for it, too sore and queasy to sleep.

But the cedars look great. And I'm looking forward to using those amazing loppers to dice up into firewood the branches we cut off (in the photo, the pile of branches is at right and extends at least twice the length of our carport). We've got enough to feed our fireplace for at least a year or two, once the wood has dried properly.

I just have to make sure I take it easy and don't push myself too hard. It's great to make progress but it won't help anything if the work kills me.

Tags: Garden, Cedar, Fiskars, Pruning, lopping, New Brunswick

Yes, this past week I've done just about everything but the cover letter for my novel submission. First I was knocked out by the blood tests. Then work heated up a lot. Later in the week, I played golf a couple of times and then, just to wind things up, Patti and I walked home from our local Canadian Tire with a new 10-foot ladder, perfect for cleaning our eaves troughs, replacing light bulbs in our car port and getting to dead branches high in trees.

Tonight, I fly out to Ottawa for a week-long course. On top of participating in the mediation training, I'll also get a chance to see my brother and his family and, if possible, spend some time each evening on my novel submission. With luck, I'll complete first drafts of my cover letter and biographical statement this week. If I'm really focused, I'll also do a revision of the draft synopsis of The Silent Goodbye, my latest Phillip Gold novel. I sure hope it sells!

I played the Gage Golf Course in the lovely town of Oromocto, NB on Friday with some friends from work, people with whom I had not yet played. I would like to say I put on a good show for them but I didn't: 123 over 18 holes. Terrible. The Gage course is much longer than my home course and the grass on the fairways is deeper and thicker. It took me a while to get used to the density of the grass and, let's face it, when every third shot you hit is terrible, a longer course is a scary place. Anyway, I got through. I don't know if they'll ever want to play golf with me again.

Thankfully, I settled down and played 18 decent holes at my home course, the Kingswood executive, Saturday morning. I wasn't great but I was steady and, after working out a few kinks, played pretty well.

This morning, I tackled the clogged eaves and then cut away some of the branches that were contributing to the clogging. The experience convinced me that we really need to get a professional arborist in here. And soon.

I won't be able to blog while I'm away but will catch up on all my writing progress next weekend.

Tags: Phillip Gold, Garden, Oromocto, Gage Golf, Kingswood

Two years ago, we bought a beautiful bungalow on the south side of Fredericton, close to our work, even closer to the fabulous O'Dell Park in the centre of the city. The house is on a great lot, with lots and lots of trees and bushes. After we had the fence installed around the backyard for the dog, it seemed the perfect place.

What we didn't realise was how much work it would be. It seems the previous owners allowed the flora to run a bit wild and now, two years later, we're finally coming to grips with how much work it's going to be to whip it back into shape. This is an especial challenge for us, two people with practically no skills in this area. The fact that, in the past 24 months, no fewer than three major chunks of trees have come crashing down during various storms makes the job even more critical.

I did a little bit of pruning and tree control last summer, cutting down the obviously dead bits, hacking back the new growth and saplings that had taken root where they should not be and all that. But I really had no clue what I was doing and I hadn't grasped how much more has to be done. The growth is often so dense that trees are fighting each other for sunlight and soil nutrients. Some trees have been allowed to sprout three or four "leaders", meaning instead of growing healthily skyward, the trees are spreading outward and sharing their energy too thinly among the many trunklets.

Our first step has been to ask a friend of ours who is an expert in all things growing, having been written up in national magazines for her garden knowledge, to have a look around. Her comments were clear and forthright: your soil is no good for gardening and your trees and bushes need to be thinned and cut back. She pointed out some specific steps we should take but also recommended we bring in a qualified arborist to examine our trees and help us work out what to do with each.

A little bit of luck led to our second step: the arborists of the City of Fredericton offered a free outdoor workshop on tree care and maintenance. We learned a lot there, including that the city's professionals can be invited to our home to look at the trees that are on or near the road allowance in front. That's great, since two of our main concerns involve the massive cedars that are growing near the curb and a line of other unidentified trees that are floundering nearby.

They also gave us tips on pruning and, just moments ago, I bought myself a small pruning saw just like the one they used. The next sunny day I get, I'll be out there working to bring at least some sort of order to chaos, in anticipation of a visit from the arborists.

Tags: Garden, Trees

It would seem that this spring's weather here in Nota Bene has been perfect for the growth of grass. The frenzied growth of grass. The out of control, out of the ordinary growth of tall, thick, luscious, impenetrable grass.

I came back from Ontario ten days ago to find our backyard had turned into an absolute jungle. So, last Thursday, it was with some relief that I finally got the chance to roll out our electric lawn mower and begin the task of bringing it back under control. Little did I know but the lawn had no intention of going down without a fight. The photograph below shows the lawn (with Marlee) in better, tamer times. Don't be fooled.

I decided to divide the task into smaller, bite-sized chunks since I knew every square foot of lawn would require several slow passes of the mower to get through the sometimes foot-tall grass. I worked slowly on the southern half of the backyard to start and everything seemed to be going fine. After about a half hour, a friend dropped by with her dog for a visit, giving me a chance to take a break and the mower a chance to cool down. So far so good.

After the dogs had a nice romp and the friend and her pooch had left, I fearlessly returned to the job, intent on finishing at least the southern half of the yard. All that was left was a particularly thick section of grass but I figured, with patience and perseverance, me and the old Yardworks 12-amp mower would get through. Less than five minutes later, however, I was standing over the mower, watching smoke pour out of its on/off switch box, listening to an ominous electrical crackling from within it. The lawn, it would seem, had gotten the better of the machine.

I'm no handy-person and, I'll be honest, I don't much like messing with electricity in any way, shape or form. I usually know my limits. But, in this case, I unplugged the machine, took apart the little box and found only a little bit of soot and a lot of very normal looking wiring. So I put it all back together, plugged it back in and very carefully switched it on. More smoke, more crackling, more reason to fear. I unplugged the mower, coiled up the extension cord and called it a day.

A week later, after a great deal of research and some consultation with those more knowledgeable than us, we finally bought a replacement for our dead soldier: a new Craftsman gas mower from Sears. It's got a Briggs & Stratton "Platinum Edition" engine, 190 cubic centimeters, delivering 9.0 foot-pounds of gross torque (whatever that means). If this thing doesn't have the power to tame our lawn, nothing will. It'll mulch, throw the cuttings into a rear (dust resistant) bag or simply fire them out the side of its body and into the world. I'm so excited to give it a try I can't sleep. That's why I'm sitting here writing this blog entry at 3:45 in the morning.

I have to get through a full day of work before I get the chance to gas it up and go. But I'm stoked. Look out grass; you've met your mulch!

Tags: Garden, Craftsman, Sears, Briggs & Stratton, Yardworks

The beautiful weather is finally running out but I'm glad to say I took full advantage while it lasted. With rain in the forecast for the next four days here in Nota Bene, the gardens and lawns will thrive while the walks with the dog will only get messier and muddier.

Monday was a holiday for government and quasi-government employees here in Nota Bene so two friends and I took advantage by travelling an hour south to St. Andrew's on the Sea, a resort town on the Bay of Fundy famous for its whaling and its golf. It's too early in the season for the former so we took the Algonquin Golf Resort up on its offer for lower greens fees for early-season players.

The course was in decent shape for the first of April (well, the greens were a bit of a disaster but the rest was not too bad) and the back nine of Algonquin is as pretty as any I've seen. Most holes between 11 and 16 run along the shores of the Bay and the views are spectacular. The view from the first tee is gorgeous (see top picture) but the first nine holes are, in fact, merely average. They are made quite challenging by the fact that most greens are hidden when you're standing on the tee, meaning first-time golfers like me were at a distinct disadvantage. It's also a long course but the beauty of that back nine makes all the challenges worth overcoming.

The back nine, as I said, is amazing. We're told that the 12th hole, a short par three where you feel like you are actually driving the ball into the Bay, is the club's signature hole. It really is a glorious location and, I have to admit, that view (see second picture) makes the tee shot all the more difficult. I am pleased to say that I dropped my drive right on the edge of the green and, if my memory serves, made a par by two putting from about 18 feet. Not at all bad, if I do say so myself.

The fact that I didn't play too badly in my first effort of the year made it all the more fun!

On the garden front, my indoor seeding experiment is working well. I've planted seeds for tomatoes (beef stake and grape), zucchini, cucumbers and beans in the small plastic trays and placed them on the desk in our spare office. After a week's carefully moistening of the soil, the results are amazing. I've got growth from all five of my veggie varieties, with only the beef stake tomatoes and the beans lagging behind. I'm very impressed but, since they all seem to be growing so well (especially the zucchini: see the third photo), will I have to repot them in something larger as an interim step until the risk of outdoor frost ends?

It's a nice problem to have. After last summer's debacle where my tomatoes and cukes emerged on the vine just in time to freeze and rot in November's cold, I am hopeful that I'll have something more like a bumper crop this year.

Tags: Garden, St. Andrews by the Sea

The second absolutely gorgeous day in a row. Clear blue skies, temperatures in the low 20s, snow on the retreat. Fabulous.

With the long weekend, I've been taking some time to start the job of tidying up the yard and getting ready for the real work. I wandered around this morning, picking up all the random garbage that had blown onto the property during the course of a windy winter and, low and behold, I found two tiny bouquets of pretty yellow flowers. Now, I am well aware that they might be a form of dandelion but that would spoil the joy of finding them pushing their way up into the world.

I have also been taking advantage of this quiet weekend with beautiful weather to continue with my reading. I finished Dick Francis' Rat Race this morning. Not my favourite. I don't mind the main character, Matt Shore, but I find the whole plot extremely thin and a little too contrived. The love interest, Nancy Ross, is no great shakes either. Never fully developed, she takes on too much importance too soon for the main character and that makes for a fairly wooden relationship. On the other hand, there is a pretty fantastic scene where Shore, a commercial pilot, attempts to locate Nancy in her tiny Cessna somewhere over southern England after her plane was sabotaged and rendered without electrical power. A beautifully written, tense scene. It's too bad the rest of the book doesn't live up to it.

I've picked up Candide again but it's slow going. My French is okay but not strong enough to read this classic at any great pace. I'll keep working on it though and, when I need a break, I'll switch to The Girl Who Played with Fire. Some break!

Tags: Dick Francis, Garden

A surprise long weekend. Monday is, apparently, New Brunswick Day. I didn't know it was coming up but, fortunately, I didn't plan any meetings so I have a nice three-day weekend.

Patti has gone back to Ontario for the weekend so it's very quiet here. Marlee and I are spending quality time together, going for walks, lying on the couch watching movies, sleeping. Perhaps not surprisingly, though, this means I'm not doing much writing. I'm not too concerned about it, though. I am doing a lot of thinking about the next patch so it's not all wasted time.

I have been amazed at how much this last part of the novel expanded and how important it became. It was supposed to be simply a bridge passage between one major plot development and the next and, instead, it has taken on a life of its own. I think it's quite good and there is both some good suspense and some strong character development, so that too is exciting.

Friday night, some friends and I went down to Saint John to catch the opening of a new theatre group dedicated to reviving Irish Theatre in the port city. Headed up by a colleague of Patti's from work, Patrick Toner, the theatre company —"An Amharclann" — put on a performance of Brian Friel's Faith Healer. Now, I personally like Brian Friel's work very much, having read and attended a performance of his lovely piece, Dancing at Lughnasa, in Toronto some years ago. As a result, I was interested to see what this fledgling company would do with Faith Healer, a fairly challenging play.

I have to admit, I attended more to support a colleague than with the expectation of quality theatre but was pleased to find myself impressed with the performance. Faith Healer consists of four monologues by three different characters, all telling their own recollections of their lives together. It's funny in parts, heartbreakingly sad in others and it is in the inconsistencies of the different versions of the stories that we learn the most about the characters.

I felt David Cook was excellent in the title role, Frank, the Faith Healer. He was both natural and entertaining, sympathetic despite the often horrific portrait that is painted of his character, often unintentionally, by the others. Mr. Cook could have projected better into the balcony, where we were sitting, but I associate the Irish with quiet, lilting voices so the fact that I missed the occasional word or phrase seemed appropriate.

Willow Edwards also delivered with her performance as Grace, Frank's companion (lover, mistress, wife, care-giver, etc.). Edwards, in my opinion, faced the toughest task, taming an often over-the-top emotional monologue to make it sympathetic, effective. She did a nice job, capturing the audience's attention and working us nicely through a very sad set of stories.

The weak link in the chain was Bob Vienneau, in the role of Teddy, Frank's manager. One hallmark of Teddy's character is that he is Cockney, as opposed to the other two, Irish characters. Unfortunately, Vienneau's struggle to produce a Cockney accent often undermined his presentation of the character and, perhaps more importantly, his version of the story. As one of my companions suggested, the company would have been better off to adjust the play's script slightly to rescue Vienneau from the accent. With a little tweaking, it might have been fun to allow him simply to be a French Canadian.

As I said above, I was impressed with the play. This is an excellent start for the new company with another play to come for St. Patrick's Day next year. I will look forward to that.

In the meantime, to my amazement my tiny little cucumber vines have suddenly popped out bright yellow flowers. These six-inch plants are actually going to try to grow cucumbers — heavy veggies that will outweigh the plants themselves long before they reach full size. I wish I could convince them to wait!

Tags: Phillip Gold, Garden, Brian Friel, An Amharclann, Patrick Toner

Another Saturday of hard work paid off today with a finished garden that, I must say, looks great. Ready for seeding once we're beyond the possibility of frost.

First step was a bit more raking, then lining the edges (using a thumb-hungry hammer, mind you) with some of the stones I pulled out of the plot. Next I used more of the stones I dug up, plus a number of nice red bricks from our front garden, to create three "walk ways" or, perhaps better, "weed ways" that sectioned the area off into four separate beds. Finally, off to Kent to get bags of "Black Earth", which were on sale at 50% off, to fill up the sunken beds.

I followed my sister's advice and used more stones to section off the herb bed into four parts again, thus creating what I think is an interesting visual impact for the garden as a whole. With the Black Earth in, the lighter coloured stones stand out better and the whole garden looks very nice. I'm pleased with the outcome, even if my thumb is still throbbing!

Sore muscles, weary bones, but a pretty good result, I think. I'll be seeding before the end of May, I think, and we'll see what grows.

And maybe I'll start writing again too.

In the meantime, got my first picture of a cardinal (a lovely female in the tree above the feeders) the other day; it's proudly displayed on the Backyard Birds section of this website. Be sure to have a look. And we picked up a couple of other plants for the backyard that are supposed to attract different kinds of birds, including hummingbirds, so we'll hope for results from that too.

Star Trek tomorrow. Quite the buzz around it. I'll give you my thoughts once I've fully digested it.

Tags: Garden