Dog On A Root

- jim Young (20190323) “To everything, turn, turn, turn, There is a season, turn, turn, turn…”    - Book of Ecclesiastes / Pete Seeger I’m not sure what my favourite season is. It’s a toss up between summer, autumn and winter. But I know what my least favourite season is. It’s spring. Spring is ugly. Dirty and ugly. I hate spring. There is nothing good about spring. It’s ugly, it’s dirty and it’s teasingly disappointing. I get that some people don’t like winter but that’s no reason to delude themselves into thinking that they welcome spring. Welcoming spring because it’s the step between a season you hate and a season you love is like welcoming a needle because it’s going to get rid of your pain. The problem is, the needle will inflict more pain before it relieves the pain. You really hate the needle as much as you hate the pain. So why do so many people insist they love spring when all they really love is that winter is almost over? It’s like your...

- jim Young 20101203 A house catches fire every 45 seconds. Tonight while I was in my favourite reading room, perusing one of my beloved research materials - Uncle John's Bathroom Reader - I came across this little tidbit at the bottom of the page. "In the United States a house catches fire every 45 seconds." I found this very alarming. I mean, just think of the poor people who live in that house? Why don't they move? I guess it would be hard to sell the house because you would have to be very quick to get a picture of it for the real estate listing between fires. And you would think the fire department must be very discouraged. They wouldn't even have time to get back to the station before they were called out again. Maybe they should build a fire station right beside that house. This is just one of those little reminders when we are feeling a bit down. No matter how tough our life is, it could be worse. We could be living in a house tha...

- jim Young 20190322 We buy our boneless chicken breasts in bulk at Costco and then pack them in pairs with our vacuum sealer for freezing as we rarely need more than 2 at a time. When doing this, I always separate the tenderloins from the chicken breasts and vacuum pack them separately for use as a treat such as chicken fingers or fried chicken balls. Using them to make Boneless Buffalo Wings however is my favourite treat. Baked Boneless Buffalo Wings and Blue Cheese Dip. You don’t have to use the chicken tenderloins to make these. Simply cutting up any boneless chicken breast into strips or small chunks will work just as well. Of course nothing goes better with Buffalo Wings of any kind than some celery sticks with a good Blue Cheese Dip.  Baked Boneless Buffalo Wings The Boneless Buffalo Wings can be made for immediate use or to be frozen for a later date. Stuff Required: 1 cup flour ⅔ cup bread crumbs 1 tsp salt ½ tsp paprika ¼ tsp black pepper ¼ ...

- jim Young 20190321 “Kale is a superfood and its special power is tasting bad.” - Jim Gaffigan “Grow some kale,” they said. “It will be fun,” they said. I guess they were right because it kinda was  fun growing the kale. At least it was easy. And when it comes to gardening, easy = fun as far as I’m concerned. The kale that year was our best crop. The only problem was, what do we do with it? As it turns out neither My Shirley nor I are particularly fond of kale so we gave most of it away to our friends and neighbours. Be we did give it an honest shot first. Knowing my love of potato chips and other assorted junk food, a friend of mine sent me Gwyneth Paltrow’s Recipe for Kale Chips. According to both Barry and Paltrow, Kale Chips are “as satisfying as potato chips”. Gwynnth Paltrow's Kale Chip Recipe I decided to give it a try and I quickly discovered 2 things: 1) Kale Chips suck. 2) Gwyneth Paltrow is an idiot. (Barry is not an idiot - he was just misin...

Stuff Required: 1 big bunch kale, stems discarded and leaves torn into roughly 1½ inch pieces 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil Coarse salt Do This: Preheat the oven to 400° F. Toss the kale with the olive oil and spread out on two baking sheets. Sprinkle with coarse salt and roast for 25 minutes, or until lightly browned and crispy.

- jim Young 20190319 The three Rs are basic skills taught in schools: reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic. taken from a space-filler in "The Lady's Magazine" 1818  I was probably about 8 when I started my first job at Youngs IGA in Stroud in the early 1960s. It was Youngs IGA - circa 1960s owned and operated by my father and his brother, so I was fortunate to be able to start my first part-time job at such a young age. For 25¢ an hour my job was sorting pop bottles. There wasn’t much need for any mathematical skills to perform that task. It was pretty simple. Coke bottles went in the boxes marked “Coke”, Pepsi bottles went in the boxes marked “Pepsi” and the Orange Crush bottles went in the boxes marked “Pepsi”. Surprise! Yes, there was some skill involved even for an 8 year-old. But when I graduated to the position of giving customers refunds on their bottle returns, multiplication became a little more important. I had to know things like 11 x 2¢ = 22¢ (...

- jim Young 20190316 CTV News has recently reported a story under the headline  "R.C.A.F. member ordered to remove Canadian Flag". This is the type of irresponsible media coverage being presented as “news” today that is causing so many problems in the world. The headline is an obvious editorial comment disguised as “news” for the sole, self-serving purpose of increasing readership. In reality the story is not about an “R.C.A.F” member any more than it is about a “Canadian Flag.” The story is about a condo homeowner being told to remove a structure that he illegally erected on his condo unit. It could just as easily have been a biker erecting a Hell’s Angels flag, a white supremacist erecting a flag depicting a Nazi symbol or a member of the LBGTQ community flying a rainbow flag. Hell, it could even be as benign as a Wolf Cub displaying a Cub Scouts flag. There is no difference in the context of why he has been ordered to remove it. It is not a violation of ...

- jim Young 20190316 “There are strange things done in the midnight sun, By the men who moil for gold.” - Robert W. Service. What IS it? We don’t really live in the land of the midnight sun and we certainly don’t do any moiling for gold. Still it’s been a “long cold lonely winter” and “it feels like years since (the sun’s) been here.” 1  in our little corner of Northern Ontario. This is the longest, hardest, coldest winter with the most snowfall we have ever witnessed in all our years of living in Loring. Of course we’ve only lived here a couple of years, but it’s been hard, I tell ya! It’s been a hard winter. And long and cold and lonely. And when you are shut in in for days at a time, sometimes the mind and the elements start to play tricks on your senses. Isolation from human contact can bring distress to the most sane and mentally competent minds. I only need remind you of Jack Torrance’s descent into madness in “The Shining” to make my point. Of course on...

- jim Young 20180312 “Hickory, dickory dock, three mice ran up the clock, The clock struck one but the other two escaped injuries.” Clocks are funny people. Clocks are funny people. I call them people because we share a lot in common with clocks. Like people, clocks have a face and hands and often get wound up and wound down. They can run, work, stop, strike, quit and tell time. Sometimes you can even pull their chains. Clocks also have grandfathers, grandmothers and anniversaries. Clocks can be right or they can be wrong but like people, seldom will any two clocks agree. One of the things that’s funny about clocks is their hands. Most clocks have at least two hands but some have three. When a clock has three hands however, we call their third hand the second hand. An anniversary clock, sometimes known as a 365-day clock, is so named because it only has to be wound once a year. The funny thing about that is they really only have to be wound every 400 days. Many moder...

Can I Come In? We spent a lot of time at our family cottage in the Muskokas when the children were young. In this picture, my daughter Ange was coming in after playing outside, still in her pajamas, early in the morning. (1980) Quiet Time with Dad This isn't a particularly good quality picture. But it is a very pleasant memory for me. (1980) Fishing Back at our family cottage my son would spend much of his time fishing. (1983) Santa's Knee My mother was the biggest believer of Santa and the true Spirit of Christmas. She grew up in Toronto and never missed the Eaton's Santa Claus Parade as a little girl. In later years Mom always watched the Eaton's Santa Claus Parade on the TV with us.  My daughter was shocked to discover her grandmother (Gogs) had never had her picture taken while sitting on Santa's lap. So Ange dragged Mom into the Georgian Mall for her first p...

Peace Candle Ron (The Magician) Walker and I spent hours composing this photo in 1973. Although somewhat obscured by the butterfly, the candle was actually a hand forming the peace sign. The fingers are burned down past the knuckles. The love beads that a girlfriend had given me, were displayed in an attempt to form a crude peace symbol. Backyard In Winter This was one of my mother's favourite photos, taken in the winter of 1973 of our backyard in Painswick. I had helped my father plant those trees, that were just shrublings at the time, several years earlier. I never gave them much hope for survival. When our home was sold after my parents' death, the trees had grown about three times the size they are shown here and would completely obscure the sky and any hint of the fields behind our house. The fields of course are now a subdivision. Thanksgiving at the Cottage I am not a very good photographer but sometime...

- jim Young 2002/20080308 The worst thing about being a child is you can’t wait to be a grown-up. The worst thing about being grown-up is you forget how to be a child.  My daughter Ange, smelling a flower, 1979. As a child, you never had to “stop to smell the roses” because that’s pretty much all you did – all day – every day. But as a child you didn’t just “smell the roses”. You examined every detail. The velvety touch of the petals became a new experience even if you touched them yesterday or even an hour ago. The fragrance was fresh and unique as you inhaled its aroma, and the colours exuded the brilliance of the rainbow as if you had stepped into the World of Oz from the dreary black and white existence of everyday life. There was nothing lost in the rose’s beauty as you plucked each petal one by one and let it float gently to your feet. There was no concern that by doing so, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy its beauty tomorrow. For tomorrow there would b...

A bit of beer,          some sleeping pills,                               and coke. If you were here -         the evening would be perfect; Except, of course for           the beer,                    the pills,                             and the coke! - jim Young 19880214

for Jenny I'm a Butterfly entrapped by an invisible shield upon which dewdrops crystallize. magic powder has disappeared from My wings and is replaced by a thumb and finger print on each wing. three blades of grass surround Me and a brown dried up twig to convince Me I am free but I am not! - jim Young circa1971

There’s a flower among the weeds in the garden, And the sun is shining through the clouds today; The moon glows ever brightly in the darkness; And guides me through the night along my way. A gentle breeze cuts through the stillness of the air, Composing melodies as they weave among the pines; And time stands still throughout eternity, Until at last you have resolved to be mine. A canopy of red and orange and yellow, Protects me from a chilly autumn rain; Forest berries fulfill an emptiness within me, ‘Til I’m home and in your loving arms again. Footsteps in the snow reveal the pathway, That has led me to your door and to your heart; Open both, and let me freely enter, Let me stay and never more shall we part. You are my flower in the garden and sun that’s in the sky, The moon set in the darkness and the breeze that passes by. You are time that’s never-ending, the beauty of the fall, Berries, paths and snowflakes, you are one and you are all. Lie with ...