The Telegram

Cows and crops paid the bills on the farm, but over the years we dabbled with other interests. For a little while we raised a few pigs. For many years we had laying hens and, of course, a few colourful roosters. My favourite was the Rhode Island red. ...

Depending on how old you are, it might be ROY G. BIV or “right on your great big veranda.” Those are two fun ways that kids around the world are taught to remember the order of colours in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, ...

Grandma was more of a dog person, but she appreciated the fact that cats were invaluable on the farm: they kept the mice population at bay and they were good little weather forecasters. The connection between cats and the weather goes back ...

If someone accuses you of walking around with your head in the clouds, don’t be offended. Grandma used to tell me that you can learn a lot more from looking up than looking down. Not only are the cloud shapes more interesting, but they can ...

Few things are as much fun to watch as clouds. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve lying on the grass in front of the farmhouse with mom and my sister, Monique. We could spend hours looking for shapes in the passing clouds. It was such ...

Scientists don’t really know how, but it has become obvious that birds can sense changing barometric pressure. One theory is that birds may be able to detect that drop in pressure through their inner ear. It makes sense, really. We’re ...

Yesterday was the feast day of John the Baptist, or St. Jean-Baptiste.  How does this relate to the weather? I’ll get to that in a moment. On June 24, many people around the world celebrate. In France the origin of the holiday was the ...

One of my favourite weather rhymes is this: “The moon and the weather may change together, but a change in the moon can’t change the weather.” It’s true. Scientists all over the world will confirm it. For decades, our ...

Grandma was a farmer and was raised in a Roman Catholic home, so you can imagine that the saints often found their way into…  well, almost everything, including weather lore. Believe it or not, there is a patron saint of weather. His name ...

When I moved from the farm to Atlantic Canada I was excited about the seafood; I could eat fish three times a day! It doesn’t get much better or fresher than right here. We are blessed. One fish I was eager to get to know more about was the ...