Read

The Grapevine > Read

AVRL News: Book Bikes are Here and Ready to Roll!

Author: August 26, 2018

AVRL News: Book Bikes are Here and Ready to Roll! By Angela Reynolds, Community Engagement Coordinator Our new Book Bikes, Edgar Allan Go, Chain Austen, JK Rolling, Doretta Groenenbike, Mark Spokely, and friends, are ready to roll. You can borrow a bike from our Berwick or Wolfville branches (coming later this year to Annapolis Royal). Bikes are available on a first-come first-served basis, and are due back the same day, no later than 30 minutes before the library closes. Borrow it for the day or for a couple of hours. Ride the trails or use the bike to get your…
Read more

Articles, Events, Read

How to Run a Book Swap

Author: August 26, 2018

How to Run a Book Swap By Laura Churchill Duke I love to read. I will read just about anything. However, when I walk into a book store I often feel overwhelmed about what to buy. I’d rather someone just give me a good book to read. I am also a huge fan of flea market book sales for charity. I come home with armloads of books to try (that the attendant has told me are good). I am also in a book club. Because of this, my shelves are full of books that I have finished but don’t want…
Read more

Articles, Events, Read

What’s Growing at the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens: Reading Locally Within the Acadian Forest Region!

Author: August 26, 2018

What’s Growing at the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens: Reading Locally Within the Acadian Forest Region! By Adrien Rawley, Horticulture Assistant and Educator Not long ago, I had a wonderful opportunity to visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (CMBG) in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. The coast of Maine was my childhood home, specifically Bar Harbor, where my parents and the beautiful landscape of Acadia National Park built my foundation as a budding naturalist. As life likes to guide us through complete circles, I smiled as I cycled onto the grounds of the CMBG wearing my horticulture assistant/educator hat from the Harriet Irving…
Read more

Articles, Read

Flower Farmer Amanda Muis Brown Launches book at Tangled Garden

Author: August 13, 2018

Flower Farmer Amanda Muis Brown Launches book at Tangled Garden Recently, the Tangled Garden hosted the launch of From Seed to Centrepiece: A Floral Journey Through the Seasons, an exciting new book about flower farming written by Amanda Muis Brown of Humble Burdock Farm. About 55 people of all ages attended and enjoyed scones with jam and clotted cream, and mint lemonade. Amanda did a flower arranging demonstration, and guests got to make a bouquet to take home. A beautiful event in a beautiful location!

Articles, Read

The Dome Chronicles: The Trade

Author: August 13, 2018

The Dome Chronicles: The Trade By Garry Leeson In the early nineteen seventies, the barter system was still alive and well among the small farmers of the Annapolis Valley. One morning in May in 1974 I loaded my pickup truck with a second-hand saddle horse, a crate of roosters, and a runt pig. I was hoping that someone at the Lawrencetown Cattle Auction might take a shine to them and take them off my hands for cash or kind. I guess I hadn’t checked the calendar because when I arrived at the site where the auction was normally held I…
Read more

Articles, Dome Chronicles, Read

The Dome Chronicles: The Eye Of The Beholder

Author: July 27, 2018

The Dome Chronicles By Garry Leeson In 1972, a boxcar from Toronto containing a menagerie of farm animals and an eager young couple pulled into the station platform in Kingston, Nova Scotia. They were bound for a deserted hundred-acre farm on the South Mountain, determined to preserve the foundations of farmsteads past while constructing a geodesic dome. They were pioneers of the future, armed with respect for tradition and an irrepressible sense of humour. They didn’t call themselves farmers. They were back-to-the-landers. Farming was industry and their calling was sustainability. Over the next forty years, through flood and fire, triumph…
Read more

Articles, Dome Chronicles, Read

What’s Growing at the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens – Cultural heritage

Author: July 4, 2018

What’s Growing at the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens – Cultural heritage By Melanie Priesnitz Conservation Horticulturist When you think of what defines Canada, one of the primary things that comes to mind is this country’s natural environment and its wild and rugged wide-open spaces. You need look no further than our dollars, coins, and postage stamps to see how proud Canadians are of the flora and fauna that we share this great country with. Every Canadian flag that flies is a reminder of how much as a country we identify with the trees that grow here. So many of the…
Read more

Articles, Look, Read

What’s Growing at the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens: Gardening Together

Author: June 19, 2018

What’s Growing at the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens: Gardening Together By Melanie Priesnitz Conservation Horticulturist Children are sponges. They absorb what they see around them. We learn to speak from hearing language, we learn to walk by witnessing the upright motion of the humans around us. Children learn to garden if they see their parents or grandparents gardening. They learn not be afraid of the outdoors and the insects that live there if they see their parents lying comfortably on the grass or digging in the earth in their yard. If you love to garden and spend time outdoors very…
Read more

Articles, Read

From Kentville to the Camino: Biking the Famous Pilgrimage Route Through Portugal and Spain

Author: June 19, 2018

From Kentville to the Camino: Biking the Famous Pilgrimage Route Through Portugal and Spain By Earle Illsley This spring, two of our intrepid deliverers, and great friends of The Grapevine, Karen and Earle Illsley of Kentville, embarked on an adventure of a lifetime, and Earle has been kind enough to share some of their experiences with our readers. The Camino de Santiago, also known as ‘The Way,’ is a series of paths, or pilgrimages, of various lengths that all lead to the city of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Last year over 300,000 individuals hiked, biked, or rode the Camino…
Read more

Articles, Read

The Dome Chronicles: This Was My Father

Author: June 19, 2018

The Dome Chronicles: This Was My Father By Garry Leeson My mother wanted a large garden when they moved to a small farm on the Blue Mountain outside Meaford, Ontario. Dad agreed to do the hoeing but after a couple of days of fighting the weeds, he came up with a better idea. He disappeared into his workshop and when he emerged it was behind a one of a kind self-propelled row crop cultivator of his own creation. An old make or break one-lung gas engine, belching smoke and banging away, was mounted on a wooden frame above two cast…
Read more

Articles, Dome Chronicles, Read