Lovely summer weather is an invitation to get out into nature and drink in the fresh air and sunshine. And why not take in a meal while you’re at it? Heading out to a park for a little hike and a meal, (or just parking the car near a picnic site with a table) is a nice change of pace from a meal at home without the expense of a restaurant.

Consider this a quick refresher, some practical picnic pointers on packing food, drink, and a few associated accoutrements for your outdoor meal starting with how to transport food safely.

Question one: Will it be cold plate or will you include some hot food? A key rule of food safety is to keep hot food hot and cold food cold. Cold food is an easier plan with one cooler, but if you are bringing hot food as well, you will need two. Packing food last thing before you go out the door will minimize the time between travel and dining and help maintain safe temperatures for your food.

A picnic basket is useful for dry goods and dishes etc., but a proper cooler is the safest way to go for fresh or hot food.

Prairie Mountain Health is expanding access to Indigenous cultural practices within its facilities through a smudging initiative aimed at reducing barriers for patients and families seeking traditional ceremonies during hospital stays.

The health region says a smudging ceremony policy is now in place across PMH facilities to guide staff in supporting clients and families who wish to smudge while receiving care. Designated smudging areas have been established in many facilities to meet ventilation and safety requirements, while newer PMH buildings have incorporated spaces and ventilation systems that allow smudging to occur in many patient rooms.

Prairie Mountain Health Indigenous Health has also created 27 smudge bundles for use in acute care facilities throughout the region. The bundles are available to patients who request access to smudging during their stay.

Individuals interested in smudging can ask staff, including nurses, for a referral to an Indigenous Health Patient Advocate, who can help arrange ceremonies and provide access to the bundles.

The opening of Portage la Prairie’s first Filipino restaurant is being celebrated as a milestone for cultural diversity and community integration in the Central Plains region.

Jeepney Portage la Prairie recently opened its doors at 177 Saskatchewan Ave., meeting a long-standing demand within the local immigrant population. The establishment represents the brand’s second location, expanding from its original roots in Winnipeg.

“As an immigrant, I came to Portage almost 10 years ago … and all I hear are comments of Filipinos here is how we wish we had a Filipino restaurant,” said co-owner Oliver Cabading.

Cabading, who also serves as the president of the local Filipino association, opened the business alongside two partners, one based in Winnipeg and another from Portage. Beyond offering a taste of home, the owners made it a priority to support local youth by structuring casual summer employment opportunities for students.

WINNIPEG — The new leader of the Louis Riel School Division is a Métis teacher who has — not unlike the founder of Manitoba — dedicated much of her life to supporting Indigenous families.

Jackie Connell has been named the incoming superintendent and chief executive officer of the St. Vital-based board office in charge of educating 17,000 students.

The board of trustees announced her historic appointment, which begins Aug. 4, late Tuesday.

“I feel Indigenous women are inherently built to lead. I don’t know that education systems always see or honour that leadership,” Connell said in an interview Wednesday.

WINNIPEG — British director Ben Wheatley has always been adventurous in his penchant for traversing genre boundaries, including hardcore horror (‘The Kill List’), the big-budget monster movie (‘The Meg 2’), the cerebral art film (‘High-Rise’), and his own invention, the acid-trip period piece (‘A Field in England’).

With his Manitoba-shot latest, ‘Normal,’ Wheatley adds neo-western to the list, citing inspirations such as ‘Bad Day at Black Rock,’ John Sturges’s 1955 thriller in which a one-armed stranger (Spencer Tracy) arrives in a small town to investigate the suspicious death of a friend.

The stranger in town here is Ulysses (Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk, completing a trifecta of locally lensed action movies along with ‘Nobody’ and ‘Nobody 2’), who has come to the Minnesota burg of Normal to act as an interim sheriff after the suspicious death of the previous officeholder.

Ulysses has both his arms, but he arrives bearing the after-effects of a trauma from his previous job. And at first blush, Normal is a town where he can heal, given that the worst thing he encounters is a shouting match at the hardware store and a lackadaisical parking job by the saucy local barkeep Moira (Lena Headey).

WINNIPEG — With its public launch earlier this month, a digital music marketplace called Subvert aims to live up to its name, directing more power — and more dollars — to recording artists navigating the choppy waters of the streaming wars, including some in Manitoba.

Initially pitched as a collectively owned successor to Bandcamp — a popular sales interface for independent artists — and an alternative to big tech-funded streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music, Subvert (subvert.fm) was already hosting music for purchase by 20,000 artists from 120 countries as of Wednesday afternoon.

Nearly 30 of those artists — including Altona-based pop producer Daggerss, a.k.a. Laura Smith — call Manitoba home.

“To me, the co-op model is really exciting,” says Smith, a former touring member of indie rock stalwarts Said the Whale whose past projects include Rococode, a synthy duo that released music through Winnipeg label Head in the Sand Records in the 2010s. “It gives power to the people and keeps it in the hands of the people instead of us being at the beck and call of a tech company.”

If you ever get close enough to a hen to whisper sweet nothings into her ear, take note of her earlobes — with just a couple of exceptions, the earlobe colour will tell you the colour of the eggs she will lay. The two traits, earlobe colour and egg colour, are linked genetically, so — green lobes, green eggs.

The same rule does not apply to ham. If your ham is green, you should not eat it … Sam I am.

June 3 is National Egg Day (and as if one day isn’t enough, Oct. 9 is also earmarked as World Egg Day) and with summer at the garden gate, trying some new recipes with nutritious, easy-to-cook eggs can help to turn down the heat in your summer kitchen.

As an affordable, locally produced protein, eggs are a big deal, especially when learning to cook. A reliable, local resource for recipes and nutritional information is Manitoba Egg Farmers (eggs.mb.ca).

It was not a great start for the new management regime for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) president and CEO Keith Pelley fired general manager Brad Treliving in March and fans were eagerly awaiting the announcement of a new boss for the Leafs, who had one of their poorest seasons in years and have gone 59 years without winning the Stanley Cup.

What Leaf fans got when Pelley’s announcement was made in early May was a disappointment to many: A twosome featuring former Arizona Coyotes GM John Chayka, who does not have a good reputation around the NHL, as general manager, and former Leaf star Mats Sundin, who hasn’t been involved in the NHL since he retired 20 years ago, as senior executive advisor.

Chayka was 26 when he was hired in Arizona in 2016. Strong on analytics, the young GM lasted only four years before being booted after costing his team two draft choices for violating draft rules by holding conditioning camps for prospective draftees, and for seeking employment with another NHL team while he was still under contract to the Coyotes.