The miracle of spring brings joy after winter

It’s been said many times and in many different ways. Yet, despite having lived through it for more years than I like to consider, I’m bowled over by the arrival of spring. It’s a miracle.

Our springs are, of course, a product of our winters, both literally and figuratively. Literally, as without winter we would simply have summer all year round, just like the tropics. Figuratively, without going through the challenge of long dark nights and frigid temperatures, we wouldn’t experience the joy that spring brings.

I feel sorry for the people living in parts of the world that don’t get a real taste of winter, as they don’t get to savour the feeling that the first day of spring elicits.

While the drip of melting snow or the first glimpse of the lawn can make us rejoice, it is the arrival of the first birds of summer that signal the season has returned for good. Fittingly, the earliest of the spring birds are ones we are the most familiar with and their return is like welcoming back old childhood friends.

NHL coaching improvement not always rewarded

Duck! Here comes the axe!

Greg Cronin probably deserved better than to be fired at the end of the 2024-25 National Hockey League season. After all, he led the Anaheim Ducks to an 80-point season (35-37-10), which was a league-leading 35.5-per-cent increase over the previous season’s disastrous 59-point campaign.

Cronin, probably among the least-recognizable coaches in the NHL outside of southern California, will deservedly get some coach-of-the-year votes but his relative success this season didn’t carry enough weight with Ducks’ general manager Pat Verbeek.

“I think I see this team at a point to where my expectation of this team is to make the playoffs next season,” Verbeek told Yarkbarker.com.

New festival is a springtime gift to community

Spring likes to drag its feet in Manitoba. And just when you think it’s safe to put on a sunhat, you’re pulling a toque on over your ears. But this spring, take a chance and slap on that sunhat anyway, then head out to the first annual Blossom Festival in the Assiniboine Food Forest on May 11.

And since it also happens to be Mother’s Day — put a sunbonnet on mom and bring her too.

The Blossom Festival is a brand new event for the Assiniboine Food Forest (AFFI).

“We’ve just cooked it up this year. Its purpose is to celebrate the flowering of our community orchard,” says Dave Barnes, board chair/general manager at AFFI (assiniboinefoodforest.com).

SuperThrift helps turn clutter into compassion

Decluttering and simplifying our homes is very much in vogue (looking at you, Marie Kondo). And this spring, if you are currently engaged in the “life-changing magic of cleaning up,” you’ll be familiar with the ubiquitous three-box method of household mess management: fill one box for garbage, one box to be put away, and one box for giveaway.

It’s that third box that can do some real good when you donate it to SuperThrift, located at 127 Seventh Street in Brandon.

The thrift-to-thrive ethos is a virtuous circle. By donating still serviceable items to a thrift store, affordable goods are made available to everyone, those looking to save some money and those who are on limited budgets. It keeps useful items in the re-use cycle and out of the landfill. It provides employment in the store itself.

The proceeds from donations and sales at SuperThrift can help others to thrive. That’s a worthwhile consideration, and one to keep in mind during Mental Health Week in Canada, from May 5-11.

McIlroy eyes the ‘Calendar Slam’

Now that he’s slain one dragon, how about a more ferocious, fire-breathing beast to conquer for Rory McIlroy?

Finally achieving professional golf’s career grand slam by winning the 2025 Masters, McIlroy can breathe easily when he returns to Augusta in 2026. For the rest of this season, the Northern Ireland golf phenom, still relatively young at 35, can go after the unthinkable — the single-season grand slam.

No one has ever pulled off the rarest of the rare — winning the Masters, PGA, U.S. Open and the Open Championship in the same season. Why not Rory in 2025? The great amateur from 100 years ago, Bobby Jones, is credited with accomplishing the Grand Slam, but that included the U.S. and British Amateurs in 1930, and the U.S. and British Opens. Tiger Woods came close, at one point in 2001 holding all four major golf trophies, but they weren’t all won in a single calendar year. He won the final three majors of 2000 and then won the 2001 Masters.

But winning all four in a single year? Impossible? Probably, but there is currently only one golfer with a chance to accomplish that feat in 2025 and it’s McIlroy, enjoying by far the most successful start to a season in his career.

Pet disease prevention: pay now, or pay more later

WINNIPEG — It’s a grey, windy day in early April and Gus and Sally are enjoying a carefree rip around the Bonnycastle Dog Park, dodging patches of lingering snow while chasing a bouncing tennis ball. The outdoor romp is carefree because the miniature goldendoodles are protected against the springtime return of disease-carrying pests.

“They just went to the vet and got their tick prevention,” owner Gale M’Lot says of the near-identical six-year-old dog siblings.

Purchasing prevention medication — drugs designed to deter critters that transmit Lyme, heartworm and other diseases — is an annual duty for many pet owners, but one that can take a big bite out of the household budget.

M’Lot estimates she spent $500 this year on a season’s worth of anti-parasitic tablets for Gus and Sally.

Workshop builds communities

Houses are properly built from the ground up. Successful communities are built the same way by people who are committed to the place and all that goes on there. But active, planned community building doesn’t always happen on its own. It might take a little inspiration and insight.

To that end, Community Futures Westman is hosting Australia’s Peter Kenyon on May 9, as he facilitates the one-day Positive Pathways workshop on community building. The evidence-based workshop aims to help local community builders and leaders develop the tools and capacity to initiate change and growth from within their rural community. Kenyon will bring his stories, practical experience and humour to provide the inspiration and insight.

Kenyon, a self-described “community enthusiast and social capitalist,” is the director of the Bank of I.D.E.A.S (Initiatives for the Development of Enterprising Action and Strategies) (bankofideas.com.au). He says he is happy to be visiting Canada once again, with this being his 17th visit in 25 years. And he has some familial roots right here in Canada.

“My Grandfather migrated from Ottawa to Australia in the 1860s,” Kenyon says.

The fascinating and fun world of Franken-trees

Imagine having a tree in your yard that produces all kinds of apples — a different type on every branch. They’d produce different coloured blossoms. The apples would be different colours and different shapes. They’d each have their own flavour.

You could call it a Franken-tree and (depending on your tastes in fiction) it could be something out of either Dr. Seuss or Mary Shelley … except that it’s not fiction. This tree actually exists.

Doug McGregor is the owner of just such a curiosity.

“I have a tree in my driveway with about 10 kinds of apples on it,” says McGregor, who owns and operates Oak Summit Nursery (oaksummitnursery.ca), a mail order fruit tree nursery near Brandon.

Mason jar meals: clearly a good choice

When it comes to food, Elizabeth Cancade is all for coming up with — and sharing — new ideas.

“The kitchen is my creative space, selecting ingredients and creating dishes,” says Cancade, owner/operator at Living Simply Kitchen (livingsimplykitchen.com), which offers weekly holistic meal prep.

“Part of what I think really reconnects us with food is community, sharing ingredients, sharing ideas, doing it together. Sharing food with other people is such a foundation for well-being.”

Certified as an integrative nutrition and culinary nutrition expert, her expertise informs her new e-cookbooklet, “Living Simply Kitchen: Mason Jar Meal Guide.” The free-for-download guide is a how-to for quick and easy advance meal-prep using good old-fashioned Mason jars as containers.

Guerrero Jr.’s signing highlights a solid April

After a miserable last-place finish in the American League East in 2024, the trajectory arrow is pointed straight up for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2025.

Let’s start with spring training. The Jays posted an 18-10 record and wound up as the No. 1 team in the Grapefruit League circuit, perhaps a harbinger of things to come. Then, after the first two weeks of the season, they found themselves right in the mix in the AL East, splitting a four-game series with the Baltimore Orioles, a team many had pegged as a potential World Series contender, and then sweeping a three-game set against Washington.

And while those early results were encouraging, the cherry on top came in the first week of April when the Jays announced they had extended their marquee player, first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., with a contract that will undoubtedly make him a Blue Jay for life.

The deal was for 14 years and $500 million, not Ohtani or Soto money, but the offer was enough for Guerrero to jump at, and to end the persistent talk about him leaving the team this year, either via a mid-summer trade or as a free agent at the end of the 2025 season.

We’ve got the dirt on latest garden trends

It’s a good bet that if you’re a Manitoba gardener, you’ve been green-thumbing your way through seed catalogues and magazines since February. It’s April now, and that browsing may have gone to brooding over some fresh new ideas for 2025.

Those new ideas are reaching way back in time to gardens that reflect native species, sustainable practices, and wildlife-friendly plantings.

Bernie Whetter, owner/operator at The Green Spot Home & Garden in Brandon (greenspotbrandon.ca) shares a few ideas on the trends for gardens in 2025 — and the big one is growing native plants.

He says using plants native to a region fits in with the “keep it local” movements.

Talented NHL rookies in Calder battle

Winning the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in the National Hockey League isn’t an absolute guarantee of future success, but there have been only a handful of winners over the years who have not gone on to enjoy extraordinary careers.

This year, it’s likely that a couple of players who don’t win the award will find their way to the Hockey Hall of Fame, because the list of top rookie contenders is stacked.

Last year’s No. 1 draft pick, Connor Bedard of the Blackhawks, won the award in 2023-24, but the most recent No. 1 pick, Macklin Celebrini of the Sharks, won’t be an automatic Calder winner this year.

That’s because three other first-year players, Lane Hutson of the Canadiens, Matvei Michkov of the Flyers and Dustin Wolf of the Flames have all had standout seasons and will garner votes when media voters cast their ballots.

Earth Day is just a few days away and you might find yourself “thinking green” and looking for something earth-friendly you can do at home.

Worm composting (or vermiculture) is a year-round project that will reduce outgoing food waste and help grow your garden and indoor plants. And because it’s done indoors, it’s great if you’re short on outdoor space.

Martin Dupuis, owner/operator at Smiley Worms (smileyworms.ca), says you’ll see a huge difference in your garden and your houseplants when you start feeding them with worm castings.

Vermiculture at home works by feeding food scraps from your kitchen to a hungry colony of worms you keep in a specially prepared container.

Wild finish inevitable to NHL regular season

There couldn’t be a more appropriate word for the scramble to determine the final few teams for the Stanley Cup playoffs. It’s wild, man, so the term ‘wildcard’ could not be more apropos.

The 82-game regular season winds up April 17 and while some teams locked up berths weeks ago — hello, Washington; hi there, Winnipeg — there are division positions and wildcard spots still up for grabs.

The situation is extreme in the East, where at one point in late March, there were five teams battling for the second and final wildcard position and separated by a mere three points. Barring a late collapse, the Ottawa Senators have seemingly locked up the first wildcard berth in the East, but Montreal, the Islanders, Rangers, Columbus and Detroit were all neck-and-neck.

It’s not so crazy tight in the West, but fans of Vancouver and Calgary will be on pins and needles down the stretch as they try to sneak into one of the wildcard spots. Minnesota and the hard-charging St. Louis Blues appeared fairly secure as the calendar flipped to April, with the Canucks and Flames needing late-season winning streaks to have a hope.

Countryfest struggles to recover from COVID

Dauphin’s Countryfest is pushing to get ticket sales back to pre-COVID levels because the future of the event is at stake, its vice-president said.

Countryfest vice-president Bob Gilroy told the Sun in March that the non-profit is encouraging support for the festival. Organizers are calling on locals to consider the festival this year as ticket sales pose a threat to the festival as a result of the COVID pandemic.

“We need to get back to the days prior to COVID,” said Gilroy. “Each year, the ticket sales have gone up but they are still not at a point for long-term viability of the festival.”

Southern Manitoba, such as areas like Brandon and Winnipeg, are some areas that have not been coming out as much in recent years, Gilroy said.