Independence...

 October 14, 2026

I am delighted to report that a slice of normalcy has returned to the life of yours truly. On October 10^th and the first time since August of 2025, I now have a clear, safe path from the bottom of my porch steps to the street in front of my house.

Last weekend our son, and one of our grandsons (our son’s nephew) worked together to install metal railings: one for the single step down from the new concrete pad at the base of our porch to the next level; two on either side of the two concrete steps down to the bottom concrete pad that ends with a drop curb at the street; and one long new hand railing down the wooden porch steps.

That last replaces the wooden hand railing my husband made when he installed the first set of porch steps a few years back. I was grateful for that hand-made railing, of course, but it was so wide a board that it was impossible to wrap my hand around it. And, in winter, my right glove always got wet because while the porch steps are maintained cleared of snow, no one ever thought to brush off that darn railing.

Our son also did one other thing while he was here. He brought his power washer and washed those porch steps. This was done so that we could make one more improvement, one that will be done within the next few days: installing non-slip treads to the wooden steps. These are adhesive treads, but David will reinforce the adhesive by using his heavy-duty staple gun to ensure those treads remain in place.

Last Saturday, I waited until all the rails were installed, and the kind workers had left; I waited a little longer until daughter and husband were both napping. Then I went outside, and walked from porch to road and back again, all by myself.

Hallelujah! Independence!

I probably won’t go out every day; I may not go out more than once a week. But now if I want to, I can. I no longer have to impose on anyone else to assist me to and from my car. And that’s all that matters to me.

I do tend not to drive much in the winter. Our daughter will, as she did last year, move my car once a week. Daughter will park in our single spot in front of the house—at my insistence—because she goes to work most every day. It wouldn’t be right to leave my car in that spot when I may not go out on any given day. However, if there is a need for me to do so, then before she leaves for work in the morning, she’ll see to it my car is there for me. That system worked well for us last year. Well, until January 12^th when there was so much snow and ice everywhere that I was unable to get off my property, period. That situation lasted until the first week of March.

Currently our daughter’s car is parked in our driveway each night. The driveway is accessed off the cross street on the southwest side of our house. That street is a steep hill; and in winter it’s one of the first streets in town to get plowed, which makes that driveway prone to being plowed in. And since there is no one in this house able to dig out a driveway? It gets “closed” at the first sign of an incoming snowfall.

Also, as it turns out, the gate that gives access from the yard to the driveway freezes shut each winter. That’s not a problem in one respect, because we’ve always considered that driveway to be for fair-weather use only. It is a slight problem, in that during the winter months we also cannot use the back gate for setting out the trash on that side street for weekly pickup.

The good news is that since our house is on a corner, we can also set the trash out in front of the house. The inconvenient news is that during the winter, our trash containers are therefore stationed on the front porch.

There may come a day when home improvements are made so that the back gate doesn’t freeze shut. It would be a greater problem if that gate were to freeze open, because our backyard is used by the dogs—or by us, for putting the critters outside and out of the way from time to time. An open gate would make that impossible.

But until such a time as we can get those improvements done, we’ll simply do what we always do. We’ll improvise, adapt and overcome.

If that’s good enough for the U. S. Marines, it’s certainly good enough for us.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

Autumn preparations...

 October 7, 2026

Well, the frost was on the pumpkins the other day, and right on schedule, there go the trees. Some of them lose their leaves early. Our walnut tree, for example, the moment it's done the business of forming the walnuts, begins to shed its leaves. This is not an example of the famed “autumn splendor” this area of the world is known for. Nope, it’s case of ugly brown and yellow wilt and then down they come.

I also seem to recall waiting forever, as a child, for my glorious weeping willow to get its leaves. That’s another tree that drops them early, if I’m not mistaken.

But the bigger, hardier trees—the maples and oaks and others—keep those beautiful green leaves well into September and beyond. Until, of course, we get that first hard frost, with the temperatures dipping toward the freezing mark.

It was so cold a few nights ago that when I got up the next morning I immediately checked the weather forecasts—the 7 and the 14 day ones. That was a huge sigh of relief I gave when I understood that the nighttime low wasn’t going to be diving below freezing again for a while. It’s forecasted to hover in the low forties, and that’s cold, but not freezing.

Unfortunately, we did have that one night and already those beautiful trees that only last week had presented a nice lush green have already begun their turn. The leaves become dull, and then, on a few here and a few there, you see traces of yellow and red… It’s only a matter of time, now. Soon, all we’ll be seeing are dozens of nekkid trees, their scrawny branches and twigs flailing and creaking in the breeze.

The sight is enough to make the observer indulge in a teeth-chattering shiver in sympathy.

Of course, we’re not denying the change of seasons. We never do in this house. It’s autumn, time to begin to see what more we can “put down” in the freezer for the coming winter.  Everyone living here likes beets. So, when one of our local stores had ten-pound bags of beets on sale for $5.99, of course we had to buy one. I’ve never frozen beets before. Back in the day, I used to make jars of pickled beets. But I’ve never frozen them.

The great beet adventure turned into a two-day event. We have a Food Saver Vacuum Sealer for packaging food for the freezer. That machine does its best work when what’s in the bag does not have a high moisture content. With the corn, what worked was bagging the corn in sandwich-sized bags and then, as soon as they were frozen, repackaging them with the sealer.

For the beets, we used the flash-freeze method: cook, drain, and plunge into an ice bath. Then drain that (after about 10 minutes) peel, slice, and lay the beets in a single layer on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. We have three cookie sheets, and each one held two layers of beets, the second layer separated from the first, of course, with that parchment paper. Then the trays were placed in the large freezer and left overnight.

The next day, daughter and I finished the job, removing a tray at a time and filling the bags to our desired quantity. No beet slice thawed during this process, and we ended up with fourteen bags of beets—fourteen meals throughout the winter of a side dish that we know had no chemicals used in the processing.

Our grandson—our daughter’s son who lives with his other grandparents—gave us five butternut squash out of their garden. This type of squash can be peeled, sliced, diced and flash frozen without cooking. That’s a job we hope to do soon. I’m also heading to a garden market before long in hopes of finding some baskets of green beans.

If all goes well, we’ll have plenty of veggies for winter suppers—and the sense of knowing that we worked and provided for ourselves and whoever else comes to our door.

That’s not a big thing in life. But it’s not nothing, either.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

Are we evolving?

 September 30, 2026

Today, September 30, is the last day of the month. In Canada it is also the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

I’ve often mentioned in my essays that Canada is by no means perfect. The biggest blot in our history, in my opinion, can be summed up with two words that in this country don’t need a lot of explanation: residential schools.

In the 1800s in Canada, church-run boarding schools were instituted. Attendance at these schools was mandatory, by law. The purpose of these schools was to house and “educate” indigenous children, with a purpose of blotting out their heritage and identities. It was an act of cultural genocide. The last residential school in this country was finally closed in the 1990s. And over the course of the program, over one hundred and fifty thousand children were taken from their homes, and thousands of them either died or were simply never returned to their families. You see, also by law, the principals of the schools became the legal guardians of the children under their roof.

And under that authority, the children were mistreated and horribly abused.

In 2008 the Canadian government instituted the Truth and Reconciliation Commission under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. Reparations were made and in 2021 the new national holiday was created.

I am far from being an expert on this subject. So for anyone wanting to know more, you can go here:  https://nctr.ca/about/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada or you can go here: https://www.irsss.ca

I like to think that generally speaking, our hope over time—as a society and as an individual—is to improve. Improve ourselves, our communities, our world. I have long believed that life is a journey. For each of us, a journey toward something that is important to ourselves, or our cultures.

One of the aims of an author writing a novel wherein people are front and center, is that by the end of the story you’ve told, your characters have grown. They have evolved. The writer’s job is to make you root for the character. The best novels engender a sense of accomplishment within the reader for having traveled that path of discovery or redemption with the character.

Art imitates life. If it didn’t, art wouldn’t hold much interest for us. My job as an author is to create characters that you can identify with, and love, and therefore care about them. If I fail, you won’t finish my book.

There are no do-overs in life. When we screw up, and we all do, what has gone wrong can not be taken back. And sometimes, all that’s left are grief and ashes.

We learn about past events, we learn our own histories, and we learn things that make us feel uncomfortable. That’s a part of living. Honest living, day to day. We cannot go back and undo the injustices we discover in our own history.

We cannot undo the damage done to those children, and those families. What we can do? We can and should educate ourselves about what happened. We can and should seek to understand the damage done and the impact of it.

And perhaps the most important thing of all? We can, and we should, find empathy within ourselves which often comes with a real resolve to do better, going forward.

That is what true progress is all about.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Thoughts...

 September 23, 2026

It’s been a month since we lost the amazing and truly incomparable Dolly Parton. For those of you who hang back in life when it comes to participating in anything that might be life changing for others, who feel as if you’re “not enough” be it smart, wealthy, or educated, I point to the late Dolly. Not only was she an individual human being, born into a very humble life she was—as she herself always pointed out—little. That is to say, small of stature.

I’ve never been what I or anyone else would call a super fan of Dolly’s. But I watched some of her movies and listened to a lot of her music. (I just checked. Three of her songs that were first released in the last century, are on Apple Music’s top 100.) And through the years, I watched her in several televised interviews that she gave, time after time after time. The woman rarely said no to an interview, never lost it when the interviewer asked rude questions, and she was always honest and forthright.

Her intelligence, her humanity and her deep faith all shone through for all to see. One month on, people are still celebrating her life. Gee, I guess what “they” have always said is true: one person can indeed make a difference.

We are not all given to the same causes in this life. We have all been given talents, but our talents are not identical. I’ve always believed that our main job in life was twofold: First, to be as kind as we can and to do as much good as we can for as many people as we can. And second—and this is key—to discover our own talents and then to use them to the best of our abilities.

We are not all destined to live large, or to be famous. But I truly believe we are all destined to be able to be of help to someone, or several of them, at some point, somewhere. As I look over my life I know that while I haven’t qualified for any awards or medals on a grand scale, I have done what I could when I could. And God willing, I’ll move forward with that philosophy and do more in the years I have left.

Here in Southern Ontario it appears as if we are done with the triple digit temperatures for now. I only say “for now” because I have learned that nearly anything is possible. It’s cool in the early mornings, and warmest just after midday. There’s been no frost on the lawns yet, but that’s not far off.

Our porch is adorned by various plants, some of which winter in our upstairs on a rack in front of a sun-framing window. This weekend there are plans to have some of our great-grandchildren by so they can carry those plants inside and up.

This week I hope to test out my new walkway. Everyone else has used it and all have agreed it’s great. I, however, managed to annoy a muscle in my right knee a week ago and need to wait just a bit longer for that knee to get just a bit stronger.

We’re also going to measure the walkway and decide on the railings we want, and that needs to be done in advance of the second week of October, which is when we’ll have son and grandsons’ assistance with that part of the project.

I’m also looking forward to “putting down” some vegetables in the next couple of weeks, so that we’ll have a variety available during the winter months.

Time marches on. Seasons change. It’s time to get working on what needs doing.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

A work in progress...

 September 16, 2026

The world around us is changing, and sometimes faster than we’re comfortable with. The last few months, for me, have put me in mind of the feeling I had at the first amusement park I went to after having given birth to my first child. Before having kids, I loved those rides. After? Well, one ride was all it took to let me know those days of feeling at risk and upside down were behind me forever.

I fared better than my brother. He never could stomach them. He could barely stomach looking at a bowl of Jello.

But I digress.

I’ve been trying very hard not to go running helter-skelter through current events emulating Chicken Little of old European folklore fame. Metaphorically, of course since I cannot now, nor will I ever again, be able to run.

But I do have a few things to say. And you won’t need to buckle up.

You all know that I’m Canadian. I’ve never hidden that fact, and yes, you also know I am proud of my country. Every citizen who lives in a country should own a sense of patriotic pride for the nation that is their home.

I have never agreed one hundred percent with any Canadian Prime Minister in my lifetime. They have all, regardless of political party, had their good points and their not-so-good points. We have episodes of deep shame in our history, and I have never denied that fact, either. No nation is perfect. And the only perfect human being who ever lived died on the cross. Which was not a murder, by the way; it was a sacrifice. His life was not taken from Him. He laid it down.

I have also traveled extensively in the U.S. I’ve been to 30 of the lower 48 states! I have many American friends, and my very best friends are American. I love my American friends as much as I love my Canadian friends, my Ukrainian friends, my Polish friends….well, you get the idea.

A subject in these essays of mine that is likely one of the most repeated and was in fact the topic of my very first Wednesday’s Words written prior to my first book being released was that we have more in common, we Americans and Canadians, than the total of differences that may exist between us.

The Bible teaches us to hate the sin but love the sinner and I’ve tried to live my life that way. I do hate sin in all its forms. And I’m working very hard on keeping sin the only object in my life to receive my hate. Do I stumble? Of course, I do. But I keep trying.

I am a work in progress.

If one is going to espouse a doctrine/belief/tenet, then one needs to truly do so—one needs to walk as one talks. Of all the words in the Bible that I’ve read—and I have read them all, more than once—the words I always return to are those ones that are printed in red.

Politics is politics and can be used as a vehicle for more than one motive. And as politics is an invention of humans, those motives can be anything from benign to good to bad to evil. Politics is fluid; it is ever changing, ever adapting, and therefore not a matter of permanence. Convenience? Yes. Permanence? No.

But values? Values are forever. They are solid and, in my opinion, foundational. And therefore, it is my values that I cling to. My values prod me to help others where I can; to do my best to begin each day with a positive attitude. To do my share, or as much of my share as I am able. To not judge other human beings, as that’s not for me to do. And most importantly, to be kind to whomever I encounter in my day to day life—in person, on the phone, or online.

And to be kind to myself, first.

Why first? Just as I’ve always believed that as one must put on their own oxygen mask before helping another with theirs, being kind to myself first—by not indulging in negative self-talk, calling myself names, or assuming responsibility that I do not own—allows me to more freely and easily be kind to others.

Do I stumble? Of course, I do. But I keep trying.

I really am a work in progress.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

And then the bottom fell out...

 September 9, 2026

Last week, David and I headed to the city which is only about twenty minutes from our small town. We needed to pick up his new glasses. He’d gotten a new prescription about a year ago, and then last fall he was having difficulties seeing. After an exam, he was told that he needed cataract surgery for both eyes.

That happened in January and March. His left eye had presented a bit of a challenge and took longer to heal. But finally by mid spring, all was well. He made an appointment, because it was time to visit his regular optometrist to get a new prescription.

Fortunately, the place where we purchase our glasses allowed him to bring in the frames he’d bought last year and have them fitted with new lenses.

After getting the glasses, we made a stop at a local farm-market. We bought a dozen ear of corn—three to eat that night with supper and the rest to be put in bags and into the freezer, once the kernels had been stripped from the cobs. I also had it in mind to purchase six or so large field tomatoes for stuffing. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any tomatoes that big, but I bought a small basket of good-sized ones, for sandwiches and burgers and such.

As we were out and about, I noticed something that seemed very odd to me. Here it was the first days of September. Usually, at this point, the lawns in our area are varying shades of brown with very few green highlights scattered among them. But this year, we didn’t have any browning of the local yards at all. It had been hot enough for that, and the sun had at times beat down upon us unmercifully.

However, it has been so wet here this year, that the grass remained green and vibrant. And required a lot more cutting than just the summer before. I looked up the stats just to be official, but I knew that the rainfall for the last two months had been more than double that of the previous year. I knew that because my arthritis has been screaming at me since early August.

Now, about buying those tomatoes. I was trying to be patient, waiting for ours to get big and to ripen. But I must have been prescient that day. Because, you see, yesterday the bottom fell out of the wooden garden that our larger variety tomato plants had been growing.

Quite literally.

The garden was fine yesterday morning when daughter left for work. But when she returned in the afternoon, there it was, bottom slats broken, dirt on the ground, and tomato plants mangled beyond repair. She rescued what unripened fruit she could. There wasn’t much there. It was a sad moment for me. For daughter? A bit less so. She has the realistic attitude that shit happens, and crying over spilled milk—or tomatoes—does no good whatsoever.

Of the other three wooden table gardens that we have, one is solid—because our son made it for his dad and brought it just ahead of Father’s Day this year. But the others are rotting. We’re going to have to come up with a solution for next spring, of course, and we will.

There was plenty of rain this year, but there was not nearly enough sunshine to help those tomatoes grow. Although one of our cherry tomato plants over preformed. That one plant gave us both the “cherry sized” fruit as well as a few that are about the size of Roma tomatoes. Weird.

Part of our problem is the ever-growing cedars in our back yard. They’re planted on the hill but doing a slow encroachment, shade-wise, over the lower yard. There are plans to trim those trees next month. But it’s also not good for the gardens to receive the “droppings” from the cedars, those seeds that the squirrels like to gather. Something about adding unwanted substances to the garden soil. Or so I’ve been told.

Daughter also planted beets and Spanish onions and two zucchini plants this year. But she put them in large pots and set them along the back walkway, between our gated and too shady back yard and the side street on the south side of our house. Those plants get full sun from morning to about three in the afternoon, when the sun is not obstructed by clouds.

Those plants done ok, but again, they could have thrived with more sunshine.

Farmers the world over will tell you that of all the ways there are for one to earn their living, counting on crops is the riskiest. That’s a truth we’ve always known, one that applies even to hobby gardening..

We’ll appreciate all we reap for the remainder of this growing season. And then, come the spring, will implement whatever new ideas we develop.

The fun really is in the trying.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

My lazy tree...

 September 2, 2026

I haven’t spent much time studying trees. That’s not to say I don’t care for them. I love trees. I love their look, their shade, and the way they seem, in their quiet and subjective way, to be a constant symbol of stability.

 I’ve never once before this vey moment considered whether or not any particular tree is hard working or not. But if I were to consider such a thing, I’m afraid I would have to rank our walnut tree—yes I mean you, Mr. Walnut Tree growing at the northeast corner of my porch—as the laziest tree that God ever created.

The very last to form its leaves in the spring, the walnut is a great, beautiful tree that provides wondrous, green-leafed shade. Right up until that first walnut begins to form.

The moment you see that first round green nut you know the truth—autumn is about to hit. Oh, not by the calendar, nor by the temperatures, and not in our thoughts, because that first nut is formed in August. It’s truly as if the tree says, “okay, there you go. Done my job. Now go away and let me sleep.” Because from that moment on, constantly, one after another, those beautiful and distinctive green leaves begin to turn a very ordinary yellow and then drop everywhere.

Everywhere!

And there’s no variety to them, they’re just a limp and useless yellow, not remarkable except in their landing everywhere and over everything.

The first couple of years that we lived in this house, we set out being scrupulous when it came to the tidiness of our yard. I’d get out every weekend and rake, rake, rake, until I had gathered up all the discarded leaves and bagged them.

A sense of satisfaction visited me on Monday morning as I left for work, because that front yard and sidewalk looked well-groomed and free of debris. And by Wednesday evening the yard looked as if its owners didn’t even own a rake!

I will admit that our enthusiasm began to wane after the first decade or so. The Walnut tree was our tree (even though it’s technically on the town’s land) and I didn’t mind caring for its debris. But friends, I would rake those leaves from mid-August (and a couple of years from late July) and just when that tree was finally bare and done, well, the various other trees in our neighbourhood would take their turn. The leaves of the maple and ash trees would change colour and drop. David would mumble something about the trees not even being ours. But I always felt that since I had sat on that porch and enjoyed their beauty through the spring and summer, my raking up those leaves was appropriate payment for that privilege.

The good news from the gardens is that there are several green tomatoes out there growing. The bad news is they’re still green, and taking their sweet time turning red. I accept that I’m more than a tad impatient. But after a very long three or four days of rain, yesterday there was sun and there’s a hint of that today. I’m certain that if we could have two or three sunny days in a row, we would indeed have fresh tomatoes just waiting to be picked and devoured.  Therefore, I’m hopeful.

This year we have the latest possible Labor Day we can have. I remember as a kid being sad when this happened: it had been a long summer, and I wanted to get back to school. I’d reached the point of boredom, and it was agony. Why? Because if I dared to say those two words (I’m bored) within hearing of my mother, goodness knows what awful chore she’d find for me.

For my entire life, both elementary (includes primary) and high school in these parts has begun the day after Labor Day—and ended in late June. I no longer have children or grandchildren going to school. I do have some great-grandchildren—four, in fact—of school age. But we do live on the bus route and so for me in a way, “back to school” is still a thing.

School back in session means there will be dog barking from about 8 until 9 each weekday. It also means I have to tell our daughter’s oldest chihuahua, “it’s not time yet”, when she asks for the porch. Kids don’t need to be barked at first thing in the morning.

By the signs and customs of my people—and canines—next week our routine begins to get back to normal.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury