Meet_neighbours

Jeff Green | Apr 02, 2009

Your reporter suspected, wading through the last of the winter snow to the doorway of a quaint cottage in upper Bedford, that the new owner would be a genuinely unique sort of person. There being no answer to the bell, I followed the sound of wood-chopping around to the back, where I discovered Prunella Spike, recently of Toronto, splitting a cedar rail into kindling. "There’s a whole lot of these laid out along the road just like a sort of fence, and nobody seems to own them," trilled Prunella, "and they’re the best fire starters! I’ve been bringing a few home every time I come back from town."

Earlier this year, Prunella persuaded the South Frontenac Council to appoint her Poet Laureatte for the Township. "Just as long as it doesn’t cost us anything," exclaimed the mayor, "she can write as many poems as she wishes!"

"What’s a poem?" quipped several other councillors, thus confirming Ms Spike’s contention that a touch of Toronto might be good for the Township.

Over (locally picked and dried blueberry-leaf) tea, Prunella produced examples of her work. "There’s so much to celebrate in rural living – wonderful things that are just being overlooked by the locals, she enthused, handing us a copy of her self-published

When I praised her skill with imagery and rhyme, she offered to share her most recent work, "Ode to the Beaver":

The beaver is a busy creature

"I must be heading off, " I interjected.

"I could go on," offered Prunella generously.

But I had a long way to go, and it was getting dark. In the distance, a dog barked.