Peri McQuay

Peri Phillips McQuay is the author of Singing Meadow: The Adventure of Creating a Country Home, The View From Foley Mountain, a book of nature meditations on her experiences living for 30 years at the Foley Mountain Conservation Area and A Wing in the Door: Life With a Red-tailed Hawk is the story of her adventures with Merak, a human-imprinted hawk, who lived free but saw McQuay and her family as her special people. Also Peri has written numerous essays, articles, book reviews and a weekly column, published in the Kingston Whig-Standard Magazine. Her credits include Country Journal, Harrowsmith, Bird Watcher’s Digest, The Snowy Egret, Seasons, The Fiddlehead, Herizons and Brick.

A Different Kind of Valor

Leave a Comment / Inspiration, People

A Different Kind of Valor Today I’m thinking of the unspeakable courage of elders. I see it everywhere, and I am in awe watching the everyday bravery of so many. After all, I am one of them, and I am beginning to understand the challenges. There’s none of the glamour we admire watching a ski …

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A Sense of Home

Leave a Comment / Foley Mountain C.A., Inspiration, trees, Uncategorized

A Sense of Home My childhood home, painted by my artist father, Ken Phillips It begins with my beloved childhood home, the little, brown-shingled house which my father and grandfathers and uncles had built in the heart of a small, 3-acre woods. It was the centre of my world, and I loved it fiercely–the wind …

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ADHD and the Pursuit of Smallness

Leave a Comment / Healing, Inspiration, Makers and Making, Reading, Simple Living, Uncategorized

ADHD and the Pursuit of Smallness Before I share more stories about the many passions which brighten my days, I want to explain how lifechanging it has been for me to understand the new thinking on ADHD. (I’m writing this in hopes that it might resonate for you, or for some of those you love.) …

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Gathering Moss
Gathering Moss This year we are celebrating the publication of a new book by distinguished author Robin Wall Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist, mother, plant ecologist, and the director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Kimmerer is already honored for her […]
Revisiting
Revisiting Last week I treated myself to a return to a special, lesser-known walk at Foley Mountain. (There are so many memories from my 30 years of living within the park, so many places I need to revisit.) Today’s walk, on what is called The Wildflower Trail, part of the Rideau Trail, is easily reached, […]
Beauty and Truth
BEAUTY AND TRUTH Last week was the anniversary of my mother, the artist Marie Cecilia Guard’s, birthday, which brought me back to appreciating her lifelong pursuit of beauty and her unfailing dedication to mastering her art. As the daughter of professional Canadian artist parents who shared a lifelong passion for art, [see also my father […]
Our Green Heart
Our Green Heart: The Soul and Science of Forests The Web of Life Scientist, poet, generous teacher, story-teller and visionary Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a national treasure and we should be celebrating her as such. Her newly published book Our Green Heart: The Soul and Science of Forests is a summation of her life work. I […]
Still Singing
Still Singing It is the first day of my new year and I am still singing. In the decade following what one doctor called “the catastrophic death” of my beloved husband after 47 years of an exceptional marriage, I am still learning to walk alone. Walking on with big steps and little ones, (and occasionally […]