Tracey O. 🇨🇦
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trace524.bsky.social
Tracey O. 🇨🇦
@trace524.bsky.social
Writer. Nature Photographer.
Life-long booklover.
Always learning.
**I don't reply to DMs**

https://traceyormerod.com
Pinned
"When despair for the world grows in me...
I come into the presence of still water...
And for a time I rest in the grace of the world,
and am free."

~ Wendell Berry

#birds #wildlife #blueherons #birdphotography #naturephotography #quote #wisdom #naturewriting #wendellberry
September 25, 2025 at 1:48 PM
September 20, 2025 at 3:16 PM
August 5, 2025 at 1:57 PM
We labour over a lawn while the forests burn. It's so deeply ingrained to water it, trim it, weed and seed it.
#rewild
Status (and the grass tax)

Status shows up whenever humans do, and it is the invisible underpinning of our culture. The front lawn was only invented around the time of Columbus. The idea was to demonstrate that you had time and money to waste. You could take useful land and make it non-productive.…
Status (and the grass tax)
Status shows up whenever humans do, and it is the invisible underpinning of our culture. The front lawn was only invented around the time of Columbus. The idea was to demonstrate that you had time and money to waste. You could take useful land and make it non-productive. You could take labor and put it to work taking care of this non-productive land with no obvious utility in return.
seths.blog
June 12, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by Tracey O. 🇨🇦
Margaret Atwood, Neil Young, and Fred Penner are among the prominent Canadians who have signed our open letter, urging Peterborough to reverse library staff cuts. Read it here: ourfutureptbo.org/open-letter
Open Letter — Our Future Peterborough
OFP is a grassroots advocacy group working to protect public services and community infrastructure in Peterborough, especially those that support children, families, education, and a livable future. W...
ourfutureptbo.org
June 10, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by Tracey O. 🇨🇦
As a dad I love our library and librarians. As a public health doc, I know the library also plays an important social function in our community. Librarians = Heart of Gold.
Margaret Atwood and Neil Young among signatories of open letter opposing #Ptbo Public Library staffing cuts. Open letter from Our Future Peterborough has been signed by more than 100 celebrated writers, artists, educators, and performers. kawarthanow.com/2025/06/10/m...
Margaret Atwood and Neil Young among signatories of open letter opposing Peterborough Public Library staffing cuts | kawarthaNOW
By Megan Gallant. Open letter from Our Future Peterborough has been signed by more than 100 celebrated writers, artists, educators, and performers.
kawarthanow.com
June 11, 2025 at 12:38 AM
"There's a reason so many esteemed writers and artists signed this letter. They remember the librarians who saw them and encouraged them." - Sheetal Rawal, Our Future Peterborough - kawarthanow.com/2025/06/10/m...
Margaret Atwood and Neil Young among signatories of open letter opposing Peterborough Public Library staffing cuts | kawarthaNOW
By Megan Gallant. Open letter from Our Future Peterborough has been signed by more than 100 celebrated writers, artists, educators, and performers.
kawarthanow.com
June 11, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Tracey O. 🇨🇦
After a long bit of toiling, we're proud to announce the launch of Gander Social—a project to bring a new kind of social to Canadians.

Canadian owned and hosted, a feed you control, privacy-first, consent-based, respectful by default.

Join the Early Access program: gandersocial.ca
Gander: The Social Media You Want, Built for Canada
Fun, private, and ethical. We're changing the way social media is done around here, all without your data taking an unexpected trip south.
gandersocial.ca
April 22, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Here's what I don't understand: they're cutting municipal funding to the library while they spend an estimated $4.4 million to destroy a greenspace park and replace it with concrete pickle ball courts, cycling track & skateboard facility.
#ptbo #savepubliclibraries

chng.it/MMTLr4yhxs
Have you seen this petition yet?
Stop the Cuts at Peterborough Public Library!
chng.it
May 3, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Watched this tonight. Insightful and intelligent. Highly recommend!
#cdnpoli #canadastrong

youtu.be/V11qNDDElZw?...
Canada’s Role in a Shifting Global Order — with Mark Carney | Prof G Conversations
YouTube video by The Prof G Pod – Scott Galloway
youtu.be
April 21, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Reposted by Tracey O. 🇨🇦
A red thread winds through the trees.
It doesn't shout. It doesn't break.
It simply says what so many of us feel:
“I AM CANADIAN. I DESIRE TO BE NOTHING ELSE.” 🇨🇦🧵

Rooted in the land. Carried by generations.
#IAmCanadian #ElbowsUp #cdnpoli #abpoli #GroupOfSevenVibes #HandsOffMyCanada
April 20, 2025 at 3:01 AM
“We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves,” he said. “And in a trade war, just like in hockey, we will win.”

kawarthanow.com/2025/04/19/l...

#cdnpoli #canadastrong #election2025
Liberal leader Mark Carney welcomed to Peterborough by a large crowd of enthusiastic supporters | kawarthaNOW
By Bruce Head. The prime minister spoke for around 30 minutes, taking a few jabs at Pierre Poilievre but always returning to threats from the U.S.
kawarthanow.com
April 20, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Thanks to @mark-carney.bsky.social for a fantastic rally in Peterborough!

#Cdnpoli #Election2025 #CanadaStrong
April 19, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Thanks to Narratively and @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social for a great conversation.
Agreed: we all need to do what we can. As a Canadian, I feel the same. Write. Talk. Share. Support.
For me, a key issue is the 'polarizing information silos' you mentioned. What will it take to break them open?
Subscribe at america.substack.com (it's free) and you'll get an invite to today's live conversation at 1PM ET. Hope to see you there.
This is happening tomorrow--talk about politics, writing and maintaining our sanity in times like these. Join us on Substack Live!
April 8, 2025 at 6:26 PM
I just acquired "The Cartoonists Club" for our school library. The kids love Raina Telgemeier's work, so I'm sure they'll love this one.

How great that these two are the honorary chairs for the 2025 National Library Week!
www.ala.org/conferencese...

#librarylove #books #booklovers
April 5, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Tracey O. 🇨🇦
📚🚐 One week from today! Celebrate National #LibraryOutreachDay on April 9.
Let’s recognize the library professionals who bring resources beyond the library walls—meeting patrons where they are!
Find resources to celebrate at: www.ala.org/conferencese...

#NationalLibraryWeek
April 2, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Cory Doctorow's essay: pluralistic.net/2021/12/18/s...

"It’s perfectly reasonable to find a group of people you trust and take your cues from them ... But this system breaks down when it is being driven by reflexive schismogenesis."

Worth a read. Thanks to @sethgodin.bsky.social for sharing.
April 5, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Convoys of hydro trucks from our province and beyond arrived. Our heroes, after 6 days without power.

It's what Canadians do. 🇨🇦 We help. I'm proud and grateful.
April 5, 2025 at 1:22 PM
The image of the memorial to #books lost in the flames of the May 10, 1933 book burning in Germany is a powerful one.

"Use your #libraries. Show the world they are important."

How to lose a book www.book-alchemy.com/p/how-to-los...
How to lose a book
Why we must stand up for libraries
www.book-alchemy.com
March 29, 2025 at 4:41 PM
What a great message from Kobo! I had to share it. 🇨🇦🥰

#CanadianWriters #CanadianBusiness #supportingCanada
March 26, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by Tracey O. 🇨🇦
"No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.” ~ Pat Conroy
March 10, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Tracey O. 🇨🇦
"I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone's imagination." ~ Hunter S. Thompson
March 4, 2025 at 11:49 AM
"There is your garden, your neighborhood ... Labradoodles, the entire universe, and it might do you and your writing some good to steer away from that other subject for a while."
Your painful childhood, your relationship with one parent or another, the illness that almost sunk your marriage, the inconsolable loss that rocked your life at age fifty, are deep and worthy subjects for your pen, but that’s not all you have to write about.
brevity.wordpress.com/2025/02/28/n...
Today is National Essay Day: So Start Thinking
By Dinty W. Moore Though much of our focus on the Brevity Blog is the art of memoir writing, the genre we call creative or literary nonfiction is far wider in scope, and it would be a shame for wri…
brevity.wordpress.com
February 28, 2025 at 1:03 PM
"Successful cultures embrace bigger circles."
February 25, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Tracey O. 🇨🇦
“And yet, so many of us are waiting for something we can join, which presents a true opportunity to be the first person in your circle welcoming fellow travelers into halting, shaky, earnest action.”
In occupied France, people would drop their used matches folded into a V, as a secret sign of resistance. People who opposed the Nazis would see them, knew they weren't alone, & felt emboldened to take action.

Some modern day equivalents here--small but powerful actions you can absolutely do:
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now which probably won't magically catalyze a mass movement against Trump but that are still wildly important
Why? Because others will see you do them, and it will make it easier for them to take their own (slightly less lonely but equally beautiful) action by your side
thewhitepages.net
February 25, 2025 at 2:13 PM