David Hobson is a Waterloo-based writer and a freelance contributor for the Record, and can be reached by email at [email protected]. It was so hot and so dry in August it had gardeners longing for rain.

Just in time for the long Fourth of July celebration, a new firecracker makes it debut ― one that makes incurs only the sounds of a hummingbird's wings rushing in to feed. The Estrellita Little Star, ...