If we approach our environments with humility and a genuine desire to learn and observe what nature has to show us we find we are always rewarded. And while I'm fascinated by our changing landscapes I'm always awed at how farming echoes life. For if a little disturbance and rest is good and healthy for the soil, does it not parallel that a little disturbance followed by rest is good for the soul?
Concerned about Canada's food supply? You're not alone and there's good reason to be ...
Local food doesn't get more local than your own back (or front) yard. I spent an enjoyable week over the winter laying out my garden plan for 2020. It's not your traditional garden laid out row upon row but I love it and I can't wait to get in it I am a gardener at heart and I guess I come by this honestly as the daughter of a grain farmer who plowed the straightest furrows in the county and now swears every year that he will not plant a garden then proceeds to plant one anyway and even expand it 'just a little' to add a few new varieties of something or other. Every year growing up I was drafted to help plant, pick and process our family garden. I can't say I was on overly enthusiastic recruit at the time (my penance for this is listening to my boys squabble when I assign them their weeding chores for the week) but I've certainly made up for that lack of enthusiasm now. To me, a garden is art. The soil is the canvas and the seeds are the paint. Looking back now I think the thing that most shaped my love for the beauty of a garden was watching my maternal grandparents work in theirs. They lived in a modest little house on a modest little city lot and made it into something extraordinary. In winter months when we visited their home the south facing windows were filled with seedlings of every kind imaginable and when we went back in spring and summer the whole yard was a riot of colours and scents. The vegetables were laid out in tidy rows in the backyard and I remember following my Grandpa Harry as he walked with his hands clasped behind his back, up and down the rows telling me what they were. The front yard was full of flowers of every variety, size, shape and colour and quite honestly I think I saw more of my Grandma Ida's behind than any other part of her as she always seemed to be bent over pulling a stray weed or pointing out a pretty bloom (nary a weed survived long in their yard). And nowadays when I have my hands deep in the soil and am busy about the business of pulling my own weeds, I find my mind often wanders back to their little city lot and I walk with them once again in their garden. My Grandpa Harry & Grandma Ida on their wedding day October 9, 1949 Your mind is a garden,your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds. Joy Stephens
I don't know about you, but the most shocking thing to me about COVID 19 is the speed at which life changed so drastically for us collectively as humans on this planet. As though we woke up one morning to find we are all living something straight out of a sci-fi movie ...
On warm days when the snow starts to soften under the warm caress of the sun and the first few melty drops join together into the tiniest of trickles that dribble down the hillsides I sense the stirring of life beneath my feet, can almost hear the ancient call of the sun to the soil to awake from the slumber of winter, can feel the thrumming heartbeat of creation rising in response. It's too soon to hold my breath in anticipation of spring but I will because it calls to me too.
