A few weeks ago, I paid a visit to a pair of adorable donkeys named Daisy and Violet. This mother daughter duo lives in a quaint little pasture owned by my lovely friend, Ewa, and her family.
What must food growing have been like for the earliest newcomers to Upper Canada? Many families arrived with a sack of seed and little else.This spring when we cleared more ground for planting vegetables, I thought about how much more difficult the task must have been for the earliest settlers. Before planting food, settlers first had to cut down an army of trees and remove obstacles like roots and boulders. I certainly didn’t have to contend with such challenges. Our garden plot will generate produce to can or freeze, but nothing sufficient to sustain us until the next growing season. Plants are just beginning to yield and August is half over.
(Please enjoy this Wellspring Podcast of Pioneer Food Gardens and Orchards.) Continue reading “Pioneer Food Gardens and Orchards”
A friend of mine recently shared her feelings connected to the cutting down of a tree in her yard. I thought of paraphrasing her words, but she expressed her thoughts so beautifully, I couldn’t alter them. She wrote, “We lost a dear tree today, a beautiful green ash that stood eighty feet high. Years ago when our house was being built and all we had was a wooden shell that tree rose above the roofline and declared itself part of the house. It’s been a home for squirrels and birds and probably a raccoon here and there. It hurts that we lost it.” Continue reading “Feeling Nostalgaic — Hearts Tied to a Tree”
Gwen Tuinman 