Photo & text © Michelle Schoffro Cook

I admit that I’ve been feeling a bit lethargic lately but decided to go for a brisk walk on my forest trails to combat my lacklustre mood. The forest had begun to paint itself in cherry red, burnt orange, and golden hues, which was the perfect antidote for the weariness that had crept into my body. A hint of purple poked out from the grasses and shrubs along the edges of the trail, a reminder that summer was not completely gone. I reached down to pluck the red clover flowers that were more of a lilac colour than their name would suggest. It seemed like Nature was nudging me to add the floral remedy best known for its blood purification propertie…

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When I visited my grandparents’ house each summer, my grandfather and I would undoubtedly find our way to the basement family room where he’d cut one of the many cantaloupes he grew in his garden into sections and we’d each take a plateful. We’d listen to his Johnny Cash albums while biting into the sweetest, most flavourful cantaloupe I ever tasted. The brilliant orange fruit bore no resemblance to the lacklustre, bland grocery store varieties I ate back in the city. We’d talk for hours while Johnny belted out tune after tune, and we’d usually polish off a few cantaloupes during each evening, so I was grateful he’d grown so many in anticipation of my visits.

My gr…

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This mass of trees may look similar to an apple tree but it is actually a combination of an older buckthorn tree and many invasive prickly ash trees. In the middle of this mass, I discovered a thin tree that looked quite similar at the base to the buckthorn and at a higher level to the ash trees; however, I visually traced one of the tree’s higher limbs and noticed apple leaves on it. Somehow, this miraculous apple tree continued to grow strangled by the other trees. Today, I discovered this little apple tree buried in the entanglement as some of the neighbouring invasive trees were removed around a different apple tree known as Happiness. This much younger tree that still needs to be re…

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