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At the Farm
When my plane touched down after midnight in Ottawa, the air was muggy and hot. The first hot humid day they’d had this year. My parents picked me up in their RV as they’d just come back from touring...
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The Witch Visits Ottawa
Mom and I hopped in the tiny black smart car and headed two hours east to Ottawa where my parents met and married. I lived there for a year when I was seventeen, but since have only come back once for...
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Farewell Farm, Hello Mountains
I flew home on the day of the Summer Solstice. It was hot and humid in Ottawa as it had been for the past three weeks of my visit. I slept through most of the flight and then heard the announcement...
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My Secret Garden
After discovering The Secret Garden as a child something in my brain clicked. I don’t know if it was all the subtle folk magic that made so much sense to me or the fascinating cycle of death and...
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Poisonous Flowers, Stowaways, and Newcomers
Bittersweet nightshade flowers Bittersweet continues strangling and climbing its neighbours. Purple petals with saffron noses cover the darkly veined vines and leaves. Here and there a green devil’s...
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The First Harvest
I had plans to walk in the forest yesterday wildcrafting berries and other edibles to make a wild harvest meal for my own Lùnastal celebration. Maybe there’d be pigtails and a handwoven collection...
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Suffumigations to Appease the Plant Spirits
In the cool shaded light of dusk each plant and tree is returned to the secret garden. Abused, forgotten, and separated by force and necessity the green spirits are brought together once more....
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The Rebirth of My Herbs
I didn’t save much from my secret garden, but I did save a few plants – my rue and red-flowered yarrow, my ficus and my badly bruised aloe. I pulled up my belladonna and henbane with the intent of...
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Comes the Scythe
It is still summer, the days are hot, and the grasses and leaves crisp and turn brown under the burning sun. But… there is a slight chill on top of the heat like a breeze off the ocean or the cool...
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Garden Shuffling
Last week my sweetie brought me home some sturdy wooden pallets he had rescued from a dumpster to replace the ones the workmen who fixed our porch threw out by accident. I use the pallets to keep my...
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