A Favourite Tree

Do you have a favourite place where you can go to be alone or to enjoy with a special person?

One of my favourite places to visit is the arboretum at the Experimental Farm in Ottawa. 

In recent years I have been dragging my children there for picnics and walks along the lush, colourful pathways.  We also visit my favourite tree, a Bebb's oak. 

It reminds me of my dear old Dad, of a photograph that was taken of him leaning on a cane during his final years.

During a 2005 visit, we noticed a plaque on the tree dedicated to Ardeth Wood, a promising young woman who was murdered on a bike path the summer of 2003.  

Visiting the arboretum provides us with a chance to experience nature as a family, to get fresh air and exercise. Visiting this tree provides me with time to reflect with a respect for ancient wisdom, hope for the future and gratitude for being a survivor. 

This springtime visit, I remembered to pack my copy of For the Love of Trees so we could identify the different species.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to wander and explore due to tight schedules.  Another time, perhaps. 

In the novel, trees are featured often - especially the pin cherry tree.  It was a favourite place for Sera Fletcher to climb and hide.  It was from this tree that she first met Father Gio. 

This tree provided the riggings and backdrop for the last  performance witnessed by Sera's ailing mother. 

Soon, it too met with its fate.  

As I look at a nearby cherry tree losing its blossoms, I know that it will produce berries this summer and that the remaining ones will be consumed by hungry birds during the winter.  

This tree is a reminder of the cycle of life and death, much like the The tree of life.

If you appreciate trees and want to read undiscovered Canadian fiction, please visit by the web site for The Year of the Rabbit.  

Thanks,

T

For the Mothers

Happy Mother's Day, if you celebrate it.

 

In The Year of the Rabbit, a novel about fate, family and forgiveness readers will encounter a few motherly characters:

• Marie Fletcher was a caring mother figure despite her struggles with mental health issues and a dark secret;
• Margaret MacDonald experienced deep guilt and regret that she did not prevent the abuse of her daughter;
  
• Jenny Young struggled with supporting her pregnant teen and understanding her husband's disappointment;
• Amy Young became a teenage mother who learned how to be responsible with the help of her own family and friends;
• Gio's Mom was the typical doting mother and eventually an exuberant grandmother. 

Excerpt:  While she lay in her mother's casket, young Sera Fletcher pondered life after death. 

Have a lovely Mother's Day - or make it one for your own Mom. 

T

Kitchen Help and Cooking Therapy

Sera sank deeper into depression after Amy and Dela left for Alberta, taking little Harry with them.  

She missed them.  

She also missed the comfort of Edgar Bear whom she had given to Harry. 

She missed her father who seemed like a different, distant man since her mother had died.  

Jenny and Carl let her stay in Amy's old room above the Red Hare Restaurant.  Over the past few months, Carl had softened up towards Sera - in his own way. 

Thanks for reading this post.  Please provide your reaction below or submit a comment.  Check out the other excerpts if you'd like to taste a little more of this bittersweet story.  Drop by www.yearoftherabbit.ca for more information about the novel.  

The things that turn up in spring

You wouldn't know it in the Ottawa Valley but Spring is here.  

In local travels, we have witnessed crocus sprouts pushing up from the earth and snow.  People are planning for the annual Tulip Festival. 

Friends and relatives are dusting off their patio furniture and eying their garden plots still covered by a dirty blanket of  snow.  They are logging up-coming events in their calendars.  Who knows what they are going to dig up?

Recently, on the other side of the pond,  "... in Edinburgh's frozen clay soil, the city’s archaeologists unearthed a diamond.

Resting in the dark, underneath what was once a city car park, the remains of a medieval knight were discovered."

See:  History unearthed: Meet the team who discovered the car park knight 
 
"The discovery comes just a month after the bones of Richard III were identified after being discovered below a car park in Leicester in what is being heralded as one of the most sensational finds in archaeological history."

I enjoy these discoveries, things of ancient past dug up and respectfully handled by archeologists - and drooled over by historians. 

Then there are those discoveries that indicate a body was not placed out of respect - and not under a car park but under an apartment building that the surrounding neighbours didn't want built.   

This news story was published in The Seguin Sounder, a fictitious newspaper that evolved out of the novel.

If you are curious to meet a certain redheaded girl who likes to bury things - and meet her younger, sadder sister Sera,  read excerpts from The Year of The Rabbit, a Novel About Fate, Family and Forgiveness.  Hop on over to the web site. 

After you purchase the book, you will join the ranks of other readers who enjoyed this undiscovered piece of Canadian fiction. 

Thanks for dropping by. Visit the novel's web site.  Watch where you are digging ;o)

T