By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--May 21, 2023
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CFP columnist Bruce Smith’s written thoughts today, ‘Nostalgic Spring Beauty’ takes readers on a delightful walk through his late Granny’s Garden, in which the haunting memories of the beauty of old-fashioned gardens take us longingly back to a better day.
“I owe much of my appreciation of garden flowers to my paternal grandmother who delighted in plants and flowers,” Smith wrote. “She spent all of her adult life in Henry County, Indiana. All of the spring flowers in this column were favorites of hers, so they are still favorites of mine”, (Canada Free Press, May 21, 2023)
His ‘Nostalgic Spring Beauty’ brought back the week ago Happy Ending to my longing to find Mayflowers during the many decades I lived too far away from them in Ontario.
On reluctantly departing the Nova Scotia of my childhood, I took away with me the sound and smell of the sea; the intense fragrance of Mayflowers, Nova Scotia’s official flower (trailing arbutus), which if one looks hard and long enough, can be found growing under pine trees in late April and early May.
Their fragrance is truly Heaven-Sent, even better than my longtime favorite bottled perfume, Guerlain’s Shalimar.
My awareness of Mayflowers came from long ago Sunday afternoon drives with my father when ladies standing along the roadside held up nosegays of them for sale. Still a little girl, I would plead for my father to stop, which he did.
Most of my adult years were spent in the Toronto area of Ontario. During the decades there, each and every early Spring would find me calling on Ontario friends who had relocated to Nova Scotia, trying to get them to send me Mayflowers, a complicated, if even impossible task.
So you can imagine my boundless joy last week when Brian brought me Mayflowers he found growing along nearby abandoned railway tracks!
Those who read my columns will know that this long Victoria Day Weekend is the anniversary of our first year of arrival in beautiful sea-bound Nova Scotia.
It was an epic 1,100-mile trip overland by car, the two of us with our little Yorkie pet, ‘Yankee’. Our reasons for having to leave Ontario were even more epic, but Almighty God’s Providence rode along with us the whole way down.
We decided to leave then still COVID-19 bound Ontario when the tyrannical prime minister of this country, who had already frozen the bank accounts of the courageous Freedom Convoy truckers, threatened next to freeze the bank accounts of all their supporters, of which Canada Free Press was, and still is, one.
Already super harassed by Google which had de-monetized CFP, but still send threatening letters to this day ordering us to take our 21-year-old front page down, even though we removed all their ads, we moved kit and caboodle from CFP’s long-time Ontario home and office to Nova Scotia, the province where I was partially raised in a Catholic Orphanage.
Wary of what the future would hold in tumultuous times, we sped over the miles inspired by both God’s Providence and my joking description of “getting out of Dodge”.
As things turned out, we “got out of Dodge”, selling our house and in desperation buying a sight-unseen N.S. House by the Sea, at the very right time.
On the way down to the small Acadian fishing village where we now live and continue to keep CFP afloat, we spent a few hours in Halifax, where I cried upon seeing it again at long last.
My memories of Halifax during my first years away from it, were mental pictures of a mist-wreathed Citadel Hill.
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The move, starting anew in new territory and adjusting to our new lifestyle prevented us from visiting my home city during this past hectic year, a year that has seen so many dramatic changes to our world.
But we intend to get back to Halifax, and to Mahone Bay’s Herman’s Island where the orphanage had a Summer Camp.
In Halifax, I hope to visit the grave of my only baby, who succumbed to Spina Bifida at only 3 months of age. The Halifax Diocese kindly told us by phone that they would send someone to help us find the gravesite, if we gave them notice a couple of days before our visit.
Meanwhile, after a year in our new locale, we’re getting by. (We really are, Totsy!). We still miss Goderich friends, Margaret and Ralph, Debbie and Joe, Beverly, Virginia and Terry and Tammy in Stratford, Paul, a huge part of our lives, but take comfort in knowing that just like our American friends, they are only just a call or email away.
Trudeau, who ceded over our beautiful, resource-rich country to Klaus Schwab’s WEF, is still here.
But so is the struggling-to-stay-online Canada Free Press—now threatened like all other independent news sites—by Trudeau’s C-11—yet remaining abundantly blessed by our many loyal readers!
Happy 1st year Anniversary in Nova Scotia, CFP!
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