not far from the tree

Close to 100 tour-goers showed up for today’s tasty jaunt! We took over the grounds of Spadina Museum and surrounding neighbourhood for one of the Toronto Tree Tours.

Some personal highlights:

• witnessing the smiles and conversations that erupted when participants got to taste the heritage apple varieties;
• learning about the engineering marvel of one particularly massive white oak branch on what is perhaps Toronto’s oldest tree;
• introducing Wendy Woodworth to speak, the heritage horticulturalist at Spadina Museum;
• having some time to relax in the orchards before the tour began;
• spotting a car with license plate “GRT OAK” while hearing Todd speak about Nordheimer Ravine; and
• passing by a neighbourhood fruit tree just when the owner came out to walk her dog, then her telling the whole group about the hassle of sweeping away the fallen apples (It wasn’t a set-up, I swear! She had no idea just how appropriate her comments were to the tour.)

Suzanne, the coordinator of Spadina Saturdays, led the apple-tasting portion of the tour and put in an incredible effort to prepare. She and a whole crew of volunteers helped to make today happen. After picking and tasting apples from the orchards, they each took home some love apples (aka tomatoes) - special heirloom varieties from the historic gardens, at that! - as a small token of thanks.