Cobourg Beach Society Walks the Walk

Cobourg Ecology Garden applauds Bike for the Planet

Garden Safety Workshop at Cobourg Ecology Garden

Spring unfolds from the softened ground. Likewise, gardeners unfold from winter restrictions to head outdoors to create their gardens afresh. This is the season when gardening safety should take precedence to ensure an injury-free growing season.  

The Cobourg Ecology Garden is hosting a workshop on safe gardening techniques by a professional physiotherapist from We-Fix-U, which recently won Best Wellness Centre in Northumberland, as well as best Physiotherapy and Foot Health Staff for ten years running.

Learn the recommendations of the Canadian Physiotherapy Associations (CPA) tips and techniques to get the most out of the gardening season. Gardening can cause muscle strain to the lower back, shoulders, knees and arms, especially after a sedentary winter.

The workshop begins at 11 am Saturday, May 26, at the Cobourg Ecology Garden at the foot of Hibernia Street. The workshop will include a warm-up demonstration, followed by CPA recommendations for safe and healthy raking or hoeing, weeding or planting, digging or shovelling, lifting or carrying, pruning or trimming, and everything else in between. There are also easy methods to modify garden tools to accommodate our various abilities.

Learn how to enjoy an injury-free gardening season at this Garden Safety Workshop.

The Cobourg Ecology Garden is also holding its annual spring plant and yard sale the same Saturday morning beginning at 10am. This is the main funding event for the Garden. All Northumberland gardeners are invited to support gardening organically, without the use of chemicals or other artificial means. This year will feature birdhouses made at the Brookside Youth Centre.

The Cobourg Ecology Garden will also be honoured with a brief pit stop of solidarity by the Bike For the Planet riders circa 10:15am. Come and applaud clean green transportation energized by the human body.

Rick Beaver speaks at Cobourg Ecology Garden, Earth Day Sunrise Celebration, 2012

Rick Beaver, artist, biologist, founder of Black Oak Savannah, and member of the Mississauga-Ojibway Nation in Alderville, Ontario. Mr Beaver speaks at the Cobourg Ecology Garden, Earth Day Sunrise Celebration, April 22, 2012

Ted Amsden reads at the Cobourg Ecology Garden, Earth Day Sunrise Celebration, 2012

Cobourg Poet Laureate, Ted Amsden, reads at the Cobourg Ecology Garden, Earth Day Sunrise Celebration, April 22, 2012.

Cobourg Ecology Garden Par-TEA Sept 24, 2011

Committee members of the Cobourg Ecology Garden and members of the public participate in the tree planting tribute to Minnie Pennell, the founder of the Cobourg Ecology Garden, as it celebrates its 15th anniversary.

Russell Lake Letter of Appreciation

Russell Lake has been a committee member of the Cobourg Ecology Garden since its inception 15 years ago. The event was part of the 15th anniversary of the founding of the Garden by Minnie Pennell. The event was September 24, 2011.

Johanne Loken Speaks @ Cobourg Ecology Garden

On September 24, 2011, former Cobourg Councillor, Parks and Recreation, Johanne Loken, spoke at the Cobourg Ecology Garden's 15th anniversary Par-TEA event. A tree-planting tribute to Minnie Pennell, the founder of the Cobourg Ecology Garden, was the feature event of the day.

Joan Chalovich speaks @ Cobourg Ecology Garden

On September 24, 2011, former Cobourg Mayor, Joan Chalovich spoke at the Cobourg Ecology Garden's 15th anniversary Par-TEA event. A tree-planting tribute to Minnie Pennell, the founder of the Cobourg Ecology Garden, was the feature event of the day.

Eric Winter reads Poem For a Gardener (M.P.) @ Cobourg Ecology Garden

Poem for a gardener (M.P.)

I doubt if you noticed the crow that was there on that day
the one with a faraway look in his eye
thin, with a hump back, pecking away
poking at mud,
making a couple of flaps with a cry
pretending indifference as any crow should.

You did not know then you’d soon be taken with Rue,
Fever Few, Lungswort and Leprachaun’s Gold,
Too taken up with the plain buttercup
with Fleebane and Woodruff, Bloodroot and flax,
and all of your flora.
In brief, you were a bit lax
when it came to observing that black bit of fauna
still keeping an eye out, nosing around
and pecking away in the corner.

Now apples are ripe and ready for plucking
sunflower all blackened.
Rudbekia gone and gone Coreopsis,
Stacis Byzantia, gone is the Primula
and only Chrysanthemum stays. How summer flies!
Now here’s a surprise
It was me, me wearing my Halloween disguise,
I was that crow with the hump and the shifty,
faraway, look in his eyes.
And I saw it all.

He came like a storm telling stories of stables.
The big one, immortal, who labored twelve fold
and by ruse he had stolen the apples of gold
fresh from the garden of Hesperides
and (Good Heavens!) it has to be told
You got taken in,
He seduced you down by the harbour’s west wall.
I wasn’t meaning to watch, I tell you,
I wasn’t meaning to watch,
I wasn’t meaning to watch for the fall,
but I saw it all.

It’s too much on my conscience for me to stay mute
I know what went on with that bearer of fruit,
stinking of cow muck.

Say what you will - the mythology pardon
I’ll tell them to look by the lake.
The consequence there!
They can see for themselves -
the little one there called Ecology Garden
I know what you did.
I know what it was went on there
I’ll let the town know.
Watch out now.
You’d better beware.
For I’m going to tell.
I’m going to tell on you
Minnie Pennell.

The Treedom of Minnie Pennell

Minnie Pennell has been referred to as Cobourg’s First Environmentalist, the Queen of Green. The legacy of her presence in Cobourg can pretty well be seen everywhere.

Take a trip down the main streets of several Ontario towns.None are as rich and lush with the naturalness of green things as is Cobourg’s King Street.

Cobourg poet and columnist, Grahame Woods was recently moved to eloquently extol the beautiful breathing boulevard of trees along King Street that has been providing canopy services for generations of Cobourgers. The gentle curve of King Street cleverly positions the Town Hall clock tower in the middle of everyone’s focus, pedestrians and drivers alike.

The same canopy that inspires poets, also inspires shoppers, financial industry workers, manual labourers, caterpillars of children heading to Victoria Park, drive-through tourists, delivery truck drivers, countless bicyclists,, and the rare drunk fallen face up, lost in a swirl of stars and green, oh so much green, all over the place.

How can this be attributed to one individual, the late Minnie Pennell, the founder of the Cobourg Ecology Garden?

Minnie didn’t plant those trees. She simply lived her green life amongst them and came to love of the natural disorder of things expansively. As a result, Minnie blessed many organizations with her wilful energy.

She was a member in good standing with the Willow Beach Field Naturalist Society, which mandates itself as nature advocacy. Former Chair, Russell Lake, recalls Minnie as a “strong-willed woman” who easily convinced the Willow Beach crowd to provide funding for the Cobourg Ecology Garden that existed only in her mind at that time.

She was the chair of the Cobourg Environmental Advisory Committee in 1995 when the seed of the Cobourg Ecology Garden began to germinate. This was the magic of Minnie – spreading a good idea around, turning sceptics and agnostics into believers of the green embrace of the earth. She was an organizer, a go-getter, the mother of nurture and nature.

Where the Cobourg Ecology Garden now sits, was scrubland at best. The nearest neighbours were fuel storage tanks, coal piles, and a harbour devoted to serving industry. As this faded into history with the development of Legion Village, Minnie saw the opportunity to develop an ecology garden at the foot of Hibernia Street.

Cobourg Councillor, Miriam Mutton, worked with Minnie at the idea stage of the Ecology Garden. She was a landscape designer. “The garden is a reminder of our connection to the earth and the location makes it easily accessible. We need an opportunity to reconnect during the day,” said Miriam.

Former Town Councillor Bob Spooner was responsible for Parks and Recreation when Minnie first approached him about the development of the Cobourg Ecology Garden. “I remember her as a very determined woman. She had a well-informed answer to every question I had,” added Mr Spooner.

In February 1996, the Ecology garden got its go.

Minnie’s ability to draw in the community to realize the vision of the Ecology Garden was notable. Northumberland Community Coalition Garden Chair, Ben Burd, was involved in discussion of common aims with Minnie that spring.

Preparing for the Ecology Garden’s first Earth Day ceremony, April 22, 1996. Minnie Pennell told the community that the Garden will provide a “unique opportunity to participate in, as well as enjoy a community garden unlike any other in town.” The turn out for this sunrise ceremony was inspiring.

Minnie Pennell was an organizer, speaking one on one, to colleagues, to municipal power, to anyone that would be helpful to the project. In a missive she wrote, “An ecology garden has a great potential to become an invaluable inspiration and teaching tool for all gardeners, novice or experienced, and will bring together in a safe, pleasant outdoor work environment many different age groups.”

That Earth Day was the beginning of 15 more that has brought a dedicated community of volunteers to continue the legacy. At the first dedication of the Ecology Garden, as the first sliver of sun rose above the horizon, the warm words reached out to the gathering; “May the gentleness of spring rains soften the tensions within us, and the power of ocean waves steady and strengthen us. May the wisdom of earth open us to mystery … the music of its forest streams delight us and the simplicity of its wildflowers captivate our hearts. In silence let us experience the sun.”

Minnie Pennell did more than raise a Garden. She also raised a green consciousness throughout the town, a consciousness that spread slowly but steady. Listen to Cobourg politicians and you will hear traces of that consciousness, for example when Mayor Gil Brocanier makes a passing reference to Cobourg’s beautiful ‘urban forest.’ That is Minnie’s influence.

Councillor Miriam Mutton commented that Minnie, “was a focused and energetic community-minded citizen who was passionate about the environment, and, knew how to get things done. She was fearless when it was necessary to bring a matter to the attention of the local politicians.”

In the Cobourg Ecology Garden Minnie lead by example and encouraged people of all ages and abilities to get involved. She made it easy for others to volunteer because she expressed her appreciation.

“I knew Minnie mostly through involvement with the Ecology Garden and in this regard Minnie's legacy to Cobourg is her leadership by example in enabling opportunities for others to participate, and, to enjoy the simple pleasures of a garden and the important lessons to be learned there about our environment.”

Since that beginning the Cobourg Ecology Garden has grown and developed and become an intrinsic part of Cobourg life. It is not just a place where green things grow, but where a green consciousness grows.

Over the years the Ecology Garden has instructed local students who have gone on to university education in related fields of ecological research. The garden has provided an opportunity for growing vegetables in a totally organic manner, without chemical interventions. The food that has been grown has been provided to various United Way agencies, shelters, transition homes.

All this from a single seed: Minnie’s life enhancing spirit. Although she was in the centre of things, her inherent generosity was limitless. In a letter to the editor, 1998, she extolled every individual and organization that had benefited the Garden.

The Cobourg Ecology Garden was not the last stop on her green ambition. Cobourg Poet Laureate Emeritus, Eric Winter, did little more than point to a plot of land on Elgin Street and suggest an arboretum, when Minnie took the baton and made it a reality.

Mr Winter recalls that time, “Minnie was the major fund-getter for the arboretum - she went to the bingo regularly and hated the smell of cigarettes which she had to endure as a result. She was great to work with. We got people to donate trees ($200 in the ground) and we aimed to get as large a variety of examples as we could.”

The arboretum is diversity on display year around. It is a community of trees sharing sun and soil as the seasons rotate in accordance with the natural harmony of living things. This is the manifestation of Cobourg’s greatest treedom fighter.

The lush King Street canopy is an inheritance, as is everything that emerges from the soil with the sole intent of facing up to the sun. Minnie saw to it that generations of Cobourgers would not squander their inheritance, but rather, enrich it with continuing care.

The Cobourg Ecology Garden will be celebrating the legacy of Minnie Pennell on September 24, from 10am-2pm. A Black Cherry tree will be planted in tribute at 11am. Poetry will be read. Music will be provided. Most of all, living things will be encouraged to continue their unrelenting evolution.

==================

The poem below was written by Eric Winter and first published in p o e t r y'z o w n, issue 8, officially released on Thursday, February 26, 2009

Poem for a gardener (M.P.)

I doubt if you noticed the crow that was there on that day

the one with a faraway look in his eye

thin, with a hump back, pecking away

poking at mud,

making a couple of flaps with a cry

pretending indifference as any crow should.

You did not know then you’d soon be taken with Rue,

Fever Few, Lungswort and Leprachaun’s Gold,

Too taken up with the plain buttercup

with Fleebane and Woodruff, Bloodroot and flax,

and all of your flora.

In brief, you were a bit lax

when it came to observing that black bit of fauna

still keeping an eye out, nosing around

and pecking away in the corner.

Now apples are ripe and ready for plucking

sunflower all blackened.

Rudbekia gone and gone Coreopsis,

Stacis Byzantia, gone is the Primula

and only Chrysanthemum stays. How summer flies!

Now here’s a surprise

It was me, me wearing my Halloween disguise,

I was that crow with the hump and the shifty,

faraway, look in his eyes.

And I saw it all.

He came like a storm telling stories of stables.

The big one, immortal, who labored twelve fold

and by ruse he had stolen the apples of gold

fresh from the garden of Hesperides

and (Good Heavens!) it has to be told

You got taken in,

He seduced you down by the harbour’s west wall.

I wasn’t meaning to watch, I tell you,

I wasn’t meaning to watch,

I wasn’t meaning to watch for the fall,

but I saw it all.

It’s too much on my conscience for me to stay mute

I know what went on with that bearer of fruit,

stinking of cow muck.

Say what you will - the mythology pardon

I’ll tell them to look by the lake.

The consequence there!

They can see for themselves -

the little one there called Ecology Garden

I know what you did.

I know what it was went on there

I’ll let the town know.

Watch out now.

You’d better beware.

For I’m going to tell.

I’m going to tell on you

Minnie Pennell.

Cobourg Ecology Garden Cards

Click on image to enlarge

EARTHLY; Cobourg Ecology Garden

Cobourg Ecology Garden Earth Day Celebration

FOR EARTH DAY, APRIL 22, 2011, DAWN

========================================

HOW DOES YOUR ECOLOGY GARDEN GROW?

Spring is nature’s Poetic Justice after the meltdown of the cold and brutal reign of the One-Colour Regime, popularly know as winter.

It’s on its melt that the natural diversity of the Cobourg Ecology Garden driven ‘through the green fuse’ will meet the warm seasons with the celebratory policy of multicolourfulism.

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,

-- Shakespeare

Sixteen years ago Cobourg Ecology Garden was nothing more than a great idea with a little ground in which to root. It was nourished with love, beginning with Minnie Pennell, Chair of the Environmental Advisory Committee, in cooperation with enthusiastic partners, Mayor Joan Chalovich and Cobourg Town Council, Engineering Dept, Community Services Dept. Department of Finance, and Dept of Parks and Recreation. Funding was received from the Federal Govt. Friends of the Environment (Canada Trust), Cobourg area Environmental Association, the Cobourg and District Horticultural Society.

Whew, what a bunch of bureaucratese! But that’s modern life. In human terms, Minnie Pennell met with a lot of thoughtful people in the community who were convinced by her great green gospel to facilitate her vision; let there be green, and so it was done.

There were scouts and students, mothers and others of course. Yes, yes, tree huggers, green thumbs, econiks, some bearing children with pink precious lungs aching to breathe free.

Give me Breath, then give me Liberty!

The Cobourg Ecology Garden introduces itself at the entrance with a wooden sign bearing this organic message, “If ecology is the study of relationships between organisms and their environment, then an ecology garden is a garden that is sensitive to and inspired by these relationships.” That’s the scientific description, concise and elegant, highly unpoetic.

Spring is when shallow-soiled seeds the size of punctuation marks unfold themselves from question marks all curled into foetal poetential and burst above ground as full blown exclamation points shouting in colour.

Or.

Spring is when little nouns in the ground grow up to become a herd of verdant verbs, all soiled with the rich itch of life hibermating in seed pods, cocoons, female mammals and humans of mass creation. American poet e.e.cummings wrote, “spring omnipotent goddess Thou / dost stuff parks / Spring slattern of seasons.”

Cobourg Town Councillor and landscape architect, Miriam Mutton, who had been instrumental in the gardens initial design, wrote, “The main design aspect is to accommodate people and enable them to get closer and feel a part of the garden. [It] also uses exotics or non-native plants as a demonstration of how to combine plants in a healthy way for interest throughout the seasons.”

Ms Mutton is actually talking about the immigration of plant life (exotics) into the local mainstream community, an effort that often pays off in a brilliant display of multicolourfulism.

Minnie Pennell, chair of the organizing Committee, added that the garden is not only a place “to promote a natural environment, but also to demonstrate methods of organic farming.”

Organic, yes, organism to organasm in a single breakout season! Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay described it best, “It is not enough that yearly, down this hill / April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.” So who were the unacknowledged legislators who appropoetically aligned spring, poetry and Earth Day, and sang the Battle Hymn of the Poetic?

The first Earth Day celebration at the Garden had a turnout of 40 people and that was at dawn. In a handful of years interest in the garden deepened, and Earth Day now attracts over 150 people. Did I mention that this ceremony of secular spirit happens at dawn?

Cobourg Ecology Garden is located at the foot of Hibernia Street on the lakefront immediately south of Legion Village, a local transit stop. A sizable parking lot is available across the street. Every day, in every season, people use the boardwalk that skirts the full length of the garden.

Councillor Mutton, explaining the initial site choice, wrote that “what distinguishes this Ecology Garden is access and location...it is in a high traffic place, easy to visit, it is relatively small and compact and has good sight lines for safety.”

It wasn`t long before the garden was given national exposure in the Globe & Mail by garden columnist, Marjorie Harris, who asserted that “Public spaces reflect our values and define what kind of society we are”` She visited the garden on a summer afternoon, describing it as “bathed in golden light and filled with glorious scents.” She added that “It seemed the most enchanting place on earth.”

The Cobourg Ecology Garden is well positioned to midwife the grounds surrounding the west pier of the harbour. The area has become an exciting location for daily landings and takeoffs by squadrons of Canada Geese one moment, Mallards another. There is a wildness to the place that compels us to commune with our inner wild nature.

Cobourg Ecology Garden is an outpost for a lakefront feature that will be as treasured by the local community, as Toronto is of the evolution of the Leslie Street Spit. It is a commitment to a relationship between nature and culture in very close proximity to each other.

Over the years the garden has become a living classroom for students from all area schools. A number of workshops are held next to the garden each year, running the gamut from composting techniques to growing herbs to growing ornamental grasses. The fertility of the place is well grounded, and a gazebo is provided as a departure lounge for those wishing to enjoy a flight of fancy to the Imagine Nation.

Earth Day, Spring and Poetry are a natural ménage a trios of celebration of the continuity of life through seasonal cycles. The unrelenting oppression of The Cold has driven life deep underground where it hibermates, where the grass routes are planned, where ‘through the green fuse’ multicolourfulism bursts forth. Thus begins the Politics of Spring.

In spring there is an insurrection of grass and love. In spring the snow disperses like a mob of resentful rioters. In spring the sun leads a successful guerrilla movement or coup d'etat. All winter our flesh was ignorant of the sedition of sunlight. In fields there are wounds in the snow where grass bleeds green, where grass is an awakening eye.

No one ever votes spring into power. Is spring a totalitarian imperialist? Is spring a liberation move meant to infiltrate foreign agents, such as robins, blue-jays, children, to sabotage snowmobile trails and ski hills and encourage Green Power? Spring is a tolerant state because it permits equal opportunity to all colours. (Winter is a 1‑colour regime.) Perhaps we all love spring because it allows civil rights to the tulips, to the lilacs, to the exuberant blossoms all petalwide gluttoning sunshine and busy bees lathered in flower-frolic zzzzzZZzziinng in backyards across the imagine nation.

The sun is prosecutor and executioner of snow. The sun casts an unanimous verdict and ignores all appeals. April showers are the mourner's tears after winter has been hung from the gallows of warmth. Summer is the sun's gift of appeasement for the questionable use of coercive force to eliminate snow.

If a poet wore the premier of something, what might that something be? Would it be a nation of obedient poetry lovers? Would the national militia consist of a mighty militia of tulips armed with colour and sunshine? Would the national anthem be a long joyful sigh after love?

Would the Union of Pollen Producers go on strike demanding higher rates of sunlight and more elaborate fringe benefits, such as lighter showers and heavier dew? Would this cause a crisis across the imagine nation? Would the Creative Intelligence Anarchy report that the Insect Pollen Transportation Organization had been infiltrated by dissident outside agitators such as breezes?

Would the Federal Bureau of Inspiration be called in to conduct a thorough inspiration?

Would the constitution enshrine the Prime Policy of Poetry Proselytization and Proliferation? What would be the foreign policy? Would we accept only immigrants carrying passport dreams? Then, what about the refugees from Grief and defectors from Despair? Would we establish dipoematic relations with Pain, negotiate for a ceasefire and settle for shorter durations?

Will we pick and chose our enemies at the drop of a poem and come charging, singing the Battle Hymn of the Poetic?

Brush Hour On the Boardwalk, Cobourg, Ontario, Canada

Go Green Together and Sustainable Cobourg teamed together to sponsor a 13 kilometer Bike For The Planet. Starting at the bandshell in Victoria Park, the bicyclistas rode along the waterfront bike path past the Cobourg Ecology Garden.

Fall Garden ParTEA Cobourg Ecology Garden