Lady SlipperLiving on such a beautiful property, we have the extraordinary pleasure of watching nature at play on our doorstep each day. Though we spend time outside all year round, the first sunny days of spring draw us out of the house with insistence. It’s impossible not to heed the call — new growth in the garden beds, buds on the flowering trees and the return of our favourite birds to the feeder. Following such a long, cold winter season, this return is particularly sweet. And though we know that, as in years gone by, the deep heat of summer will inevitably be followed by the losses of fall, we trust that the cycles of nature will come around again, and again. And perhaps it is this constant change all around us — from birth to death to rebirth — that adds a certain poignancy to each precious day spent under the sky.