McCauley’s “Summer at the Rink” program hosted a tree walk with Dustin Bajer, a McCauley-based educator and tree farmer who is the founder of Cultivate McCauley.

Dustin led a walk to our local park, followed by a quick lesson in propagation using some suckers from a giant willow, resulting in a tiny tree nursery that we will tend throughout the summer.

Along the way, we identified trees on the boulevard and in yards, like apple, goji berries, a plum and linden trees with blossoms.

We were lucky to visit Mia from Sustainable Food Edmonton at the McCauley Orchard, where we did some leaf art and watered trees in between soccer practice. The kids picked a few sour cherries and gooseberries. Taking Mia along the same walking route that Dustin led, the kids showed her the variety of trees, reinforced the lessons learned about male and female trees, identified seed pods like peas on caragana, and experienced just how big trees can get as we wrapped many linked arms around the giant willow.

A big thank you to Dustin and Mia for their educational work.

Our rink in the summer has a small herb spiral where we can harvest mint for tea, and have tomatoes growing in buckets, a tiny forest nursery, a pollinator bed, and “worms in residence” to promote composting. 

Thanks to Paper Birch Books for kickstarting our book exchange nook, and to McCauley Community League for funding for craft materials and garden supplies.

We use different action cards from the City of Edmonton’s Neighbouring for Climate toolkit to spark ideas for activities.

Any climate action curious folk are welcome to drop by the rink Thursday evenings from 4 to 6 p.m. to check out our summer garden and books.

Gail Silvius is happily retired and living in McCauley.