With intimacy and humour award-winning poet Ariel Gordon walks through the streets of Winnipeg and into the urban forest that is, to her, the city's heart. From the grackles and cankerworms of spring to the flush of mushrooms on elm stumps in summer and through to the red-stemmed dogwood of winter, she helps us to consider what we expect of nature. Whether it is the effects of climate change on the urban forest or foraging in the city, Dutch elm disease in the trees or squirrels in the living room, Gordon delves into our relationships with the natural world with heart and style. After grounding the book in Winnipeg's native elms and ashes, Gordon travels to BC's northern Rockies, to Banff National Park and to a cattle farm in rural Manitoba before circling back to the forest, where the weather is always better and where one can see how to “remake” even the trees that are lost.