I love the month of May, when Mother Earth is wearing her sweet finery. Glorious blooms grace us while enticing fragrances fill the air. It’s the month my daughter Alina winds down her Colorado snowboard season and returns to visit with her mother while hitting the beaches here. Southwest Florida also becomes our base for taking off on travel adventures we both enjoy.

After celebrating her 33rd birthday together this year, we’ll begin our road trip north to Asheville for my nephew’s wedding on Lake Lure. Family gatherings around the campfire and hiking some of my favorite mountains are anticipated highlights, as is visiting the area’s Olivette agrihood community.

Then it’s on to Michigan to forward progress on the renovation of our family’s lake cottage. With luck, we’ll have an updated bathroom and kitchen this summer. Michigan will be in full bloom, and I look forward to sniffing backyard lilacs and magnolia flowers, and inhaling the scent of the cherry orchard blossoms embroidering Grand Traverse Bay.

Nature figures large in my best adventures and Editor Linda Sechrist illustrates what it takes to keep its beauties intact in interviews with six local women activists I greatly admire. We all owe them thanks and support for their tireless, committed work in protecting the Southwest Florida environment that drew us here.

Betty Osceola, a member of the Miccosukee Indian tribe and environmental and social activist, observes in this month’s “Grandmothers Rising for Mother Earth” local feature article, “We are leaving our footprint in time, and our children and grandchild deserve the right to leave theirs. Therefore, as a grandmother, I am a role model showing my grandchildren how to care about the natural world.” We hope that her story and others’ on page 36 will inspire more citizens to action.

I know that when I’m with my daughter, who hopes to gift me with grandchildren someday, I become extraordinarily aware of the rapid destruction and decline Mother Earth has experienced just since she was born. I wonder what kind of natural playground my grandchildren will have to explore.

May we all make the most of this beautiful month of May and this Women’s Wellness issue, filled with helpful articles on natural ways to enhance our health, vitality and life experience. I encourage you to pick up extra copies to share with the important women in your life. Grandmothers, mothers, sisters, wives, children and all family members will benefit from the tips, recipes, products and services focused on keeping them well, naturally.

This month, we salute women everywhere that nurture, provide, inspire, protect, love and spread joy to those around them. We salute, too, the men that support them in their good works.

Happy May,

Sharon Bruckman, Publisher