We're sharing the contest entries from our Photos of Home grad student photo competition.

"The Greenest of Pastures" was taken in Hawkesville, Ontario. It's from Alicia Brubacher, Faculty of Health Sciences. She writes:

For me, home has always been one place, one single property in rural Ontario. I grew up in a small town in Southwestern Ontario away from big cities and loud traffic, in the quiet peace that the simple life brings. This picture depicts each and every childhood memory I possess.

These vibrant, green, pastures behind my house were the grounds of many tree forts, picnics, late night stargazing and summer campfires. We spent our days playing in the creek, swimming, catching tadpoles, chasing gophers, and being chased by angry cattle. In the winter months this place became a brilliant, white playground with snow covering every inch. And rather than swim in the creek, all the neighbour kids would play hockey on the frozen stream. We would ride our snowmobiles around with a toboggan or inner tube attached behind it, laughing and screaming as we were thrown from the sled.

These green pastures contain all of my childhood memories of that small Ontario town. Hawkesville, a hamlet, a village, but not populated enough to be considered anything more than a small gathering of a few houses. I knew each and every person here, we played community-wide hide and seek, baked bread with our neighbours, sold lemonade at the street corners, and enjoyed the pleasures of rural living.

Truly there are greener pastures elsewhere, but to me, these pastures are certainly green enough.