Water Wisdom

The Autumn colours in Grimsby don't seem to be that bright.  I made a trip to Toronto yesterday and the colours at the Toronto Botanical Garden were splendid.  Beautiful orange and yellow maples reflected in the water of Wilket Creek. The highlight of the trip wasn't the opportunity to catch some Fall colour, but the opportunity to hear Doug Tallamy speak at the  Carolinian Canada CoalitionConference.    "Doug Tallamy is  professor and chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored eighty research articles and has taught Insect Taxonomy, Behavioral Ecology, Humans and Nature, and other courses for thirty-two years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His book Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens was published by Timber Press in 2007 and was awarded the 2008 silver medal by the Garden Writer’s Association. Tallamy was awarded the Garden Club of America Margaret Douglas Medal for Conservation and the Tom Dodd Jr. Award of Excellence in 2013." A persuasive speaker gives us motivation through facts and data.  The most compelling statistic was that Oak trees supports 534 species of moths and butterflies.  And that their caterpillars are a mandatory food source for nesting birds.  This connection gives us the understanding of why we need to plant insect-friendly species in order to maintain our bird, butterfly and bee populations. And his most important point?  It is up to homeowners to make their gardens welcome to birds and insects.

Hard Work!

Farm work has always been considered hard work with long hours of physical labour.  So when we look at these pictures of steam traction, we can get an appreciation for the contribution tractors made to threshing and ploughing.   They are big machines to handle big jobs. These pictures are from the January 2016 open house at the Puslinch Steam Heritage Museum.  More pictures and coverage of the Steam Museum can be seen at woodgears.ca. The official site is ontariosteamheritagemuseum here. We look back at this automation with nostalgia when we compare it to the growing use of robotics in agriculture - where products are 'sensor networks and robots'.  The main application is still at the harvesting stage.  An emerging application is robots/drones for weed control.

On Golden Pond

I know this isn't Niagara - instead it is Toronto Botanical Gardens.  Today's pictures again showcase TBG's Wilket Creek.  I was at Grimsby Beach yesterday, and wished for the golds and oranges to reflect in Forty Creek.  But alas, there aren't any Autumn colour reflections so far.  Maybe this weekend!

Benjamin Franklin's Frugal Talk

Frugality has a great history in the United States.  Both Benjamin Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson extolled and promoted the 'simple life.' Quotes from Benjamin Franklin: 1. “A penny saved is a penny earned.” 2. “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” 3. “Having been poor is no shame, being ashamed of it is.” 4. “He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” 5. “Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.” - Benjamin Franklin Today's pictures are the sort of 'castle ruin' we have in Ontario - a barn silo standing alone in an abandoned field. This one is up on the escarpment.

Centennial Greenhouse Guest

I found out that these observances have something in common:  Sausage Month, Pork Month, Popcorn Month, and National Pizza Month are all observed in October in the U.S. I hadn't heard about National Pizza Month so did a search. The first thing I noticed was that Pizza Pizza's website entry from 2010 came up close to the top of the search list. Another top retrieval was Domino's Twitter feed is full of tweets looking for deals and complaining about recent ads.  I concluded that some of the observances in October are significant - like Breast Cancer Awareness Month - and other's like Pizza Month, fall further down the scale of significance. Back in Toronto, I spotted this little chipmunk in the Centennial Greenhouses in Etobicoke last week.

Back Doors in Toronto

Doors are everywhere in the city.  Mostly they are standard, consistent, and ordinary.  Typically, we want doors to be easy to navigate for commercial and retail use. Every once in a while a distinctive door shows up - like this one.  One can see that there is construction and renovation going on inside.  Workmen avoided the camera and dodged the picture-taking.  The door opening and door are made up a molded material in a wavy, bumpy pattern. This door isn't a secret door - one can clearly see the handle.  It seems a sister design to secret door designs.  I looked for a site covering Toronto's unusual doors, but haven't found one.  It would be fun to find out about this.

Thanks for Supporting Ontario Strawberries

I found these giant strawberries at Hildreth's yesterday, with the backdrop of Thanks for supporting Ontario farmers.  It seemed like a fitting tribute for Niagara's autumn Thanksgiving.

Is Googling Fun?

"If you Google ‘Zerg Rush’ Google will eat up the search results." So I gave it a try and small o's came across the screen and 'chewed up' the search results, one by one, and then completed with 2 giant Gs.  I find that Google enabled an Easter egg for the search query “zerg rush”, which would launch a playable game with small “o” characters that destroy search results if they are not clicked with the mouse pointer.   How many of these little games are there on Google? According to Anne Lu of IBTimes: "Many of us agree that Google is the best and most powerful search engine there is. It’s so widely used that people “Google” something, but they don’t “Yahoo!” it.  It has a clean and simple homepage (no annoying ads), and is fast and user friendly. But probably the best thing about Google is that it is simply fun. Here are ten of the best Google tricks, tips, Easter eggs, and secrets that make online searching cool." Our pictures today give a sense of the wonderful Thanksgiving weekend weather we had -  big blue skies with clouds over the vineyards.

Pumpkin Chasing in Niagara

This is Pumpkin Patch weekend for Canadians:   all things pumpkin for Thanksgiving. Yesterday, I went on the pumpkin trail - to places where Thanksgiving is in full swing. I started at Hildreth's,  This farm has a large farm market stand close to my home.   It is much bigger than just a 'stand'  - it is a large parking area in front of the house with large canopies covering tables and shelves of local fruit and vegetables.  In fact, it is a mini-store with all kinds of local produce besides their own. One of the biggest attractions is the home-made pies - home-made by Hildreth's.  The fruit is typically is from their orchards or fields, and the pies taste like a home-made pie because they are. I wanted to catch the pumpkin display before it got bought out.  People were parked everywhere and it wasn't 10:00 on a Saturday morning.  I drove past later in the day on my way back home and there were more cars. I expect there were a lot fewer pumpkins. This year I bought a bushel of squash.  A bushel seemed too large last year, but this year, I bet that when it is available easily, the squash are used up quickly.  I started yesterday - one down. After a visit to the St. Catharines market and Lakeland Meats where Dezi and I checked out the chickens in their chicken run, I drove along St. Paul Street and made a stop at Calamus Winery in Vineland.  At the winery, I found a piece of the Rusty Shed on the ground, and they let me take it home.  They are close to Balls Falls and the Vineland Art Festival - such a large festival that there is $5.00 parking in the middle of orchards. Next I dropped into Beamsville's bakery 'The Post' and saw the pumpkin pies moving quickly.  I wondered if there is a busier day of the year, but didn't want to hold up the line to ask. Finally, I checked out my favourite garden centre, Cole's.  Harry, the owner, celebrated 30 years of ownership this past week. He showed me the slide show of the garden centre - including pictures when it was owned by the Cole's 125 years ago.  Lex sent this link of Benchscape - which is for sale.  This is the residence where I garden the raised beds of herbs and edible flowers, along with the decorative pots.  You can see them right at the beginning.

A Tiny Tool Shed for a Tiny House

We've seen  the increasing size of houses over the decades since the second world war.  Then post-war houses were built on a 660 square footprint, and had three bedrooms.  When I was young, we saw these houses in many neighbourhoods in St. Catharines, and seemed fine at the time.  Now designer tool sheds seem as large as small houses.   It was a delight to see this tiny tool shed at the Maine Coastal Botanic Garden.  It seems like the right size for one of those post-war houses.  It would nestle in the back garden and be in scale with the house. This one is leaning - it is the children's garden where whimsy reigns supreme - the fence posts are carved in cats and the entrance is marked by giant watering cans and tools.

Skywatcher's Month

October is a sky-watching month according to National Geographic with Zodiacal Lights from October 1-15 "Starting about an hour before sunrise on Saturday, October 1, and lasting the next two weeks, keen skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere can hunt down one of the most elusive astronomical phenomena visible in the sky: the zodiacal light.  This pyramid-shaped beam of light is easily mistaken for the lights of a far-off city just over the dark horizon in the countryside, and has also been called “false dawn.” But this light is more ethereal; it is caused by sunlight reflecting off cosmic dust between the planets. Amazing to think that today we’re peering at billions of dust-sized particles that were left behind after the planets formed about five billion years ago."