Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Archives for June 2008

Zoo Country – great for kids and animal lovers

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I’ve just been browsing a site that I think would be perfect for kids and anyone in general who loves animals. The website is called Zoo Country and it’s chock full information and pictures of all kinds of Zoo Animals. Are you starting to see why I think kids would love this site?

It’s time to start summer vacations and I’m sure that some of you might visit cities with Zoos. Wouldn’t it be great to brush up on some interesting facts about some of the animals you might see at that zoo? Or perhaps you’ve just come back from a trip to the zoo or perhaps an exotic vacation and want to find information about that odd looking creature you saw – visit Zoo Country.

There are lots of Animal Activities and Crafts plus Animal books and toys on the site. Any of which would keep your child occupied for hours as they have fun playing games, creating an animal art project, reading an animal related book or playing with a stuffed animal toy.

I really like how they’ve organized their wild animal information and pictures. Rather than organizing the animal categories in a more traditional way they’ve arranged their animal categories based on animal characteristics like The biggest animals, the cutest animals, the ugliest animals and so on.

If you love looking at photos and reading about wild animals definitely check this site out.





There’s lots of things going on in Toronto for Canada Day

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Tomorrow is Canada Day. It will be Canada’s 141st birthday. Our country seems so young, but we have a history that goes back into the 1600’s.

I hate it when the holiday falls in the middle of the week. Some employers give either the Monday or Friday off closest to the holiday to compensate for a mid- week holiday day, but there are lots of Canadians out there that had to work today – my husband included. He’ll have tomorrow off though and that’s the main thing.

We’re trying to decide what to do for the holiday. I already mentioned in my last post that we’ll probably have nice thick sirloin steaks and fresh corn on the cob for dinner, but what else will we do …

If you guessed go to see some fireworks you’re probably right. If the weather is decent we’ll likely head over to Ashbridge’s Bay to watch the fireworks. They load all the fireworks onto a barge on Lake Ontario and set them off over the water. It’s spectacular. Naturally I’ll try to take some pictures if I can – fireworks aren’t easy to photograph! BTW if anyone has tips on how to photograph fireworks properly I’d love to hear from you.

If you’re in the Toronto area you might be interested in learning about what’s going on in the city for Canada Day. I surfed the web and found some other bloggers talking about their Canada Day plans and some Canada Day Event listings. Here you go:

Canada Day Around Toronto – Although Ottawa is, bar none, the best place to celebrate Canada Day, Toronto is no slouch in the festivities department:. 8:00 pm, Mel Lastman Square — The official City of Toronto celebration. A concert and fireworks to music …

Canada Day Fireworks – Find out where and when to check out Canada Day Fireworks…

Canada Day – Coming soon to a more convenient day near you? – When I was a teenager, Canada Day meant gathering with my friends at Major’s Hill Park, drinking (sorry, Mom) and generally having a good time. The bars were packed, the buses were free after 10 pm (another something Toronto might …

HOLIDAY WEEK – Our Annual Canada Day Preview – Finally, if you want to catch me, please come down to the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. Johnada will be celebrating the only way I know how – by attacking people with blow up donuts at the first Canadian Donut Olympics. Only in Canada …

I hope that all the Canadians reading this have a great Canada Day – even if you just stay home and relax.

Man that was a great dinner

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I’m pleasantly full right now. Chris and I just had a delicious dinner. Yum.

Earlier this evening we went out grocery shopping. The stores will be closed tomorrow by the time he gets home from work since the next day is Canada Day so we had to get everything we’d need for the holiday today.

I’m so glad we went shopping. Our grocery store had grilling sirloin steak on sale so I picked up some for our dinner tonight and two for our dinner on Tuesday. They also had fresh corn on the cob. Now I can’t eat corn on the cob very often thanks to my Crohn’s – I eat it maybe once or twice a year and I often pay for it dearly, but I love it and there’s nothing better than fresh corn on the cob, especially when it’s a rare treat.

I also picked up ingredients for salad – organic mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumber and some light feta cheese. Plus they had berries on sale so I picked up fresh organic raspberries, locally grown strawberries and some blueberries.

As we left the grocery store we stopped in the wine shop and got their wine of the month – a lovely Australian Shiraz. Oddly enough that’s the only thing that I’ve mentioned that we didn’t have this evening.

Once we got home I quickly marinated the steaks with Montreal Steak sauce and prepared the corn, salad and fruit for our “strawberry” shortcake.

Chris grilled the steaks on the BBQ to perfection and as I said the meal was delicious. Steak, corn on the cob, a nice salad and a light dessert of fruit over a small piece of angel food cake. Yum.

Couldn’t they come up with a better name for this flower?

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Join Green Thumb Sunday

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It’s time for yet another Green Thumb Sunday post, yet as I was just saying on my gardening blog I had a very hard time deciding which pictures to post today.

My garden is probably at it’s high point right now and it’s just packed with blooms! So many lovely flowers to show you, yet how long can I make this post?

Why don’t I show you the peonies today?

They were blooming like crazy last weekend, but they are pretty much done now.

I’m so glad I got a chance to take some photos of them before they were finished.

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Meet Karl Rosenfield – the Peony. Normally it’s red, but as the peony ages it seems to lighten and become more of a deep rose color. I actually think I like it in it’s multicolored glory much better than when it’s just red.

Now this peony, Peony Pecher, is normally a very pale shade of pink or perhaps even coral pink when it first blooms and all it’s petals are packed tight together in an organized swirl, but like the first peony that I discussed this one changes color as it ages too.

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It’s petals loosen and get lighter until you’d swear the flower had always been bright white. I think this peonies petals look almost like a birds ruffled feathers. So pretty.

If you’re wondering what Peonies look like before they bloom they’re the ones with the buds that look like round balls. They are usually sticky with sap and covered in ants ….

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Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

Where’s the off switch on a puppy?

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Gawd … our puppy is so hyper right now and it’s almost 11:30 pm! While we were outside gardening this evening we kept her inside in her crate. Obviously that was too long cause she’s got energy to burn … and of course Chris and I are both tired after doing all that work on the yard.

Arghhhh

When we came inside and let her out of her crate she ran around the house like crazy … running low to the ground the way puppies do when they are playing. It was funny but I knew then that she’d probably be a handful for the rest of the evening.

Chris is fading fast and I’ve got work to do on the computer. This might be a long night. Now if only I can find the office supplies I bought the other day .. that would be good. I’m totally out of pens .. my husband steals them all the time.

Hopefully the puppy settles down soon. If she doesn’t I’ll see if I can summon the energy to take her out for a long walk. That might help.

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