Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
Wordless Wednesday
We took Midnight to Cherry Beach here in Toronto last weekend and I managed to take some pictures of her playing and swimming in the water.
It was her first time swimming, but being a true water dog she was right in there swimming around within minutes. She even swam out about two hundred feet from shore!
There were lots of other dog owners at the beach with their dogs as it’s one of the cities best leash free areas. So it truly was a dog day at the beach!
Last weekend Chris and I and our puppy Midnight decided to go to The Brick Works.
They were having a walking tour that discussed the Brick Works and the lost rivers of Toronto.
I think Chris got more out of the discussion and history than I did, but I was certainly enjoying the walk and the scenery. Midnight had a ball too – of course she kept wanting to jump in the ponds ( a no no for dogs at the Brick Works as it’s an ecological preserve with rare native fauna and flora) since she was so hot. She also wanted to jump into the water to catch the gold fish (not native, dumped fish) and a Mallard duck that was swimming by.
As you can see she really wanted to jump in. We had to hold her back!
Along with old buildings, native plants and native wildlife there are some beautiful ponds in the old brick quarry that was used to dig up clay to make a good portion of the bricks that make up a good portion of Toronto’s older homes (like ours!).
During our walk I spotted a turtle sunning itself by some native water lilies.
You can see more pictures from The Brick Works and some of the native plants growing there on my Gardening Blog if you’d like. Oh yeah, did I mention that the Brickworks is almost in the center of the city and that it’s only about a ten minute drive (or bike ride) from our home? Great place to go on a nice day.
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!
Fellow dog owners I need your help. Midnight’s been shedding like crazy for the last month and there’s no sign of it stopping soon.
We’ve had her since November and she only shed twice prior to this, perhaps for a month at a time. The first two sheds were easier to deal with. Perhaps because she was smaller and maybe because it was puppy fur, but now she’s got her real fur and she’s really shedding heavily.
We have hardwood floors throughout the house and I sweep once a day. We have a vacuum (no closets so it’s in the basement) and I hate pulling it out because it’s big and clunky. Plus Midnight thinks it’s her special toy when I do bring it out.
I’ve been thinking of getting another vacuum – one that’s a little smaller, lighter and easier to handle. It’s got to be a good one though. I thought about getting one of those Sebo vacuums since they are good for people with allergies. Chris and I are both allergic to dust mites and uh … dogs. So it might be a good idea to get one.
I’ve been grooming Midnight every two days. I go over her coat with the ezgroom brush and then the furminator. The Furminator takes out hair from the undercoat and it’s supposed to really help with shedding. Then I go over her coat again with the ezgroom brush. It helps, but not enough. Maybe it’s just the heat causing her to shed continuously. At this rate she’ll be bald by August!
Anyone have any tips for me other than what I’m already doing? Sweeping and vacuuming the floors and then grooming the dog regularly. What else can I do?
I’m so sick of spammers. Over the last month or so I’ve had a steady increase of comment spammers on all my sites, however this blog seems to be getting hit the worst.
Over a year ago I added the WordPress Bad Behavior plugin to my anti-spam arsenal and the amount of spam I was getting on this blog (in comment moderation of course) immediately went down from 400 to 500 comment spam per day to only one to ten. I use Akismet as well to protect my blog from spammers.
Bad Behavior has a fairly recent update so I’ll update the plugin in a little while and hope that that helps combat some of the spam. I’m sure some of the new spam is coming from bots.
If that doesn’t work I might start closing comments on all my old posts. I don’t really want to do that as sometimes I do get real comments on my old posts, but I will if I must. Perhaps I’ll add Spam Karma to my arsenal however I’ve never really liked that plugin and what I’ve been using up until now has done the job.
Notice to any human comment spammers – particularly those getting paid to post comments. Don’t bother stopping here and leaving comments that don’t make sense and links to competing niche websites or questionable websites as I’ll just delete your comment.
I’m a do follow blogger so this blog tends to get more comment spam than ones that remain nofollow. As a result I’ve always heavily moderated my comments. I don’t care for lots of extra links in comments, nor do I like urls to business websites in comments that are gushing about a product or service. Those comments BTW are usually written quite poorly, but not all of them are – either way, if I think you are just leaving a comment to get a do follow link I’m apt to delete the url or the whole comment.
I hope that this post doesn’t discourage visitors leaving real comments. Like most bloggers I love getting comments on my posts (and yes I should reply to the comments more often!). Please don’t stop commenting just because I said I moderate heavily.
It’s to the spammers or those just seeking do follow links that I’m directing this rant.
I’m sure I make mistakes sometimes and delete a real comment or remove an url that perhaps was on a real comment that I mistook as coming from a spammer or dofollow link seeker. Please forgive me if I have removed a comment that was not from a spammer.
It’s just that I get well over 100 comments on most days across my various blogs that I must approve, moderate or delete as spam (not counting the ones that are listed in the Akismet section as already being spam). A high percentage of these comments are from paid commenters, spammers and those who are not really interested in my posts but are just seeking links. I have to be a tough moderator.
Spam comments are something that all bloggers have to deal with, perhaps new blogs and bloggers haven’t experienced it yet, but as your blog ages and hopefully becomes more popular you will encounter spam comments.
I’d love to get your input as to how you feel about spammers:
I’m looking forward to reading your replies.
My brother called me on Thursday to ask if Chris might want a free pass to the PGA Golf tour at Glen Abbey at the end of July. Wasn’t that nice of him to offer?
My brother works for a company that is sponsoring the event so he might be able to get some free passes. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t including me in the pass offer and that’s fine because I’m not really a big fan of Golf anyway. Chris isn’t the biggest fan either but he thought it might be kind of cool to go. Heck, it’s potential material for a blog post on his blog at least.
I hadn’t talked to my brother for a while so while I had him on the phone I asked him about his new (and only) grand daughter. My niece had a baby girl back in February. The baby is doing really well, starting to roll over from her back to her stomach and already has a few favorite toys that she can’t live without.
Actually my brother sent a photo of her earlier in the week. She’s adorable. The baby looks quite a bit like my niece did as a baby. My niece BTW is the oldest of my nephews and nieces – she was born when I was just 11 years old! So she’s never really felt like a niece to me and I guess it seems kind of weird to me that she already has a child.
Anyway, I guess we’ll know sometime early next week if Chris will be getting a pass for the PGA Tour. I still think it was really nice of my brother to offer to give one to Chris whether he’s able to get the pass or not.
If Chris does get the pass he’s doing good this week. He already got free tickets to the Amos Lee concert that we went to on Wednesday night at the Danforth Music Hall. Great show BTW, I highly recommend that you try to see Amos Lee play if you can, especially if you like music that’s a mix of Blues/ Folk / Jazz – heavier on the blues than anything.