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

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You are here: Home / Archives for Culture / Canada

An Autumn Outing

November 16, 2008 by Tricia

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For many of us it’s beginning to get cool outside, for some it might even be snowing.

Actually it’s snowing here right now as I write this …. but even though it’s cool outdoors do you ever stop to take a look at what’s left of the flowers and trees in your area? That’s one of the things I enjoy about Autumn. Looking at how plants change as the weather cools. I love looking at flower seed heads, leaves changing color and so on. Don’t you?

Near the beginning of November Chris and I decided to go to Taylor Creek park here in Toronto with our dog. We figured it might be her last outing in the forest while the weather was still kind of nice. While there, I took some time to take some photos of our surroundings.

One of my favorite plants to play with as a child in Autumn was always Milkweed. The pods that were once green would die down and turn grey and then burst open to let loose thousand upon thousands of white feathery seeds.

IMG_5111

I’m surprised that I didn’t pluck this Milkweed seed head from it’s stem once I’d taken it’s photo, only to blow on it and release it’s seeds into the wind.

Do you remember the pictures that I posted of the interesting natural water filters that I call “The Elephants” in early October?

Well here’s what they looked like a couple of weeks ago, surrounded by trees with leaves of red, orange and gold:

IMG_5130

They do kind of look like elephants, don’t they?

I know this is a Green Thumb post, but how could I not include a picture of our dog. I mean, she’s the reason we went to the park in the first place and that’s why I managed to get these great pictures …

Here’s Midnight, the Yuppy Puppy (nicknamed because she’s spoiled), coming out of a pond that she discovered after a quick dip in the cool water. If you look closely you can see the water still dripping from her legs.

IMG_5137 copy

And here she is a short while later, still wet and perhaps finally getting a little tired after enjoying a nice romp through the woods.

IMG_5151

Chris and I might go to the park this afternoon if it’s not snowing or raining. It’s a nice place and it’s definitely a good outing for an energetic puppy!





Filed Under: Canada, Green Thumb Sunday, Home and Lifestyle, Our Puppy, Photography, Recreation, The Neighborhood, Toronto, Wildlife and Nature Tagged With: blow, dog, fall_color, forest, fun, Green_Thumb_Sunday, GTS, hike, leaves, Midnight, milkweed, natural, nature, puppy, seedhead, seeds, Taylor_Creek_Park, Toronto, trees, water, water_filters, wet_dog, wind, woods

It’s going to SNOW this weekend???

November 11, 2008 by Tricia

I was just looking at my desktop weather widget and it says that we’re expecting snow/rain all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday! Ahhhh! Scary forecast! More than likely if it snows it will melt pretty much right away, but soon enough the snow will be here to stay.

Speaking of snow and bad weather … Did you know that there’s supposed to be a shortage of snow tires here in Canada this year? Why? Well, the province of Quebec is enforcing a new law that requires all vehicles in the province to have snow tires and that’s created a shortage in the rest of the Canadian provinces that need them. I wonder if there will be an increase in the sale of tire chains due to the winter tire shortage in some areas of Canada where winter tires are truly necessary?

Here in Toronto it’s not really a MUST to have snow tires. As I said earlier it snows here and then it often melts away fairly quickly … well, except for winters like last year! I think most people in Toronto use All Season tires on their cars, but Chris was talking about getting snow tires this year. One way or another we’ll need to get new tires soon – All Season or Winter – as our tires are kind of old and starting to go bald. Definitely no where close to winter safe.

I guess we’d better start looking for new tires soon (and the funds to pay for them!).

Do you change over to winter tires in the winter time?

Filed Under: Canada, Home and Lifestyle, Items to Try, Toronto Tagged With: all_weather_tires, bald_tires, change_tires, driving, melt, new_tires, snow, snowing, tire_chains, tire_shortage, winter, winter_driving, winter_tires

I have dumb roses

November 2, 2008 by Tricia

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My roses and other garden plants must be quite dumb.

It’s getting colder and colder here in Toronto, yet my garden is still very much alive. Smart plants would have shut down and begun to go dormant by now …. but no, not my roses! Some of my other plants seems to be on the dumb side too.

Along with several other roses, my Compte de Chambord is still putting out lovely rose buds. Oh and they smell heavenly! Compte de Chambord has a beautiful old rose perfume scent and as I said, the roses and rose buds are still full of their lovely scent.

Compte De Chambord rose bud
Compte de Chambord rose bud

I took this photo last weekend. It was quite windy so I had to hold the rose stem while taking the picture, but the leaves and other plants near it were blowing in the wind, hence the interesting blurred effect in the background.

Even my Lavender has started to bloom again … I have no idea why. It’s not like I’m out there watering, amending soil or putting my secret sauce (Alfalfa Tea) on my plants. I’m not doing a thing to my garden .. yet it’s thriving.

Here’s a single Lavender bloom …

Lavender bloom
Lavender bloom

And here’s one of my Lavender plants, blooming (a little bit) and looking terribly healthy for this time of year.

Lavender blooming in October?
Healthy blooming Lavender plant - October

Is your garden asleep for the winter or is it still struggling to perform as if it were summer?

Filed Under: Canada, Gardening, Green Thumb Sunday, Home and Lifestyle, Photography, Recreation, Shopping, Toronto, Tricia's Garden, Web and Technology Tagged With: autumn, cold_weather, dormant, dumb_roses, flowers, garden, Green_Thumb_Sunday, GTS, lavender, lavender_blooming, October, rose, rose_bud, windy, winter

Our mortgage keeps getting lower!

October 30, 2008 by Tricia

When Chris and I first bought our house in 2001 we decided to take out a variable interest rate mortgage. I have to say that it’s worked out well for us!

When we first got our house interest rates were at the lowest that they’d been in years, perhaps decades and we locked in for 6 months at something like 2% below prime and then after that it was guaranteed to be half a percent below prime.

Our luck held, probably due to poor economic times throughout this decade and the prime interest rate has stayed relatively low.

Now with the possible economic recession in the US and our own Canadian economy starting to go down the Bank of Canada has lowered the prime interest rate at least three times in the last few weeks. That of course has resulted in our mortgage company lowering our interest rate as well. We’ve received three letters from our Mortgage company in the last two weeks and with each letter our bi-weekly mortgage payments have dropped.

In all our mortgage payments have dropped about $50 a month. That’s not a huge decrease, but it will help.

Have you been experiencing the same thing? Has your mortgage company notified you that your mortgage payments will decrease slightly in the near future? Our rate drop doesn’t take effect until December and unless I’m way off I think the prime rate might drop again!

Filed Under: Canada, Finance, Home and Lifestyle, Money, Toronto Tagged With: Bank_of_Canada, interest_rate_dropping, mortgage, mortgage_payment, mortgage_rates, Prime_interest, Prime_rate, variable_interest

Is winter here?

October 21, 2008 by Tricia

It’s just about freezing here in Toronto. It’s been really cold and windy all day and right now it’s 1 Celsius out – that’s just above freezing folks! Brrrr!

Taking Midnight outside for walks and to do her business is becoming a major task what with all the extra clothing I have to put on just to stay warm!

My biggest problem with it being so cold today is that I banged my left thumb yesterday as I tried to close the basement door and my sore thumb doesn’t like me having to put on gloves.

Yeah … so I pulled a Trish – it happens! It’s been a while since I’ve done anything really klutzy so I guess I was due for a bonehead move.

I was bringing up a basket of freshly cleaned laundry and I set the basket at the top of the stairs as I reached the top step and of course Midnight came around to investigate what was in the basket. So as I pushed the basket forward and emerged from the stairs I was paying more attention to the dog than to my half-assed attempt at closing the basement door behind me. I didn’t notice that my thumb was in the wrong place until I felt the thumbnail get squeezed between the door and door frame.

**Picture a Fred Flintstone image here with big throbbing thumb held up in the air **

I hit my thumb hard enough that I decided to apply an icepack to it for a while just to make sure that it didn’t bruise. I guess it helped, but my thumb is sore and tender today and putting on gloves really hurts … so that’s just another reason why I’m not pleased that it’s so very cold today!

Plus … I think I saw a tiny bit of snow in the afternoon! Now that’s scary!

I sure hope it’s warmer where ever you are tonight!

Filed Under: Canada, Our Puppy, Pulled a Trish, Toronto Tagged With: aching, caught_thumb_in_door, cold, cold_weather, dumb_move, freezing, gloves, hit_thumb, hurts, klutz, laundry, ow, stairs, throbbing, thumb

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