Tricia's Musings

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



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Home alone!

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Chris is out of town until sometime tomorrow evening. He came home from work just before 6 p.m. and by 6:30 he was out the door ready to drive to Waterloo to help his sister and her husband move. My brother in law is allergic to dogs (even though they have one (and we’re allergic to ours too!) so I’m staying home to dog sit.

Just before Chris left the phone rang and it turned out to be a telemarketer trying to get us to get some auto insurance quotes. I couldn’t believe how loud she had to talk. I could hear all of the other telemarketers in the room with her. I can’t imagine having to work in a place like that let alone probably having most of the people I call hang up on me!

Anyway … When I was on the phone Chris was upstairs packing an overnight bag and Midnight, our Labrador Retriever, decided to take that opportunity to steal the apple that Chris placed on the table when he came home from work. Little brat!

Chris came downstairs and said “Hey, where’s my apple” … and since I didn’t know that he’d put an apple on the table I had no clue as to what happened to it. However, I did remember Midnight lying on her bed chewing on something (I’d thought at the time she was chewing on a bone or one of her toys), but as it turned out it was Chris’ apple. LOL

Little thief. That’s the first time she’s ever taken anything off the table. Oh there’s been times in the past when she’s been interested in food on the table or counter but we were aware of it and told her no … but this time, with me on the phone and Chris upstairs she took advantage of the situation and got her apple.

She hadn’t really eaten much of the apple. She had only scraped off a bit on the top and the sides. So I decided to use a knife and cut off a few pieces for her, then I put the apple in the a bag and put it in the fridge. I would have let her have the whole thing, but she has a sensitive stomach and never having had a whole apple before I have no idea what it would do to her.

I guess we’ll have to keep a closer eye on any food items we place in areas she can reach!

Now if I can just get Midnight to settle down and stop pacing around and looking out the living room window we can have a nice evening. She obviously misses Chris and keeps looking for him in the hopes that he’ll come home soon. Little does she know that she has to wait until tomorrow night!





Sweet cats and my strange dog

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Wordless Wednesday

adorable cat and kitten

Aw, isn’t that a sweet picture?

Ok now just to prove that I’m still a dog person, here’s a picture I took last week of my dog while we were on a hike in the park.

Midnight loves sticks, but we don’t let her play with them often because they can splinter and cause big problems. Anyway … she managed to find this old dried out dead tree and she was happy as pie.

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While we were in the open areas she had fun with it, but she didn’t get far once we hit the forest trail again. Oh well .. it was fun for a few minutes.

The elephants – natural water filtration

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Earlier in the week I told you that Chris and I and our dog Midnight went for a walk in Taylor Creek park here in Toronto …

Remember those muddy dog pictures? (you’ve got to see the pics if you haven’t already, I’ve never seen a dog that well coated in mud!) Well. this city park has these big structures beside the highway (the Don Valley 404) that we’ve always called the elephants … well, because they do kind of look like elephants.

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See what I mean?

Anyway .. these “elephants” are actually natural water filters. I guess the rain water is supposed to filter down from the tallest structure to the shortest one and by the time it’s been through all three filters the water is totally clean.

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The filters are huge. I stood beside them taking pictures and I’d say they are 30 or more feet tall. They seem to be made out of concrete, but there’s probably some other type of material in them as I think the materials used to make concrete would leach into the water.

The area of the park closest to “the Elephants” was the most colorful.

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Most of our trees here in Toronto seem to be holding onto their green leaves, but the weathers been fairly cool all week so I’m sure that will change in an instant.

As you can see in the last picture the Sumacs have started to turn that lovely brilliant red. A clear sign of Autumn around here! The bull rushes (Cat Tails) beside them were starting to break up too, spreading their fluffy seed heads all over the place.

It’s supposed to rain this afternoon but if it doesn’t we might try to go to the park with Midnight again … if not maybe we’ll go on Monday. Maybe the forest will be a little more colorful this time round and I’ll come back with some pretty Fall pictures.

Have the leaves started to turn in your area yet?

A concert in the afternoon

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Chris and I did something different today. We went to a Progressive Rock concert at … of all places … the local Legion Hall.

The bands played from 2:30 pm until about 8:30 pm … I know, very strange hours for a concert, but hey .. it was at a Royal Canadian legion after all. Maybe that’s the only time it could be booked?

The bands weren’t professional, but they were pretty good. I’m not the biggest fan of progressive rock, it’s my husband that really loves that stuff. I’m more of a classic rock, indie and techno kind of person. It was a fun afternoon/ early evening though. I’m sure Chris will write about it on one of his music blogs, probably by tomorrow.

The place was close to our home so we were able to walk both ways. On the way back we zig zagged through a few side streets and we past a house with a beautiful garden at the front of the house. If I ever decide to completely redo our tiny front yard I’ll try to do something like what they did. Of course our front yard is really really small … like 10×10 ft. LOL So I guess we won’t have the antique looking wooden swing sets that they had to one side of their garden. Well … maybe if we move and get a bigger house on a bigger property?

So what did you do today? Yard work, visit relatives or did you go to a concert or some kind of event too?

It’s cold enough that the furnace came today!

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It’s been quite cool here in Toronto all week, but I’d say that today was the coolest. It was so cold that our furnace came on for the first time this Fall.

Our furnace is quite loud (and old) so when it first began rumbling at about 5 pm I wasn’t sure if it was a car engine outside or what was going on, then I realized it was just the furnace. Our puppy Midnight seemed to be less startled by the noise than me.

It’s a little cooler than normal for this time of year here in Toronto. I’m pretty sure that our house doesn’t usually get cool enough for the furnace to come on until at least mid-October or later most years, maybe even November during a particularly nice fall. Oh and I have the thermostat set pretty low, so the house was really cold by the time it finally came on! Brrrr

I hate the smell that comes out of the vents when the furnace starts up for the first time. Bleh .. I don’t know what it is … maybe dust that’s settled in the vents heating up? Or maybe it’s because we have an oil furnace. Whatever that smell is it seems to go away after the furnace has come on a few times.

Is it cool in your area too? Has your furnace started up yet?

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