According to the good folks at WordPress, this blog was viewed about 25,000 times last year. Of course, numbers can be deceiving. At some point early in the year, for instance, I made a post about a movie – the famous one about the submarine. I don’t even want to mention it here because that single post caused dozens of people to stumble in here only to be disappointed to find the usual accordion videos and photos of the menagerie + one brief review of said movie.
I wonder if WordPress stats capture readers who look at posts in a reader but don’t click through to the blog itself? I suspect not but I don’t know. It’s still a mystery to me that after quite a few years of blogging, it still captivates me, and stranger still, that some folks keep coming back. I know there are a few readers who have been dropping by here since the Mister Anchovy’s days on Blogger. And a few of you will remember when it was simply Mister Anchovy. Looking back, I’m surprised I didn’t simply call it The Mister Anchovy.
Anyway, for those of you who like to visit 27th Street, thanks for coming and thanks for your comments along the way.
Here are some things I posted about in 2011 in poll format – your chance to tell me what you want to see more of (no promises of course).
27th Street 
Well, you caught me trying to stuff the ballot box. I wanted to vote more than once, but I think your poll only allows one vote per IP address. In addition to reading your posts about muchrooms, I like forests and rivers and the neighborhood. Never having been to Toronto, I’m also interested in news and pics about local cultural events that you attend, local neighborhoods and local atmosphere, etc. The music is your bedrock to build on. 25,000 visits is pretty good.
Thanks for your comment, Bloggerboy. One of the things I want to do this year is write more about the neighbourhood. We live in the most south-west corner of the amalgamated Toronto. Pre-amalgamation, it was considered Etobicoke or often South Etobicoke, and not Toronto at all. The lakefront on the west side of Toronto consists of an area that is known still by three community names, Mimico to the east, New Toronto in the middle and finally Long Branch, where we live, to the west. Most people I know in the area self-identify as living in these communities.
Lakeshore Blvd runs right along the lakefront through much of Mimico, but as you head west, there are streets and houses south of Lakeshore, down to the lake. By the time you get to 27th St. it is about a 10 minute walk from Lakeshore Blvd to the lake itself. 27th St. itself is entirely located below Lakeshore Blvd.
The whole area is isolated in a way by an expressway and train tracks to the north, and this isolation gives it the feeling of a village separate from the city proper. There are a few streets that cross the tracks and the expressway, but many don’t. This leaves a long shopping strip along Lakeshore through the three communities and this strip has the feeling of being on the cusp of change. There are businesses, such as Danny’s barbershop and the hardware store in Long Branch, that have been going for close to 50 years. At the same time, some local industry has died out. Some new businesses have opened up with varying degrees of success. There is some development – specifically condos – in the area, and there are also quite a few residential reno jobs and rebuilds happening both north and south of Lakeshore. As well there is considerable disparity in the area. There have been break-ins in our community, and at night along the Lakeshore strip, there are some rough edges that are hard to miss.
It’s a very interesting part of Toronto in many respects, and in 2012, I want to profile more of it.
Sounds good.
Yeah, mushrooms for me, please! 🙂 Or alternatively any anchovy recipes you may have. 😉
Around here, mushroom season starts in May, when morels appear. By end of that month, we start seeing oyster mushrooms on dead poplar trees. Then at some point in July, chanterelles and boletes and the so-called lobster mushrooms appear, followed by the toothed mushrooms, the milk caps and puffballs. Later, in the fall, we have honey mushrooms and that curiosity known as the aborted entoloma. Through most of the season, I go out to the woods more or less weekly. I usually bring along a point and shoot camera and document what I’m seeing.