February 7, 2019
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A Hidden Gem

Although I do most of our grocery shopping at our local No Frills, about once each week I venture up to Dixie and Bloor to shop and my fave Asian market, called Grants (yes there is a picture of General Grant on the sign, accompanied by some Chinese characters). It’s a great store. There is a little mall there but I never saw any reason to go past the grocery store.

That is, I never checked out the mall until last week when it was quite busy and I parked over at the north side and walked through the mall to get to Grants. I couldn’t help but notice there is a banh mi bakery in there. Last week it was right at lunchtime and the place was hopping, and I had already had lunch so I made a mental note and continued on. Today, I drove up there earlier, around 11 AM and there was just one other customer.

Last year when we traveled to Vietnam, among the highlights were the fantastic banh mi (Vietnamese subs). When I saw this place, not too far from home, I thought I’d better try it out.

They have a variety of banh mi on the menu, although when I got there they only had 3 of the menu items available. The sandwiches are not huge, but then again they are just $3.50 each. Since it was a scientific research mission, I felt compelled to try two different ones, one assorted and one sour pork sausage.

Admittedly, they were not as fantastic as the best banh mi we had in Vietnam (there was a hopping joint in Hoi An that served about the best sandwiches I had ever had), but they are none-the-less very tasty, with an assortment of veggies, some kind of spread, some hot stuff, fresh herbs, and an excellent baguette (crispy on the outside, softer on the inside). Very yummy. In the interest of reporting accurately for Twenty Seventh Street I’ll be sure to try the other varieties on future visits. The things I do for my readers.

February 5, 2019
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Go Patti!

A daily highlight for me so far in 2019 has been checking out Patti Kusturok’s 365 days of fiddle tunes. What a generous effort by one of our greatest fiddle players. Here she is with Day 35, Grey Owl by John Arcand. If you haven’t been following these, check them out!

February 5, 2019
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Georgie Update

In our home, there’s a room above the garage where we hang out – we call it The Treehouse. It’s 8 or 9 steps above the main floor of the house. George hadn’t joined us up there since Saturday because of his injured paw. That is, until last night, when he stood up, stared down the stairway, and ran up the stairs. Later, I gave him some assistance coming down to make sure he didn’t lose his footing.

This morning he still has a limp but I would say he is putting perhaps half his weight on the front right, a huge improvement from yesterday morning. It looks to me that the antibiotics are kicking in and helping already.

February 4, 2019
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Slow George

Between the ice and the salt, winter is hard on paws. Last week both Ruby and George developed raw paw pads. On Saturday morning though, George couldn’t put any weight at all on his front right paw. Now George is a big boy, and not having the use of a front paw is a big deal for his mobility.

With George and Ruby

We cleaned the paw and we rested him in the hopes that over the weekend he would heal up. This morning he was still having difficulty, so I arranged an appointment with the vet. Fortunately we have a “help-em-up” harness from Ruby’s knee surgeries so I got that fitted on George so I could help him into the car. We have a ramp so I set that up, then helped Georgie out of the house and into the car. He was fortunately very cooperative. I don’t know if he realized we had to go to the doctor if it was all about his love for car rides. The important thing is I got him to the vets with no difficulty.

His temperature was a bit high and his paw swollen. The first thing the vet suggested is we treat for infection, so he’s on a round of antibiotics along with metacam for pain and inflammation. She also took some blood to do a Lyme disease test. If he’s still having difficulty in a few days, the next step will be x-rays. Hopefully, the antibiotics will help and George will be his usual self soon.

January 30, 2019
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Cold Frosty Morning

What a cold morning for a nature walk! Today I met up with Miles Hearn and our weekly nature walk group just down the street at Colonel Sam Smith Park. I bundled up well, with long johns, thermal socks, my old postal dock liner, a warm parka, warm hat, scarf, hood, boots and hand warmers.

Toronto’s yachting paradise??

I love the ice formations!

We saw lots of ducks and geese and some mute swans in what water was still open in this bitter cold.

Long-tailed ducks
Mute swan
Swans and Ducks
A raft of ducks

There is a feeder in the park which attracts many birds on days like today, including cardinals, house finches, house sparrows, chickadees and more.

Here’s the late Dave Hum performing Cold Frosty Morning….

January 30, 2019
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A better day for my bird friends

Imagination Station #1

It’s funny how sometimes you don’t really notice certain things until you really slow down and look. For instance, I used to walk through many forests on my way to trout streams and never noticed the world of fungi all around me, until I started looking for edible mushrooms. Suddenly, I saw mushrooms everywhere.

Out back we have 3 structures we call Imagination Stations. It seems many people can’t cope with this kind of item unless they understand it has some kind of utilitarian purpose. What are they for, they ask? Sometimes I tell people it’s good for the backyard ecology but mostly I say, it’s so visiting supernatural beings like pixies and faeries and sprites and elves and trolls have a warm place out of the wind to sleep. My brother supplied the rural mailbox so they could receives letters from friends, long-awaited cheques and of course packages, since any old fool knows supernatural beings love online shopping.

It turns out the supernatural beings share the Imagination Stations with birds. I noticed this once the snowstorm started yesterday. Lots of birds were taking shelter within the maze of branches and whatnot. I almost didn’t notice and then I caught a glimpse of some movement as a number of house sparrows moved around, shifting positions. I don’t know how many birds took shelter in these structures but I’m pretty sure they appreciated a place out of the full force of the storm.

This morning I loaded up the feeders first thing and the cardinals and house sparrows and nuthatches and chickadees showed up for breakfast, with their dark-eyed junco pals grabbing anything that hit the ground.

Up in the old apple tree, two mourning doves were hanging out as well.

I often see these lovely birds on the ground grabbing sunflower seeds with the juncos, but these two weren’t feeding this morning. It seemed to me they were enjoying the day.