I didn’t want to see the new Christopher Nolan film Oppenheimer. In general, I don’t enjoy films about war. I don’t care for films punctuated by explosions, and I find biopics tend to be hit or miss. Sheila saw it the other day and on her return simply said I had to see it the next day.
Oppenheimer is a great film. It has no super-heros. Instead it is a complex historical epic set around the Manhatten Project. It is visually stunning, and the acting and script are both fantastic.
Cillian Murphy has logged a career-making performance as Robert Oppenheimer, and he’s surrounded an amazing support cast. Just about as good are Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Emily Blunt as Kitty, and Matt Damon as the General.
This is a long film, and I’m usually the guy screaming for edits, but I wouldn’t have shaved a minute from this masterwork. Go see it – you can see Barbie next week.
We were very fortunate to have a chance to enjoy a Tony Bennett Show at a private function at Roy Thompson Hall a few years ago. At one point in the show he asked that the microphones be silenced and, in his usual relaxed and stylish way, he FILLED the hall with song, unaccompanied. It was a beautiful moment from one of the most enduring singers in American popular music.
Today I was in the Sobey’s store at Kipling and Queensway, doing a little shopping. We shop in this store sometimes and I’ve had no complaints. I wandered into the meat department and saw beef marrow bones. I thought, I can make some stock then later give the marrow bones to Bonnie, our dog – or else simply roast them for Bonnie. She loves extracting the marrow and chewing on the bones. Then I looked at the price…..
Am I reading this right, or do these folks think people are really going to pay $11.00/kg for bones? Would you?
I’ve been growing tomatoes in containers on a little fairly sunny strip of land out front – with mixed results – some years have been much better than others. This year, I cleared a patch of ground and planted my tomatoes in-ground, and they are doing very very well.
The other day, I picked our first tomato of the season, followed quickly by a few cherry-type tomatos. More will be ripening soon.
Today I installed a new mosaic for a longtime friend. Sheila and I worked on this one together. It’s called Lisa’s Butterfly. You can see photos of many of our mosaics on the Long Branch Mosaics website.
It you are interested in having one of our custom mosaics, send me an email and let me know what you’re thinking about.
We have a Saskatoon, or Serviceberry bush out front, here on 27th Street. I’ve been watching the berries start to ripen over the past few days, and so have the birds. There were quite a few ripe ones today so I decided to do a first picking. A local robin agreed and was already enjoying berries for lunch when I went out with a container. I’ll pick every couple days over the next week. By that time, all the birds will know about them.
Some people have suggested I take some kind of action to scare away the birds, but as much as we enjoy these berries, we also enjoy having the birds around and we don’t mind sharing. Once the Saskatoons are done for the season, blackberries will be almost ready out back.
The weather forecast on Saturday called for rain, rain, rain, but fortunately for all the gardeners who opened up their gardens to the public for the Long Branch Garden Tour, there was only a little bit of rain in the morning and it turned out to be a great day to be exploring gardens.
Stagg and Stagg
We were not only opening up our garden to the public, we also had a wedding ceremony to go to at noon. Our friends Candy and Stagg and Stephen came to the rescue and acted as substitute gardeners while we headed off to the ceremony. We have one of Stagg’s paintings on our shed, so his work was part of our garden environment.
It turned out many people came to visit our gardens throughout the day. There were 3 plants in particular people asked me about. The first was an Agapanthus which lives in a pot on our back patio. People told us this plant is super-common in England and Australia and California, but not so well known here.
Agapanthus on the patio
I kept forgetting the name so when asked I think I may have told people it was Agamanthus or Agacanthus or Aga-something-else. It is also known as the African Lily or sometimes as Lily of the Nile.
This tree was a gift from Sheila’s dad. It was small enough to fit in the back of the car when we bought it. It shows a beautiful, intense green in the summer and it is the last tree on our street to turn colour most years. Occasionally, when we have an early winter storm, it snows on the tree before the leaves change colour – but that has only happened a couple times. On those years, when it snows on the leaves, they turn a dull brown instead of the bright orangey-red we are used to. It is an easy tree to care for and it likes the semi-shady spot we gave it just fine. Last year and again this year, we’ve had spider mites in that tree. I don’t think they will seriously harm the tree but they can partially defoliate it. We have been spraying it down with water to discourage the mites. If it gets bad this year, we may consider using some insecticidal soap to control them. There are also a couple different mites and a beetle that eat spider mites. That’s an interesting idea we will have to research.
The third plant that seemed to catch the attention of many people on the garden tour is our Cut-leaf Elderberry. I think the variety is the Black Lace.
Black Lace Cut-leaf ElderberryElderberry blossoms
Some people see the dark purple-black cut leaves and think it is a Japanese Maple, but this time of year the lovely pink blossoms give it away. It is a durable and adaptable plant. In our garden, we often lose a few branches after winter, but new ones quickly grow. We’ve had two of them for around a decade now and this year it looks better than it ever has. It is showiest when in blossom.
It was pointed out to us during the garden tour that the multiflora roses on our property are invasive and we should take them out and replace them. It is true they spread easily. I think ours migrated from our neighbour’s place. It is an attractive plant in blossom and we had no idea it was an invasive plant. It is not the only invasive we have to cope with. The other is garlic mustard. We’ve been trying to get rid of that for years, but some of it always comes back.
Our gardens are also integrated with mosaics, sculptures and various pieces of re-purposed junk, which led to my fave comment of the day: “you folks have no rules”. True that.
We would like to thank everyone who came out to visit the gardens on the tour. There were 37 this year and for the first time the tour stretched out from Long Branch into New Toronto. We enjoy sharing our gardens so it great to see people enjoying themselves, trying to see as many gardens as possible during the day.
I found myself in Alliston at lunchtime today, with my sister Susan and her hubby Peter. After dealing with the errand that brought us to town, we stopped into Gust (put a funny little accent on the S and pronounce it Gusht) for lunch. We actually walked along the main street looking for a good lunch spot and stopped to look at a menu. The server was Liz and she was personable and genuinely enthusiastic. She mentioned a few menu items and invited us to sit down.
We were looking for sandwiches and had a choice of several from burgers to crispy red snapper sandwiches to pulled pork sandwiches. Liz told us the chef has a smoker at home and smokes the pork there – and said it was great! We each ordered one based on her recommendation and opted to share a plate of the house frites. The sandwiches, garnished with slaw and pickled red onion were simply delicious. The frites were fried in duck fat and served with black garlic aioli and they were pretty much insanely yummy, and the one order was generous and perfect to share for the 3 of us.
We enjoyed a fabulous lunch. It was super-tasty, and all 3 of us left satisfied and really impressed. The atmosphere was relaxed and Liz was the perfect server. We ate inside but there is a nice patio out front as well. Next time I’m in Alliston, I’ll make a point of going back to try something else on the menu. They also sell their sauces – chimichurri, mango habernero or the aforementioned rockin’ good black garlic aioli. Next time I’ll go home with some.
Gust is located at 34 Victoria Street in downtown Alliston. They are open Monday to Saturday 12-10. If you’re anywhere near Alliston, give it a try. It was the best lunch I’ve had in some time.
27th Street 