August 10, 2017
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Winner!

The money-eating parking machine up the street is in slot machine mode again. I park there regularly when I stop in to Silver Lion or Purrfect Pets or Tasty Korea (yes I had some yummy Korean food for lunch today). I used to ignore the machine and take my chances but the guy they have ticketing offenders like me these days is lightning fast. Now I keep a bunch of nickels in the car and take that extra few seconds to feed the money into the machine and extract my ticket.

Over the past week or so, it’s been impossible to predict the outcome. Sometimes it takes my nickel and spits out the ticket. Other times, it takes my nickel and does nothing else (I’d appreciate a satisfied burp at least). Then there are days like today, when it pays out. Today I scored 60 cents. One thing is certain. If the machine fails to spit out the ticket and I park there anyway, Buddy is going to appear as if by magic with his ticketing book. Being the responsible citizen I am, I called 311 when I got home to report the problem.

This is not the first time I’ve reported the same problem. The very same machine was acting up maybe a year ago and I called it in. The 311 person put me through to the Toronto Parking Authority, where I talked to a nice fellow who took the information. I explained that I wouldn’t really care much about the broken machine except for the lightning fast guy dishing out tickets. The parking authority guy showed appropriate empathy.

I don’t have anything against the ticketing guy personally. He’s just a guy doing his job. In fact, the last time he almost nabbed me, he had started into writing the ticket but let me off the hook with snarky comment, “ya could have put a nickel in the machine.” I said, “you know, you’re right.” And just like that I became a born again parker. Yes, that’s when I started carrying around nickels.

On the west side of the Lakeshore strip through Long Branch, you can park for free. Then at a certain point the machines appear. Why do west-side Long Branchers rate free parking while east-side Long Branchers have to pay? Personally, I’d be OK paying say $20 a year more property tax if it meant we could rid ourselves of the whole parking infrastructure in Long Branch. Of course, if they didn’t charge for parking and they didn’t have the machines, they wouldn’t need to have a guy ticketing people, and I understand people need jobs. I wonder if that guy generates enough ticket revenue to pay for his wages?

Of course, the truth is I should have left the car at home and biked up to Tasty Korea to get lunch. Mea culpa.

August 7, 2017
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Getting our bike legs

Tuffy P signed us up for the 40 km MSBike Niagara ride on August 20. This is fine, except that neither of us had been on a bike all season. I dusted off the old bikes the other day. Looks like we have slow leaks in every tire but otherwise they’re working OK. We don’t have super-fancy bikes but they’re functional.

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Hitting the trail

We’ve started riding, and the plan is to do a good ride every day between now and the 20th, so we’re in at least slightly better condition for the MSBike ride. This morning we pedaled to Port Credit and back. It was a lovely cool morning, perfect for biking, and we really enjoyed it. If it’s not raining tomorrow morning, I might extend that ride to Jack Darling Park.

I’d like to thank everyone who has sponsored me for the ride. If you’ve been meaning to but haven’t got around to it, please visit my page here.

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Tuffy P with her trusty 3-speed

August 5, 2017
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Promenade all – Jim Magill on fiddle

Jim Magill was born in Northern Ireland in 1902 and passed in Toronto in 1954. He was a radio fiddler on Toronto’s CFRB between 11946 and 1954. He also played for square dances in Toronto with the Northern Ramblers.

Here’s the Calgary Breakdown.

And finally, here he is doing a version of The Texas Quickstep. In old time circles, I think this tune is perhaps more widely known as Rachel.

August 5, 2017
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Tomato update….a modest beginning

I wish our first ripe tomato of the year was one of the beautiful large specimens growing on some of our 5 plants. In fact the great tomato harvest of 2017 has begun modestly.

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I’m not complaining. After years of being convinced we couldn’t grow tomatoes on our shady property, I’m thrilled we’re going to have a good crop. With the old barberry hedge on the south side of our place down, it’s opened up a reasonably sunny area in our front garden where we’ve got 5 plants growing in containers.

This little tomato was tiny but it was super-tasty and there are dozens more on the plant it came from.

I expect some of the bigger tomatoes will begin to ripen over the next week or two. Our plants are holding a couple hundred tomatoes of various sizes, and I can’t wait!

August 2, 2017
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Studio sneak peak: Summer Days

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Summer Days, 2017  acrylic on masonite

Here’s a new painting fresh from the studio. This one is about 48 cm tall (19″). It’s called Summer Days.

I’m still working on new paintings for my October exhibition at Yumart, here in Toronto.

 

Filed under: Art
August 1, 2017
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Winner in Wintapeg

I’ve been listening to a lot of Canadian fiddle music, in case you haven’t guessed. Here’s a fantastic fiddler, Patti Kusturok, from her Patti Kusturok’s 365 days of Fiddle playing Calvin Vollrath and Trent Bruner’s Winner in Wintapeg.

August 1, 2017
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Miniature mossy world in Buffalo

I love these pictures Tuffy P shot in Buffalo of a miniature mossy world at Garden Walk Buffalo. DSC09088.jpg

These folks started their garden in 2004. They made all the objects and buildings themselves and they continue to add moss. The trees are cuttings from their own holly, boxwood and cypress. They have a misting system in place to keep the moss moist. There is a hidden reservoir for the water for the pond and stream.

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This garden has no human figures, giving the viewed the opportunity to imagine themselves in the miniature world.

August 1, 2017
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Garden Walk Buffalo 2017

It’s Tuffy P. on this post

July – the last weekend. We headed to Buffalo – early. Gardens, over 400 open free to the world at 10am. Two hot days. Welcomed inside homes newly purchased, welcomed in yards not even mapped. Stood beneath the oldest tree in the state, ‘grow old together’ painted on the walk beneath the tree. Looked inside the eyes of giant dahlias, stood beneath the monster sunflowers. Humbled to find so many towers of lilies. The bowed weight of their sweet, so sweet scent hanging in the hot afternoon sun.  Into so many of the Grassroots Gardens – the community gardens – the soul of the city. Offered mulberries hot from the tree, and cherry tomatoes – and asked, did we see the chickens – yet?

Backyards from the 1800’s – lined with pavers of the original sidewalks of the city. The grape vines of 40 years found broken by and rejuvenated by new owners. Into the backyards. The pink house with a welcoming side and narrow back garden- nested behind another house –  was once a trapper’s cabin. And in another back garden – the bench – set in front of a misted, miniature world. The lady that sat at that bench for a long, long time – looking at the world re-built from moss and small plants from the garden. The invitation to imagine yourself in a small world, for as long as you’d like.

Bees. Lots and lots.

Between 2 roads – Shakespeare’s garden complete with flowers and verse. Stay awhile and talk. And then time to move on, we can’t stop yet.