May 8, 2012
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Dandelion Wine

In Toronto, some time back, we made a choice. We chose dandelions over poison when we outlawed the nasty crap that kills the dandelions. And so, our parks and lawns are filled with lovely yellow flowers and the wind blows all the seeds around the neighbourhood so everyone can enjoy them.  I’m OK with that. I’d rather have the pretty yellow flowers than the poison, all things considered.

This morning, Tuffy P came up with a great idea. Now that we have the dandelions, lets make Toronto the dandelion wine capital of the universe. We could export it everywhere, “Toronto’s Finest” dandelion wine. Finally, we could be known for something besides hopeless hockey teams. Once the concept takes off, there will suddenly be a demand for dandelions. Perhaps the wineries would offer up some coin for dandelions, say so much per pound.

Right now, I have enough raw material on the front lawn for a couple bottles of top grade vino.

May 7, 2012
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Yellows?

I expected that the last rain would bring out the yellow morels in my area and so today I drove out to a couple spots I know for a look. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Not a morel. Could it be possible that the premature spring followed by colder weather we experienced this year has bolloxed the morel flush? I don’t believe it. Last year I picked morels around May 20 and I got to them towards the end as most of the ones I picked were very big. True, it’s two weeks earlier now, but I believe many plants are early and mayflies are a couple weeks early too.

I did come across a nice patch of young ramps and I brought home enough for a couple dinners. I noticed that fiddleheads are done in my area – the ostrich ferns are a good foot tall.

It’s raining again tonight. I think I’ll wait a few days and see if this rain triggers a flush.

May 6, 2012
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The Shovel Garden

At the back of our house, there is a wooded area. It wasn’t always that way. Apparently an earlier resident of the house did a lot of tree planting on the property. Just in front of the wooded area, we have a little woodland garden, that we call, for obvious reasons, the shovel garden. Beyond that is a lean-to. It collapsed over the winter, and I rebuilt it this afternoon.

Hostas are up but not opened up yet. The bleeding heart is looking good and two of the trillum I planted have come back and are in bloom. There’s a honeysuckle starting to climb up the shovel. If it does really well this year, I’ll train over to the lean-to and let it climb all over that.

May 6, 2012
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Gardens

Tuffy P cleaned up the back perennial garden today, taking out weeds and old dead plant matter. This garden will start looking really good in about a month. Some of you may be wondering about the red and white item in the foreground. That’s an early speciman of Amanita chipbowlius. These fungi grow all over the gardens at Anchovy World Headquarters.

May 3, 2012
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LIghtning and flying don’t mix

A few of you may have noticed I haven’t posted for a couple days. I’ve been in Winnipeg on a short trip related to my job and just got in. I should be in bed now but I won’t be able to unwind and sleep for a while. It was a long trip back from Winnipeg due to a lightning storm around the airport. They circled us around and around and around and around, and all the time the plane was tossing around with the turbulence. Finally, the pilot set us down, but then he parked us in the middle of nowhere along with all the other planes. It turns out they shut down the ramps for safety reasons when there is lightning happening around the airport. When the lightning stopped and we remained stopped, one of the flight attendents said they had to wait until the lightning was at least three miles away. Let’s just say I’m glad to be home.

As this was a quick working trip, I didn’t get a chance to see too much of Winnipeg. However, how could I come face to face with the Ringleader of Kulbassa herself and not take a picture.

Naturally, I went in. The place smelled great. I recognized the smell from my childhood when we used to go to Czehoski on Queen at Euclid in Toronto for the best sausage in town. They sold a variety of Polish mustards there too, local ones and I almost bought a jar of the super extra-hot variety. Then I imagined the conversation at security trying to convince them this was really special mustard and not some kind of explosive.

This morning after breakfast, in the elevator at the hotel, I ran into a friend from Toronto. He too was there on business, just a different business. We were both totally surprised to see one another. Small world.

I met a fellow who grew up in the north end of Winnipeg who insisted on taking me and my colleague to a place called Kelekis’ for lunch. This is a family owned 50’s style diner that as near as I can tell is pretty close to an historic site in Winnipeg. They also make a delicious club sandwich with a huge side of tasty fries and a strawberry milkshake that was to die for (my new friend said several times, “you gotta try the strawberry milikshake…”)

May 2, 2012
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Bad Roads

The good folks at CAA have come out with a list of the worst roads in Ontario. Here are the top 10:

  1. Dufferin Street (Toronto)
  2. Bunting Road (St. Catharines)
  3. Burlington Street East (Hamilton)
  4. Stanley Avenue (Niagara Falls)
  5. Kraft Creek Road (Timmins)
  6. Lawrence Avenue East (Toronto)
  7. Carling Avenue (Ottawa)
  8. Finch Avenue West (Toronto)
  9. Kingston Road (Toronto)
  10. Bayview Avenue (Toronto)

I think the idea is to highlight the really bad ones in an effort to get them fixed up. I don’t do a lot of driving on Dufferin St. but I thought it was improved with the extension opened up, eliminating the weird zig-zag drivers had to take for years to get from Dundas to Queen.

So did they get it right? Are there worse roads out there?