The Corner Store

Just around the corner from my work

Snake Plant in Bloom

This is a rare happening! I think it's about the third time this plant has flowered and Gerard already had it (or its great, great, great......grandparent) when we got married 32 years ago.

Open House for Mark & Rosemary's Engagement

Well, it's been a very busy and exciting weekend! Yesterday we had an Open House to celebrate Mark & Rosemary's engagement. It was a great way to meet Rosemary's family and many of Mark & Rosemary's friends who I had not met before. I think at least 50 people dropped by. We took some pictures before the party, even though it was raining out, but I was too busy meeting people to take pictures during the open house. It was very exciting!

Home, Sweet Home!

The Farmer's Market

This morning after swimming we stopped by the farmer's market. I had forgotten to bring a bag, so here we had walked to the market, bought locally-grown produce and then stuck it in a plastic bag! Eek! Anyways, I love the colourful fruit and vegetable stands. They're starting to have more squashes and gourds.

Here's what we bought - some fruit, Gerard got a coconut/raspberry tart, and I got some kind of oatmeal/sunflower seed/banana/apple cookie. Delicious!

Staff Retreat at Country Mansion

Yesterday we had a staff retreat at this beautiful old home. Six acres of beauty!

Our New Perennial Hibiscus

This is the first time I've ever had one of these plants. It was about 8 inches high when I bought it and it took a few months to get established and start growing. It is now about two feet high and a few weeks ago finally started showing some buds. So once the colour started showing I took pictures of the buds every day to follow how they open, how long it takes, and how long the flowers last. The weather's been in the high teens and low twenties during the day and around 10 C at nights. If the weather were hotter, it would probably go faster. Sadly the flowers only lasted one day:(

Day 1

Day 3
Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 9

Green Manure

Now that most things in the garden are done, and we're starting to dig it over, we've been seeding rye, which is a green manure. It's really good for improving the soil. I read on one website (www.motherearthnews.com) that "a single rye plant can produce an average of 3 miles of roots per day. That's 387 miles of roots and 6,603 miles of roothairs in a season!" I find that hard to believe, but according to some other websites "rye (and other green manures) can build up poor and exhausted soils and maintain the fertility in better ones". This is a good time of year to seed rye. Then we just dig it under in the spring before putting in our new garden.

Some other websites that talk about green manure are www.attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/covercrop and www.btinternet.com This picture shows just one week's growth!

Yesterday we went to the 40th anniversary celebration of The Lighthouse. That's the ministry that brought me to Toronto in 1974 and I worked there as a long-term volunteer for two years. I also met Gerard there. So The Lighthouse played an important role in our lives. We saw old pictures and remembered what we looked like 34 years ago! It was disappointing that there were no other former staff members in attendance, but we still met lots of people we knew. A fun reunion and a good opportunity to find out what's happening at The Lighthouse these days.

Parcel for Alida

I've been preparing a parcel with some of Alida's favourite DVD's, dresses, and other mischellaneous items that she'd left here, but would now like to have in Australia.



It's time for a flower picture... A rose from the front flower bed.

Dinner at Rosemary's

I enjoyed a wonderful home-cooked dinner at Rosemary's after work yesterday. It was my first visit to her apartment and it was fun to see where she lives, what her room looks like, and to meet one of her housemates. After we ate and visited together for a while, Mark dropped by. Surprise:)

Here's the view from the dinner table by the window of her 9th floor apartment. After it got dark we could see all the night lights of the city. Fun!

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

Happy 36th Birthday, Jeff!! - My little baby brother! :)

Well, our TV died the other night, so we ended up spending the evening cleaning and moving our acquarium. It was so neglected that it took the two of us a few hours to get it all cleaned up. This one goldfish survived the neglect. We'll have to get him some buddies soon.

Beautiful Fireplace

This is the picture in one of the fireplaces at my work place. Isn't it amazing?! Just as beautiful and intricate and hidden away as the door hinge in my August 6 post.


Here you can get a better view of where the picture is in the fireplace. I wonder why they would put these pictures there. I imagine that if/when you have a fire in there you might not see it at all, or maybe the flames would light up the picture.

A Splash of Colour

On our vacation we happened across this cute colourful little front yard and porch. It was a tiny little house and an even smaller front yard. They sure made the most of the space they had!

I love unexpected surprises like this!

Saturday Morning in the Kitchen

On Saturday mornings I usually spend a few hours in the kitchen cooking while listening to the radio. I cook a large pan of something like chili, fish chowder, lazagna, etc. and freeze it in one or two-serving sizes so that we can pull a meal out of the freezer, add a salad to it, and have an easy meal for days when I've been working or we're busy or just don't feel like cooking. I used to listen to garden shows, but I don't know what happened to them. They're not on the radio anymore this fall, so today I listened to the Vinyl Cafe.

Here are the results of today's session in the kitchen:

A pan of fish chowder

and a batch of oatmeal cookies.

Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Oil Museum

Last summer I did some reading up on the Underground Railway and really wanted to visit some of the sites in southwestern Ontario, but we didn't get there last year. So when we were staying at Nick & Fanny's a few weeks ago we made an interesting day trip to Dresden to visit the Uncle Tom's Cabin Historical Site. According to the sign in the picture above...

In the 1830's the Rev. Josiah Henson and other abolitionists looked for ways to provide refugees from slavery with the education and skills they needed to become self-sufficient in Upper Canada... In 1841 Henson and his allies purchased 200 acres of land in present-day Dresden and established the British American Institute, one of the first schools in Canada to emphasize vocational training.... the residents farmed, attended the Institute, and worked at saw mills, grist mills and other local industries... Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" used Josiah Henson's memoirs (1849) as reference material for her novel. Henson's dramatic experiences and his connection with Stowe's novel made him one of the most famous Canadians of his day.

This was Rev. Josiah Henson's house and is now called Uncle Tom's Cabin...


This was a display in the interpretive centre. Some of the abuse the slaves experienced was horrific!!!
We also discovered the Oil Museum of Canada near Oil Springs, Ontario.


I've often seen a sign for a town called Petrolia, on the 401, but never knew about the history of oil discoveries in that area. This open air museum and interpretive centre were very interesting. We learned that the early settlers in the early 1850's found sticky tar-kike "gum beds" where oil had seeped to the surface. They first used the sticky gum to produce asphalt and oil for lamps. This "black gold" attracted men by the thousands - just like the gold rush. Gradually they figured out more sophisticated ways of pumping the oil from in the ground. After gaining more experience these oil drillers took their expertise all over the world to open new oil fields in the late 1800's.

Here are some of the buildings in the open air museum:

The blacksmith's shop...


The oil tanker wagon...


The first commercial oil well...

Africycle

Today we went to Uxbridge (about an hour NE of Toronto) to drop off some used bicycles at a Christian charity called Africycle. It is a really neat concept. Here is a quote from their website, http://www.africycle.org/:

Africycle is a charitable organization bringing people together to improve access to bicycles in Africa. Based in Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada, Africycle functions through many facets, bringing communities together to pursue the common goal of providing people in Malawi access to quality used bicyles. Many Malawians experience difficulty accessing quality bicycles, due to economic constraints and the limited availability of affordable, reliable bicycles in the local market. Africycle believes that by providing bicycles it can be a catalyst for sustainable and effective development in Malawian communities. To accomplish this mission, Africycle follows a defined plan of action which consists of two parts on opposite ends of the planet: The 'Recycle-a-Bike' program in Canada and a bicycle repair shop and distribution centre in Malawi.

So people can donate used bicycles to Africycle and then teams of volunteers go in and take the bikes apart for parts, or clean the bikes, or re-condition them. Our youth group was going to collect used bicycles, bring them to Africylce and volunteer for a Saturday. For some reason this youth group activity got cancelled, but we had already saved some bikes for them so delivered them ourselves. If you have the chance to donate bikes or volunteer there, I would recommend this cause!

It was a lovely country drive to get there and then we went on to Sibbald Point Provincial Park to enjoy the afternoon at the beach. It was enjoyable except for the fact that search and rescue helicopters and airplanes were going over all the time because a paraglider had gone missing in the area and they were trying to find him. Later we noticed that a helicopter was hovering in one area for a long time. On our way home we heard on the radio that the man had been found, dead, in Lake Simcoe. So kind of disturbing news in an otherwise nice and relaxing afternoon.

Beauty in the Garden

In addition to being wrapped all around the trunk of our crab apple tree, the morning glories are now winding their way around the upper branches as well.



Hosta flowers...
Blue Salvias...

Mark & Rosemary are Engaged!

We are so very excited that this weekend Mark & Rosemary got engaged!!! I've been bursting to tell everyone, but forced myself to wait until Mark & Rosemary themselves made the announcement on their Facebook pages. So now I finally get to tell you! They have not set a date for the wedding yet, but it will probably be sometime next summer. Mark just started a new job a few weeks ago and Rosemary has gone back to school this week - teacher's college at U of T - and will be done at the end of May so maybe sometime after that. Mark and Rosemary are so perfect for each other and so happy together. Thank you, Lord!!

So the proposal took place under a clear, star-filled sky in a canoe in the middle the lake at Rosemary's dad's cottage. They shared the news with Rosemary's family at the cottage and in Toronto then our family got together at Henry and Melanie's on Sunday evening to share in the joy and excitement and at their request to together pray for a blessing on their relationship.

And they didn't want to tell anyone else outside of the immediate families until Alida also knew, so here they are calling to share their good news with Alida in Australia.

Environment Day

This morning we went to an Environment Day. They're hosted by city councillors all over the city in the spring and the fall. You can bring in car tires, styrofoam, batteries, old medications, plastic, old and left over paint, light bulbs, toxic waste, books, small appliances, computers, etc. etc. and all this stuff gets re-used or recycled. It's great! You can also trade in broken recycling containers and/or buy new ones, pick up free compost and, like we did today, buy rain barrels. We already have one behind the garage right by the vegetable garden. Now we'll put this new one at the front of the house so I can use it to water the front flower beds. I'm so excited! This is a real fancy one (compared to our old one which is a barrel with the top cut out of it and we cover it with a piece of screening) with a closed top, a hose for watering or filling your watering can, and also an overflow hose. Can't wait to get it hooked up. Then I won't have to lug the watering cans around from the back yard anymore.

So I love these environment days. They are so busy that we had to wait in line for 12 minutes just to get into the parking lot! Kind of ironic that at an environment day loads of cars sit there idling and polluting the air.

This is the place where you drop off paint, toxic waste, medications, batteries and light bulbs...

and here is the station for dropping off styrofoam and plastic.