August 4. 2008

Yesterday, we went for a stroll around the park.

We'd seen this road sign on Saturday evening, flashing out in the soccer field. It was obviously purloined from the Minto construction area. It looked kind of funny, cute even, sitting out there in the field in the dark, flashing away. Sunday, it had been moved to this spot by an entrance to the park. I wonder if Minto will come get it?

As we approached the pond, I wondered if there would be any waterfowl left. Certainly, there wouldn't be any babies. We had not brought bread with us as it really is better to leave the birds alone, even though I am guilty of having fed them before. This fellow showed up on a small-wheeled bike, with a milk crate full of bread and what appeared to be corn in a large bag.

The geese saw him coming and steamed over in a long flotilla.

Now, he is surrounded by gulls, ducks and geese, with the geese muscling their way to the front of the line.

I wanted to check out the potential hazard at the bridge and although I had seen workers there earlier in the week, and there was lots of evidence that work had been done on the bridge (several new upright posts had been installed), the discrepancy between the level of the pavement and the wood surface of the bridge remained. I have now sent this photo with a second email to my city councillor but since I never even got an acknowledgment to the first email, I am not holding my breath.

The construction is proceeding apace. There are at least three more foundations with no superstructure on them that we saw on Sunday. But as we found out at the sales office, there are several more foundations planned that haven't even been started.

Here's a different view.

We noted that the front doors of the units fronting on Centrepointe appear to be awfully close to the sidewalk. Don't come running out of your house in a hurry here! But then for the first time, we stopped into the sales office. There was a very nice, low-key fellow there who spent some time explaining things to us. There are a LOT of units going in here. "Intensification", indeed. There are six row house units that will front on Centrepointe, each one containing four housing units of about 1900 square feet each. And each one will have a 2 car garage! That surprised me. They are going for well over $300,000 each, even though they are SO close to the road. Interesting.

July 23, 2008

I guess no news is good news. Not much new in the 'hood these days. And it's not even the dog days of summer, what with all this rain and not-that-hot-but-man-is-it-humid weather.

We heard sounds of cheering from the park and went for a walk after dinner last night to check it out. Every single soccer pitch was full with teams playing and some were even practising on the outfield of the ball diamond in between.

Some kids had even arrived on their bikes. This is a good thing.
It was a beautiful evening to be outside.

June 27, 2008

Can you believe it's almost the end of June? I can't.
When I went running this morning in the park, my goal was to run around the circuit at least 3 times. Then I changed the goal to 25 minutes (I run a circuit in about 6.5 minutes) and I almost made it, when I got a stitch in my side at 24 minutes. That allowed me to walk back to the house and get my camera and some bread and then go back to to pond where I got some fun pix.

Those are baby geese! The one at the back on the right is the parent. You can tell the babies easily because of their "whit-whit-whit" baby voices (they don't honk until they are grown up) and the white cheek patches haven't come in yet. But they are so big now!

The baby in the foreground still had a fair bit of fuzz on his neck.

I just like this "action" shot. And you can see what I meant earlier about "white bums".

And the babies aren't shy about coming right up to you.

I found a big difference with the baby ducks. They look like they have their adult plumage but they are still pretty fuzzy and I don't think their wings are developed. But they aren't yellow fuzz-balls any more!

And they aren't shy any more either! Last time, they wouldn't approach me, nor take anything from my hand. This time they pecked me unmercifully and came and stood right on the tops of my feet.

I don't know why we find waterfowl more engaging than many other birds, but they are.

June 15, 2008

The geese will eat right out of your hand but not the ducks. But there was one baby goose who wouldn't take anything from me. The other goslings gathered right in, practically under my skirt and nibbled at the hem of my skirt while I was feeding bread to their brethren.






We are so fortunate to live here. There were baseball teams out playing in al the available diamonds. Some were camped out with dogs and coolers and chairs.

November 26, 2007

We rented a car for the weekend and so we drove everywhere from Friday to this morning and that really puts a crimp in walking leisurely around the 'hood, I must say.

After the snows of last week, it is mild today and we are finally getting the patio furniture into the garage for the winter. I suppose it should have been done before now but I think we were hoping for one more day, warm enough to sit out, even if we had to wear coats. Now, we can always get out the folding lawn chairs, I suppose.

Today, I mostly took pix of the bike and foot paths. For years, I have bemoaned the fact that some of these paths are not plowed during the winter, even when there is plenty of evidence that people use them. When especially snippy, I would gripe that you just don't rate unless you have four wheels and an engine.

This morning, as I went over to the college early, I took this photo of the bike path as it bends behind the transit station. Sure enough, there were plenty of footprints but it hadn't been plowed.

Imagine my pleasant surprise to discover, later in the day, that the path had been plowed! This picture was taken looking north, The transit station is on my right and this is the path that goes behind it. I didn't explore to see how far north they had plowed but it looked like it continued on under Baseline at least. They didn't plow the part that curves to link up with the main east-west path, that part I took a photo of this morning, but you could go straight and then make a hard right turn if you were on a bike.

I decided to walk into Centrepointe Park on my way home, to see what was happening there since I hadn't been out on the weekend. I noticed as I got to Centrepointe Drive itself that the centre bollards keeping vehicular traffic off the bike paths had been removed to allow the plows in.

I pushed the signal to stop traffic so I could cross the street and as usual, cars went through on the red light. I guess they think that you can't get out on the road that fast and they have time to sneak through as the light turns red. This woman came barreling in pretty fast and then did stop, but only after she was halfway across the "stop line". I had my camera out to take the previous photo of the missing bollard so I turned around and snapped one of her. I have a theory that it's the speed that makes people even more impatient and warps their judgment.

As I headed toward the park I was surprised to see evidence of plowing. In my more than ten years here, I don't think I have ever seen the park paths plowed, even though a lot of people walk out of the subdivisions behind the park to access the bike path to get to the transit station.

I noticed that some folks had been ready with their cross country skis and had been out enjoying the fresh snow.

And then I saw that the whole of the internal pedestrian path around the park has been plowed! Not very well in spots and there was ice to stumble over, but it's a start. I am happy to see this because I think it encourages people to get out and walk even in the winter and that's a good thing for everybody.

At this point, the person driving the plow got off the path and caught a huge chunk of sod and curled it up like a wave.

Finally, I noticed that someone had been out rolling snow to make a snowman. Given the right conditions next time (the snow has to be the right kind of sticky, for those of you reading who don't live above the 40th parallel), I think I may have to go do that too. It has been years since I made a snowman.

November 17, 2007

I forgot I took these pix on Thursday.

They are preparing the gardens at the old city hall for winter.

I think those are irises beneath the snow fencing. They have some lovely very dark purple irises that I enjoy every time I walk by in the early summer.

We took a turn around the park this afternoon and it was a real pleasure to walk into the park and see a bright kite flying.

It was a windy day and pretty cold - about 3C. The kite was initially tethered to the children's play structure at the edge of the park but later, we watched the kite flyer walking across the park with kite in tow.

It always looks better the real life but I snapped this photo anyway, when an airplane crossed the sky right where the kite was.

The geese were out in force today. You'd think they'd be seriously packing their bags to head south.

Instead, they were swimming in line in the pond (I think that is a dog collar on the post),

pooping everywhere - look at those poop logs!

and walking in several different directions at once. One group finds something interesting over the hill and another group heads for the pond. All with deliberation.

We noticed that a section of the metal chain link fence was missing over at the construction site and some orange plastic fencing has been put in its place. You always wonder if someone stole the fence or what happened to it.

November 3, 2007

There were about 6 skateboarders at the entrance to Centrepointe Park today. I thought we built (and paid for) a whole skateboard park, just to give them somewhere to go where they wouldn't damage property and get in the way of pedestrians. These guys did not get in my way and they did get out of the way of some other folks who were walking out of the park as I biked in, so I am not faulting them in particular. And I didn't smell dope either so I can forgive a lot. But there IS an entire skateboard park not very far away so I was just wondering...


I saw this broken beer bottle on Friday so it was there before the boarders got there today. The pieces are widely scattered so I suppose I should take a broom and clean it up because I don't want to have a piece give me a flat tyre and I am still biking through there regularly. I fail to understand what someone gets out of breaking glass on pavement.

October 26, 2007

This is what the moon looked like at 7:47 am this morning. That's the north west sky in the Centrepointe Park.