Our Family Web Log - On The Move

Siloam Orchard

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:25:28 -0400

Selena, in her search for a good place to buy apple trees, became interested in this orchard she found online which also had a pick-your-own. It was just a coincidence that this orchard was having their annual "apple festival" this weekend, when we decided to check it out. The "festival" wasn't much really. But they did have a tent set up with a big display of nearly all known varieties of Ontario apples, and samples of a wide range of them to examine. There are a lot! This orchard has a lot of odd (old and new) breeds of apples. We really enjoyed the novamac, honeygold, and lobo apples that were ready for picking this weekend.

Emeth was carrying around a huge bag of apples that he could hardly lift, but he refused to let anyone help him with. Meanwhile Istra, twice the age, had a bag not even half as full, as was complaining that it was getting too heavy and begging for help.

My mom, whose car we put many kilometers on in quest of these apples, executed a surprising back flop onto the ground attempting to get a picture of Emeth coming through a tree row. Be warned, all adventurous photographers inclined to such stunts: once down, you are vulnerable, and may be swarmed by your subjects. It may in fact have been all a clever set up by the 2 year old: jump on Gramma! Always have your escape route planned in advance, or this could happen to you.

It was a fun time and an interesting place, though it was further and took longer than expected. And now I'm helplessly addicted to novamac apples. (They taste almost exactly like sweet-tart candies! But better!)

Holiday II: Salmon-Trout Scenes

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:15:48 -0400

Ah, relaxation. As you can see, we didn't even have to bring our own cat. In fact two cats, a dog, and and even a baby, were all provided by the gracious Sheryl and Richard for our convenience while we stayed in the bunkie next to their cabin in the woods.

The cabin is near Salmon-Trout lake, which is a bit north-east of Bancroft. It is entirely off the grid, being powered entirely by two solar panels. Which leads me to the outhouse! See it there? It's a bit small, and strangely located way up on a post. Not the most convenient thing to access in the middle of the night, but that's part of the charm of rustic country life, right?

Actually, the thing works okay for guys. You just have to stand on your tip-toes a bit and aim really carefully through the door. But honestly I don't know how the women cope with it. Good thing Selena brought her she-wee, is all I can say. And number 2 was certainly a challenge. But that's all part of the fun.Roughing it. Self sufficiency. Zero footprint. All that stuff.

Oh, what? Wait a second. No! That's ridiculous. Selena is trying to tell me that the outhouse was actually up the path, past the guide post a ways. But the only thing I saw up there was some sort of crazily opulent solar powered shrine they built in the bush. Seriously. The stained glass window building, with the weird alter/font, situated nearby? Does that sound like an outhouse to you? Well, I do have pictures of it, so see for yourself.... does this look like any outhouse you've seen before?!

Ah, hmmm. This is embarrassing. Looking a little more closely it does kind of look like a one-holer in the door there. So, that ornate counter thing was... a sink? Not a holy water dispenser? How can that be? The thing is obviously a miracle! It produced water from nothing! Er, rain barrel up the hill hidden behind some trees? You're kidding. But Richard had told me that there were seemingly some interesting "religious" folk tucked away in the hills back there on some of the valley back roads. I thought he was referring probably to himself subtly in the third person, to gage my reaction before inviting me up. Obviously I passed the test, since he did invite us. It doesn't matter much to me what bizarre cult Richard and his family are involved with after all. Did i mention he drives a Matrix? Yes, sure Aunty Belle drives a Matrix too. I'm not suggesting Aunty Belle is in the cult. For some people a Matrix is just a Matrix, after all. Be reasonable! Though it does seem like one of the nicer cults, so maybe Aunty Belle would be interested, now that she's mostly retired from Girl Guides. But you don't think it was just the nice guy front, trying to brainwash us in to their stained-glass-in-the-woods torture chamber organization do you? Thinking back, Richard did refer to the fabulous shed as The Out House. I swear, he said Out House. Not outhouse. You know? OUT house. As in "out there" sort of house. Richard is a man of mystery, after all. He claims to be going to play hockey once or twice a week all through hockey season every year... yet he still appears to have all his teeth. Can you explain that, Ms Rain-barrel-up-the-hill-behind-the-trees?

All right! Okay! Enough. So I'll admit it. I seem to have maybe made a tiny little mistake about the outhouse. Alright, so maybe Sheryl isn't making ritual sacrifices at the custom portable sink with an implement that is cleverly disguised as a toothbrush. Maybe I got a little out of hand. But there are still questions unanswered here. What about the mushrooms in the driveway they experimented on us with? What about that?

Terribly sorry about the confusion, Sheryl and Richard. Let's just forget about this. I'll just insert a random picture from our time up there with you as a palette cleanser and we'll move on.

Selena has become somewhat obsessed with the idea of wild mushrooms. It was a rather amazing coincidence that we noticed a large patch of young puffballs growing right on the cabin's driveway (a bit to the side of the tire ruts). While identifying edible wild mushroom's is a notoriously dangerous pursuit, puffballs are one of the most easy to identify species, so Selena got to work on them. Richard and Sheryl and Keagan, who can not be conclusively proven to be members of any sort of death cult, after expressing some perhaps genuine small displays of concern, seemed willing enough to let us go ahead and eat the bounty of their driveway.

Selena was clever, however. She made me eat one raw first, and waited half an hour to see if there seemed to be an undesirable effects, before frying up the rest with zucchini. They were quite delicious actually. At least that's what I remember. They tasted quite mushroomy, but with an extremely creamy texture.

Hey, look at the really nifty stove-top toaster! (I think it may be UFO technology. UFO camping technology.)

So, apart from a few minor mishaps, we had quite a lot of fun. We swam in the delightfully deep lake. We were amused by Keagan's dancing-dancing-ooo-ooo-ooo! We tramped around the woods and I took many, many pictures of the vast array of different sorts of mushrooms we found growing (but did not eat any of them). We visited the Eagle's Nest, a lookout that towers over Bancroft. We shopped in the Bancroft No Frills, while waiting out some rain. We enjoyed snoozing in the cozy little tin-roofed bunkie loft. We had a really nice bike tour the surrounding roads. (The hills were actually more challenging there than in Algonquin).

A big thanks again to Sheryl and Richard and Keagan and Una and Taana and Nali, the nicests hosts you could possibly imagine, no matter what sort of freaky "out house" cult they are in no way known to be running.

Here is a picture of me trying to take a picture of myself with a spider running around like crazy on my head (excpet you can't actually see the spider when the picture is this small --- use your imaginations! --- it's a big reddish daddy-long-legs!).

[Note: I wrote much of this rather late at night, after having been in bed sick all day --- I may have dreamed parts of it. Nothing to do with mushrooms though.]

A few kilometers later

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 19:16:30 -0400

Selena and I are back from our little holiday. And the kids are also back from their holiday. Separate holidays. By all accounts we all had good holidays. But alas I have no pictures of the kids, having holidayed separately, so this posting may be a bit boring. Oh well! I may not have kid pictures, but I do have a lot of mushroom pictures! Some may find that they're not that different.

We did a few different things on our holiday. One of them was ride our bikes across Algonquin park. Friends (whom we visited up in that area --- but more on that later) graciously offered to drive us to the west gate of the park, drop us off, and drive back to the east gate and leave a car there for us. It was a extremely gracious offer that we could not refuse.

It's only about 60 km across the park via highway 60, but they are a fairly curvy and hilly 60 km. The driving friends also loaned us all their camping gear so we could make a couple of days of it. We did. We stopped at many of the various places to stop along the highway in there. We took a great detour south 12 km down an old rail trail. Well, before I go on too much, here's a few of the pictures....

One of the reasons bike riding across Algonquin park is so nice is the generous well-paved shoulder. Oh, and there's the nice scenery as well.

Though we were just staying one night, we had to carry almost as much gear as if we were going to be a week. Tent, sleeping bags, and a bit of other equipment. We didn't take much extra clothing, but did have bathing suits, minimal rain gear, a few odds and ends, and more food than strictly necessary. Even with this fairly basic load (two back panniers, a back rack bag, and a handlebar bag (for camera and GPS), the bike feels quite different to ride. Not unpleasant, but not as nimble as one is used to.

We were going to stop at Mew Lake to camp, but having maybe a few hours of daylight left we decided to go off-road and head south along an old rail trail that leads to the Rock Lake camp ground. Despite the periodic roughness, and a bit of a race against the sun, this turns out to be the nicest leg of the trip. The setting sun lit our trail in golden hues. The trail itself was gorgeous, running beside a wide river for quite a ways. The evening calm making the water like glass, reflecting the trees along the banks. Pictures could not adequately capture this.

Skipping (for now) the story of the moose that held us up for some time, twilight was upon us by the time we secured a Rock Lake camp site. Our spot was right across from the beach there, which was nice. In our haste to get the tent up while we could still see, we somehow managed to break one of the shock-corded poles. Luckily we had brought some duct tape, and we splinted the pole with a couple of tent pegs. Having overcome this trial, little did we know the really arduous ordeal was still ahead for us that evening: our beer-fuelled neighbours. While the bunch of guys, and apparently visiting gals, did turn off their annoying music at a reasonable hour, they continued to party acapella long into the night. It was sometime after 2 in the morning that they finally started to quiet down, even though the ladies left sometime around midnight. So it goes with camp grounds, sometimes.

We were woken up early the next morning by pouring rain. It had been raining for a while. We made sure our bags were under the tent fly, and went back to sleep. We'd wake up a while later, and it would still be raining, so we'd just go back to sleep again. It's amazing how much one can sleep when stuck in a tiny tent with nothing else to do. It's sort of fun, even. When the rain slowed to a drizzle we made our way out, had some breakfast, and packed ourselves back up. The noisy neighbours, as we rolled out, stumbled out of their tents with utterances of "Hey, it's all wet out here..."

One of the conundrums of cycling through the park, is what to do with our bikes and gear if we wanted to go on any of the many hiking trails which branch off from the road. Bikes are not allowed on most hiking trails. We could lock up our bikes, but would then have to leave all the gear insecurely sitting with them. We'll have to think more about this next time. There was a shortish "bog" walk nearby on the map, and we decided to walk our bikes through it. It was pretty nice. The curious, almost translucent, all white flower in the picture we later found out is called "Indian Pipe". It's a plant that grows in the undergrowth of the florest floor where there is very little light. It has no chlorophyll. Lots of interesting things.

We had a picnic at a lookout on the side of the road for our last lunch of the trip. The backracks on the bike served as our kitchen counter. Yum, PBJs! And not just any old BPJs, but peanut-only peanut butter (of course) on schinkenbrot (sour dough dark rye bread), with carrot marmalade! Sounds a bit weird, but was very tasty and hearty feeling all at once. We also spent some time in the large Visitor's Centre, where many people were crowding the lookout veranda due to a black bear with two cubs wandering in the distance along a river. The bears were so far in the distance that only people with fairly high powered binoculars could actually see them. For the rest of us they were just occasionally discernible little dots, but this did not stop people from standing there for ages watching the idea of those dots. At any rate, it was a very nice view...

Yes, there are two of the three black dots down there in this picture...! So you also, can stare for hours trying to find them.

A preview of the new place

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:48:34 -0400

The park next door.

We got in to our new place-to-be on Tuesday and took some pictures to try to help us get a sense of the place, and reassure ourselves that we haven't made a terrible mistake. We realised after signing the lease that we really hadn't looked at the place very closely when we'd previously viewed it. We were overwhelmed by the convenience and novelty of the location, and such trivialities as a back door. But as we packed we started to fear: will we fit?

Well, look at the map. See the park. That park will be literally next door to us. How does a person with kids resist that alone? The park is smallish, but it is nice. There are swings, a wading pool, slides and a climbing structure. There are trees and rocks. We've spent some time hanging around that park now (see pictures), and it's well stocked with urchins, for Emeth and Istra to play with. It'll be basically our big back yard. And if one gets tired of this park, there's one about 4 times the size just one block north, overlooking the city. Yes, only one block north! And there are other interesting and significant parks not too much further, despite the intensely urban setting.

Anyhow, as I say, after signing the lease we arranged to get back in and take another look. We did reassure ourselves that there does seem to be adequate floor space. However, after drawing some rough floor plans based on some measurements I did... it's a bit scary again. There is a fair bit of space, but the space is extremely bizarre. The angles in this place have to be seen to be comprehended... and even then it's hard to comprehend even while looking at it. The strange angles and generally long narrow aspect of most rooms make it hard to imagine how furniture can be arranged. I think we'll just have to figure out out after we get in there.

We'll be moving during the last week of May... though we still don't have firm plans on how we're going to accomplish it, we will accomplish it. By June 1 we will be in the new place.

If you look at the pictures here's a quick tour...

Look out the window: there's the park!

Weird angles in the living/dining room.

Tiny little back "yard", with garden already trying to grow despite the cement tiles. (Though Selena has also already secured a plot in a (very) nearby community garden, with probably less cement tiles to work around.)

Strange little kitchen nook: more interesting strategic challenges.

Front porch is fairly large. The park just immediately to the left.

The back gate opens onto this little private court yard. Another cute element.

There's still some more work to be done on the place before we take possession. The bathroom is a mess. Some light fixtures are missing in a few places. But in three more weeks, we will begin to try to solve the puzzle of organizing ourselves into these peculiar shapes. While a bit nervous, we remain excited...

Family Day Frolic

nospam@example.com (Selena Middleton) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:12:02 -0500

Two weeks ago we took advantage of a holiday Monday to explore a new neighbourhood which may sometime in the near future become our neighbourhood. Change is in the air. Istra is on the list for 3 different kindergartens in the city and which hat she gets pulled out of will dictate our next move. Our next move may be southward, to the Hawthorne II Bilingual Alternative neighbourhood.

Hawthorne II is a unique school in Toronto. It has several objectives which are a little bit, shall we say, alternative. First of all, it starts introducing French slowly right at the beginning using songs and word games and other fun ways to engage young children with the French language. Also worked into the curriculum is social justice and environmental awareness issues. Also unlike other schools in Toronto, it is open to parents and parents we encouraged to be involved in their children's education in a way which creates the legendary "Hawthorne Community".

We started our walk at Christie Pits, which is a rather large park at Bloor and Christie which has a history of violence. Of course, there hasn't been much violence there anytime recently (that we know of), but all the same, Tim did his best to capture with his photographic eye all less-than-seemly elements of our maybe-to-be neighbourhood. It is his way.

The neighbourhood, it seems, is full of artists--the undercover, nighttime, spray-paint can sort of artist. A few more extreme examples of this are here, here and here. I chose the example to the left, however, to illustrate another point about the neighbourhood: not only is it close to Tim's work, close to my potential future school, close to Quaker House and close to the Children's Storefront (a much-loved hangout for me and the kids), it is also very bike friendly. See how the neighbourhood artistes have defiantly spray-painted out the "NO" in the "No Bicycle Riding" sign? These are vandals we can get behind! More evidence of this neighbourhood's pro-bike culture was observed at the Hawthorne Open House we attended a few weeks ago: a half-full bike rack (in the winter!) of double bike trailers and even a beautiful shiny black cargo bike.

On our long walk home, we passed a few blocks of townhomes, one of which we may be calling our own by summertime. There are some definite advantages to living further south, closer to downtown; but on the other hand, there are advantages to sticking to our current neighbourhood and sending Istra to the local school. Change is in the air! We shall see how big of a change in two weeks time.

Toronto Island, accidentally

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:26:24 -0400

We headed out on the bikes Sunday morning. And in the afternoon we found ourselves on an unplanned trip to Toronto Island. First we decided to go to downtown to MEC while we were out; since we were in the neighbourhood (?!) Selena suggested we might as well go to the Island. Istra's opinion was "Can somebody please let me out of this thing?!!!" So we bribed her (a few times). Emeth added "Huumnmmphhhaaa! Hnnmmffaaaa! Mamma???" So we were off.

I haven't been to the Island since I was a fairly young lad. Selena's been there a few times with her mom-friends. Apparently it's a lot more crowded on sunny weekends. Go figure. Still we managed to get the Chariot thorough the throngs and onto the Ward Island ferry. Among the many bicycles, a fearsome cadre of shiny low riding choppers got on with us. Quite a sight.

Once we got onto the island we picnicked on a dilapidated picnic table beneath an old willow tree in need of some moral support. Istra was excited about the picnic table, declaring it just right for her (it was collapsing almost to the ground on one corner).

More fearsomeness. It turns out there are dragons on the island. True, they were rather rusty dragons. But fearsome enough to put Eme to flight. "Hnnnaaaaammmaaaaa!" Okay, well if not exactly "flight", he was at least running around like crazy. (The dragons appeared to be outfitted so they could spout gaseous fire---which would be interesting to see, in a context other than a sunny Sunday afternoon.)

After many tears from Istra over the trauma of having ridden by little playgrounds without stopping we finally got to the big playground on the other side of the Island. By the time we were finished locking up our bikes, Istra had already taken over the place. We found her riding a sort of suspended train-like thing, making a group of slightly older girls push her back and forth like slaves. It was amazing, and somewhat embarrassing, how long these older girls kept at their labours, while Istra blissfully was shuttled back and forth. They finally did leave, and Istra had to order other passers-by to push her---which many of them did, but none so loyally as that initial group of longsuffering chattel.

As a last stop, and a way to lure Istra away from her fiefdom, we made a stop at the deserted nearby Franklin's garden. Here Istra met her tempermental match! And a bear served them metal blueberries as they dueled across the board.

Emeth had a horrific slip, from which Franklin's brutal turtle-claws left a rather large and disconcertingly cavernous impression in Emeth's forehead. Five or so minutes later, however, nearly all trace of it was gone. Emeth's head is like a nerf ball.

Finally, the sky having entirely clouded over, and darkness encroaching, we escaped the water-bound wonderland. Consulting the toronto bike map, we decided to try a different route home. It worked out pretty nicely. Slightly out of our way to the east, but less complications and traffic than the route we'd come down. Going up Sherborne we managed to skirt the edge of the city, and come out at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, from which there is the Belt Line rail trail the rest of the way home.

Eglinton & Marlee to Centre Island, and back via Sherborne

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Weeks (and weeeeeks) Past Norfolk

nospam@example.com (Selena Middleton) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:58:00 -0400

Weeks have gone by since participated in Le Tour de Norfolk (July 19), which in our case consisted of a 40km bike ride (there were longer and shorter routes) along the rural roads around Delhi, Ontario. Besides being busy, I have resisted writing about this event in order to gain some perspective. In short, there were some things that could have gone better, but overall, it was fun. We may even do it again someday.

It was a really hot day, but a lot of the time on a bike you don't really notice--as long as you keep moving. Once we got out of the city of Delhi, into the open country, we went at a fairly good pace and it was really pleasant. Tim and I had walkie-talkies, so we were chatting back and forth about things that we were passing, the different crops growing in the area and other stuff. The kids fell asleep in the Chariot as usual and the first third of our 40km ride went by really quickly.

Some parts of the 40km route overlapped with the 160km route being attempted by other more avid cyclists. It was amusing at our first rest stop to watch the 160-ers swoop in on their amazing road bikes, chug Gatorade, fill their water bottles and then zip back out onto the road. We dawdled a little bit at the rest stop to give the kids a break from the Chariot and Istra ate an embarrassing number of cookies (which were free), announcing each one to the guy manning the rest station. To our chagrin, we discovered that the rest stops had "operating hours" and we probably wouldn't make it to the second one before it closed. We stocked up on water and granola bars before we left.

Not only was the second rest stop closed, but it was also mostly hidden (presumably due to the signs being taken down) and we accidentally zipped by it and got lost, adding almost 10km to our trip by the time we doubled back. By this time the bike "air conditioning" wasn't doing anything for me and I was feeling the beginnings of a heat induced headache coming on. I dumped half a bottle of water over my head and felt better after that.

The last leg of our trip was gruelling. The heat was intense. I was floundering pulling the kids in the Chariot and Tim came to my rescue with the suggestion of a bike switch. Riding trailerless was a nice break for me, but it was not a comfortable ride; Tim's bike is set up for clipless shoes and his seat is narrow compared to mine. But I endured because it felt good to go a bit faster than I was able while pulling the kids.

Here is where things got hairy. I was ahead, because in my head I just wanted to get to the finish and lie down and die or something and I assumed that the rest of the family would follow suit in their own time (for the record, I stopped and waited for them at stop signs, but in this last leg there weren't many stop signs). Somewhere along the way Marjorie's odometer hit 38km and she decided she didn't want to ride any further; when Tim caught up to me at the stop sign he told me that we had to go get the car and go back to pick her up.

Though the last hill before the Community Centre finish line nearly killed us, Tim, Istra, Emeth and I made it back and immediately Tim left me with the kids and the Chariot and bikes while he zipped back in the car to pick up Marjorie. By this time she'd decided that she would ride 2km more so she could say that she did 40km. Tim picked her up at the 40km mark just as the first raindrops started to fall. Back at the Community Centre, Istra began to cry about the rain. I locked up the bikes, switched the Chariot into stroller-mode and headed into the arena, where Istra was placated with free ice-cream and Tim Horton's cookies. Did I mention that we hadn't had any nutritious food all day? Well, the trend continued.

Due to the torrential downpour that had begun outside, the swimming pool, the idea of which we had been using to keep Istra happy all through the ride ("I want to get out of the Chariot!" "Oh, but we're going to the swimming pool! Just a little while longer!") was closed. So we stayed in the arena, eating cookies until the buffet dinner was served. On the Tour website, we'd been promised an Ethnic Feast; when I think ethnic, I think Indian or Thai, but I guess some people think of the national cuisine of Germans, Ukrainians and Polish People Who'd Grown up in Cafeterias. As Tim pointed out to me when I complained that the food was not very vegetarian friendly, the food was, in fact, not really friendly to anyone. The perogies were okay, though.

Where's the fun, you ask? Where does this sad, sad tale turn around? Well, the organizers of this event had a draw for several prizes that could be won by filling out a comment form, which was then exchanged for a ballot. I filled out their comment form, pouring onto it my multitude of gripes not unlike I've done here (except that I did not blame them for the weather... or anything, really; I very nicely made suggestions for improvement) and my name was the first name called! I got to go up to the prize table and have first pick out of everything there. I picked a new pair of bike gloves; I'd been using Marjorie's for a few weeks at this point.

Also, on the way home, Tim stopped at a Subway and got me a sub--with vegetables in it. On whole wheat bread. It was delicious. So was the nap I took when I got home.

Ash Bridges and Don Valleys

nospam@example.com (Selena Middleton) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:49:08 -0400

This weekend we headed out for yet another bike odyssey. After a late and unfortunate beginning, we rode from our apartment to Toronto Monthly Meeting, taking a route which Tim uses almost every day on his way to work.

After Meeting, we started our odyssey in earnest. Downtown Toronto was hellish, but the kids fell asleep, so they didn't notice as we dismounted and walked the bikes and trailer through vehicular and pedestrian traffic down to the waterfront.

From there it was smooth sailing—38 kilometres worth. Once you get to the waterfront, so much of Toronto opens up. We rode to the beaches and then back up the Don Valley, taking note of all the landmarks we passed: Riverdale Farm, the Brickworks. After much uphill riding, we were back on our familiar Beltline Trail and were shortly home.

All this for those who are faint of heart, or perhaps just pressed for time, and cannot, therefore, view our ride in detail courtesy of Tim and Bikely. Tim's notes are much more interesting than this filler-text. Click the pictures for more of kids cavorting, as usual.

don valley trail, ashbridges bay park

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Charioteers

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:40:35 -0400

We hit the road on the bikes again yesterday. As usual, Istra was out like a light within minutes of our departure. If you look closely you can see the crayon poised in her hand mid-doodle... but she is gone.

I found an interesting web site called bikely.com which allows you to draw your bike routes on a map, annotate them, and share them with other people. Searching around I found a pretty interesting looking one going north from here. It took us through some areas we'd not been, and found us many short cuts and paths we wouldn't have otherwise known. Crossing the 401 is a big problem for non-cars, but we managed it. (Click the link in the first paragraph to see a map of our adventure.)

The kids were awake again by the time we met up with these energetic guys though! Istra found an interestingly spirally red tree. Emeth got in some rock climbing practice. I think he is just about ready for the matterhorn. At least, after climbing just about everything in sight that we came across, I'm sure that he thinks he is. Istra... she does her own thing.

Brick Works

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:07:48 -0400

As you know, we always take Emeth and Istra to only the best places, the newest places, the hippest places, the safest places... so, imagine our shock to find out that "The Brick Works", tucked away in a seldom visited corner of the Don Valley, isn't the quite latest in juvenile discothèque. We were tricked by hippies, I say! Ah well. It was pretty interesting actually. The old abandoned brick works is falling down, but the area around it has been turned into a natural park, with ponds and paths. The wildflowers were nice. We also discovered there's a farmer's market there on the weekends, but we missed it by a few hours. Something tells me we'll be back...

This lost pocket of Toronto is actually fairly easy for us to get to. We are able to bike to it without going on any roads, once we get going. A trail to it joins the "belt-line" rail trail, after it goes through Mount Pleasant Cemetery. The "belt-line", as you know, starts just down the street from our place. You have to cross a few roads, but there are nearby lights at all of the crossings. So, with this conveniently safe route, we biked, chariot in tow.

One of the ponds by the brick works was teaming with goldfish for some reason. Istra was quite amused: especially so when she threw a piece of wood into the water and the fish all starting going at it evidently thinking it was food. The reason I mention this, and show this picture, is that after we had gone away from the pond Istra, on finding another piece of wood, comes to me and says: "Istra find the wood. Istra maybe throw wood in water. Poppy maybe take picture of fish eating wood for Istra!" I was amazed. She's never asked me to take a picture of anything before (not to mention that this was a pretty complex sequence for her to present the request in). So naturally when we got back to the pond, I took the picture... for Istra.

(Click pic if maybe want to see set...)

Wye

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:10:20 -0400

The next day, Sept 2, last day at the cottage, we once again got going too late and so didn't have much time. We decided to put the bikes on the car and drive to near the point of the Taye Shore Trail where we weren't sure how it connected with Midland. This short trail took us along side the Sainte-Marie among the Hurons historical site, and through an edge of the Wye Marsh. (Two places I haven't actually been in to since I was a kid, long, long ago.)

A funny thing happened while waiting to go off on this short ride, but we won't go into that. However, if you want to see all of the pictures from that day, you can.

Utoff Trail, Just Istra and Poppy

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 08:21:13 -0400

After much confusion (and disappointment on some sides) of what we were going to do on Friday (Aug 31), Istra and I ended up heading out on our own to check out the Uthoff Trail which stretches between

Orillia and Coldwater (linked map shows highway route, not the Trail). The eventual destination was Port Severn, though. The ride ended up being much shorter than I expected, because I noticed a short cut that ended up having me completely avoid Coldwater, and head straight to Port Severn. So the ride time for the trip was only 2 hours and 2 minutes, and 35 km.

The ride was somewhat experimental, in that it was uncertain if Istra would put up with it. She tends to get bored sitting in the Chariot. We load her up with books and some toys to keep her busy. This and occasional snacks works pretty well. She reads and talks and sings to herself happily for some time. But eventually she starts chanting: "Stop biking! Stop biking! Stop biking now!" I had a plan from the start of trying to bike a certain amount of time, then stop for rest break to let her get out and run a round for a bit. It was a good plan, except that I hate stopping once i get going... so I kept trying to stretch the time before we would take a break. I would chant with her, for example: "Stop biking! Stop biking!" as I kept on biking. Lots of fun!

We did eventually stop (after about an entire hour of riding) at the next bench I saw along the trail, as I'd promised at some point. (Was it my fault that when I promised no more benches appeared for so long?) Anyhow, when we finally stopped it was near a farm. We had cows in the distance, and some apple trees to look at. The apples, surprisingly, were actually not bad tasting. Istra ate most of one, which she had picked herself. We took a few more for the road.

I had big plans to stop at a chip truck I know is parked along a stretch of Big Chute Road. This was now going to be a bit out of our way, since I took the shortcut, but I was still game for it. But now Istra took her revenge. She fell asleep... so I rode on, not wanting to wake her. There's another place to get usually decent fries in Port Severn... we could stop when we got there for a treat. But Istra was not done with her revenge, and continued to sleep as we passed by Port Severn, and slept---head lolling---right up to our final stopping: we quietly rolled into the cottage property unnoticed by Gramma until we halted a few feet away from her.

Stopping for dinner... (on the beach, where else?)

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:11:27 -0400

Having parted with the relatives relatively early, and experiencing the rare phenomenon of having a car all to ourselves, we decided to take a detour on the way home from up north....

have a picnic for dinner... and take Emie for a walk in a vast expanse of water.

Yes, we actually bought cheap towels to dine on, yet more plastic shovels for Istra, and everything! We hadn't planned this so we had nothing with us for the occasion. But of course that became all a part of the fun.

Oh, I think Istra may not have had too bad a time either....

Making our way to Kingsbrae Garden

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 02:27:19 -0500

While Selena was living in Hamilton, with Aunty Belle, doing her first B.A., we several times thought of going to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens there. Years past, however, and we never somehow got around to it. Now, on the far east side of the country I saw a brochure in a tourist info stop for Kingsbrae Gardens, express mild interest, and low and behold a few days later I am there. It turns out it was about the same distance from St George (where we were staying), as Hamilton is from where we live our regular lives now, just to add to the irony.

It turned out to be a gorgeous, bright day. And it was after all a garden, so it couldn't be bad. Could it? A sort of neat, lawn-long fountain greeted us. And a great cedar hedge with a hole in it... honestly, my expectations weren't very high for this garden in the middle of nowhere in this little town in the extreme south-east corner of New Brunswick. But as I say, it's a garden, so it couldn't be entirely bad. The first hint that there might be something unusually interesting in store was glimpsed merely by looking to the left or the right while going through the cedar hedge portal (click the picture to see): the incredible mass of twisted and gnarled roots and trunks holding up the smooth, clean, perfectly trimmed green wall was awesome. Welcome to the faerie world...

A faerie world indeed! The Kingsbrae Garden turned out not just to be a garden of beautiful flowers and plants and paths and landscape, but also a wonderland of sculptural and other artistic creativity. For example, the indescribably fantastic teapot trees. Each teapot bears and eye (it seemed fantastically to me), and bristles with flowers. So fantastic. In another area a huge dazzling cow bell tree... it was amazing. I'm going to have a hard time selecting just a few of my favourite pictures from this day. And I'm not sure any of them do justice to the experience of the place; having all of these things together, in the setting of a garden. But look anyhow...

Behold, the Flowerpot People! Very friendly indeed. Very gracious hosts indeed. Call me mad, but I found them to be very clever indeed. Indeed! Then, to the right, a massive mobile. Iron, glass, and rocks; turning gently in the sun. (Click picture for a close up of one of the dangling arms.)

I don't know what to call this "tree", with it's iron leaves and glorious blue glass bulbs. A magic tree. But with the garden dragon, I must for now flee...

Where is Istra...? Is that her arm colourfully intruding into the fountain picture above...? Where did she go?

Getting around to the Rocks

nospam@example.com (Tim Middleton) — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:28:09 -0400

Here Selena is, at long last, nearly two months after the event, revelling on the ocean's tide-revealed floor beneath the famous Hopewell Rocks (sometimes remembered as "flowerpot rocks"). Hello, Selena! Look at you, just two months ago, all travelling and stuff. Whee, aren't you tiny! What's that in your hand, an umbrella? And why do you look so anxious for your life, there? Did that mean Tim compell you back to pose as the tide was rushing back in? Was there a lump in your throat as you recalled just moments before when we had been walking along the shore for a few minutes, and turned to go back, you were shocked to find the path you had just come along was now under water? Relax! Remember what the sign at the top of the cliff said: if the tide is coming in and you are trapped, don't panic! Just find a rock that is above the tide line, get onto it, and wait.... wait... wait....

Selena and I struck out on our own on this jaunt across New Brunswick. Istra stayed back at the lighthouse with her Grammy and (Great) Auntie, who'd already been to the rocks in previous years. It was going to be a long drive, but you can't go to NB without stopping by the Hopewell rocks. That would be just wrong. We had a brochure with the tide times in it, and it was going to be a nice leasurely day. Except, we soon learned, stopping at the Saint John info centre, that our brochure was completely wrong: we had to fly like the wind non-stop if we were going to make it before the tide was back in. This we did, arriving with scant minutes before the time recommended for vacating the sea floor. But there are no sea floor police besides the lapping waves, so we lingered.... which was nice, because nearly everyone else had scuttled off and we had the remnants of beach to ourselves for a few minutes.

When I intimated previously that we flew and did not stop, there was one exception. And, O, glorious exception it was. You can see Selena here being exceptionally silly with our glorious exceptions. A few kms off the highway in the general direction of Fundy National Park there was this guy selling "home made ice cream". It was a bit odd. It was also marvellously expensive. It was also astonishingly worth it. It was so good that we made a detour to stop in again on our way to Cape Breton... but our hopes were dashed right out of our fragile little skulls when we found the place closed and had to pass on. If you ever happen to be in the middle of nowhere in the middle of New Brunswick... watch for the signs! You will never ever forget the maple cream.

After racing to the rocks we, scooted (if i may say) off to Cape Enrage. How could we not with a name like that? Some of the most powerful tidal bores in the world occur there. Supposedly. But the most furious thing we saw there was this bunny. And it didn't even mame anyone. Furrious.

A slightly odd thing about New Brunswick was the proliferation (if one may use the term) of old grave yards at the sides of the roads. It seemed like it was hard to go down a sideroad sometimes without seeing a bunch of ancient grave stones here, and a dozen over there. The ones pictured here seem to have been put back together (the light coloured steeple-shaped cement holding the original darker round-topped stone together). This plot was also unusual in that it has a sign. It read: Stephens Cemetery, 1803 -1836.

On our way back home we decided to stop in Saint John, which we'd just passed through 3 times by this stage in our holiday. There we found that not only do they have cemeteries dotting the countryside, but Saint John has a large "Old Burial Ground" right in the middle of the city. There are walkways through it. Nice place for a stroll. I'd never seen a grave stone laid flat up on stones before, as the one seen here. There were some interesting ones. All very old.

But while the parentals were off apparently flitting from tombstone to rock, to cape to grave (to outhouse?), what was Istra up to? Grammy said she missed us, but later we saw the pictures. Looks to me like she seemed quite content substituting us with an old log! "Nice old log. Log will never leave nor foresake me." Cuteous.