Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
Wordless Wednesday
We took Midnight to Cherry Beach here in Toronto last weekend and I managed to take some pictures of her playing and swimming in the water.
It was her first time swimming, but being a true water dog she was right in there swimming around within minutes. She even swam out about two hundred feet from shore!
There were lots of other dog owners at the beach with their dogs as it’s one of the cities best leash free areas. So it truly was a dog day at the beach!
Last weekend Chris and I and our puppy Midnight decided to go to The Brick Works.
They were having a walking tour that discussed the Brick Works and the lost rivers of Toronto.
I think Chris got more out of the discussion and history than I did, but I was certainly enjoying the walk and the scenery. Midnight had a ball too – of course she kept wanting to jump in the ponds ( a no no for dogs at the Brick Works as it’s an ecological preserve with rare native fauna and flora) since she was so hot. She also wanted to jump into the water to catch the gold fish (not native, dumped fish) and a Mallard duck that was swimming by.
As you can see she really wanted to jump in. We had to hold her back!
Along with old buildings, native plants and native wildlife there are some beautiful ponds in the old brick quarry that was used to dig up clay to make a good portion of the bricks that make up a good portion of Toronto’s older homes (like ours!).
During our walk I spotted a turtle sunning itself by some native water lilies.
You can see more pictures from The Brick Works and some of the native plants growing there on my Gardening Blog if you’d like. Oh yeah, did I mention that the Brickworks is almost in the center of the city and that it’s only about a ten minute drive (or bike ride) from our home? Great place to go on a nice day.
Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!
Fellow dog owners I need your help. Midnight’s been shedding like crazy for the last month and there’s no sign of it stopping soon.
We’ve had her since November and she only shed twice prior to this, perhaps for a month at a time. The first two sheds were easier to deal with. Perhaps because she was smaller and maybe because it was puppy fur, but now she’s got her real fur and she’s really shedding heavily.
We have hardwood floors throughout the house and I sweep once a day. We have a vacuum (no closets so it’s in the basement) and I hate pulling it out because it’s big and clunky. Plus Midnight thinks it’s her special toy when I do bring it out.
I’ve been thinking of getting another vacuum – one that’s a little smaller, lighter and easier to handle. It’s got to be a good one though. I thought about getting one of those Sebo vacuums since they are good for people with allergies. Chris and I are both allergic to dust mites and uh … dogs. So it might be a good idea to get one.
I’ve been grooming Midnight every two days. I go over her coat with the ezgroom brush and then the furminator. The Furminator takes out hair from the undercoat and it’s supposed to really help with shedding. Then I go over her coat again with the ezgroom brush. It helps, but not enough. Maybe it’s just the heat causing her to shed continuously. At this rate she’ll be bald by August!
Anyone have any tips for me other than what I’m already doing? Sweeping and vacuuming the floors and then grooming the dog regularly. What else can I do?
At this moment I’m busy trying to decide what to do this weekend. Chris and I have lots of options – some better than others. Help me decide?
My nephew has a photographic display at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition this weekend. I really should go to that to see his work and to check out the other artists. I just love pottery and sculptures and if the artwork is anything like last years I’ll be buying some items this time around.
The only problem is that tomorrow is going to be HOT. Really hot. So … do we go to the art show tomorrow or Sunday when it’s going to be a bit cooler?
We have gardening that still needs to be done as well. We started mulching the backyard garden last week, but about 1/3 of the back garden beds aren’t finished yet because we ran out of mulch! We bought more but haven’t had time to add it yet. Certainly if it’s going to feel like 40 Celsius (104 F) tomorrow I don’t think I want to be working in the hot sunny garden. Of course I could just stay inside where it will be nice and cool, work on the computer or be lazy and curl up and read A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Yeah it’s a self help type book. It was a gift from Chris’ aunt. I should read it at some point.
The other thing that Chris and I would both like to do, but don’t have to do, is to perhaps go back to Cherry Beach this weekend with our dog Midnight. We took her there last Sunday and she had a ball playing in the water. We’d taken her to the lake before, but she’d never done more than splashed in the water. This time Chris was throwing toys into the deeper water for her to fetch and we got to see her swim for the first time. She took to it well and other dog owners said she was a great swimmer. They couldn’t believe it was her first time.
We all had fun at the beach so I think that’s a must do.
Of course this is summer in Toronto and there’s always all kinds of festivals, events and things to do on the weekends. I guess I should check what’s going on so that we don’t miss out on something good.
At this point I’m thinking we should go to the beach tomorrow – the hot day. It’s cooler by the water and if we get hot we can always get in the water. Certainly with all the wet dogs running by we will get a bit wet. Then on Sunday we could go to the Art Exhibit and then finish our gardening when we come back. If there’s any other good things going on in Toronto we’ll I guess we can try to go to one of them on Saturday evening.
Looks like we’re going to have another busy weekend. What are your plans for the weekend?
I have a problem. I’m a photoholic. Well … when I have a camera in my hand and great subjects to take photos of I am.
I don’t really like taking pictures of people. Perhaps those of you who frequent my blogs have noticed that there aren’t very many people photos in my posts. However, there are lots of photos of gardens, flowers, plants, nature/ landscape, and city scenes. Oh and I guess photos of my puppy are starting to build up as well.
Whenever I’m out with my camera at a photo worthy event -say Woofstock in early June, or our walking tour and hike at The Brickworks last Saturday or perhaps even our trip to Cherry Beach last Sunday with our dog (who swam for the first time ever!) I just start clicking away and the next thing I know I’ve got two or three hundred photos stored on my cameras memory card!
The amount of pictures I take isn’t a problem as far as my camera’s memory card capacity, it’s dealing with those photos once I’ve taken them that’s the problem.
Storage of the photos is becoming a problem. My laptop was slowing down quite a bit a month ago and I realized that for the last year I’d uploaded almost all of my photos (3 to 5 mb each = 30 to 40 gig of photos!) to the laptop and that the hard drive was quickly filling up. I literally spent a few days transferring the photos to my desktop computer and deleting them from the laptop and that seemed to have helped my laptop performance somewhat. However I think I’m going to have to find a better storage solution.
If you take a lot of photos I’d love to hear what you do for storage. If you use an online storage system or a portable drive or if you transfer the photos to CD’s or if you have some other solution.
My other problem is lack of time. I have several blogs and I also have health issues so I work on my blogs when I’m feeling well enough to write. Working on the blogs takes a lot of my time. Barely leaves me enough time to network with other bloggers let alone transfer photos from the camera to the computer, edit them and perhaps upload them to Flickr. Going over 200 photos takes about two hours or more as I crop them, adjust their size and occasionally adjust the color balance or other levels.
Now if I only took a few photos at a time this wouldn’t be a problem, but since I take like 200 at a time I feel compelled to deal with each and every new photo that I’ve taken before I upload the good ones to Flickr (my main online storage system at this time).
This means that sometimes my photos are a week or more old before they make it into one of my posts.
So are you a Photoholic too? How do you deal with it?