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Wild flowers and berries

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Last week Chris and I took our dog to one of our cities (Toronto) beautiful parks for a nice long walk outdoors.

Our dog had a ball running around in the off leash areas and uhm … rolling in mud! and we had a nice time watching her, talking to another dog owner (who’s dog played with Midnight during our hike) and simply enjoying our surroundings.

The trees are only just starting to change color here in Toronto, so I mainly focused on talking pictures of wild flowers as we walked.

I came across these flowers that I think look quite bit like my perennial Asters, but I’m really not sure what kind of flowers they are:

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They’re pretty aren’t they?

I also came across a small tree (maybe 10 feet tall?) that had these lovely black berry clusters growing among the leaves. I’ve seen this before but I cannot remember what this tree is called. Any ideas?

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The rich black berries are solid looking with a shiny outer skin. The berries are probably just a little bigger than your baby finger nail .. maybe the size of your ring fingers nail?

The clusters of berries looked very pretty in the tree among the leaves. They’re probably not edible though.

I have more pictures from our walk through Taylor creek park on Tricia’s Musings and My World if you’d like to see more flowers and some sumac’s turning red.






Wild flowers by a shallow creek

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Chris and I took our puppy over to SunnyBrook Park yesterday so that she could see the horses they keep there.

While we were in the huge park we took a walk along a nice stream and Midnight, her water loving self, had to jump in the water!

I stayed on the bank and wandered around taking pictures of both Chris and the dog in the shallow water. I was also doing my best to fight off a hoard of mosquitoes! I wasn’t happy about that!

While I was taking pictures I noticed a few clumps of flowers. I’m not sure what they are, but they’re lovely:

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The plants grow to 2.5 to 3 feet tall and grow in clumps. They look like this:

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The area they were growing in was kind of shady at 5 in the afternoon. I have no idea if it gets bright light in the morning but I suspect there’s more light earlier in the day than when we were there.

Anyone have any idea what kind of flower this is? (Reminder I’m in Toronto – USDA zone 5b, just in case you need some climate info to help me figure this out.)

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!

Healthy drinks with a new juicer

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I’m sure that many of you made New Years Resolutions that began on January first. If you did make a resolution have you managed to stick to it?

I kept saying that I didn’t make any resolutions this year, but now that I think about it I believe that I did. The only reason I didn’t realize it is because I made my resolution way back in November. Remember when we got our Lab puppy? Well we got her for a few reasons, the main one being that I wanted a companion at home, but the other big reason was that I knew having a dog would force me to get outside several times a day for a walk.

As many of you know I’ve got Crohn’s disease and it’s been real bad for the last few years, so I’ve basically been living in chronic pain day in and day out. Remember last year I had long gaps where I’d say I hadn’t even been in my garden? That’s so unlike me! My lack of gardening and garden related visits last year was purely related to how bad I was feeling.

Getting a puppy, especially an active one like a Labrador Retriever, that needs to be exercised several times daily would surely force me to get outside and get active no matter how I was feeling right? Well it worked. Plus, getting outside and walking around sort of makes me feel better. It doesn’t help the pain I’m in much, but it takes my mind off of it.

I’ve also lost a little bit of the weight I’d gained last year due to my increasing activity.

Now I’m wondering what else can I do to improve my health? I have trouble eating a lot of foods because I don’t digest food well or some foods just don’t agree with my system, but I’ve been considering getting a juicer again. I was looking at the juicers at Wize.com and I’m pretty sure we’ll get one before the month is over.

We used to have a juicer, but we gave it away to one of my husbands aunts a few years ago as we weren’t using it. However now I’m thinking about all the fresh juices that I can make with a juicer and it sounds good to me. I can also juice carrots and other veggies, some of which are hard for me to eat raw or cooked because of the crohns. I’m sure that my body would appreciate the juiced form!

If you’ve been thinking of looking at juicers visit Wize.com. They have five pages of juicers on their site and each one is rated by consumers. The juicers, and other products on the site, are listed by highest rating. The ratings are made by those who have used the various products so it’s a consumer satisfaction rating.

You can read consumer reviews of each juicer (or other products) in order to see what features other people liked best, view product details and see the price range for each juicer as well as a listing of several online stores where you might purchase the juicer of your choosing.

Take a look at the whole site to find other products that you’ve been thinking about buying and read reviews before you buy.

As for me? I think I’ll take a look at their juicer listings and try to find one that’s been well rated and that fits my budget. I’m really going to work on getting healthy this year and I think a juicer will help as much as those walks with our dog will!

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