Green Recycle Bins Make Kids Happy

Children see recycling as very important. The long line of green recycle bins in front of the school two of my granddaughters attend makes those two little girls very happy. It confirms their school cares.

I don't say anything. No sense bumming them out. But, I wonder why the school generates so much waste paper in the first place and I wonder where the scrap paper ends up. Is it really recycled?

Recycling almost everything, other than aluminum beverage cans and PET plastic often used for bottles, is a money losing proposition. Values have been dropping in recent years.

Still, the kids have the right idea. My granddaughters encourage me to use less and recycle more. Use it, then recycle it. It's time for the adults in their lives to stop just going through the motions. It's time to deliver on the promise made by that line of recycle bins.

Children are our future

My six-year-old granddaughter loves Lego and has for a couple of years. Me, I'm a new Lego believer. I grew up with Meccano: green-painted steel, brass pulleys and lots of small screws and little bolts.

So many toys are fun but at their core they are but a way to waste time. Lego is different. I watch as the little girl tackles the construction of a carnival ride. It's complex and intricate. It demands attention to detail while encouraging planning and patience and careful adherence to instruction. She works through the illustrated book slowly, insuring that the assembled piece is correct at each stage along the way. She does not want to find herself ripping apart her finished work.

A few months back, the city had a freshly laid road ripped up. Why? It was discovered that there were errors made in laying down the base layers. On the good side, the construction company accepted responsibility. The repair cost the city nothing.

But this was a mistake that my granddaughter is being trained to catch and to catch during construction and not after the final asphalt has been laid.

My wife and I had a young boy living with us for awhile. This was some years ago. He loved playing SIM City on my early Macintosh computer. He outgrew the computer game but he didn't outgrow his interest in cities. Today he cares greatly about the neighbourhood in which he lives.

Toys don't have to be time wasters.

This may be the last year for this scene.

The berm hides the gravel pit. Millions of tonnes of gravel and sand have been quarried there over the past decades.

This is coming to an end. The gravel pit is being closed. One doesn't close a big pit in a day, the steeps sides must graded, topsoil spread, grass and trees planted.

Already there are houses to be seen on the edges of the distant cliffs. By this time next year the berm and its trees may be nothing more than a memory.

How will self-driving cars handle snow?

The roads in my subdivision are snow-covered, ice-rutted. The roads are slippery and treacherous. Many have not been salted or sanded and there is no sign a snow plow has been by. It is hard enough for a human driver to negotiate these roads, how will a self-driving car fare? I look at our winter roads and I am filled with concern. (This image is a download straight from my point-and-shoot. The scene is as black and white as pictured.)

Close is a win in more than horseshoes.

Late last night, well after midnight, my wife, unable to sleep, went to the kitchen. She looked out the large kitchen window and thought the backyard made a picture. Despite the hour the yard, with all the snow, looked quite bright. Still, she wondered, is a picture even possible. Soon I wasn't able to sleep either. My wife had me up trying to get a picture in order to get back to bed where I belonged.

The resulting image was marred with blotches of yellow and there was a lot of noise across the entire image. The noise resembled the clumped grains of silver that once marred images taken with film pushed to a too high ASA/ISO number.

I took the image into Photoshop, changed the mode from RGB to Grayscale and then blurred the noise that marred the snow. The change to Grayscale caused the yellow staining to disappear. I changed the image back to RGB and weighted the picture to cyan with a touch of blue and a hint of green. In my world, snow demands an overall cool colour.

My wife tells me that this is the way our backyard looked last night. She, of course, is wrong. Memory is generous. Photographers don't have to deliver pictures that accurately depict what folks see but simply trigger the right memories. Close is a win in more than horseshoes.

Is it packing snow?

 

 It's snowing tonight and tomorrow morning we should be deep in the fluffy white stuff. My granddaughters will be excited and the big question will echo throughout the home: Is it packing snow? Snow is good. It means snow angels, slopes transformed into sled runs and a bigger and better snow doughnut in the court.

But if it is not packing snow is means no snowman. No snow taffy. But tomorrow there is no school. The teachers are on strike. And so the grandkids will make do with whatever snow blankets the neighbourhood. They will play happily in the snow until they are good and cold. Then they will come inside and make hot chocolate decorated with marshmallows.

Racing on the Boler Bump

We could not believe the number of cars parked in the various lots surrounding the chalet at Boler Mountain this morning. The place was packed.

When we had parked and walked to the base of the main hill, there did not seem to be any crowd. And then we learned why: there was racing at Boler today. The racers came with their own cheering sections.

It was actually rather exciting to watch, especially if you had a young son or daughter out on the course.

Ralentissez pour nos enfants: slow down for our children

London is an english-speaking community in the south-western part of the province (Ontario). Yet, London has a number of french-speaking schools.

École élémentaire Marie-Curie is not a french immersion school where english speaking children are immersed in the french language. Marie-Curie is a french first-lanuage school providing instruction in french for children who come from french-speaking homes.

Why does London have school like Marie-Curie? Because Canada is a bilingual country: french and english are the languages of the land. Of course, in Quebec, french is the primary language while in most other parts of Canada english takes the primary position.

My granddaughters attend Marie-Curie. Why? Are we a french-speaking family? No, we are not but Fiona, my oldest granddaughter, went to a french-speaking daycare when she was but a toddler. Today she is bilingual. Because of her fluency, her sister, Isla, was accepted into the Marie-Curie french pre-kindergarten class. Today, Isla is fluent as well.

In a bilingual country, speaking both languages is a plus. At the very least, it makes a number of cable channels available that would otherwise be of no interest. The channels of which I am speaking are, of course, the french language ones.

I can read french and so I turn on the captions for the hearing impaired and watch the french channels. I especially enjoying getting the french slant on the news by watching TV5 out of Paris.

An artsy approach

The day before yesterday I posted a photo showing a child playing on the snow "doughnut" in the middle of the court in front of my London home. The doughnut is a real kid magnet each winter. Click on this link to learn more and to see the original picture. Link: Our doughnut is spelt oddly: woonerf.

The first picture shows enough of the snow pile to make its shape somewhat clear. The photo also places the snow pile in the road on pavement and bordered by suburban homes. It is what I would call a photo that documents.

The picture today is simpler. It is almost a silhouette of the playing child. There are very few elements and one the tree seems to be included simply for its graphic appeal. Today's photo is more artsy, more visually creative, than the first image.

Modern, contemporary but conservative

This infill development is quite small. It is one long row of condos with a paved acccess at the front and that's it. Beyond the pavement is the next property. When it comes to increasing density, this development delivers.

Visually I find this development both contemporary and conservative. There are not too many different, competing-for-attention exterior materials. It is just brick, wood and painted metal garage doors. All trim, and it is limited, is metal and painted to match the garage doors. The exterior lighting is simple and the small balustrades circling the small balconies are supported by thick, break-reistant glass panels.

These units look as if they would be very efficient to heat in winter, cool in summer and general maintenance should not be too much. Someone did their homework before these were built.

Our doughnut is spelt oddly: woonerf

When the snowplows clear the court in front of my home, they leave a round mass of snow. The kids call it the doughnut. Children stateside would call it a donut. Me? I call it a woonerf: a living street.

I believe woonerf are a Dutch creation by Niek De Boer. Woonerfs, or living streets, are streets designed to force drivers to slow down as they share the road space with cyclists, pedestrians and children. Woonerfs are generally residential in character with the first one built in the City of Delft in the '60s.

I never cease to be amazed at how our court accommodates playing children, strolling neighbours walking their dogs and joggers. We see a few cyclists but they are on the court to enjoy the lookout and not to take advantage of the street itself.

At some point in the future the City of London will probably destroy our woonerf. A sidewalk will be built and the expectations of drivers to see folk on the road will diminish. The car speed on the street and the court will possibly increase.

Pedestrians will keep to the sidewalk, kids will go to to the nearby park to play ball and kids sliding down the snowy doughnut will, uh, will continue. Somethings I'm sure never change.

Boler Mountain/Byron Bump both spell challenge

 

As I have said in the past, the Byron neighbourhood ski hill is amazingly small. That said, it is also simply amazing. It has been a fairly warm winter with snowfalls few and far between. Still, neither warm weather during the day during the week or even rain has closed the hill for more than a day or two.

I understand that on nights when the humidity is low and the temperature below zero, the Boler Mountain ski hill can go through 30-million gallons of water to make snow. And it shows.

Yesterday was February 2nd or Groundhog Day and the voting is split on whether winter is going to end soon or hang in there. The fortune-telling groundhogs have delivered opposing views.

For the sake of my granddaughters, I'm hoping the Wiarton, Ontario, groundhog is right and winter is not going anywhere for some weeks. Skiing into early March is a safe bet according to Wiarton Willie.

The strength of neighbourhood malls

I bought my Silhouette frames back in 2006 at Cummins Optical in what was then a booming, oh-so-successful neighbourhood mall which drew customers from across London. My oldest granddaughter broke an arm in 2012, I took the broken frames to Cummins and they ordered a replacement. It cost more than a hundred dollars.

Saturday it was my six-year-old granddaughter who broke my Silhouette frames and again it was an arm that bent and broke. I returned to the mall, now a smaller building, one wing has been demolished, and many of the remaining stores are now empty. I was delighted to see that Cummins Optical was still in business.

And this is where the strength of the small, independently-owned business shines. The optician, Matthew Clarke, checked his parts supply—I'm a little unclear as to why he has these assorted spare parts—and he found an arm. It was the right colour, the right size, the right shape and, for me a retiree, it was the right price. Clarke saved me a lot of money and he fixed my frames in minutes.

I doubt that many chain outlets could offer such fine service. There are advantages to both the customer and to the frame manufacturers to dealing with small stores like Cummins. I never would have bought the Silhouette frames in the first place if it had not been for the perceptive salesperson at the small store. They understood my needs—a working photographer I appreciated the lightness and the solid attachment—she also warned me that the frames were fragile. The store staff has always treated me honestly and left me feeling they know their business and care about their customers.

I understand the owner of Cummins is now in his seventies. I fear the day is coming when Westmount Mall will have another empty store front: Cummins Optical.

Successful infill but . . .

London city planners would like to see the city density increase in the future. Most Londoners are in agreement with this goal. To this end a lot of small, undeveloped spaces are becoming infill. This home is but one of a very small but compact infill development.

I like what was done here very much. All the homes share the same contemporary look right down to the predominant white and black motif. But the designs are not cookie cutter. Some of the homes in this development manage to be quite unique despite sharing so much with the neighbouring homes.

Come spring, I'd love return to this development and document it with care and depth.

Heritage London barn demolished

The barn as it looked some months ago. See The London Free Press for full story. (Below)

The barn as it appears today. (Below) Just days ago it was declared a heritage property. It seems that designation sealed its fate. Now, some are questioning the value of the heritage laws.

Read: Demolition of heritage-designated London barn has some questioning worth of law

All photos shown were taken by journalists at the local paper, The London Free Press. Click the link to find out more.

Western False Front Architecture gets the nod

I don't understand the design elements sometimes used in new housing in London. Note the Western False Front Architecture on the right side of the front of this home. Why? I didn't even know there was such a thing as Western False Front Architecture but, inspired by this home and others, I googled it and found it.

And I don't understand the mixture of what appears to be grey stone combined with warm concrete brick. Why not use one approach consistently?

In the same vein, I wonder why the builder used a very modern, smooth grey material on the front of the home but a warm, wood-look vinyl siding on the upper floor of the home on the sides.

These homes are quite popular. So, I must be getting old and out-of-tune with the world.

Two-storey portico columns

Two-storey porticos, supported by tall, not all that visually large, columns, are very common in the newer subdivisions in London. In some neighbourhoods, home after home sports this feature. Why?

Clearly, a lot of folk love these tall, rather spindly-looking, columns. But I see them and I must ask myself why are these here? Does anyone have an idea why these are so very popular. What am I missing?

Contemporary-styled housing gaining in popularity in London

The style is squared contemporary, or so I've been told. In London, more and more builders are embracing this modernist style. Some homes come closer to the ideal than others. This home is a fine example as far as the front is concerned.

Often the interior detailing of these homes, such as this one, will not include crown mouldings, and the fixtures, such as lever-style door handles, proclaim modern while taking great pains to avoid anything that suggests nostalgia.

Berries important winter food source

The red holly berries look like plastic with their bright red colour that travels right down the stems.

The pretty, red berries, so common in suburbia, are an important food source for wild birds in the winter.

The berries may be a fine food but they seem to be an even better laxative by the look of the nearby window sill.

When you think of London, think of eggs.

I'm sure you have heard the controversy surrounding the eating of eggs. The media love this story. Journalists contact a doctor at SPARC (Stroke Prevention & Atherosclerosis Research Centre) in London, Ontario, and then, forgive me, egg them on until the researcher gives the journalist a good quote. Why call SPARC? It was this research centre in London that did a lot of the early research confirming eating eggs has a downside: cholesterol.

But the story is not as black and white as usually reported. It's nuanced. If you are young and healthy, eating an egg or two isn't going to harm you. If you've read that only about 20% of your blood cholesterol can be traced to diet, you heard correctly.

The problem crops up when we are not healthy and often not young. We no longer handle cholesterol well and our arteries are beginning to harden. Anything that decreases the amount of cholesterol circulating in our blood is clearly good. Since just two large eggs can contain from 400-500mg of cholesterol, clearly eliminating something from our diet that can contribute such a big hit of dietary cholesterol is most likely a good move.

Unfortunately, this story is often reported as an either/or story. It's not. But the reporting often riles people up and that's too bad. Our intake of dietery cholesterol is a topic worth discussing and more research is necessary.

I'm a patient at SPARC. At the beginning of each year, I have the plaque in my neck mapped using ultra-sound. Since removing eggs from my diet and making a number of other changes to my diet, my measurable plaque has actually decreased. Are the changes to my diet responsible? There's no way to know. You see, I am also on a couple of cholesterol lowering drugs. SPARC believes the improvements may well be the result of all the measures working together.

And so tonight I made pasta alla carbonara with Egg Beaters. Egg Beaters are pasteurized eggs minus the yolks. I miss the flavour of the yolks; I don't miss the 750mg of cholesterol that this dish once contained.

Recalling our old London-made buses

Someone has posted an FB page called If You Grew Up In London, Ontario, You Will Remember When... This bus photo was posted today. I find it extra interesting as the bus shown was possibly build right here in London. London had a deep, rich, strong economy in those now distant days.

The lawn dragon

 

This lawn dragon always presents himself, or is it herself, in just the right way for the season. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I see hearts in this dragon's future.

The law of induced demand

Londoners get around by car. Oh, there's a bus service and there was a discussion for a Light Rapid Transit system. The LRT idea never took flight. Very early on it was replaced with the promise of an almost as good, but a some what less expensive, Bus Rapid Transit system.

On the drawing board, the BRT system was going to serve the entire city. But before a penny was spent, two big segments of the BRT system were scrapped. Then funding became a question.

What I don't understand is why, when a heavily traveled street like Southdale Rd. W., shown, is upgraded, some thing is not done to widen the roadway with the goal of providing for even a crude BRT system. But the road is widen for cars and cars fill the new, wide road. It is the law of induced demand.

Building roads alone does not solve traffic congestion problems in the long term. Build it, widen it, add more lanes and drivers will be attracted to the new open roadway. The result? Traffic will increase. The British government did a study showing that increasing traffic capacity coaxes people to drive more – a lot more. Fully half of any driving-time savings resulting from the opening of a new roadway is quickly lost. The oh-so-costly benefits will all be negated within a decade.

The story in the footprints

The footprints in the freshly fallen snow once said Canadian footwear of high quality construction made by a small, successful Canadian company.

The company was Kaufman Rubber Co. of Kitchener, the Southwestern Ontario city an hour east of London.

And the boots were Sorels. They were big, clunky, warm and oh-so-protective. My favourite winter boots remain my Sorels purchased two decades ago. A tag, still visible inside, reads Made in Canada. Those original Sorels would last almost forever.

And that was one of the problems. The damn boots would last and last. Two decades ago the Kaufman company closed.

But that's not the end of the story. The name and trademark were picked up by the American company Columbia Sportswear. The line was expanded and in 2017 the Sorel brand had a net income of $228.8 million.

Needing a pair of less well-worn boots, something suitable for more than digging out the drive and trudging about the local ski hill, I bought some new Sorels last fall. The boots are big, bulky, well-made and good to -40 degrees. And oh, these boots have a tag inside too. It reads Made in Veitnam.

The ice pad may soon be open

Our neighbourhood ice pad, like so many ice pads scattered about London, Ontario, is still without ice and here it is January 20th. But the temperature is dropping, it is not only below freezing at night, it is now below freezing during the day. Since ice pads like this one do not have refrigeration pipes, the cold air temperature is needed.

The maintenance staff at the nearby school will be running a hose to the pad and it will be watered daily. I would not be surprised to see kids skating or even playing a pick-up game of hockey on the pad by mid-week.

The ski hill in London has an interesting past

The land around London is essentially flat. It was left smooth by the slow passing of a massive glacier thousands of years ago. When the ice sheet retreated, it left a large deposit of rock.

That rock, some ground into fine sand while trapped in the glacier, is why my London home was once surrounded by gravel and sand pits. The last quarry is going through the closure process today.

Some experts say my London suburb, Byron, is the place where a number of moraines converged. The Byron Bump, Boler Mountain, is the wonderful result and hundreds of skiers enjoy the benefit of its presence today.

And those slopes today, the result of the retreating ice, are often only snow-covered because of immense snow-making machines.

Irish Ferguson left his mark on London

On the back of the chair in the middle of the pictures it says, 'In Memory of "Irish Ferguson" '. Irish Ferguson was one of the most alive old men I've ever known. He had a youthful love of life that stayed with him right into his senior years.

The story of the London ski hill starts way back to the late '40s. At that time it was only one run at the end of gravel road. I cannot say for sure when exactly Irish got involved but it may have been right at the beginning or shortly thereafter. Irish was a dreamer and a man who liked to make dreams a reality.

I knew Irish from my sailing days on Lake Huron. We both kept our sailboats in the marina at Bayfield. The sailing club owes a lot ot Irish as does the former London Ski Club, now known as Boler Mountain.

Today the little hill that could has three quad chairlifts serving 16 runs. Some like to call the place the Byron Bump but everyone calls it a success. It provides a wonderful opportunity for children to enjoy skiing in an area not known for its winter sports. The hill may be small but its lifts are efficient and skiers not only come down fast but are returned to the top quickly.

Whenever I see the lift with Irish's name on the back, I have to smile. Irish was an example to all of us.

A friendly neighbourhood with caring people

It looks like an average suburban neighbourhood and it is. But don't for a moment think it is filled with uncaring folk living without a thought for their neighbours. I doubt that there are many suburban spots that answer to that cliched view of what are often referred to disparagingly as a bedroom communities.

I have a bad heart. I lose my breath when I do stuff outside with my grandkids. Neighbours have noticed. At the first sign of snow, I often have a neighbour show up unannounced to clear my driveway and my front walk. I appreciate it but my how it underlines the fact that I am getting old.

The photo, by the way, does not show my home but illustrates how snow can tie a scene together visually. I find winter, thanks to the snow, one of the easiest times for taking beautiful images. (At least, when the now is fresh. If snow gets too old, all bets are off.)

Snow, finally

The date is January 16th and this morning the grass in London was green and bare. There hasn't been a decent snowfall since possibly late November. And it hasn't even been cold enough to make snow. Last weekend the neighbourhood ski hill was closed.

Finally, it is snowing and with luck it will snow all night. Drivers may not see it as lucky, they may see it as their luck having finally run out, but the skiers in the area will be delighted. And not only is it snowing but it's cold. It's dropping below zero.

Snow making equipment is roaring into action and it does roar. People living a full mile from the ski hill hear the big snow-making guns pumping out very localized, very intense blizzards. Winter is back. Cold has returned. Snow blankets the land. All is right with the world.

Ornge serves London

The air ambulance service in Ontario is called Ornge and the aircraft, both helicopters and airplanes, are painted bright orange. Cute, right? The service also operates a number of traditional ambulances.

To learn more about this service, here is a link: Ornge.

Presentation is so important

The old railroad station in Guelph is a good example of why the presentation of a heritage building is so important. The station is a handsome building but one can be forgive for not noticing. Surrounded by concrete, asphalt, a clutter of posts and signs, it doesn't, as a real estate agents would say, show well.

I didn't get a chance to go inside but my wife did and she says the inside is surprisingly  intact. Nice.

Train traffic is on the rise in the Guelph area. The Toronto GO Train system is reaching out farther and farther from the city. What will happen to the old Guelph station as it encounters increased use in the future is an open  question.

London lost its Guelph-style station decades ago. In the '30s, I believe. The replacement was actually quite nice. Some Londoners compared the '30s replacement to Union Station in Toronto. That London station didn't last thirty years before it was replaced with a larger, workhorse of a station  located on the first floor of a small, modern, glass and steel highrise tower.

That one only last a few decades before it too was demolished. The present London station is another workhorse building but with a bit of modern pizzaz mixed with a mild retro look. Hopefully Guelph will not follow the London example.

Another Guelph Heritage Streetscape Photo

The heritage streetscape in downtown Guelph, Onatrio, is both sad and oh-so-very hopeful. The buildings have aged a lot over the years and not always gracefully. Note the application of a thin coat of concrete to the first floor stone of the building on the right. The maintenance of these old structures has not always been in keeping with the architecture. In fact, the repairs have often been downright destructive.

But, and it is a big but, the buildings are intact to the point that these places can be restored with far less effort than is often necessary. It does seem clear that there is more interest in saving these buildings than in demolishing them. It is not hard to envision a day when the magic wand of restoration will have touched many of these buildings, leaving the downtown with many sparkling, architectural jewels.

Guelph City Hall

With just moments to spend in the downtown core of Guelph, one might think it would be difficult taking more than one quick shot for my blog. It wasn't. I didn't have to leave the intersection where I parked my car. Each corner contained a delightful hertitage building.

Shown is the 1856 Guelph City Hall constructed of Guelph stone like so many of the heritage structures in town. For the first hundred years the city hall had a clock tower but it was removed in 1961. But the remainder of the front portion of the building is true to its original look.

In 2009 its use as the city hall ended and it became the Provincial Offences Courthouse handling small legal violation such as traffic tickets.

Heritage buildings in Guelph, east of London

Yesterday my wife and I had to drive to Guelph, a small city about an hour east of London. I haven't been in Guelph in years and was pleasantly surprised to find the core of the city featured many well maintained heritage buildings.

The friend that we met in Guelph knew very little about the plethora of heritage structures and so I hit Google on getting home. The first think I learned was if you think downtown Guelph is striking today, you should have seen it a hundred years ago. To think such a wonderful place, constructed with such love, an urban core that once showcased beautiful, heritage architecture, to think such a site wasn't cherished leaves me numb.

Shown today is the Kelly Building at the corner of Wyndham and Macdonnell Streets in Guelph. The building to the left of the Kelly Building is Petrie Building which still boasts its original stamped galvanized full sheet-metal facade—one of only three such buildings remaining in Canada. The fact that these two structures are standing today is the result of the concerted effort by many area residents willing to fight hard to save the area's heritage.

For more info on these two buildings please click the links:
Petrie and Kelly Buildings.
Downtown Guelph

New suburbs are the place to find rows of similar looking homes: a myth

There's a myth that new subdivisions are the place to find rows of similar looking homes. Not true. Building like-looking homes, sometimes identical, either side by side or here and there throughout a region, has a long and honourable record.

London's Oldest Movie Theatre

I've mentioned the Hyland before. This is London's oldest movie theatre still showing films. Opened in the '30s, the single screen, neighbourhood cinema seats a little more than four hundred. At one time its small size was a drawback. Not today. A film like Fantastic Fungi showing at two thirty in the afternoon on a Thursday hasn't got a chance of filling even four hundred seats.

That said, the little theatre was possibly a third filled with folk eager to see the quirky little film. Why anyone would applaud a movie is beyond me but when Fantastic Fungi ended there was a lot of appreciative clapping. On the plus side, it did not get a standing ovation from anyone.

The Hyland Cinema reminds me of what we called a second run theatre back in the '60s and '70s. Like those old theatres from a bygone time, if one has a membership one gets a discount on the ticket price. Non-GMO popcorn with real butter is available, if you ask.

Lately, the local owners have even been experimenting with midnight shows on weekends but I doubt Rocky Horror will be ever be shown. The oh-so-animated audiance at a Rocky Horror showing can be very hard on a movie theatre. But I wouldn't be surprised if Harold and Maude made a midnight appearance. I might even go.  ;-)

London neighbourhoods still sport some Christmas sparkle

It is the second week of January and most of the holiday decorations have been taken down. Naked Christmas trees litter the street awaiting pickup by the city. Yet a few homes retain their Christmas sparkle, like this place with its front yard tree festooned with a garland of the colourful glass balls often associated with the season.

Note the white ears on this grey squirrel

It's not the best angle but I wanted to show the white ears on this eastern grey squirrel. The other day I posted a shot of a black squirrel saying it was a colour variation of the eastern grey squirrel. It was a black-furred grey squirrel, so to speak.

North of London, there's a small town, Exeter, famous for its white squirrels. These are a white-furred variety of the eastern grey squirrel, not albinos.

If one googles eastern grey squirrel, one learns grey appearing fur is actually composed of a number of fur colours. Among those colours are white, black and tan. It is not unknown for an eastern grey squirrel to look black for the most part but have a white tail. And clearly, it is possible to have a grey squirrel with white and tan ears.

Reflective snowplow markers but no snow

In my neighbourhood folk love their lawns but they also need snowplows. Unfortunately, snowplows and lawns don't go together, especially on curved streets. The snowplow drivers find it hard to follow the curves and the result is snowplow blades running over lawns rather than the pavement. Large swaths of sod are peeled and rolled leaving bare soil.

The solution is to place a row of reflective-tipped snowplow markers at the edge of the lawn where the lawn meets the street. My granddaughters, who are longing to go skiing, see the markers as hopeful signs indicating that soon there will be a long-anticipated heavy snowfall.

So far this winter, there has not been enough snow to bring out the snowplows. Some nights it hasn't even been cold enough for the local hill to even make snow. And what snow is made is constantly at risk of being washed off the slopes by a heavy rainfall.

It's January and Santa is still on display.

Cemetery tombstones can hint at a sad story. My wife found the birth-death dates carved on this stone quite upsetting. In a word: heartbreaking. On the surface, the seasonal decorations seemed to cast a hopeful, optimistic feel. My wife is not so sure. Looking at the decorations, my wife felt the message was ambiguous. She believed painful memories were possibly on raw display. The Santa carries a sign asking those stopping by to leave a message. I wish we had left a message of heartfelt sympathy.

Abundant geese and urbanization go together

Should a picture of Canada geese overwintering in a park in London, Ontario, appear in blog devoted to urbanization? Yes, it should.

The Canada goose thrives in cities. Safe from most predators, often fed by bird-loving city folk, the large birds form large gaggles, the name for a flock of these birds. And these gaggles can cause urban grief. For instance, in Fredericton New Brunswick the birds interfere with traffic and if irritated will honk at impatient car drivers.

At the very least, the hundreds of geese filling Springbank Park in London make walking in the park difficult, unless one isn't put off by numerous small piles of bird poop. Yuck.

According to Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, humans are responsible for driving far more animals into extinction that we usually acknowledge. While a large number of animals are threatened by man, there are some, like the Canada goose, that seem to thrive with thanks to the intervention of man.

Sadly, in most cases neither outcome, extinction or thriving, is desirable.

Gene turns eastern grey squirrels black

Technically, it's an eastern grey squirrel, or so I understand, but its fur is black and not grey. It seems black squirrels have a DNA modification that results in black-furred grey squirrels. Grey or black both squirrels belong to the same species: backyardi pesti.

The little monsters dig up my wife's tulip bulbs long before the plants bloom and eat each and every one they find. That said, I have to admit the fluffy-tailed rodents are cute and cute will takes a wild, urban animal a long way with my three granddaughters.

Without flower bulbs to devour, our backyard pest is supplied with slices of apples, chunks of carrots and handfuls of raw nuts by my three granddaughters. This keeps the squirrels happy. Grandma? Not so much.

The Mallard: abundant and widely distributed

These male ducks, with their iridescent green heads, are very common in London, Ontario, even in the winter. This comes as no surprise as mallards are said to be the most abundant and widely distributed duck species in North America. Mallards are also found in Europe and Asia.

According to Ducks Unlimited, "With the exception of the muscovy duck, mallards are the predecessors of all domestic ducks; they have been domesticated in Southeast Asia for over 2000 years and in Europe since at least the 12th century.

Happy New Year!

I'm not sure if this is my favourite photo of the year or not but it certainly places high. I like it so much it makes me seriously consider moving to the spot pictures in a few years. It looks like a pleasant place to spend some time. I know my granddaughters would enjoy visiting me if I moved into a neighbourhood featuring a small herd of urban deer.

Jumbo statue in St. Thomas outside London

The Jumbo statue is located in St. Thomas about twenty-five minutes or so from my London home. The life-sized statue was erected in 1985 to mark the 100th anniversary of Jumbo's death. Possibly the most famous elephant who ever lived, "The King of Elephants" was killed when struck by a railroad locomotive in the southwestern Ontario city.

Earlier this year, the CBC did an excellent take on Jumbo, his life and death. Here is a link to: 
Jumbo: The Life Of An Elephant Superstar.

According to the CBC, "More than a century after his death, mystery still swirls around Jumbo. Was he really the tallest elephant in the world? How was he treated? Was his death part of a conspiracy?"

Unicorn-pig hats not made here

When I was in school I was taught how import trade was to early cities and city states. What they couldn't make themselves, they could obtain through trade. For instance, China prospered by trading jade, spices and silk.

I thought about this while prowling London stores after Christmas. Today China prospers thanks to strong global sales of unicorn-pig hats. Unicorn-pig hats?!

When I was a boy London produced a long list of stuff that underpinned our way of life. We made everything from massive electrical transformers to fashionable wool sweaters. We were capable of so much. The range of what we produced was staggering. Today, the range of what we don't produce is equally staggering. Transformers? China. Sweaters? China. Today, we cannot even make our own unicorn-pig hats.

But before I could post this, my one granddaughter assured me that this is actually a unicorn hat despite its piglike nose.

She tells me it's not nice to point out that its nose is rounder, flatter and more snoutlike than most. It's unkind, she says.

To underline her point she has called up a true unicorn-pig on Pinterest.