The Toy Shoppe of London (Ontario)

My granddaughter will be one-year-old come Thursday and so today my wife and I happily headed off for The Toy Shoppe of London in search of some small gifts for the little girl. We found a small, red rattle which we know she'll love. It's the right colour --- red. And she loves to shake things. Shake a rattle and it, well, it rattles. Perfect.

We also found a plush, bright red, ladybug. Need I say more?

And finally we found the perfect little book: Red is Best. Actually, we didn't find it. A lady at the store suggested it when we mentioned how much Fiona loves red. The book is perfect.

Speaking of perfect, The Toy Shoppe of London is almost perfect. There's a good reason why it has been a continuing success since the early 1990s.

Waterworks

This yellow brick Ontario cottage style building on the south shore of the Thames River in the west end of London is the city's former pumping station. Built in 1878 to house the city's waterworks, the pumping station took water originating in Coombs Springs, and collected in various holding ponds in the Springbank Park area, and pumped it to the city's hilltop reservoir. From there, the water flowed into the city distribution system.

The hydraulic pressure to pump the water was supplied by the Thames River and parts of the old dam are still visible today.

The pumping station was in use until 1967, at which time Lake Huron water became available.

An imaginative woman I know thinks the old waterworks building could be turned into a wonderful riverfront restaurant with summer patio. I wonder if the city has every considered doing a little placemaking using the old place. I think my friend is onto something.

Kayaking on the Thames, London, Ontario

Last weekend I ran images from a local company's team building event --- a run down the Thames River starting at the Springbank Dam in London and ending at a small town west of town. My health has not been the greatest lately and so I am pulling another image from that day's shoot. Thanks for the patience.

My inspiration

What's in here?

My granddaughter is not quite a year old but she is my inspiration. She doesn't just sit on her keister and . . . Oh! Wait! Come to think of it, that's exactly what she does.

Pretty good, eh?

She can't walk, and she's not fond of being placed on the floor face down. This makes crawling difficult. So, she scoots about on her keister. And, she is not cool about her discovery of keister-scooting; she likes to take a moment, turn around, and flash a smile of pride. She gloats.

At 11 months she has become an explorer. She explores my home. She does her keister-scoot from bedroom to kitchen and all points in between. She has discovered where her tub-toys are kept, in the bathroom, and her thick-paged books, in the living room.

The little tyke can't do a lot but what she can do, she does. She squeezes every bit of pleasure from her days.

Like I said, she's my inspiration.

My tub-toys!

Water Strider or Pond Skater

Water striders on the still water at the edge of the Thames River in London, Ont.

Much of the following information was found on a U of T (University of Toronto) Web page.

Today's picture features water striders, the familiar semi-aquatic bugs often sighted gliding across the surface of the Thames River at the water's edge where the current is slow and the water almost still. These bugs have a novel body form that allows them to walk on water. According to the U of T, this was not always the case.

To achieve this gliding ability required the evolution of a unique arrangement of the legs, with the mid-legs greatly elongated. Scientists at the U of T's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology have discovered the gene behind this evolutionary change, the Hox gene.

U ot T research scientists found it not only lengthened the mid-legs but shortened the hind-legs, creating an unusual body form that allows water striders to glide on the water surface. They glide along taking advantage of the water's surface tension. They apply just the right amount of force as they skate along. If too much energy was used, they would break the surface tension.

Japanese Beetle in Ontario

A Japanese beetle sighted in Komoka Provincial Park near London, Ontario.

The following is from Wikipedia:

"As the name suggests, the Japanese beetle is native to Japan. The insect was first found in the United States in 1916 in a nursery near Riverton, New Jersey. It is thought that beetle larvae entered the United States in a shipment of iris bulbs prior to 1912 when inspections of commodities entering the country began. "The first Japanese beetle found in Canada was in a tourist's car at Yarmouth, arriving in Nova Scotia by by ferry from Maine in 1939. During the same year three additional adults were captured at Yarmouth and three at Lacolle in southern Quebec."

The brightly copper toned beetle is not very destructive in Japan, where it is controlled by natural enemies, but in North America it is a serious pest of about 200 species of plants, including rose bushes, grapes, hops, and other plants. They cause damage to plants by skeletonizing the foliage, that is, consuming only the leaf material between the veins.

Canoeing the Thames (in Ontario)

It was interesting to see 8 kayaks and a canoe being launched just west of the Springbank Dam in London, Ontario. The dam is not for spring flood control but rather it is for keeping the summer water level in the urban river deep enough for canoeing and kayaking.

The dam, though, doesn't work. After an overhaul a few years ago it jammed and the question of who will shoulder the repair bill will be decided by the courts.

Yet, despite the failed dam, here were kayakers and canoeists about to paddle down the river from the dam to Delaware.

This raises an interesting question: Why is the dam necessary? Why is it so important to canoe within the city limits?

Clearly, canoeing the river just outside of the city is possible without a multi-million dollar dam.