This is one of two Dream Lottery homes.

Three London, ON, health care foundations, Children's Health Foundation, St. Joseph's Health Care Foundation and London Health Sciences Foundation, will raise and share more than $36 million in net proceeds from this year's Dream Lottery.

The home pictured above is one of two homes to be won. The one above has an appraised value of $1,454,940 while the other home is $1,624,950. The homes are the top prizes in the annual lottery but they are not the only prizes. There are also cars, vacations and lots more to be won. It is no wonder the lottery is a huge support finding solid support in the community.

The cost for a chance to win a Dream Lottery prize it isn't cheap. No surprise here. The minimum fee to play demands buying 2 tickets for $50. Buying more tickets gets you more bang for the buck. 35 tickets are only, did I say only $500.

A brochure for the charity lottery is posted online.

The dream kitchen in a Dream Lottery home.

Shelah's Place: Thank you, Jenny Jones.

The playground is called Shelah's Place but it exists only because of the generosity of Jenny Jones. A London native who went on to have a successful career as a TV talk show host in the States, Jones

invited Londoners to submit ideas that would make a difference in her hometown community. Shelah Brook had the winning vision. Jones supported the project to the tune of $100,000 U.S.—$130,000 Canadian.

The brightly coloured, solidly constructed equipment was supplied by Playworld Systems of Lewisburg, PA, USA.  This is but one of a number of playground equipment suppliers used by the City of London, Ontario. This helps to make each playground throughout the city a little different from all the others.

The majority of playground injuries are a result of a fall on an unforgiving or poorly maintained surface. Shelah's Place is different. It appears to have a poured rubber surface which drains quickly after a rainfall and is durable yet soft and somewhat springy. The cushioning is appreciated when a child falls. And they do fall, even in the best designed playgrounds.

London Fire Hydrants Carry Colour-Coded Discs

According to the local newspaper, The London Free Press, the colour-coded, reflective discs hanging on all fire hydrants in London indicate how how much water a firefighter can expect when attaching a hose to the hydrant. Blue indicates the highest flow rate, 95 litres a second, and red the lowest at less than 31 litres. Green and orange marked hydrants fall in the middle.

A hydrant’s water flow depends on the available pressure, and the size and condition of the water line. While water pressure typically depends on elevation, other factors can affect the flow. Where time counts, this information helps firefighters decide what size of hose and what pump settings to use.

For more info on this, I did a blog post some years ago looking at the shape of the discs. Many believe these discs are shaped like a Maltese Cross. If you are familiar with the Maltese Cross, you will know that this can't be true. The discs are totally the wrong shape: curved and not spikey. Here is a link to my post on the Florian Cross shape used to make these discs and why it is a suitable shape.

The Northern Cardinal: a fequent bird feeder visitor

My granddaughters hang a bird seed bell and within minutes a cardinal has claimed it. The male is the bright red one. The females are a bit more discreet with just a little red edging with a light brown or olive brown overall look.

Cardinals are non migratory; they live all year in the small grove of trees behind my home. It's a good place to live, I'm sure. We not only put out seed, we also have a bird bath. I sometimes feel we are running a retreat for wild birds.

Cardinals, of course, are not the only birds we attract and in the coming weeks I will post more pictures documenting a small selection of the wild life often found in London. Some of our visitors, deer for instance, may be rare in my immediate neighboourhood but there are places in town that I can go and always see, for instance, a small herd of deer.

I apologize for the somewhat contrasty image but my point and shoot with the longest lens doesn't do so well on bright, contrasty days. As a relatively poor, retired, senior Canadian, I cannot afford to dump a working, even poorly, camera and buy a new one.

Closing soon for the season

If the tomatoes look a little rough, it's because these are field tomatoes and just about the last of the year. Greenhouse tomatoes look perfect but are often a bit hard and lacking in an intense tomato flavour. These, on the other hand, are full of flavour, juicy and wonderful on their own or in a salad or just cut into thick discs and placed between slices of fresh baked bread.

Sadly, by Thanksgiving, and the holiday comes earlier in Canada than the U.S., these tomatoes will be finished for the year. Thomas Bros. Farm Market, ten minutes south of London, Ontario, closes immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday this Sunday, October 13th.

Despite what it says on the sign, sweet corn has already disappeared and local strawberries are finding it difficult to ripen. Still, there are bins filled with apple varieties and there are half a dozen or more kinds of squash for sale.

Contemporary modern design is a trend.

Said to be a minimalist's dream, these angular, grey and white condos have a selling price of approximately $725,000. These units are in the west end of London, Ontario, but similar buildings are going up both north and south of this development.

For a look inside one of these units, click the link to the right: Inside Look.

Described as a contemporary, modern design, residences in this vein are being built all over Canada with examples in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Until I wrote this post, I had no idea this was a trend in residential design.

Monkey Bars: Loved by Kids All Around the World

London, Ontario, is absolutely riddled with parks. Southwest London alone has more than a hundred little parks.Yet, despite the great number of parks, duplication of play equipment is minimal. Swings, slides and monkey bars are the only pieces of equipment to be found in almost every location.

When I was a boy, more then six decades ago, swings, slides and monkey bar were just about it. Everything was made of rolled steel, cast iron, metal chains and large boards. The ground under the pieces of equipment was often paved. Injuries were common

In the mid 1960s, architect Richard Dattner designed the iconic and very popular Adventure Playground. These often looked dangerous but it was that very look that made them safe, or so  the theory went. Kids recognized the dangers and this caused kids to be more cautious.

Three and a half decades later the Adventure Playground fell out of style. The park near my home was once an Adventure Playground. It was demolished around the turn of the century. Why? I was deemed too dangerous.

Which bring us to today's designs, which are interactive and inclusive while encouraging role playing, discovery and critical thinking. Social skills are accented: interaction, sharing, and participation. At least, these are the claims.

Yet despite decades of design improvements, my three granddaughters all gravitate to the swings, slides and monkey bars.

At later date, we will take another look at children's playgrounds. I find it very interesting that equipment designs, driven by an almost universally accepted philosophy of play, are almost the same whether the park is in Canada or Romania.