Braving the Cold for Santa

Thankfully the Hyde Park Santa Clause Parade is held during the day. It can be awfully cold in London in late November. One can get very cold waiting for Saint Nick to make his appearance when the temperature is hovering under freezing.

There are floats and marching bands and oodles of free candy given out by passing paraders but eventually the wait for Santa begins to feel impossibly long. Everywhere there are kids  huddled together for warmth or snuggled with a parent under a warm blanket and wrapped inloving arms.

At that point, Santa makes his appearance. He passes by, the children cheer and the parade is over. It's time to go home and get warm.

A Rainbow Post for December 1st

When my granddaughter Fiona was only 5-years-old I took her to Niagara Falls. She loved it and immediately asked for "her" camera. She had claimed my aging Canon S90 point-and-shoot as her own.

She shot this and that, aiming the camera here and there, she even shot almost straight up into the sky. I was puzzled. The Falls were immediately in front of us and yet she was swinging about excitedly shooting pictures.

Fiona had realized there were more pictures to be taken than just falling water and a rainbow in the mist. There was the blue, cloud-specked sky with soaring gulls.  And Fiona shot these other pictures as well.

I'm sure everyone at The Falls Saturday came away with a shot like the one on the right. The image that was missed by many was the rainbow high in the sky above the falls with soaring gulls adding extra interest.

Fiona didn't miss this picture. Now, I'm trying to open my eyes to all the picture possibilities around me. I'd like to shoot like a 5-year-old.

Santa is on his way

Today was the annual Hyde Park Santa Claus Parade. Although you can't tell it from this picture, there were thousands of Londoners lining the parade route to see Saint Nick.

London has two Santa Clause parades: a city run parade that takes place at night on the city's main downtown street and Hyde Park event that takes place on a Saturday morning in a northwest suburb.

The Hyde Park parade is a community event attracting lots of local participation such as the Western University marching band.

Some prefer to mow and not blow or bag

I find one of the strangest urban practices to be the bagging of fall leaves. I find it downright weird. I didn't do it as a kid and I don't do it now.

My dad was a farmer before his health forced him to quit and move to the city. He taught me that leaves will break down and disappear back into the soil if treated correctly. He called leaves nature's fertilizer. We were poor and my dad was not about to discard free fertilizer.

We had a small, open-topped, caged-off area at the back of our yard, created with a heavy gauge wire mesh. We tossed our raked leaves, along with any grass clippings when we had them, which was rarely, into that cage. The coffee grounds from our percolator, if you have to ask google it, were also dumped there to be mixed with the leaves. The leaves always took longer to decompose than anticipated but they did break down eventually.

The London Free Press reports city leaf collection extended.

Today, I have a different, even easier, approach. I mow them rather than rake them. My electric lawn mower is called a mulcher and does not even have an ejector shoot. Grass clippings and leaves are chopped small and left on the lawn.

When I started writing this post, I realized it was all conjecture. I did a little research. It didn't take long to confirm that dad was onto something. According to the Princeton Primer, the makers of Scotts Miracle Grow have studied this approach and concluded mulched leaves not only provide valuable fertilizer but the mulch does not result in problems with thatch as some have argued.

Whether ground up or piled in a corner, leaves serve as a natural fertilizer and increase the capacity of the yard to absorb rain. The more organic matter a yard contains, the more moisture it can hold, which helps buffer the yard from extremes of rain and drought. A soil rich in organic matter welcomes the rain, which in turn reduces runoff into the streets and, collectively, the amount of flooding downstream.

One doesn't have to be a Princeton grad to understand that when "nature's miraculous trash-free economy is allowed to function, we're spared a big mess in the streets and the considerable municipal cost of hauling, grinding and mechanically turning leaves at a distant composting centre."

Is this an invasive species?

Is this a miscanthus grass species? If it is, then this may well be one of the grasses often found along roadsides and agricultural fields. It is called an invasive species but it didn't invade; it was invited in to be used as a decorative ornamental plant.

Miscanthus grasses are native to Japan, China and Korea. They made the leap to North America near the end of the nineteenth century. Fast growing, the foreign species spreads fast, displacing native plant communities.

The dense, dry stands are highly flammable and have even been spotted in distant California. Just what that state needs: another fire hazard.

And why did I start this post with a question? Because this might also be pampas grass. In some areas, like California, pampas grass, cortaderia selloana, is considered invasive but not in Ontario.

March winds in late November

A special weather statement was issued this morning forecasting wind gusts up to 80 kilometres per hour. Homeowners, outside the city, living in farm homes exposed to the full force of the windy weather could experience gusts as high as 90 km/h. Environment Canada said a sharp cold front would blast the London area Wednesday afternoon.

By mid afternoon the neighbour's flag was flapping wildly in the wind, neighbourhood trees were threatening to topple onto lawns and the air was thick with wind-blown leaves.

The Lego public school

Byron Somerset Public School was opened in the early 1990s. It and the many suburban homes surrounding it were all built on land reclaimed from a former gravel pit. A new school on new land in a new neighbourhood demanded a new look. Byron Somerset got the new look in spades.

My kids went there. It was just a short walk away. Did they like the look? No. The little school, it has less than 400 students, was called The Lego School by the students.

Today, almost three decades later, some of metal panels are badly chipped, some are bent and there are many signs of wear and tear. Still, I must admit, it has aged better than I ever thought it would. It is aging rather gracefully.