Soon our parks will be filled with little goslings

April is coming to its end. Soon the parks in London will be filled with recently hatched little goslings. The little birds crowd the sidewalks and seem to be constantly underfoot. Thank goodness they are cute.

The sunset was teamed with a sky-dominating moon

Standing on the lookout watching the sunset, I heard a little chatter from a group standing nearby. I could make out "moon." Odd, I thought. Then I turned around and wham, I saw the moon bright in the sky above the subdivision. Looking about, I could see I was among the last to notice the bright white sphere. 

Often pictures of the moon are washed out, detail gone, done in by the curse of over-exposure. Not this night. The relatively bright, blue sky teamed with the incredibly bright moon made it easy for the camera to pick the perfect exposure.

Londoners come to the lookout for the sunsets

The little dead-end street is called Lookout Court. It is well named. With covid-19 keeping folks at home, for the most part, the court has become quite the magnet. To be accurate, the sunsets are the true magnets but the court is the gateway, the access to the view.

The other night, my youngest granddaughter and I watched as cars were parked around the perimeter of the court and folks got out and disappeared into the nearby woods. Many carried small, colourful coolers. I assumed a covid-19 protest party was about to be held in the woods. I was wrong.

The coolers were not filled with beer but snacks and the folk had disappeared into the woods only to reappear at the edge of the curving lookout. The people spread blankets, shared food and laughter but in small, I assume family groups. Each group was well spaced from the others. All were there, not to protest, but to enjoy the sunset. 

The sunsets viewed from the lookout are spectacular. Folk are yearning for beauty in these trying times and the sunsets provide a little hit of beauty. Awesome.

Still dating

 

 

Walking can be difficult for even a healthy senior. Sidewalks crack and heave and stairs, with their variable dimensions, can be an accident waiting to happen. For these reasons, it is so good when one is a senior to have a hand to hold. These two, strolling slowly and carefully in Springbank Park, seemed to me to symbolize love in one's later years. I pray they have many more healthy, active years ahead of them. I bet they've earned them.

A simple swing means outside fun during lockdowns

The province-wide lock-down has been eased and folks are now allowed to visit city parks. Swings that sit idle much of the time when there is no pandemic are all seeing action today. Anything, absolutely anything, that offers exercise-starved folk something to do outside is popular beyond belief.

 

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Mini drones replace balls for games of catch

 

You cannot play catch inside the house. Not now. Not ever. It was a hard and fast rule in my boyhood home. The rule no longer stands. My granddaughters often play catch inside the home but not with a ball but a mini-drone.

A ball thrown about the house was bound to hit something, a lamp or worse. It could and would do damage. The mine-drone has sensors that keep it from smacking the wall or other objects in its path. Oh, it might touch them lightly but for the most part it veer away while still inches from the object blocking its path.

Hold a hand in front of the drone and it reverses course and heads toward the other player. The game can last for up to twenty minutes and then the little unit requires recharging. We have been using it since Christmas and so far it has caused no damage. Well almost no damage. Little children with even slightly long hair must either wear a hat or tie the hair back. If the little drone approaches too close to the head, it can pull loose hair in and the hair can become tangled about the rotors and shafts. No fun.

When I was a boy all the good toys were made in Canada or the States. A few came from Europe. Today essentially all my grandchildren's toys come from China and many are surprisingly sophisticated. 

I, too, had a small flying saucer that could do a lot of neat manoeuvres but mine pulled off its greatest feats thanks to the imagination of a small boy. I cannot help but wonder if there were not some benefits to powering toys with gobs of impressive imagination rather than oodles of hi-tech smarts.

Magnolia trees come in many varieties

When the first blooms appeared on our magnolia tree, we were taken aback. My wife and I expected pink blooms tinged with white. We got solid bright purple blooms with petals resembling no magnolia tree with which we had any familiarity. It was a total surprise. This year we did get some white but it didn't count. It was snow.

Since planting our tree, now many years in the past, we have learned that magnolia trees come in many varieties with blooms in a multitude of colours. What we have appears to be some variety of purple magnolia—a magnolia liliiflora possibly.

We wondered why the garden centre was selling a magnolia unlike the majority of magnolias found in our region. On asking, we discovered that our tree is more winter hardy than many magnolias. This year this was a distinct advantage. Many magnolias are not well adapted to living in Ontario.

There is one native magnolia—the cucumber magnolia. It is named for the slight resemblance of its immature fruit to a cucumber. These native trees are on the endangered native plant list as there are only approximately 18 small populations in Ontario totally no more than 170 to 190 mature trees, plus saplings.