In new neighbourhoods, everything must be done yesterday. Speed is of the essence. When I was a boy, folk planted grass seed and waited. Not today. When grass is needed, it is ordered, delivered and installed with a minimum of waiting. Folk paying in the seven figures for a new home don't want to be living in a construction zone.
This is a storm-water management pond. These are deep ponds are created in new sudivisions to gather and temporarily store rainfall and surface water runoff. These ponds temporarily stores
water and then releases it at a controlled rate. This results in erosion protection throughout the area and flood control with the added bonus of improved water quality.
Storm-water ponds are also attractive features in a new neighbourhood. The environmental benefits are not immediately obvious. If you look closely, you will notice these ponds are surrounded by natural vegetation to provide wildlife habitat. The buffer areas surrounding the ponds are left to grow wild. The buffers are never trimmed or mowed.
Folks in the area are encouraged to eliminate the use of pesticides and limit the use of plant fertilizer. In winter, salt use should be minimal.
One wouldn't think the ponds are designed to prevent mosquito breeding but they are. Mosquitoes need shallow, standing water; storm-water ponds are deep and water is kept flowing. The water from the ponds typically drains below the surface, impeding mosquitoes from laying their eggs.
COVID-19 made us all aware of the fragile nature of many of the supply lines serving our communities. It may not have come as a surprise when masks got hard to find in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. But who would have thought the demand for finger pulse oximetres would soar and the availability in neighbourhood pharmacies completely grind to a halt.
According to a recent article in The New York Times:
Many people first learned about a pulse oximetre in the early days of the pandemic, after doctors warned that some patients with Covid-19 develop a form of oxygen deprivation called “silent hypoxia,” which occurs when blood oxygen levels drop so slowly that a patient doesn’t notice anything is wrong. Often these patients are so ill by the time they get to the hospital that they need to be put on a ventilator.
An item for which there was limited demand prior to the pandemic was in suddenly a must have piece of medical equipment. As an aging senior living with heart failure, I went from pharmacy to pharmacy in search of an unit. None was to be found.
In the end, I called a Quebec of pulse oximetres. The French lady who answered the phone told me my chances of getting a pulse oximetre from her company was very low. The company had hundred of orders from doctors and health clinics desperate for as many units as they could supply.
She asked why I thought I needed one. After hearing my list of health issues, she said the units were back ordered from the manufacturer but she'd send me one as soon as possible. I had jumped to the front of the list.
She was good to her word and within weeks I had one. For a man with a failing heart, having the little unit has been very reassuring. And yet, I was left with the feeling that many of the goods on our stores' shelves could disappear at any time.
We no longer make what we use but have it shipped, just-in-time, from far away factories, often in China. Our distributors are just that, distributors. Trade is good. No argument there. But can we have too much of a good thing. Have we left ourselves exposed to future supply problems?
When I was a young lad, the idea of buying dope in a store similar to the store where one bought alcoholic beverages would have been ludicrous. Today the stores are everywhere.
During those intervening decades, one London man became quite well known for his open, aggressive fight to make dope legal. At one point, he was sent to the States to serve time in prison. Today the stores he fought for exist across the country. But he is not allowed to own one as he has a criminal record. On the other hand, some of the police who arrested him and helped to send him to jail have left their jobs on various police forces and opened marijuana-selling stores. They do not have criminal records.
The name is Dollarama and a few years ago a great deal of the stuff on the shelves cost just about a dollar. No more. Today it is easy to find displays with dozens of products all marked $4. If inflation should hit, as many are predicting, even $4 may be but a memory for a lot of stuff.
Built in the late ’60s, the automotive manufacturing plant closed its doors in 2011 and was torn down bit by bit over the coming years. A solar installation was proposed for the site but the clean energy project fell through.
Possible uses for the land abound. A popular story is that Amazon.com Inc. is building its latest hub on the site south of London. If this should come to pass, what a blow to the local economy compared to the old Ford plant days. Ford employed thousands and paid damn fine wages. Amazon low balls its workers when it come to wages.
