St. Thomas sculpture needs no maintenance; just enjoy.

St. Thomas, a little town just minutes south of London, was once known as the Railway Capital of Canada. So, the sculpture greeting visitors to the city arriving from the south is quite appropriate.

Created by a local artist, sculpture and blacksmith, Scott McKay, it took 25 tonnes of steel to construct using a special steel that is atmospheric corrosion resistant. As it rust, the rust forms a protective layer. At first it will turn an orange colour but after about five decades it should appear black.

Sitting in the centre of a roundabout, the work should last 100 years with no maintenance required, unless a vehicle goes out of control striking the sculpture. Not an impossibility considering the snowy winters St. Thomas endures.

For more info, here is a link: CBC report.

Maple leaves attacked by tar spot fungus

Today's blog is a reprint of a post that first appeared on Rockinon: the blog. Lately, I've been noticing these tar spots on fallen maple leaves in London and so I thought a reprint was in order.

A lot of the information came directly from a report from Guelph University by W.A. Attwater. I think it is best to ensure accuracy and so I am leaving this report essentially untouched.

Whenever I saw round, black dots on maple leaves, I used to wonder what the black dots were and what measures should we be taking to protect our trees. If you have thought the same thing, read on.

These distinctive round to irregular black, spots on infected maple leaves are known as tar spots. Not noticeable until late summer, tar  spots are caused by two species of Rhytisma fungus.

The first, Rhytisma acerinum, produces black, tar-like spots about 1.25 cm or more in diameter on the upper surface of infected leaves. The second species, R. punctatum, produces patches of small, 1mm wide spots and is often called speckled tar spot.

The thickened black spots are fungal tissue called stroma. Red, silver, Norway (including the varieties with red leaves) sugar and Manitoba maples as well as others are affected.

Both fungi survive between seasons on the fallen diseased leaves. In the spring, spores are produced within the black stroma and are carried by air currents to young maple leaves where they start new infections. Unlike many other foliar diseases, Rhytisma spp. do not continue to cause new infections throughout the summer.

Infections first show up as yellow or pale green spots on the leaf surface in the early spring or summer. The black, raised tar-like spots develop within these spots in mid to late summer. Severely infected leaves may be shed.

Although tar spots are conspicuous, they are seldom so injurious in home gardens to justify spraying with a fungicide. As the strong visual appearance develops late in the growing season, the overall health of trees is rarely affected.

To reduce the amount of disease overwintering, rake up fallen leaves in the autumn and destroy or remove them from the yard.

Central vacs are still made in Canada

Our central vacuum failed. No loss as far as I was concerned. Big loss according to my wife. We got a new central vac.

Our old unit was a Cana-Vac, which is made in Canada. It lasted 31 years! Our new unit is also made in Canada. It's a Vacuum Canada product. We bought our new unit and had it installed by a local shop specializing in vacuum cleaners. We considered buying our new unit from Costco but decided to accept the extra cost and support a small, local business.

That said, Costco would not have been that bad a decision. Costco likes to support local and/or Canadian companies. Costco sells a line of made in Canada central vacuum systems. I'm sure they use a local installer, as well.

Why did I pay more to buy locally? I believe the presence of strong, local businesses supplying good, needed services enriches a community.

No recipe recipe

Ah, summer. What a wonderful time to live in southwestern Ontario. Cherry tomatoes: grown locally. Asparagus: grown locally. Sweet bell peppers? You guessed it; grown locally. Garlic? Yes, it too came from an Ontario farm. The pasta may not be local but it is Canadian; it came from Montreal.

The Parmesan cheese came from Italy. If it came from anywhere else it wouldn't be Parmesan would it? And the artichokes also came from Italy.

If you think this looks good, it is. And it is simple. This dinner for two starts with 110 g of penne rigate. The packages usually call for a lot more but when cooking for two but I find less is better. I pump up the flavour and cut the calories by using more veggies and the like and less pasta.

Get the pasta going, it'll take about eight to tens minutes to cook al dente. Immediately drop the cherry tomatoes into a frying pan of hot olive oil and cover. If the tomatoes carmalize, all the better.
After a couple of minutes, add the chopped sweet pepper and the quartered mushrooms. Stir and cover.

With about three minutes left until the pasta is done, add the chopped asparagus spears. Keep the tender heads out of the mix. Stir and cover.

Check the pasta. When al dente, save a cup of the starchy, pasta water and then drain the pasta and set aside for a moment. Add a couple of cloves of coarsely chopped garlic and one chopped hot Thai red pepper with the seeds removed. If you want heat, the more seeds you keep, the more heat you deliver.
Stir the mix for a minute or two but no more. Don't blacken the garlic. It goes a little bitter.

Add the cooked penne rigate, add a little of the reserved pasta water, not all, plus add 60 g of soft, goat cheese broken into chunks. And don't forget to add the asparagus heads and the half dozen, canned in water, Italian artichoke hearts. If you like, you can sprinkle a little ground Parmesan into the mix at this time. Adding asparagus heads and asparagus now will ensure they do not overcook.

Stir all until the goat cheese has almost totally disappeared into the sauce. If more liquid is needed, just add more pasta water, a little at a time. Don't add too much. You want sauce and not water. Before the white of the soft goat cheese has completely disappeared, serve! A little bowl of ground Parmesan on the table is nice, as is a container of flaked, hot peppers.

I used:

110 g of penne rigate
dash of olive oil
just more than a dozen cherry tomatoes
1 chopped sweet pepper
5 big, quartered mushrooms
10 asparagus spears
1 big, minced garlic clove
1 hot Thai pepper
60 g soft goat cheese
set 1 cup of starchy pasta water aside (I didn't use it all.)
salt, pepper and hot pepper flakes at the table

The amount of vegetables and the like is not etched in stone. Feel free to add more of something you really like and less or even none of something you don't. Not using too much pasta and pasta water and making sure to serve while the goat cheese is still visible are the two rules I try not to break. Otherwise, the ingredient list is fairly flexible.

Line dancers in the almost empty mall parking lot

Shooting pictures for City Daily Photo can bring a bit happiness to people at this very difficult time.. To that end, I went to the nearby mall tonight and took some pictures of the ladies dancing in the nearly empty mall parking lot. 

Read what my neighbour wrote in an email about the pictures, posted a few days ago, that I took for the City Daily Photo group of her and her friends dancing in the court in front of my home.

These are great photos! Love them.

So happy to see you tonight (at the mall parking lot). Line dancing allows each person to learn what they want with no stress about a partner. I love country music and dancing lifts our spirits, awakens happy moods and is pure escapism. And we all need that! So glad we have worked around the virus.

Thanks so much for your interest. Everyone has been very positive towards your photo taking.

Mary

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Signs of children

Kids leave their mark in a neighbourhood. Even when you don't see them, you see signs that just shout, "Kids!" Chalk coloured paving bricks are one of the more common signs that say, "Children."

The Abby in Sparta, Ontario

This colonial style home in Sparta, Ontario, is known locally as The Abby. It was built in the early 1840s. Originally it served as a home, then a furniture store and later it was a coffin shop. Today, it is a private home again with one area set aside as an art studio. It may be a small town but Sparta boasts quite a number of heritage properties for a place of its size.