For a 2nd year Victoria Day fireworks cancelled

 

Before the covid-19 pandemic brought almost everything to a grinding halt, the Fanshawe Optimist Club of North London teamed with the Fanshawe Conservation Area to present one of the largest fireworks displays in Southwestern Ontario. 

Traditionally the Victoria Day event gets underway at dusk. This year, with the province of Ontario still in lock-down mode, the fireworks didn't get underway at all.

If you were wondering what Victoria Day celebrates, the answer is right there in the name itself: the birth of Queen Victoria who was born on May 24 back in 1819. In the middle of her reign Victoria Day was declared a holiday by the Canadian federal government in 1845. After the Queen's death in 1901 Canada’s parliament officially declared the holiday Victoria Day. Today the birthday celebration/holiday is only celebrated in Canada and Scotland.

 
Oh, I have a confession, my dramatic shot is complements of Photoshop. I put together a number of shots from a Fanshawe fireworks display from some years ago.

Pick-up and delivery only

 

Covid-19 has put a lot of stores under stress, especially those selling non-essential goods. Neither the Canadian nor provincial government see toy stores as place selling essential goods. Young children with birthdays would dispute this decision as well as a lot of parents.

Toys R Us and its companion store Babies R Us are among the stores that can only move merchandise by mail or by bringing the customer's purchase to the customer's car parked in a designated spot in front of the store. 

Find the toy online, order it and pay for it using PayPal, a credit card or a debit card and the product will be delivered within seven days. No charge for delivery. Not quick enough? If the product is in stock in the local store, customers can pick up their purchase that day. 

Even though many folk in Ontario have now been had the first of their two vaccinations, and the men bringing the goods to the parked cars are most likely also vaccinated, plus the entire process takes place outside, masks are worn by both the store employees and by the customers waiting patiently in their cars.

It's funny. Wearing masks has become so much an expected part of normal interactions between people that continuing to wear masks just seems the right thing to do.

Covid-19 benefited some workers

 

Not everyone suffered financially when covid-19 trimmed the economy, closing hotels and shuttering restaurants without a solid take-out business. Vacations cost money. Dining out is expensive. Even simply shopping for needed day to day stuff like clothing, became next to impossible during the severest covid-19 shutdowns.

So, who did well during these tough times? Home improvement companies. Oh, at first the jobs dried up but that didn't last. After a few months, Canadians cooped up in their homes but still managing to work full-time, found themselves flush with unspent money. Soon Canadians were starting home reno projects put on pause because of covid-19 and even starting some that had not been planned at all.

Canadians are not alone. American home owners are reportedly also spending more than ever on their homes. The reno business made a great recovery in 2020 but in 2021 it has grown red hot. Need a new front door? Order it today and it will be installed some months in the future.

The pandemic has meant big business for the home improvement business.

Does this look like dinner to a rabbit?

Flower gardens and rabbits don't get along, at least from the viewpoint of the gardener. In fact, rabbits can be a problem for home owners and their plants. Period. The rabbits girdle young trees during the winter, removing all the bark circling the bottom of a small, growing tree. Hostas appear to be delicious. Rabbits will eat budding hostas right to the ground and the rabbits will come back for seconds as the hostas attempt to recover.

Seeking a solution, some neighbours have place live traps around their property. Trapped rabbits are taken for long car rides and released miles some miles away deep in farm country. No idea how the farmers feel about this solution.

Me, I'm looking at colourful foliage plants. I've noticed that my palace purple, also known as coral bells, seems to be ignored by the rabbits, groundhogs and other wildlife paying a short visit to my yard. The plant at the top of the post was sighted in a local garden centre. Although I didn't buy it, I did pick up some other plants sporting very colourful foliage. Now, to see if these plants attract or deter the hungry wildlife stopping by for a quick snack.

There's a close bond between Canada and the Netherlands

The tulip gardens in Springbank Park and the new benches are but symbols of the close bond that has existed between Canada and the Netherlands since the Second World War.

Veterans Affairs Canada posted the following: "The Dutch people have never forgotten our brave soldiers’ efforts to free their country after years of harsh German occupation during the Second World War." 

More than 6,000 Canadian soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner fighting to liberate the Netherlands.

The Liberation of the Netherlands (LINK)

Another gift to London from the Dutch

Apparently, Canadian soldiers, especially a detachment from London, Ontario, played a big role in the liberation of the Netherlands at the end of the Second World War in 1945. Fully 76 years after the event, the Dutch Canadian Society of London and District is still finding ways to say thank you.

I believe the tulip beds in Springbank were a gift from the Dutch Canadian group. When the tulips are in bloom each spring, many Londoners make a point of stopping by the park to check out the colourful display.

This year there are benches especially designed for the tulip bed area in the park. A neighbour thought so much of the pretty benches that she stopped by my home to tell me about them. Tomorrow I'll run two images of the benches.

The amount of new housing is amazing

 

London is growing. And London is not alone. Pick a town in southwestern Ontario and you will find a town growing by, as they say, leaps and bounds. And that amazing growth rate extends right across North America.

As farmland disappears under new housing and all that accompanies that growth -- streets, shopping districts, schools and even parks -- one must ask, how long can this pace be maintained?

Many of us, old enough to recall peach orchards and other crops now gone or disappearing from the province, worry about what crop or crops will be eliminated next. Peaches, once grown but on the edge of town and canned in one of the numerous canning plants that once dotted the countryside, now come from Greece or Australia.