Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Happy St. Patricks Day to all.
St. Patricks Day this year turned out to be rather special. It is March Break here in Ontario, which means that the Grandbabies had a week off school. Luna and Janus brought them all to visit their Auntie Terra and Uncle Lares for a few days. They invited me to join them visiting a sugar shack at a conservation area today, and since I always love seeing the Grandbabies, I accepted the invitation.
I drove Tank to the Conservation Area, I was taking no chances on ruining their day. If my knee gave out, I would be able to transport myself home immediately, without needing assistance or having to interrupt their outing. Elf decided he wanted to ride with me in Tank, so we spent a half an hour chatting during our trip there. It is always interesting listening to the perspective of an eight year old. We talked about many things, and he had a lot of questions. I told him what I thought, he told me what he thought, we both enjoyed ourselves!
There was a lot of walking during the outing, and I declined ascending a steep set of stairs to observe an exhibit at the top of a ridge. By that time I had walked some distance, and had been standing for over an hour. I felt it was best not to push my luck. A good time was had by all. As we prepared to leave, I invited them all for supper, and it was decided that this would be a grand idea. So the three Grandbabies hopped into Tank with me, and off we went, while the other adults headed off to do various errands before making their way to my house.
We had a great time singing as we drove back to the little house in the city. When we arrived the Grandbabies immediately found our stash of toys and got busy entertaining themselves. I headed down to the freezer and found some meat to make a spaghetti sauce. Everyone enjoyed a big spaghetti dinner, and then they all bundled themselves into their van and set off for the three hour journey home.
The only down side of the visit was that Attila was not here to see them, they asked where he was over and over again. I gave them all big hugs for him, which was fun.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
0°C
Date: 2:00 PM EDT Tuesday 17 March 2015
Condition: Mainly Sunny
Pressure: 101.2 kPa
Tendency: rising
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: 0.4°C
Dewpoint: -12.7°C
Humidity: 37%
Wind: NNW 31 gust 54 km/h
Quote
“All things great are wound up with all things little.”
L. M. Montgomery
1874 – 1942
I just discovered a design flaw, the links in the right hand column were not connecting to the web pages as intended. Did a bit of digging into how I set up the links, edited them, and I think they are all working correctly now!
My Irish eyes are smiling for you – my heart, too. 🙂
Time with the grandbabies — can’t beat that!
And I like the refreshed look.
Thanks Reenie! It is a bit of synchronicity perhaps that your entry from yesterday features your artistic Granddaughter!
I had a great time Kate! It was odd to visit the sugar shack, with displays of the “old pioneer” ways of making maple syrup, which was the way my family made it while I was growing up, and until 1986 when my Grandpa passed away. I always said my Grandparents didn’t enter the 20th Century, and now here I am, one foot in the 20th and one foot in the 21st.
Never having been to Canada, I have no idea what it’s like up there. What’s Ontario like? Is it very rural or very urban? or both?
Bex, Ontario is BIG, so there is a lot of variety. In the south there is fertile farmland, and wee tiny bit of Canada’s only Prime Farmland in the Niagara Peninsula, here is a description of our farm lands (click here). Our little house in the city is located in an area with low-quality farmland, in the southern part of Ontario.
As you go north you run into the Canadian Shield, which is Precambrian Bedrock, and totally unsuited for farming, except where small pockets of soil have been left behind by glaciers. Our country house is on the Precambrian Bedrock, the Canadian Shield. The weather is more extreme just east of the great lakes, and north of the good farmland.
North of the Canadian Shield we see the Hudson Bay Lowlands, another distinctive landscape. We once spent a week fishing in the Hudson Bay Lowlands, with its “stunted” tree growth and bogs, and by the time we left the area I had come to love the landscape there.
The further north you travel, the longer the winters, the shorter the summers, and the more extreme the weather.
More than 80% (86% in 2011) of the population in Ontario live in cities. Small farms as depicted in the media are disappearing, replaced with hobby farms, corporate farms, and palatial country estates. Ontario has lost and is losing a lot of its farmland to residential use.
Toronto located on Lake Ontario, is the largest city in Ontario, it is vibrant and incredibly expensive to live in. Small cities dot the southern part of Ontario, such as Windsor (near Detroit), London, Barrie, and Kingston. The 401 Highway links all of these cities, and is a major west to east transportation route in southern Ontario. It is usually heavily used by transport trucks.
Do you wish you hadn’t asked, lol?
Oh no… I am glad I asked! One of my favorite things to do is to read Wikipedia pages on subjects that interest me… you are almost like Wiki-Maggie! Such good info… thank you. Tell me, did you know of Stan Rogers when he was alive? Were/are you a fan of his singing/songwriting? All these years later I still mourn his death at such a young age… I have a DVD called One Warm Line that is a sort of documentary of him and his life and it’s just fabulous, lots of up close interviews of him and also him singing some of his famous songs. He, to me, really represents the best spirit of Canada… the hard working people who keep it all running, the men and women of the land and of the sea…
Bex, I love Stan Rogers’ music. I did not know him, we had mutual friends, but I did not meet him. He certainly had a feel for the common people!
Bex, Southern Ontario is a great deal like northern New York. It can get a lot of snow, the areas around the Great Lakes are good for vineyards and fruit trees, and lakes have been carved out by retreating glaciers.
As Maggie said, the majority of the population lives in the southern part, some of which is tucked between Detroit and Buffalo. That’s the area I live in. Maggie mentions the 401, a large highway that skirts the southern portions of Ontario. Bri tells me that the 401 is the busiest highway in North America. That might be because it’s the quickest connection between Chicago/Detroit and Boston/New York City, as well as being a major connector for the largest cities in Ontario.