Fall 2016

Well, this was a bloody fast Spring and Summer, that's for sure. It's now well into Fall. I love Fall, it's such a pretty season. There are a lot of birds to see too, migrants heading back south, and raptors making their journey too. It's always sad to see in a way, because it means waiting 7 months to see them all back here again, in March. But, we shouldn't wish our time away too fast, even if winter is not as pleasant and enjoyable as Summer can be :-)

Some early October prettiness from our favourite close by walking area, Birkdale Ravine.

Great Studio Painting Lights for Artists

These lights live in our bedroom, where my husband's easel stands, and where he works during the day painting. They are from Lumicrest Lighting Solutions. He purchased these lights for excellent colour accuracy, clean light, easy on the eyes, the help they give to older artist's eyes that require good illumination of sharpness and clarity. He has 2 suspended from our bedroom ceiling, and they can be swivelled.

Though bright, he is right, they are not hard on the eyes when just on for general "I need to see in my bedroom" use. I am not a lover of bright light. I like dim, warm, ambient light in my living space. It also means that I cannot paint the walls a nice medium terracotta rose colour either, as they need to stay relatively light. However, I'd not really have a choice as both concessions are required anyway lol! 

I am sharing this Toronto based lighting supplier because he knows what he is talking about as well as being a good supplier of working lighting for artists in the GTA.

There are many uses for these lights, they are not just for visual artists. By visiting their website, you will learn all the details. As well, their Youtube videos are informative. The one I linked to is a good one to start with.

Several Walks at Rosetta, East Point Park, and Birkdale Ravine in Scarborough

Last few weekends, we've gotten out to Birkdale Ravine, which is a walk from us, and Rosetta McLean's Gardens, which is a drive.

We didn't have our car much this summer, having lent it to my daughter probably 65% of the summer, so we didn't get out to High Park, Col. Sam Park again, nor the Leslie Spit much, which is fine. There is Plenty to see right near us.

Birkdale, which is so close, we were happy to see 3 or 4 Cooper's Hawks, so we knew the babies from this year did well, and are out and about, lingering around the area. Three were playing together in the sky above our heads on one of the visits.

We walked the Doris McCarthy path once in the last 3 weeks as well. This is by far our favourite. We tend to stay away from Bluffer's Park in the summer, just too crowded with groups of people and laden with garbage. Similar situation to if one goes out to Oshawa lake front too.

East Point Park is great for birds, and a really nice walk. You just need to be aware of the "rendezvous crowd", if you venture into certain spots along small foot paths. The guys mostly park down at the far west end lot, and traipse in a constant stream in and out of their established paths. Walking along the beach shore of this park is also really fun, lots to discover and lots of old dead drift wood textures and shapes too. Just be prepared to disrobe at Scarborough's famous "Nude Beach" lol!

The Monarch butterflies seemed to be just starting, early Aug walks, and are now out in full force this Labour Day weekend at Rosetta.

This seems to be the year for Cicadas. There were a lot of them flying around, making their loud buzzy sounds, at East Point Park in Scarborough. I had not seen them so active before, either we see them dead or just sitting.

Sunflowers were beautiful at Rosetta! Lots of bees, tons of wasps, and small butterflies and moths too.

We were treated to humming birds, twice, both times at Rosetta, feasting on the flowers there. I did get some shots of them, not great ones, but good compared to most years :-)

It's a treat just walking around these areas, seeing so many different types of people along our jaunts, lots of photographers, and of course, all the thrilling textures and such, as well as the creatures! Not to mention, the one lawn that was green this summer, the AstroTurf lawn on Brimley lol! I used to threaten to do this to the lawn at my old house as I hated trying to keep a good lawn lol! Seems someone else actually went further.

Camping at Glen Rouge Campground in Toronto

For 20 years, we drove past this campground, along the 401, to and from Ajax and Whitby. Now, I live in Scarborough, but my kids reside in Durham.

Not having been camping for about 6 years, I came up with this kooky idea of, "hey, let's go fun camping 20 mins from our place" lol!

The idea was sort of half serious, but it then became, "let's book it!" and I went a head and booked it. Typically, long weekends, which is the weekend I chose, most campgrounds force a 3 night booking. So, I figured, this works anyway as we can take our time packing up and leaving on the Sunday. Turned out it was raining anyway, so we left our tent up Sunday night and came back Monday morning to pack it up, dry. The kids' tent, we packed up the Sunday in the rain as they have space at their house to dry it out, we don't at our condo.

I bought our tent on a whim through Walmart, on a whim as it had a great price. It ended up being Perfect! And Huge! I bought a 5 pc starter camping set, it came with 2 chairs, a tent, a fly and a little shelter that can be set up separately (we didn't use this).

It was great fun! At first I was like, I'm going to cancel it. What will we do. The kids are big now, they aren't little kids, it's harder to entertain them. Boy am I glad I didn't! It was loads of fun! Besides the kids teaching myself and John how to play Presidents, feeding peanuts to the piggy Chipmunk, and making half assed Smores with marshmallows and chocolate covered digestive biscuits, and hot dogs for dinner. Shauna my daughter made an awesome camp fire. My Dad lent us lots of lighting and a burner for cooking eggs in the morning. However, there was one major permeating thing that kind of made the whole weekend.

Pokeman Go!

I kind of figured, no, my kids don't have time, they work full time during the summer. How wrong I was lol! They were well into the game, and they have been doing a Lot of walking! My son said 5 KMs a day on weekends with friends lol! As well, they've met lots of people playing it, where they excursion to on transit, down by the lake, etc. It's quite the positive phenomenon is how I am seeing it.

We did lots of hikes, the kids were all for it. We also visited Swan's Marina and the pier in Pickering, down the bottom of Liverpool. We went fairly far and saw areas I'd never been to. It was a lot of fun! And what did we see a lot of? Hoards of people walking or standing, busily on their phones, playing Pokeman Go! lol! It was hysterical and it was fun! I'd say 80% of the ones we passed were playing it, couples, groups, families, youths, older people, the list goes on. Many of these people would normally not even be walking the trails normally lol! John and I walk the Glen Rouge trails a lot, and we've Never seen so many people on them, especially teens.

The cicadas were quite abundant this summer, we saw several, one even in the process of shedding its shell. We were freaked out by a wolf spider in an opening in a tree trunk. There was quite a few patches of deadly wild hogweed, part far in from the trails, and often marked so that walkers would know to stay away from it.

In any event, we had a great time. The hikes were fun, lots of exercise, the campground is nice, and we even saw a first bird sighting, an Indigo Bunting! Lots of cedar waxwings hung around the trees in the campground, and we saw deer and lots of rabbits and chipmunks. It was a cool weekend :-)

Deadly Hogweed or Cow Parsnip