Funny when I took these shots last week I thought they looked refinished. Somehow they seemed brighter and even new but when I checked a previous Monday Mural they were the same ones. These photos, however, are from a slightly different perspective. Maybe I’m feeling nostalgic because the building they’ve been painted on has been sold and there’s a chance that it may come down. That of course means that these iconic murals will be lost forever.
I’ve posted many photos of Lake Ontario at the bottom of my street. Today I walked a little further east and took a couple of shots towards downtown Toronto. Then I went a little further east and took a shot of the area I had just come from.
I loved how turquoise the water was today (completely untouched…this is the colour).
Six on Saturday is all about recording our work in our gardens and posting six photos related to the job. This Saturday was very busy at my house. During the week I had 2 tonnes of gravel and a tonne of soil delivered to my driveway.
Saturday morning my crew that normally cuts my grass came over to earn a few extra dollars and help me out at the same time. Prior to Saturday they had already made three trips to the house to pull up the weeds and level the area at the back of my yard.
After laying down the landscaping fabric they started to haul the stone to the back. It took close to three hours to finish the job but I’m very happy and can’t wait to find a fire pit to set up in the middle of my gravel sitting area.
While the boys were working with the gravel I spent my time hauling soil from the driveway to the raised beds, planter boxes and garden beds. I also planted a few more flowers and herbs and moved stones to create new areas for planting. I was dead tired and a bit sore by the end of the day but it was worth it.
South Etobicoke in Toronto where I live is divided into three areas along the waterfront. The area on the east side is Mimico, New Toronto is in the middle and Long Branch is on the west side. Last week I took a drive over to Long Branch to check out the waterfront.
Long Branch was originally owned by Col. Samuel Smith in the early 1800s. He had a large family and he tried his hand at farming after he left military service. He apparently wasn’t a very good farmer and five of his seven children never married and continued to live in their parents’ home after they died.
In 1861, James and Margaret Eastwood purchased the old house and 500 acres of lakefront property from the Smith Estate. They cleared the timber and farmed the land. In 1883, they sold 64 acres on the eastern edge of their property to a consortium which developed it into an exclusive summer resort area. The land was subdivided into 250 villa lots where the well-off could build summer cottages.(copied from the Etobicoke Historical Society). http://www.etobicokehistorical.com/long-branch.html
Many of these magnificent ‘cottages’ still stand today. It always amuses me to think that people who lived in Toronto travelled 10 to 20 kilometres in the summer to travel to their summer homes.
As I was sitting in the car and going through the carwash I decided to take photos from inside the car as the water and colourful soap blasted my front window.
This photo is clearly was not taken inside the carwash but it’s hard to imagine that it was taken today, on the icy shores of Lake Ontario and not on a beach in Brazil.
The kayakers, jet skiers, and boaters were also out today.
I try to get out and walk every day and at least once a week I walk over to Col. Sam Smith Park where there are these wonderful rocky beaches where one can see the city skyline of Toronto off in the distance. Over the years people have played with the rocks and bricks and created interesting sculptures and installation art on these rocky shore. They stay up for awhile and then they usually disappear.
Yesterday I observed not one or two of these rock sculpture but literally dozens of them that were not there last week. Some were very tall and others shorter and some were decorated with coloured rice but each one was different.
Mama Cormier 