Obstructing My View

Posted on January 30, 2025 by Mama Cormier

…from the park at the end of my street

The city has decided to repair the sea wall at the edge of the park where I often start my walks. As a result a huge section has been fenced off and the dump trucks have started driving up and down our street delivering clean land fill and removing some of the old stuff.

The project could take up to a year to complete. The park over on Third Street is still partially fenced and that project is still ongoing after almost two years. The other park that I love to walk through, Col. Sam Smith Park has a similar project on the water’s edge and could take three years to complete.

I’ll keep you posted with the progress.

Sunday Trees – June 27, 2021

Posted on June 27, 2021 by Mama Cormier

…another couple of old beauties in the neighbourhood

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The Hazards of Trash Collecting – Part 4

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Mama Cormier

….on our 30 Day Challenge Trish and I had a few mishaps

Collecting trash in the parks, along the beaches and in the rocks has its misfortunes. Luckily for us none of them were too serious.

Trash collecting can wreak havoc with your clothes:

Burrs were a constant problem.

Climbing over wire fences can cause tears in your tights.

The insects can also be problem. The midges were particularly bad. Thanks goodness for face masks.

Wearing proper shoes and gloves is very important. I learned both the hard way. On the rocks I pulled out a broken beer bottle and promptly cut my finger. Luckily I brought water with me and Trish had hand sanitizer. I put pressure on the cut and cleaned it out as best

I could. Once the bleeding stopped I put on my gardening gloves and continued to work.

On another trip I was wearing my sandals. It was towards the end of the challenge and a lot of vegetation had grown in on the pathways. Everything seemed fine until I felt a burning sting under my foot. I quickly looked down and saw a wasp fly out from under my toes. Upon closer inspection we didn’t see a stinger but I did notice red ants in the area and I suspect it was an ant that bit me and not the wasp.

Towards the middle of May as the weather warmed up it was important to wear sunglasses, hats and sunscreen. There were days when I felt I had been in the sun a little too long.

The final hazard of course is falling. There were days that I wasn’t comfortable on the rocks and I soon figured out it was due to my low blood pressure. If I didn’t have my morning coffee before we left I felt dizzy on the rocks and I would stay on the pathways while Trish did her thing diving between the rocks to retrieve treasures deep in the crevices. Even on the beaches the rocks were slippery and on the paths rocks jutted up and were tripping hazards. There were a few times that I slipped or tripped but luckily I always caught myself before going down.

Trish was more adventurous and one day she tried to jump to a large rock for a photo op but she slipped and ended up in the water (only her shoes got wet).

In the next segment I will talk about the fun and beauty of trash collecting.

The Ugly Side of Cleaning the Parks: Part 3

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Mama Cormier

…now that I’ve completed my 30 days I can share the highs and lows of trash collecting

In yesterday’s post I shared with you some of the fun and more interesting things that we’ve collected on our 30 Clean-up Challenge. Back in early May, my neighbour Trish gave herself a 30 Day Challenge to clean our neighbourhood parks. I joined her on Day 3 and we pretty much went out every day for about 1 1/2 to two hours with our empty plastic grocery bags (for awhile we weren’t allowed to used our reusable bags in the grocery stores because of COVID 19) and on average we filled about eight of those bags during each trip. After a couple of weeks had to put out a call for more bags because we ran out. Several of our friends and neighbours happily gave us their extra ones.

You might wonder where all this trash was coming from. Here’s the ugly truth. Most of the garbage in the parks and on the beaches and between the rocks was deliberately left behind. It wasn’t washed ashore by the waves. It was there because people were too lazy or inconsiderate, or both to walk 20 steps to a garbage bin. The garbage consisted of coffee cups, pop cans, beer cans and bottles, fast food wrappers and pizza boxes and empty cigarette boxes. Don’t even get me started on the cigarette butts that are littered around park benches and tossed to the curb from people’s cars.

Most people are picking up after their dogs but then some of them toss the full poop bag to the side of the pathways instead of using the park bins. Some of the other things that we’ve found are used condoms, a few syringes (luckily no needles), plastic baggies, fireworks canisters and golf and tennis balls.

A lot of the coffee cups and fast food containers come from the food chains in the neighbourhood. The biggest offenders are Tim Horton’s, McDonalds, Popeyes, Burger King and StarBucks. We’re trying to figure out a way to work with them to reduce the amount of waste from their products and ways to encourage their customers to be more responsible.

In the next instalment of our 30 Day Clean-up Challenge I will talk about the hazards of picking up trash.

The 30 Day Challenge – Part 2

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Mama Cormier

….our most interesting finds

Over the last 30 days we’ve certainly come across a whole host of unusual finds in the parks, on the beaches and between the rocks.

Lake Ontario is part of the Great Lakes in North America and provides fresh drinking water to over 9 million people in Ontario, Canada and New York State, U.S.. It is the 14th largest fresh water lake in the world and because it is so deep it never freezes completely.

There are days when the waves are so large you would think you were on an ocean. I bring this up because much of the garbage that we collected from the beaches was washed ashore during those days when the swells were huge.

Some of things that we found on the beaches and between the rocks were golf balls, styrofoam and plastic, old tires, chair parts, umbrellas, headless doll and a wallet with $20.00.

When we started on this challenge May 2 we were wearing winter coats, hats and mitts and now five weeks later we’re in our shorts, tee-shirts and sandals. We always say that here in Toronto we go from winter right into summer.