Niagara Region II

We had a second chance to go to Marineland on July 25th.  The kids really like Marineland and I'm partial to it as well (despite the animal rights protesters).  It was another beautiful day in Niagara Falls.  I noticed they planted a lot of serviceberries (Saskatoons) at Marineland:

We were in the Niagara region for the TCCAT retreat at Brock University.

We were blessed that the retreat was the weekend of July 25-27 as the Burlington Skyway eastbound was damaged by a dump truck with the loader up the following Thursday.  The dump truck slammed into the metal trusses and the eastbound part of the bridge was closed for several days.  The actions of one impaired truck driver caused traffic chaos the following long weekend (a great inconvenience for Caribbean Festival travellers from USA to Toronto). Crazy.

Burlington Skyway westbound on the way to Niagara Falls

Norland Apple Pie

Started to process some of the Norland apples into pie today.  I used this pie crust recipe with lard since shortening is bad (transfat).

Visit to Canada's first copper mine - Capleton, Québec

We had a nice visit to the Eastern Townships on July 29th.  One of our stops was Canada's first copper mine in Capleton.  During the 1 hour visit to the mine shaft, you descend 50 m of the total 3 km depth of the mine.  The operators have to pump out water that accumulates to keep the visiting area dry.  Well worth the money we paid!

Here is a good example of the malachite in this mine:

First fruits of 2014

On August 11th, I picked the first apples from our Norland apple tree.  They weren't ripe yet, but I wanted to lighten the load on the tree.

The next day, I picked some more apples and then picked some raspberries as well.  The kids really liked the raspberries.

The Russian mammoth sunflowers are getting close to 6' tall now:

The middle one got stepped on, so it's a little behind.

Black walnuts in Oakville

On August 9th, I noticed large green balls on the tennis courts at Maplegrove Arena in Oakville.  At first, I thought they were crab apples, upon looking up, I saw that they came from the black walnut trees beside the tennis courts.  I thought these were ash trees by the type of leaves on them, but searching for images of the fruit revealed that they were black walnuts.

I saw several reports about the emerald ash borer in the Oakville Beaver, and now they add the Asian longhorned beetle to the fray of invasive insects that have arrived in Oakville.  The EAB has devasted ash trees and it's too bad that such majestic stands of ash have been destroyed.  I noticed that I see more gingko trees being planted as street tress these days.  I noticed some in Etobicoke on the way to a friend's house and saw others in Oakville as well.  I guess this living fossil is resistant to pests for a reason!

On August 1st, I saw this tree in Stratford that I thought was an arbutus, but it probably isn't an arbutus which is common in BC's Lower Mainland.  I didn't realise that arbutus trees are the only broad leafed evergreens in Canada.  Upon further research, I think this is actually a paper bark maple.

That's what I love about Ontario - there are so many different kinds of trees compared to the prairies!  However, the Tree Atlas of Ontario now lists some of my favorite trees as not desirable because they are non-native species.  The European horse chestnut is among them!  I love it's white flowers in June.  That's why I planted my Ohio Buckeye (which can survive Saskatoon winters).  I suppose the pyramidal English Oak would also be an undesirable.  I admired these trees in the court yard at New College at U of T as an undergrad.  My dad's neighbor has them and one of the acorns from their English oaks dropped in our yard and grew into an English oak that is now about 6' tall.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra Concert from 1990

I found an old programme of a TSO concert from 1990 January 25 (two days before Mozart's 234th birthday) .  I recall possibly going to Hart House for supper and then walking down to Roy Thompson Hall to listen to Mozart's Jeunehomme Concerto, KV 271.  I had to take the GO Train back home to Oakville.  I enjoy the recordings I have of Clara Haskil playing this concerto.

The only other TSO concerts I've ever been to was one with Sarah Chang playing a Paganini Violin Concerto (also during undergrad days) and one from Easter Break 1998 with Perlman playing the Brahms Violin Concerto.  Pinchas Zukerman was conducting that evening and I think the Mendelssohn Reformation Symphony was in the second half.

I really enjoyed this concert.  I bought the same day tickets for $10 as a student by walking down to Roy Thompson Hall from U of T before the concert.  Mozart's Jeunehomme Piano Concerto is the music of a teen and it bubbles with youthful energy.  The slow movement is very solemn and has a depth of emotion that reminds me of the slow movement of KV 595 - his last piano concerto.  I also recalled the spectacular brass of the TSO in the finale of Brahms' Second Symphony!

Don't use Ubuntu Linux 14.04 on Pentium 4 Class machines!

I discovered the last two days that Ubuntu 14.04 LTS doesn't run well on a Pentium 4 2.66 GHz with 1.5 G of DDR.  It was formerly running Windows XP SP3.  After trying a for quite a few hours to figure it out, I gave up and put Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on it instead.  I think there's issues with the old GeForce 2 MX400 AGP 4x video card though.  It's running OK though.  I typically do this when installing Ubuntu

1. Install VLC Player from the software centre and set it as the default app to play videos.
2. Install Iced Tea Java Plugin so Java applets will work.  I actually tried installing Java from Oracle on this computer (had to go through the manual command line steps), but it didn't work with the browsers.
3. Install Google Chrome.  I had to download it from Google since it didn't show up in the 12.04 Software Centre.

 Next, I tried using a TP-LINK N150 TL-WN725N USB wireless N adaptor.  It wasn't automatically recognised by Ubuntu.  Luckily, a Google search dug up this solution.  Now this old Pentium 4 can be used as a surfing station connecting wirelessly with the $15 TP-Link wireless N adaptor.

Chuck E Cheese 2014 Civic Holiday

Kids still like Chuck E Cheese.  This one is at Winston Churchill/401 in Mississauga.

It is in the Meadowvale neighborhood.

Toronto Zoo

It was a nice summer day.  Some would say it's too hot, but it was a relatively pleasant summer day for a trip to the zoo.  We saw the pandas, but they were very lethargic.  Quite boring.  The white lions were more interesting.  The lemurs were very active too.  I think the last time I was at the zoo was on an even hotter summer day in 1998.

Summer Reading

On May 15th, I had the pleasure of meeting Fred Stewart from the Renewal Fellowship Within the Presbyterian Church in Canada.  During our conversation, he mentioned Timothy Keller and in particular his book, The Reason for God.  On our way to Marineland last Thursday, I decided to drop by Bookoutlet.ca Store in St Catherines.  I picked up two copies of this book (and a whole bunch of other Christian books for myself and others).  It's higher brow reading than I'm used to (I'm not a philosopher and my concept of faith is very straightforward - based upon my own experiences and what's written in the Bible).  It's a great book I have to admit.

On page 29 he gets at the heart of why the Christian God the Father is so loving and compassionate.  It reminds me of how my grade 5 music teacher, Mr Klaudt, described the crucifixion of Jesus during Christmas time and it really moved me (I was an immigrant kid who had no knowledge of Christianity other than a read through of the Good News New Testament and Psalms given to me by the Canadian Bible Society the summer before grade 5 during my citizenship ceremony.  It happened that the Gideons gave me a New Testament/Psalms/Proverbs in that same music room in grade 5.  However, they gave me a King James Version and that's pretty useless for a 10 year old.  On page 40 he notes that observing whether organisations demonise and attack those who violate their boundaries versus treating them with kindness and humility as a litmus test of whether the community is open/caring or narrow/oppressive.  Kind of reminds me of how Trinity Western University's Law School is being ostracised by the media. On page 46 he notes the problem Ken Robinson notes in his work - many people aren't developing their talent and thereby waste their creative powers.  I'm sure I'll discover more nuggets of wisdom as I read through this book.

The Epilogue would make a great confirmation resource.  It summarises what one should do if they decide to become a Christian.  Indeed, this entire book would make a great confirmation resource.  I would summarise the second half of this book as explaining why Deuteronomy 6:5 is the prime focus of a Christian and how the second commandment (Leviticus 19:18) naturally follows.  If God is not truly first in our lives, we can never fully enter into a meaningful relationship with God and are consequently, idolators (family, career, money etc are typical idols).  Keller notes that God's way often seems to not make sense, but if we give God our trust and invest in that relationship, we will reach the full potential I often hear about in Joel Osteen's messages.

And, I continue to follow my 10 chapter a day Bible reading plan.  I've been using the New Living Translation on Bible Gateway.  This reading plan comes from Dodie Osteen's devotional, Choosing Life.  I got two copies of this devotional to give to others last Thursday too.

Beautiful day in Niagara Falls, 2017 July 17

I went to Marineland for the first in about 25 years.  The youngest is still too short for the best rides.  Too bad.  Beautiful weather though.  Glad we waited until the kids were older before coming here.  The rides are fun and they have kiddy rides as well as the better stuff.  We didn't go on Sky Screamer though!

The same juvenile from a few days ago?

I saw this fellow on the way to get the mail this evening and I'm wondering if it's the same one as from Saturday.

 The male robin was in the nest this morning and wasn't too happy to see me.

Feeding Time

This male robin has a worm for his brood:

Here are the anxious mouths in the nest.  I think there are three of them:

Foolish Baby Robin

Robins made a nest in our Colorado Blue Spruce this year.  Today, the only surviving chick was chirping on our driveway.

I was wondering why it didn't fly away.

It wandered into the neighbour's back yard.  In the meantime, mom came back with some food only to find no baby.

The baby was returned to the nest, but it left it again!

Not a very smart move.  No sign of mom either.

Eventually, mom returned, but didn't see/hear her baby.  The saga continues!

On a second rescue attempt, it was discovered that there were three young chicks in the nest.  This little guy is NOT from this brood!  This more mature chick will have to figure out how out how to survive or nature will take its course.

GOMBS

I saw Dr Joel Fuhrman on KSPS last night and he mentioned a simple acronym about good foods to eat:

Greems
Onions
Mushroom
Berries
Seeds

He also has a Facebook page.  I decided to donate $144 so I could get his 13 DVD package.  I've heard some of what he's about before too (AGE's, diabetic medicine making you permanently diabetic etc).