A few final postcards from home

Hemerocallis day-lilies in my mother's garden.



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Pokeweed, Phytolacca american, on the bluff overlooking the beach. As neighbourhood children we used to press the poisonous dark blue berries to make magic potions.



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Feeding Canada geese at Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary. Jack Miner (1865-1944) was the first conservationists to use metal bands to track the migration patterns of wild ducks and geese. His work made him one of the most famous Canadians during his lifetime. He even received an honour from the Pope. His farm is a few miles from my home. As school children we would get packed on buses to go see thousands of migrating Canada geese getting fed on the fields at Jack Miner's.



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An affectionate llama at Colasanti Farms.



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A date with myself

It all started because I needed to get a buzz at the barber. Brenda and Judy are getting married tomorrow, and five weeks of fuzz on my scalp won't do for this occasion.

I asked Sarah if she would mind watching my daughters this week to give me a couple free hours. Marian insists she is old enough to babysit her younger sister. That might be okay at home where they know the neighbours. But I'm not ready to leave them alone yet.

Anyway, when they found out who was coming to babysit, both girls were delighted. Then Sylvie offered to combine it with taking the girls to a movie for the evening.

What fun: five hours to myself! So what do I do, with less than $20 to spend on myself, and all my other friends working or out of town?

After my haircut, I did a photo tour of downtown Guelph. Then I headed to my favourite hangout, the Bookshelf, for chicken fingers, a pint of Strongbow Cider and a quiet table with my notebook and a new chrome Schaeffer fountain pen, a gift to myself on my Business Depot card since the old pen wore out. A serene interlude in a busy summer.

I picked the girls up at Stone Road Mall at 9 p.m. They had seen Spy Kids 3-D. While Marian and Brenna raved over a cameo appearance by Elijah Wood, Sylvie and Sarah rolled their eyes.

I think all five of us got our fair share of entertainment for the evening.

Walking tour of downtown Guelph

One of the features that makes Guelph so distinctive is its beautiful downtown, characterized by at least six large 19th-century churches, numerous white limestone buildings, wide streets and well-preserved storefronts. The city was founded in 1827.

The following descriptions correspond to the images working from left to right, then top to bottom.

1. Store fronts at Wyndham St. and Woolwich St.

2. St. George's Anglican Church.

3. Store fronts at Wyndham St. and MacDonnell St.

4. City Hall.

5. The family statue, which was controversial upon its construction, at the heart of downtown in St. George's Square.

6. MacDonnell St. looking toward the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Guelph's most prominent landmark, designed by Joseph Connolly and built on a central hill in 1876. Bylaws prohibt tall buildings in the downtown core, so the church can be see from all the main traffic arteries approaching Guelph.

7. My favourite hangout, The Bookshelf, a Guelph institution since the 1970s. The bookstore is on the main floor on the left, with the cinema above it. The older brick building to the right contains a restaurant and coffee shop downstairs, and upstairs the -bar, my usual haunt. Although Guelph does not have any exclusively gay venues, it has many such as the Bookshelf which are gay friendly, and the arts community is strong and active.

8. The Bookshelf coffee shop.

9. Weeds at the foot of Our Lady.

10. The Church of Our Lady is a remarkably beautiful church in the 13th Century French Gothic style. It was recently renovated, inside and out, and warrants a photo tour of its own someday.

11. Knox Presbyterian Church.

12. A strange but typical summer sky over Our Lady and the railroad. Guelph lies on Ontario's tornado alley and gets hit by a minor one every couple of years. A huge one destroyed large tracts of forest here in the early 1800s.



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100 Words: July

100 words every day for a second month. Pete trapezebear surprised me by noticing my June entries had a theme, texture. It tied things together nicely. So I chose a different theme for July, and I'm surprised by how different this month turned out, but still it has a nice flow. This theme is more elemental and probably harder to guess even if you know there is one, but I'll find a small prize to send to the first person who identifies it.

July words

Exotica

You're Lili St. Cyr!


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