Wordless Wednesday

Aw, isn’t that a sweet picture?

Ok now just to prove that I’m still a dog person, here’s a picture I took last week of my dog while we were on a hike in the park.

Midnight loves sticks, but we don’t let her play with them often because they can splinter and cause big problems. Anyway … she managed to find this old dried out dead tree and she was happy as pie.

While we were in the open areas she had fun with it, but she didn’t get far once we hit the forest trail again. Oh well .. it was fun for a few minutes.

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Earlier in the week I told you that Chris and I and our dog Midnight went for a walk in Taylor Creek park here in Toronto … remember those muddy dog pictures? (you’ve got to see the pics if you haven’t already, I’ve never seen a dog that well coated in mud!) Well. this city park has these big structures beside the highway (the Don Valley 404) that we’ve always called the elephants … well, because they do kind of look like elephants.

See what I mean?

Anyway .. these “elephants” are actually natural water filters. I guess the rain water is supposed to filter down from the tallest structure to the shortest one and by the time it’s been through all three filters the water is totally clean.

The filters are huge. I stood beside them taking pictures and I’d say they are 30 or more feet tall. They seem to be made out of concrete, but there’s probably some other type of material in them as I think the materials used to make concrete would leach into the water.

The area of the park closest to “the Elephants” was the most colorful.

Most of our trees here in Toronto seem to be holding onto their green leaves, but the weathers been fairly cool all week so I’m sure that will change in an instant.

As you can see in the last picture the Sumacs have started to turn that lovely brilliant red. A clear sign of Autumn around here! The bull rushes (Cat Tails) beside them were starting to break up too, spreading their fluffy seed heads all over the place.

It’s supposed to rain this afternoon but if it doesn’t we might try to go to the park with Midnight again … if not maybe we’ll go on Monday. Maybe the forest will be a little more colorful this time round and I’ll come back with some pretty Fall pictures.

Have the leaves started to turn in your area yet?

Chris and I did something different today. We went to a Progressive Rock concert at … of all places … the local Legion Hall.

The bands played from 2:30 pm until about 8:30 pm … I know, very strange hours for a concert, but hey .. it was at a Royal Canadian legion after all. Maybe that’s the only time it could be booked?

The bands weren’t professional, but they were pretty good. I’m not the biggest fan of progressive rock, it’s my husband that really loves that stuff. I’m more of a classic rock, indie and techno kind of person. It was a fun afternoon/ early evening though. I’m sure Chris will write about it on one of his music blogs, probably by tomorrow.

The place was close to our home so we were able to walk both ways. On the way back we zig zagged through a few side streets and we past a house with a beautiful garden at the front of the house. If I ever decide to completely redo our tiny front yard I’ll try to do something like what they did. Of course our front yard is really really small … like 10×10 ft. LOL So I guess we won’t have the antique looking wooden swing sets that they had to one side of their garden. Well … maybe if we move and get a bigger house on a bigger property?

So what did you do today? Yard work, visit relatives or did you go to a concert or some kind of event too?

LOL can you imagine having your face painted like this? I had to look twice to be sure it wasn’t a really vibrant tattoo, but I’m pretty sure it’s face paint. I’m pretty sure that if I had that much paint on my face I’d end up needing an acne treatment or something. I hope that he didn’t!

I wonder what this guy was all made up for anyway? Do any of you recognize him as some type of character or from a show?

It’s been quite cool here in Toronto all week, but I’d say that today was the coolest. It was so cold that our furnace came on for the first time this Fall.

Our furnace is quite loud (and old) so when it first began rumbling at about 5 pm I wasn’t sure if it was a car engine outside or what was going on, then I realized it was just the furnace. Our puppy Midnight seemed to be less startled by the noise than me.

It’s a little cooler than normal for this time of year here in Toronto. I’m pretty sure that our house doesn’t usually get cool enough for the furnace to come on until at least mid-October or later most years, maybe even November during a particularly nice fall. Oh and I have the thermostat set pretty low, so the house was really cold by the time it finally came on! Brrrr

I hate the smell that comes out of the vents when the furnace starts up for the first time. Bleh .. I don’t know what it is … maybe dust that’s settled in the vents heating up? Or maybe it’s because we have an oil furnace. Whatever that smell is it seems to go away after the furnace has come on a few times.

Is it cool in your area too? Has your furnace started up yet?