Snow in Toronto

Our garden looked like this on Christmas morning.

On Boxing Day night, a blizzard blew through Toronto and dumped lots of snow

After multiple shovellings and once the snow stopped, the garden looked like this

Interlude

Christie Pits lightning tree

A man died under this tree last month when he was struck by lightning.



I dropped by today to leave a memento at the base of the tree.



I sat for a while thinking about how much the victim, 28, enjoyed reading in the park.


I think I'll return with a book sometime.



R.I.P.

Letter from an interested party

I received this email titled "Precipitriumph" today.


jgm: In your campaign to get the weathergods to give Toronto an alltime record precipitative winter, the Toronto Star reports today (page A3) that the precipiformance is advancing.

If forecasts of 5 centimetres of downfalls today are correct, that will puff up the Torrate from yesterday's 189 to 194 cm--third place!

The current records:
1. 1938-39: 207.4 cm
2. 1949-50: 196.4 cm.
3. 2007-08 including that 5 cm today: 194 cm
4. 1964-65: 190.6 cm.
5. 1971-72: 188.9 cm.

Of course, if today's fortold snow-rain flurries fail to materialize, we're back in fourth spot--one-tenth of a cm ahead of 1971-72. . . .

Speaking of cms, cm 3:20 pm 25-3-08

In like a lion

After the massive snowstorm we had last weekend, Toronto is now about 17 centimetres short of its annual snowfall record. When the record was set in the winter of 1938-39, it snowed 207.4 centimetres.

A week later, it's already cycling weather, although the streets are dangerously narrow because of the monstrous snowbanks.


Last Saturday, a friend and I braved the elements and took the Dufferin bus down to the Liberty Grand building in the Canadian National Exhibition grounds to see the Artist Project.


There was a wide variety of work in the four-day exhibition and sale. The show was mostly comprised of paintings, but there were also a few sculptures.


A lot of the rural scenic art works are apparently painted by artists who drive around taking photographs in the countryside and paint from snaps of images of the highway and surrounding fields.


The only thing I bought were these two dolls made by DD. They were on sale in the Sketch area. Sketch is a community not-for-profit organization that helps street-involved and homeless youth get involved in the arts. DD wasn't there, but the people I bought the dolls from were thrilled that I bought both of them. They were glad the two weren't going to be separated.


The 10-minute walk back to the bus stop was brutal ... I accumulated about four inches of snow.

Change of season

Autumnal warmth and colours have lasted an extra month so far this year. Usually by Remembrance Day we've had our first snowfall--as far as I remember . . .







Crocuses are already blooming in this Manning Avenue garden.

Not yet spring in Toronto

The weather warmed up last week for a few days. At first it seemed spring had arrived. I saw these men cleaning up outside their restaurant in Chinatown. One was chopping the thick ice with a meat cleaver.


The sign is outside a shop on College Street.


These cows were designed by Saskatchewan artist Joe Fafard. They are in the piazza surrounded by the six towers of the Toronto Dominion Centre designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1967.




Osgoode Hall has beautiful grounds with plenty of healthy looking urban wildlife. Someone feeds the animals walnuts.






This site on University Avenue is used now for small rallies, but used to be the site of Toronto's armouries.


Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto is the Anglican college.


Somehow one of these Victorian houses on the University of Toronto campus has managed to keep its tower.


Perhaps this was once a coach house.


This is on the back of an Indian restaurant.