Jomegat's Weblog

Today was our last day in Toronto. We went to Casa Loma, a castle built by Sir Henry Pellatt. What a house.

After that we parked the car at a subway station and took the train down to the harbor. We walked around a bit and saw a ship calling itself the HMS Bounty. The real HMS Bounty was burned by the mutineers at Pitcairn Island so it would not be spotted by the British Navy who was searching for them. After a bit of checking, I found that this is the Bounty II which was built for a movie about the mutiny. They were planning to burn it at the end, but Marlon Brando (playing Fletcher Christian, the head mutineer) threatened to walk off the set if they went through with it. So there it was in Toronto today. It’s participating in the 2010 Great Lakes United Tall Ships Challenge, but really, I don’t know anything at all about that.

After that we set out for St Catherines, ON, which is within easy striking distance of Niagara Falls. In the morning we’re going to visit Lakeside Park (there’s a geocache there I want to try to find), and then it’s off to Niagara.

Today we slept in a bit, having been out past midnight (with Beth) the previous evening. We had a leisurely breakfast and then set out for the Toronto Zoo. We spent pretty much the whole day there. I took something like 400 pictures, but won’t post that many here by a long shot.

The highlight of the zoo visit came when we came to the zebra pen. There was a lone male zebra about 50 yards from the fence. I approached the fence at about the same time the zoomobile came roaring through. The zebra was somewhat startled and charged me!

He was braying like a donkey the whole time too. Sort of the haw without a hee I guess. Then he calmed down again.

We saw tons of animals, and spent something like six hours there. That is one recipe for sore legs. Beth’s favorite part was when we paid $6.00 for a camel ride:

When we got to the gift shop she went searching for a camel (and found one!) The stuffed camel cost more than twice as much as the camel ride.

We returned to our hotel and worked on choosing a restaurant for dinner, finally settling on The Pickel Barrel. I thought it was very good, and Va did not seem displeased with it either. They did take their time with her entree though, and offered free dessert to make it up. I was so stuffed though that I thought it would have been folly for me to eat another bite (even of a wafer thin mint!) so I passed.

I’ve long thought that restaurants should offer what I call “dolly service” for those times when you’re so stuffed you don’t want to get out of your chair. The wait staff would then come by with a furniture dolly, hoist your chair onto it and wheel you out to your car. Every guy I’ve ever talked to about this idea has thought it would be great, and every woman I have ever mentioned it to has been horrified.

Today we went to the Ontario Science Center and the CN Tower. Here’s a scene from the Science Center:

We arrived here around lunch time, had some lunch, and then went to the Science Center. Then we had dinner, and at 8:00pm-ish, we headed to the CN Tower. I guess we’re insane for doing that with an eight year-old girl in tow, but vacations are times for craziness, so off we went. Beth really enjoyed her first subway ride:

And the view from the top of the tower was pretty awesome too:

It was quite dark out, contrary to what this photo might lead one to believe. It was a pretty long exposure. I have many more pictures, but the Internet connection from our hotel is pretty deplorable, so I won’t suffer through that to post more. Maybe when we get home I will.

This morning Va, Beth, and I set out for Almanzo Wilder’s boyhood home. It was about a five hour drive from our house. Here’s Beth in front of the house:

There is a huge maple in the yard too:

We bought a nightcap for Beth and several postcards. Then we set off for Canada. It took over an hour to get over the border. I dunno if that was because of the G20 wrapping up their business in Toronto today or not, but it sure was a slow slog across the St Lawrence River.

Today after church, David, Beth and I took the canoe down to Sandogardy Pond. As soon as we got there, I realized I had left my camera at home. Bummer. We paddled around the pond, and I noticed several species of flowers that had freshly bloomed: pickerel weed, pipewort, swamp candles, and grassy arrowhead.

Not having my camera, I wrote them all down. But when we got home again, and after I put away the canoe, I decided I would go back. This time I would bring Penny (she needed the exercise) and the camera. Beth came too.

On the way, we found some ripe blackberries. To my surprise, Beth tried one. To my utter astonishment, she liked it. Pretty soon we came into a patch of raspberries too, and she gobbled a few of those down too. Then we saw some strawberries, and finally, some blueberries:

She had some of those as well, and they were very good! A little farther down, I noticed some Pyrola:

I don’t know the species (the genus is Pyrola though) as there are half a dozen or so in my field guides, and I have never been able to decide which ones I’m seeing. Three years ago I found a single specimen. This year, I noticed them by their foliage all over the place, but this is the first one I’ve seen in bloom this year. Then I saw some cow-wheat (Melampyrum lineare):

This is a plant that has been growing by a birch log I felled a couple of years ago. I’ve been looking for it this year, but have so far failed to find any (on my property). I was glad to see this.

We finally made it to the pond.

This stuff was growing where I saw it last year, but it has also spread out a bit. We saw it all along the banks of the pond as we paddled around. It’s also called “duck potato”, as the roots are very potato like and were harvested in quantity by the Native Americans. They would dig it up with their toes and it would float to the surface. I’ve not tried this, as I’ve never seen it in abundance. But if it continues to spread like it has this year, I might get a chance.

Another edible wild plant on the pond was this one:

These flowers make nut-like fruits in the fall that can be picked and eaten out of hand like granola. I’ve eaten plenty of this stuff and find it delightful. I read up a bit about the plant tonight and learned something new. It’s tristylous, meaning it comes with three distinct combinations of style and stamen length. These three varieties are tuned to various insects, so that the pollen is rubbed off the stamen on one type of insect, and then deposited on the style of another flower whose style length matches the male’s stamen length. The tuned lengths prevent the plant from self-pollinating. I thought that was pretty cool, though I’ve probably butchered the explanation.

These had popped up last time I was at Sandogardy, but now they have bloomed as well. Like the arrowhead, there were plenty more of these than in previous years. I managed to get a close-up shot of one of the flowers. They’re generally less than a quarter inch across:

Farther from the shore was a stand of Spotted Water Hemlock:

This is a highly toxic plant – possibly the most toxic one in North America. The big problem is that it can be confused with Queen Anne’s Lace, aka wild carrot. They’re not hard to tell apart, but confusing them could be a fatal error. The leaves are fairly dissimilar, and the flowers from Queen Anne have three-forked bracts underneath. The Water Hemlock has no bracts at all beneath the umbel.

We headed home after a while and I saw these on the road side:

This is wild sarsaparilla. I know that some part of this plant is edible, but I don’t think it’s the berries. As usual, when I’m not 100% positive, I don’t eat a wild plant. These berries were particularly brilliant though, so I stopped to get a fairly decent shot of them. I had my tiny tripod with me, and that really helped, especially since the light was failing fast (it was clouding up pretty good too).

We got home well before any rain started. In fact… I don’t think it ever did rain. I went out a little later and watered the tomatoes, and 15 of the 16 plants I set out are all looking pretty good. Maybe I’ll have some tomatoes soon.

Today I took a stroll to the bank and came across some American nightshade (Solanum americanum

This is a poisonous plant related to the tomato & potato, and also to bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara) which is more common, and about as poisonous. Actually tomato and potato are also poisonous if you eat the wrong parts.

After work Jonathan and I went to the church to install the new wireless microphones. We had a system, but on June 12 it became illegal for us to use it anymore as the FCC has reallocated some spectrum. Jonathan very much likes the new mic. I left him to do the installation and testing, and went down to the playground to talk to a couple of guys from the church. I wasn’t expecting to see them there. They were evaluating the grass which has gone to seed, trying to decide if the seed was far enough along that it would germinate if it were scattered in some areas where the grass is weak. We talked for a little while, and then I saw some ants on the pavement. They had a sow bug:

The sow bug is probably Porcellio spinicornis, but I find ants too hard to classify, so I won’t even try.

When I got home I saw some Heal-all:

It’s also called Self-heal. I assume it has some supposed medicinal properties with a name like that. Then I saw a bee, or maybe a bee-fly on some cinquefoil:

I flipped through my Field Guides, but nothing popped out. I might post this to Bugguide later. I just like the pattern on her back.

Tonight Beth and I finished reading On the Banks of Plum Creek, which was written by Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House on the Prairie fame. Even though she had also written a book called Little House on the Prairie, the TV show was based on Plum Creek. We bought the series on DVD a while back, and Beth has been lapping them up. I’ve only managed to watch one episode, and found that it was based on a chapter in the book. They took a few liberties, but it’s pretty close. If they still made shows like that, I might watch TV again.

Yesterday as I was walking the trail in my woods I happened across some dewdrops!

This is one of my favorite plants, and the only place I know where I can find it is right here in my woods. The leaves would lead one to believe it’s a violet, but it most certainly is not. This species is, I think, what taught me to photograph flowers. It grows in the shady woods, and it has white petals. I guess I took three dozen shots of it with my old camera in Auto mode, and not one of the photos turned out well. Then I found the macro button and read up on it. The camera was still over-exposing the white petals because the picture was mostly dark. So I figured out how to manually adjust the exposure time. But for that to be effective, I needed a tripod, so I got a tiny little one. By the next season, I had a new camera (my current one, a Canon S110IS), and it had a super macro lens that blew the other one away. I learned that maxing out the F-stop would improve the depth of field. I think my best photo ever depicted this plant, growing in basically the same place as the one above. I didn’t have a lot of time yesterday evening (supper was ready!) and there was a slight breeze, so the flower wouldn’t hold still. That’s pretty crucial when the exposure time is long. Anyhow, this is the rushed version of this year’s dewdrop.

Then today I went walking through my woods again, looking for dead trees to fell for Beth’s cabin. I didn’t fell any trees, but I did see this Indian Pipe.

Again, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on photography. I took two shots, and this one came out kind of OKish.

Today after work I decided to do a little more work on Beth’s log cabin. I stripped a log of bark with my drawknife and fitted four notches. I need to set two more short logs and then the cabin will be four logs high. A couple of weeks ago I dragged a couple of pallets to the cabin. I plan to use them as the floor. I have three of them from when I had insulation delivered to the house, and that should be sufficient.

I would like to put a thatch roof on this. The main reason I want to do that is so I can photograph the process and flesh out the Thatching honor in the answer book I’ve been working on since forever ago. My main obstacle is that I don’t have long grass to use. I could possibly use cattails, but I don’t have any of that either.

At the church we do have some long grass that I think I could use. It’s growing on the berm that separates our new playground from the wetland. There’s a narrow patch about 300 feet long I guess, and it’s about three feet high. That might do the trick. I just need to clear it with the church board and harvest it. Oh – and then figure out how to thatch a roof.

The other thing I worked on this evening was a game I’m putting together for the company picnic next month. It will take the form of a ladder with rope uprights and wooden rungs, and it will be strung between a tree and the ground at a 45 degree angle. Each end will be anchored at a single point so that the whole thing will twist and throw the climber to the ground if he loses his balance. The goal is to make it to the top and ring a bell (which I will need to procure). I am using some of the trees I thinned to light up the garden earlier this week. I cut them to 30″ lengths yesterday, and today I stripped three of them of their bark and smoothed off the knots with a hand plane. I need to get some rope and figure out how I want to attach it to the rungs.

I could either bore holes in each rung and pass the rope through them, knotting them in place, or I could gouge out some grooves to lay the rope in and tie it that way. Haven’t decided!

Last night Va called from upstairs wanting me to dispatch a bug. Instead of the more usual bug-dispatching apparatus, I brought my camera. The bug was perched on the bathroom mirror. From this we can assume two things: it is somewhat vain, and it is probably a female 😉

Actually, it is a female. I consulted my field guides and guessed that it might be an Ophion, a type of Ichneumon Wasp. I was close. I posted it on Bugguide, and had an id in half an hour from a retired entymologist who did his post doctoral work studying Ichneumonidae. He identified it as a female Netelia spp. It’s in the same family as the Ophion, so I’m not too embarrassed about my id attempt. Especially since Netelia are absent from all my field guides. Gotta love Bugguide!

After I captured the Netelia in a ziplock bag, I popped it in the fridge to let it chill out overnight. I wanted to try a more careful photograph today. I got it out after supper, put it on a white sheet of paper in the downstairs bathroom with the vanity lights on. They are super bright. Then I set up the tripod and took a couple of shots. This one turned out the best:

I don’t think this one came out as well as the hurried shot last night. The bug quickly revived and flew up to the mirror again (more vanity!). I captured her and released her in the backyard, where she will probably become a parasite to some poor caterpillar. Hopefully… to a tent caterpillar.

Today after lunch I launched a huge compile job which generally takes 15 or 20 minutes to finish. I figured that was as good a time as any to try to walk off my lunch, so I grabbed my hat and camera and took a lap around the block. I came across some St. John’s Wort:

The “perforatum” part of its name comes from the fact that its leaves are perforated. The perforations are actually tiny oil-filled glands. When a leaf is held up to the light these glands are translucent. That’s usually how I confirm my id, even when I’m already 100% positive. I just think it’s neat to look at the perforations.

Another new bloom was this one:

These flowers are still pretty new. They look better as they “ripen” a bit more, having a creamy outer corolla, and an orange inner portion. They do look a bit like an egg in a skillet. I don’t know where the butter part of the name comes from, but to me, the egg part is pretty obvious. I’ll take more shots of these as they mature. They really do look more impressive when they get a bit further along.

Yesterday I went to Freeport, ME to attend another Disaster Response seminar. This one was held during Camp Meeting, which is an annual gathering of Adventists from all over the conference, and usually lasts about a week. Our conference (Northern New England) covers Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Peter Robinson is our conference ACS-DR (Adventist Community Services – Disaster Relief) coordinator, and he asked me if I would be willing to serve as the conference’s NH state coordinator. We talked about it yesterday, and I agreed to take it on.

This means I will be attending some “VOAD” meetings. VOAD is for Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster… response. It consists of several organizations including the Red Cross and Salvation Army, as well as several other churches. Our church is not currently represented.

I will also be responsible to recruit more NH volunteers for disaster response, and I will need to finish my certification, which means taking the seminar I had to miss on Friday on account of Jonathan’s graduation.

Today at work, one of the guys had brought in a bunch of tomato plants that he doesn’t have room for. I took most of them – 16 in all – so I could plant them in my pathetic garden.

David had an orthodontist appointment late in the afternoon, so Va proposed that we all meet and have dinner somewhere to mark Father’s Day. OK! I choose a Mexican place within easy walking distance of my office. After David’s appointment, Va parked at my office and we walked over from there. It was pretty OK! Then I took the kids and Va ran some errands.

When I got home I dug up my garden and planted the 16 tomatoes in a 4×4 grid. Then I got my pruning shears and bow saw and started clearing some trees so my garden could get a little western sunshine. We’ll see if that improves things or not.

I usually only plant stuff I really like, and it never does well. I have failed at squash, corn, and beans (the Three Sisters), as well as several types of greens. I really like all those veggies. I like tomatoes, but I don’t love tomatoes. This is a sure indicator that I will have more tomatoes than I can shake a stick at. It happened in Virginia when we lived there. I tried planting all kinds of stuff I really love, and it never amounted to more than half a serving. And then I planted tomatoes and had more of them than I could eat. We’ll see if I have a repeat.