Let’s Go to The Ex!

Pictured above are the Princes’ Gates, entrance to the Canadian National Exhibition, better known as the CNE or, more fondly, The Ex, Canada’s largest fair. It began in 1878 as an agricultural fair, with 100,000 people attending for the admission price of 25 cents.

Today an estimated 1.3 million people visit the CNE, generating more than $50 million in revenue for Toronto, and over $70 million for the Province of Ontario.

It's held for 18 days at the end of August. It covers 192 acres along Toronto’s waterfront and features shopping areas, exhibits, live entertainment, a casino, and of course the midway with a plethora of games, rides and food. There’s also the Kid Zone, which features entertainment for children as well as scaled down rides and games.

I’m not sure how old the daughter was when we first started going to The Ex, but it became an annual ritual for the two of us. It always seemed like the perfect way to end the summer. Then the daughter started on her road to higher education and string of trips to The Ex was broken.

This year seemed like a good idea at the time for the whole family to celebrate the end of summer with a trip to The Ex. So on the weekend we drove to Oshawa, then boarded the GO train to Exhibition Place.

The crowds were absolutely insane.

The above picture as taken before the crowds got bad. None of us were comfortable with the crowds, especially on the midway. And the lines for anything were also insane.

However, we’re nothing if not a family of troopers. We started in the Enercare building, which featured a display of garden gnomes:

A seaworld exhibit created with roses:

And a video gaming area:

We rested our tired feet by sitting on the bleachers provided for viewing some robot wars:

And later stood in the most incredibly long line I’ve ever seen to see the Super Dogs. In fact, we were more than twice as long in the line as we were watching the show.

While the hubby and I checked out the Craft and Hobby building, the daughter and son-in-law took the granddaughter to the kid zone. Overhead the U.S. Blue Angels and the Canadian Snow Birds made sure there was no napping on the job. Those jets passing overhead were LOUD!

While it was wonderful to spend the day together as a family, I have to be honest and say that none of us were sorry to board the train back to Oshawa. I would love to go on another family adventure, but maybe something a little less people-y. And maybe indoors. With air conditioning.

The Ex has certainly changed a lot since the daughter and I used to go. That it’s more expensive is a given – everything’s more expensive since the pandemic. And there doesn’t seem to be as much to see.

Would I go again? I’d probably give it another try. But I think I’d suck it up and drive all the way there – our travel time was way too long. And never again on a weekend.

Return to Lang Pioneer Village

Villages have an unmistakable charm. There is a subtle magic found in villages. The earthiness, greenery, and fragrance of flowers, plants, fruits, and vegetables growing in the field is breathtakingly inimitable. Sitting in the lush green fields, while gazing at the wide blue sky, amidst the farm animals and the simple houses in the background, is a joie de vivre.
― Avijeet Das

Accounts of eating Christmas sweet potatoes baked in ashes and jackrabbit stewed with white flour dumplings are testaments to pioneer resilience and pleasure - and they help inspire my own best scratch cooking.
— Isabel Gillies

It is not easy to be a pioneer - but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world.
— Elizabeth Blackwell

My return to Lang Pioneer Village did not get off to a good start. I got my costume in plenty of time, and it fit perfectly. I had my apron, shoes, and stockings. I put my hair in a braid because I couldn’t find any bobby pins to put it in a bun – there were no plastic claw clips in pioneer days.

However, I forgot the address of the lady I was picking up, so I had to look it up online. This meant going through my emails to find the one from a year ago with everyone’s contact information in it.

Lang Pioneer Village is on the north side of Rice Lake. There is no easy way to get to it, you have to go out of your way to either the east or the west. I prefer taking the western route because it’s more familiar and I don’t have to pass through the cannabis corridor (a long section of highway that passes through the Alderville reservation and is littered with stores selling cannabis).

I turned left, thought I was going in the wrong direction, turned around. Then I realized I was supposed to go left, so I turned around again and we were off. Then I realized I’d forgotten the map I’d printed out. D’oh!

Somehow, I remembered just enough from last year to get us there. Whew! Then I realized I’d also forgotten the spiffy site map I’d printed out. And my big water bottle. And the glasses I need to wear when I’m doing stitchery. *sigh*

Once we were there we discovered something shocking. THERE WAS NO COFFEE! Not a drop – not for staff, not for volunteers, not for visitors. I guess they figured because it was summer people wouldn’t want anything hot to drink. They were wrong.

They were a little more concerned with authenticity this year, so I didn’t get a lot of pictures because the pockets of my apron weren’t big enough to hold my phone. And before the village opened to visitors, a woman in a ATV raced through the village dispensing mason jars for everyone to drink out of so that water bottles could be hidden away.

There was definitely a lot more going on that last year. There was a cheese shop, the spinning and yarn dyeing, a wagon ride, a display by the Peterborough Agricultural Society, broom making, weaving, a spring pole lathe demonstration, demonstration of using a washing board, and on the village green there was my group of stitchers, a rug hooking group, and a lady who was repairing and filling straw mattresses. There was also an on-going corn roast, games and crafts involving corn for the kids, dyeing demonstrations using corn and corn flowers, and freshly popped kettle corn.

I think my favorite was the corn grinding demonstration. The corn is first dried in a corn crib, then husked. The dried corn cob is put into this grinder and when you turn the crank the kernels are stripped from the cob. The naked cobs are set aside to be used in the fire in the smoke house, and the kernels are put into one of the two grinders (they looked like the meat grinder my mother used to have). One ground them into corn meal, the other had a coarser texture.

Lots to see and do, and save for the lack of coffee and the hardness of the chairs we were sitting on, a good time was had by all. But there are a few things I must remember for next year’s visit:

Bring a basket big enough to hide a thermos (or two!) of coffee and something to drink it out of like a tin cup or porcelain tea cup.
Re-do the pockets on my apron so they’re bigger, and lower down.
Bring a cushion to sit on.

I’m already looking forward to next year!

Fairies and Gardens

Faeries, come, take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame!
~William Butler Yeats

Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.
― J.R.R. Tolkien

We call them faerie.
We don't believe in them.
Our loss.
~Charles de Lint

Friday afternoon I was texting with the daughter, and I happened to mention that we never made it to the massive garden center in Ajax this year. Next thing I know, we’re on a road trip after the granddaughter was let out of school. LOL

Though there may have been a few regrets over the amount of money spent, we didn’t regret it enough to part with any of our plants. The granddaughter helped pick out the plants for the fairy garden, and I think we did a pretty good job. You’ll note the toadstool I made during our craft day a few weeks ago.

We also picked out some flowers for another hanging basket – fuchsias and (my favorite) sweet peas.

The only problem is, the hanging basket I bought for it is too heavy for the shepherd’s crook. *sigh* I’m either going to have to buy a smaller hanging basket, or maybe just a stand to rest this one on.

Meanwhile, I also discovered that I sort of, kind of, overbought on the plants for the fairy garden.

There is another planter on our patio like the one on the fairy garden is in. It used to have a beautiful red rose bush in it, but for some reason it didn’t come back after the winter this year. I’m pretty sure it’s gone for good, so I could commandeer that pot for a second fairy garden. The first one has four gnomes in it – I’m sure a couple of them would be quite happy to relocate to a second pot.

I also got a couple of beefsteak tomato plants for my vegetable garden, which seem really small compared to the plants from my neighbor. My tomatoes, green beans and peppers are all doing well. The spinach is starting to show and I have a hint of the carrots, but the lettuce and beets are taking their sweet time.

My peonies all bloomed this year:

They must finally be happy in their little garden. You can’t really see in the picture, but there’s a single black lily growing in the center of the peonies. I didn’t do it deliberately, but it’s probably going to bloom once the peonies are done. Makes me think of planting more lilies in that garden, in between the peonies.

So far we’ve had a very wet start to our summer, which makes my plants very happy.

That makes one of us! LOL

Something Fishy’s Going On. . .

It was the granddaughter’s 8th birthday on the weekend, and to celebrate we took a trip to Ripley’s Aquarium, in Toronto. Being the smart people we are, we bought our tickets earlier in the week. And even though it tacked extra time onto the trip, we only drove as far as Oshawa and took the GO train into Toronto. It’s only a short walk from Union Station to the Aquarium.

There’s an amazing variety of fish, a lot of them quite ugly:

There were also some delicious looking crabs and lobsters:

One of my favorites was the sea anemones:

The aquarium features a moving walkway in a tunnel that winds its way through the heart of the giant tank where you have fish in front of you:

And stingrays above you:

And sharks all around you:

Unfortunately, I was unable to get a decent picture of my favorite sea creature, the seadragon. The plants in their habitat were too similar to them in appearance. Good for camouflage, I’m sure, but not so good for taking pictures. However, I was able to get some shots of their cousins, the seahorses:

The habitat for the jellyfish was floor to ceiling, and back lit by a colour changing light. It was really hard to get a decent picture of them though, because they tended to congregate at the bottom of their enclosure, and people were standing right up to the glass.

We finished up our tour at the shoreline, where you can belly up to the edge of the water and pat a ray. I’m not sure what the granddaughter’s favorite was, but I’m sure that ranked right up there. :-)

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it was a fun day. The only thing that would have made it better is if we’d been able to go on a weekday, when it would be less crowded.

Adventures in Pioneering

It is not easy to be a pioneer - but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world.
— Elizabeth Blackwell

Woman must be the pioneer in this turning inward for strength. In a sense, she has always been the pioneer.
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh

There is something about reviewing the lessons of the past to prepare us to face the challenges of the future.
— L. Tom Perry

Yesterday I joined a few of the ladies from my stitchery group at Lang Pioneer Village to participate in their “Tie the Knot” event, which was all about wedding practices in the 1800s. As well as setting up a display of some of the things a young bride might have in her trousseau, we worked at various stitchery projects while in costume.

First stop when we got there was the costuming building – this is where the magic happened.

It looks pretty tame in the picture, but there were hundreds of costumes to choose from, and several volunteers whose job it was to help us. The place was really hopping with activity. The styles may not have been the most flattering, but they were authentic.

Our group set up shop on the porch of the weaver’s building. Between the porch roof and the trees, we didn’t get much direct sunlight so it wasn't bad in the morning, but it did start to get rather warm after lunch.

The weaver’s shop was run by a single volunteer, but she did some amazing work

One of the displays I found fascinating was the yarn dying. I talked to the women there and discovered they used all natural dyes. It was interesting, and surprising, to learn what plants produced what colours. It’s a shame the picture doesn’t show the colours properly, but the yarn hanging to dry was actually a lovely shade of green.

Across the road from us was the blacksmith

And beside him was the general store that also served as the post office and apothecary

There was also a tin smith

And a newspaper office

The highlight of the day was a fashion show of bridal wear from the 1800s, and a mock wedding. Only a couple of us attended these events, but we could certainly hear them. The crowds began to disperse afterwards, and by 4 o’clock we were ready to turn in our bonnets and return to the 20th century.

What a fun way to spend a Sunday.

Macerate Monday

macerate ~ to steep or soak; to break up; to emaciate

Timing is everything.

Last week the hubby and I took the grandbaby to Riverview Park and Zoo, which is about a 45 minute drive north. Or at least it is when you don’t run into detours and construction. I don’t know what it is about Peterborough, but the north side of the city seems to have been under construction for the last several years. I don’t mean houses so much, although it does appear to be spreading westward, but the roads.

I get admiration from passengers on how well I know the city, but trust me, it’s not because of any great love for it, it’s because I need to know the different routes for getting from point A to point B (like night school or a writers group meeting) just in case the one I’m most familiar with is blocked.

Anyway, we made it there eventually and that’s where my timing went off. We didn’t have a picnic lunch with us, we figured we’d stop at some point for take-out. It was close enough to lunch that we should have done this before we went to the zoo.

Also, it was a beautiful summer day so the place was packed – it’s a free zoo with a splash park and playground attached, why wouldn’t it be? We had to park several miles away and hike in (okay, I might be exaggerating just a little, but we weren’t exactly close).

We meandered along, making note of the snack shop and seeing very few animals because they were mostly hiding from the heat, and at the farthest end of the park was a small train. Grandbaby and I waited 45 minutes in line for a 10 minute ride. Hubby opted to just sit and wait for us in the shade.

Then we meandered back to the snack shop where they gouged us for a very unhealthy lunch. Fortified, we continued checking out the animals, at which point my camera let me know the battery was just about dead. The irritating part about that was that I have a spare battery, I just didn’t have it with me.

Unfortunately, by the time we got back to the gift shop near the playgrounds, there wasn’t any time to actually play. So I bought the grandbaby a stuffed otter (she really liked the otters) and we headed for home with the promise we’d bring her back some time so she could splash and play.

As I said, it’s a small zoo and there wasn’t a huge variety of animals, but the price was right (if you don’t count the lunch). While it was a little disappointing our timing was off so there was no time for splashing or playing, the grandbaby didn’t seem to mind – she had a great time.

And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Malariology Monday

malariology ~ study of malaria

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, I tell you what! Summer is well under way with the weather alternating sunny and hot with damp and hotter. I think the hubby has only missed one day of swimming in the pool so far. But for me the best part of summer is road trips.

Last week we took the grandbaby to Reptile World, which is about an hour north of us. This zoo is famous not only for the variety of snakes, turtles and lizards (not to mention the crocodiles and alligators) but for the fact they’re all rescues. One enclosure had 10 -15 alligators, all rescued from some guy’s basement. Seriously! Who in their right mind would keep a congregation of alligators (and yes, that’s the name for a group of them – I looked it up) in their basement?

It’s not a large zoo, but there was a lot to see. The reptile house had the snakes, lizards, and turtles, there was a separate building for the crocodiles and alligators, and scattered throughout the property were enclosures for various tortoises.

While Ellie loved all the creatures she saw and was particularly fascinated by the crocodiles and alligators, her favourites were the turtles.

My favourite, however, were the green snakes. I think there were only two of them in the enclosure, but they were super long and were constantly in motion so it was a little hard to tell.

The other big attraction for kids at this zoo are the dinosaurs:

These dinosaurs are all animated, complete with sound. You can’t really tell from the picture, but in this one the grandbaby is roaring back at the dinosaur. LOL

We also went for a hike on a nature trail inside the park and I do mean hike! The path started on a gentle slope into the woods, then got steeper, and steeper, and steeper. Just when we were starting to wonder if it was going to be uphill both ways, it levelled out for a few yards before coming to a very sketchy looking pile of rocks masquerading as a staircase leading downwards.

According to the map, the trail went down, along the edge of a pond, and then looped back up again. We couldn’t really see very far down, and we were in sandals, so discretion being the better part of valour we turned back.

All in all, it was a fun day. It’s no wonder both the hubby and the grandbaby dozed on the drive home. I would have too if I hadn’t been driving. ;-)

Monoptote Monday

monoptote ~ word with one form for all cases; indeclinable noun

Yesterday a friend and I made a pilgrimage to Toronto to the 29th annual Word On the Street. This is a festival that celebrates the written word, from publishers to authors and everything in between.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve been to this event. In fact, the first time I went it was with the same friend. We drove up to Toronto and parked at the Yorkdale Mall and took the subway to Queens Park where the event was held.

It was a good thing my friend knew her way around Toronto because of the two subway stops closest to it, one was just a bit too soon, and one was just a bit too late. A couple of years later I went again with a different friend and forgot which stop was better, so we just ended up following the crowd. LOL

I don’t know when they switched the venue from Queens Park to Queens Quay, but that’s where we had to go this year. I will say one thing about the move, it’s easier to get to. We drove to Oshawa (about halfway between our town and Toronto) and took the GO train to Union Station. From Union it was just a few blocks worth of a walk to the waterfront – actually, very close to where the hotel the hubby and I stayed at when we had our holiday at the beginning of the summer.

Although we agreed that it wasn’t as nicely laid out as when it was in Queen’s Park, we still had a good time. And I managed to come home with a pile of loot:

You can click on the picture to see a bigger version of it, but basically, the stack of books on the left are ones I paid for (at greatly discounted prices), while the rest of the stuff was freebies.

Several things have changed over the years. One was a greater presence of poetry. There were whole booths devoted to poetry, not just the occasional book, and I received several free poems – one was a tiny little scrap of paper in a tiny envelope, it was really cute (the presentation, not the poem).

Another thing that changed was a greater self publishing presence. It was so long ago when we last went that there was still a stigma attached to self-publishing. This time around there were a lot of micro presses and self publishers, as well as booths advocating self-publishing and offering all kinds of information.

One of the things I liked seeing best was the number of writing groups with booths. Some of these offered classes (with draws to win a spot), some of them had information about meetings, and most of them had writing prompts to give away. There really was something for everyone.

We came away footsore but happy, although we didn’t think it was as big as when it was at Queens Park. After I got home and was looking at my map (which was a freebie that I just stuck in my bag) I discovered the reason why. There was a long building that went from the road to the waterfront – we never went past the building but apparently there was a whole other section of booths on the other side of it. And a lot of stuff inside the building as well.

D’oh!

Oh well, guess that just means we’ll be better prepared next year.

Myrmecology Monday

myrmecology ~ study of ants

Shh! Be very quiet. The sun is out and we don’t want to scare it away!

It seems that mother nature has taken pity on us and spring has finally arrived. The temperature has been rising and the sun has been out more often than not over the last few days. The forecast for the week ahead has a little more rain than I’d like to see, but there’s the promise of the odd day or two of sun as well. The temperature is going to start out around 10 C, if not warmer (that’s around 50 F to you Yankees), gradually dipping down to about 6 C (43 F) by the end of the week. But it's better than minus temperatures.

Saturday was a beautiful day, so naturally I spent it inside, in my office, moving furniture around. I don’t really regret missing out on the beautiful weather, I got a lot of work done and much satisfaction was to be found. Much junk too, which went into the donate pile.

Sunday was an even nicer day, and the hubby and I took a road trip to Peterborough. And I’m sorry, hubby, but the story of why we had to take the daughter’s car is just too funny not to share.

As the hubby was driving home from coaching the kids in the Youth Bowling Canada league, as he does every Saturday morning when he doesn’t have a tournament, he got stopped by the police. Yes, he got a ticket. No, it’s not for what you’d think it was. He wasn’t speeding, he had an expired license plate sticker. Seems he forgot to renew it in February when his birthday rolled round.

His excuse to the officer? “I don’t remember getting the form in the mail to take in for renewal.” Yeah, you did. You found it right where I said you usually stick things like that. In the mail holder on the top shelf of the seating unit in the front hall. To be fair, they send out the renewal forms several months before a person's actual birthday, so I'm pretty sure people forget all the time.

But that meant we’d been driving without the sticker since February – all those trips out of town to bowling tournaments, all those shopping trips, all those trips to Peterborough for my night school course….

Because it was Saturday, the officer gave him a ticket and advised him to keep it in the car in case he got stopped again. The license office is closed on the weekend but he can only be ticketed once over the weekend. But it also meant that we were restricted to driving in town, hence the need to borrow the daughter’s car for our road trip.

So Sunday, while everybody else was outside enjoying the vitamin D, we were stuck behind dumbass slow drivers enjoying a leisurely drive to Peterborough. Our primary goal was to look for a chair for my office, but first we stopped off at one of the big thrift stores to drop off a load of “stuff”. This consisted of the donate pile from my office and a couple of big bags of clothes from the hubby’s closet (which is how he spent his Saturday afternoon).

The furniture store we went to had an amazing selection of chairs. I didn’t want a recliner and I didn’t want a chair that rocked, although I was okay with one that swiveled. There were several I really liked….until I saw the price tag. Call me crazy, but $1200.00 for a reading chair for my office is just a little too pricey for my taste.

As we were winding our way towards the exit, there it was – a dining room table with four chairs. It was pub height, which we always wanted, and could be either round or square. Square, it was 42” across and would fit four people comfortably. Round, which was done by putting up the four drop leaves, it was 60” across and would fit eight comfortably. And it had a lazy susan in the center.

We sat there, thinking about it, for so long that one of the sales staff passing by joked that she wasn’t bringing us our lunch. But the chairs were comfortable and we could totally picture sitting at that table to eat or do paperwork or whatever else people do at dining room tables.

It was twice the price of the dining room set we almost bought at Costco, and missed out on because by the time we decided we wanted it, it was gone and they weren’t getting any more in. And the wood was kind of a barn board grey, which really doesn’t go with anything else in our dining room.

It’s being delivered Wednesday. :-D

Megacerine Monday

megacerine ~ extinct giant deer

If I were to describe last week with one word, that word would be eventful.

To begin with, the daughter had her furnace serviced and suddenly it was no longer working. Seems like too much of a coincidence for it to have happened at that precise time of its own volition, but there’s no way of proving it was the service guy’s fault. At any rate, it was a tad chilly over there the rest of the week. They’re getting a new one installed today and in the meantime the grandbaby enjoyed family time in front of the fireplace.

Tuesday night, of course, was Halloween. One of the jobs I usually dread is having to carve the jack o’lantern. Scooping the pumpkin out is messy and my knives are inadequate for any kind of fine work. But this year the daughter bought a pumpkin carving kit and I could not believe the difference it made!

Despite my awesome pumpkin we didn’t have a lot of trick or treaters, but then we never do. Our neighborhood is kind of tucked out of the way and it’s really dark, thanks to the energy saving street lights. Of course my favorite trick or treater was the grandbaby.

Is she not the cutest little bunny ever? And that would be her pirate Grappy she’s hugging. She’s convinced he’s Captain Feathersword from the Wiggles Show, so it was to be expected that she insisted he dress up like a pirate. Actually, she was very firm on what costumes everyone should be wearing: Grappy was a pirate, Grammy was a witch, mommy was a librarian (and yes, she can pronounce the word properly), and daddy was a skeleton.

And of course at the stroke of midnight on Halloween, thousands of writers all over the world began typing madly as National Novel Writing Month began. The idea is to write 50,000 words during the 30 days of November. If you’d like to learn more about it, check it out HERE. So far I’m on track, but you never know what the week ahead will bring.

Friday the daughter took the day off work and we took a road trip with the grandbaby up to Stoney Creek to visit our Aunt Jennie. It’s been too long since we’ve seen her - a good visit but over too soon. Unfortunately even though we left early we still ran into traffic and the two hour drive home turned into more than three hours.

The office still isn’t finished, but it’s getting there, although you wouldn’t know it to look at it, there’s stuff all over the place. But I did manage to empty several boxes and I’m slowly filling the drawers.

This week’s job in the office will be going through the boxes of files and deciding which ones I want to keep in the desk drawers to have them close at hand, which ones will go in the filing cabinet, and which ones will go into storage boxes in the closet. Decisions, decisions.

So... what’s ahead for you this week?