Street Art

Right on the corner of my block, someone's been naughty.

Most of the street art I see around here is about the mayor.

From there I went up to Fleet Street west of Bathurst and looked around at the other "street art" that's been installed around the new condos and townhouses.  I did, though, first get closer to the Queens Wharf Lighthouse.

I peeked in the window.  Empty.

It seems like every corner in the Fleet-Lakeshore-Bathurst area has something on it.

The crane is not part o the art (to my knowledge).

They nestle them right into the corners of the buildings sometimes; it must be odd to look out your window and see sculpture like that.

Catch a wave?

This one has been at the corner of Bathurst and Fleet for quite a while, but it's still entertaining.

Note: not actually made of plastic.

Flowers, grasses, and the island

Pretty chilly out today, though there are still some beautiful flowers in bloom.

Along the Spadina Quay Wetlands, the construction fence has been hiding this pretty flower:

Black-eyed Susan?

And further west, this has come into bloom, clinging to the rocks on the south side of the gazebo:

I ... have no idea what this is.

Up along the Music Garden's maypole area, these were still in bloom too:

I'm going to need a flower identification book.

The grasses all around the maypole are all dry and full of seeds.  Usually, red-winged blackbirds are in the garden in-force all Summer making it hard to walk without getting smacked in the head.  But I have only seen a few this year.

Ornamental grass ... of some sort.

The island is turning all shades of red, yellow, and orange.  I hope to make it out there soon for some photos.

Toronto Island's north side.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign!

Well the city elections are over — the signs are still up of course.  We will probably now get to see their slow, sad decline into Winter.  None of these candidates won.

Ward 20 candidate signs

Nearby is the (I think) neighborhood-placed "Slow!  Kids at play!" sign which beats that weird old fashioned one with the little boy wearing knickerbockers..

Alternately, maybe Mitch McConnell is campaigning up here, too.

We ended up roaming around Coronation Park a bit today.  I noticed this sign that I hadn't noticed before (in my defense, the park has signs and plaques all over it; you get a bit of plaque fatigue if you continually notice them).  I had actually never heard of the Fenian Raids (attacks on forts, customs posts, and other targets in Canada carried out by U.S.-based Irish Republicans) or the Northwest Rebellion (an uprising in Saskatchewan by the Métis).

The trees make the park quite lovely, actually.

I turned around and there was another plaque right by me.

All about the Second Invasion of York, 1813.

But, today, there were squirrels at least as numerous as the signs and plaques.

This is about as close as I can get before the dog totally spooks them.

Just everywhere you looked.

You looking at me?

Out on the south side, the anchorage is now completely empty.

NYC's anchorage, ready for Winter

What a change a few days makes!

Half mast

It was super windy today — 49 km/h winds — so I tried the "sport" setting on my phone which is supposedly for anything with movement.  The first one turned out well, despite the subject:

The flag on the playground at the
community center is flying at half mast.

Futher along, at Éireann Quay, another sign the weather isn't great: most all the rent-a-bikes are in their stables.

Need a bike?

At the end of Queens Quay, along Stadium Road, the Alexandra and National are doing some serious haul out.  They had three of these massive cranes set up, and all were constantly busy.

Anchor's ... er ... boat's aweigh!

Down along the Western Gap the water was rough (for the Gap); the photo doesn't do it justice.

End of the Western Gap, airport side.

And over at the airport, the windsock was streaming away:

Digital zoom sucks.  That's the windsock right in the middle.

The current must have been going strong, too — the leaves in the gap were all bunched together in a long, thin stream through it:

It looked really cool in motion.

Birdhouse

Today was another walk through the Music Garden, though we took a tiny detour through what is known as the the Spadina Quay Wetlands.

Formerly a parking lot, about 15 years ago it was (according to Lonely Planet) "transformed into the 2800-sq-meter Spadina Quay Wetlands, a thriving, sustainable ecosystem full of frogs, birds, fish and butterflies."

It is a pretty spot if somewhat small.  It's been very difficult to enjoy recently due to the construction happening along Queens Quay on its northern side.(but this will hopefully soon be over).  The main highlight is the birdhouse, aka Bird House Sculpture by Anne Roberts.

Anne Roberts's Bird House Sculpture, Spadina Quay Wetlands

It's meant to represent a block of Toronto waterfront at the turn of the century.

A lighthouse, geese, and more Autumn leaves

The dog and I went west today, along Lakeshore to the far end of Coronation Park.  There, along Lakeshore Boulevard, is the Queen's Wharf Lighthouse.

It was originally part of a pair that marked the entrance to Toronto Harbour.  They were deactivated in 1912, and while its mate was demolished, this one was moved to its current location in 1929 due to the efforts of a preservation group.

Queen's Wharf Lighthouse, built in 1861

From the lighthouse, looking south, is a wide field, then Coronation Park, then Lake Ontario (you can barely make it out between the trees here).

Field between the lighthouse and Coronation Park

There's a plaque for this field:

Reads: Canadian Cancer Society / Fields of Gold / Daffodil Gardens
2010 / 2010 Supporters / Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd /
Toronto Community News / and / Local Businesses and Families

Further west is Exhibition Place's Princes' Gates, opened in 1927 by Prince Edward (later Edward VIII) and Prince George.  I've always like the statue of Nike/Victory at the top.

The Princes' Gates at Exhibition Place Grounds

We went further west, along the southern side of the Lakeshore next to Exhibition place.  As we approached Ontario Place, we game across some geese hanging out.

Geese  Canadian geese.

There we turned south to the lake itself.  It's amazing how low the the sun is in the sky, even though it's only October.  You can't really see the sun in the photo below, but you can see its glow right at the top.   It was taken around 11:15.

Lake Ontario from the east end of Ontario Place

Turning left from there (so facing eastward), there's a great view of the National YC's anchorage, which is nearly empty now that the cooler weather has set in.  It's not really easy to see, but that boat in the center there is a schooner!  (Technical crap: A schooner is a boat with two or more masts, in which the aft-most (back-most) mast, the mainmast, is as tall as or taller than the foremast.)  I'd love to see her under sail.

National YC's anchorage, with Coronation Park
on the left and CN Tower in the centre-left.

The wind was so calm today, the sun so bright, and the water so still you could see to the bottom in the anchorage.  I wonder what these are?

Mystery crates?  Boxes?  Cages?  Something?

And, finally, turning to walk through Coronation Park, we could see these two beautiful trees.

Maples at Coronation Park

I really like the brilliant orange of the right-side tree there.  Very pretty.

Duck, duck, police boat.

Finally, a sunny day.  Well, partly sunny.  Well, the part where I went to walk the dog was mostly sunny.  This duck was taking advantage by have a nice, sound nap.

napping ducky

It's still breezy though and the leaves are not really managing to cling to the trees.  They're all over the place.

Oh Canada!

Those bricks up there are part of the new sidewalks Toronto is putting down all along the waterfront.  They haven't gotten to where I live yet (though the survey markings have all been spray painted on), but this is the new walkway along Éireann Quay:

The new sidewalks for the harbourfront restoration.

The back side of the malting silo has a hole in it.  How did I never notice that before?

That's a pretty sizable hole.  I can only imagine
how many bats and birds live inside the silo.

And the Toronto Police were out making a patrol in the harbour today.

TPD

It was a really lovely day for a cruise, actually.

Public works … not so much.

It's another cold, rainy day. The photos are going to be dim because I'm still relying on the camera phone and it's actually dim as hell outside. Around 1, the street lights were on so, forgive the night-time non-flash photography, eh?

The colours actually look better in this to the naked eye but a bit grey in the photo.  It's across the Alexandra YC's marina, along the southern edge of Coronation Park toward Ontario Place.

Marina along the southern end of Coronation Park.

The planters down that way have their cabbages in place now too.

More Autumn brassica.

The refinery was going strong today and it was really striking to the eye, but the camera completely lost the details (it's in the center of the horizon though).  The camera seemed more interested in the couple at the end of the walkway who also appeared to be enjoying the view.

View west, along Lake Ontario's northern shore.

That particualrly walkway was, until last Summer a crumbling mess, but someone restored it (though only along the National YC's area, so perhaps the National did it?).   This plaque was set into it when they were done:

So the quay is a public works project right?

The plaque is a nice contrast with these signs, which are also up all along the walkway's edge:

If you die here, it's not the city's fault.

There were a lot of gulls and little brown and white ducks in the Western Gap today, though  I could not get a photo close up enough that we can identify them.  If they are the ones I think they are, they stay through Winter, so I will hopefully have more chances to get good pictures of them.

Ducks (of some sort) and seagulls in the Western Gap

The fence in that area has all these dried milkweed pods along it.

Milkweed at the fence by the National

And then I hurried home before me or the dog froze.

Lazy Sunday

There was not much going on today, but I thought this was a nice photo to leave here on a lazy Sunday afternoon: it's a view of the Toronto Music Garden from its southwestern corner, a few storeys up.

Toronto Music Garden and Harbour

You can see the nice Fall colours we're starting to see there, in addition to a good section of the harbour itself, and Toronto Island across the way.  (The part jutting out from the right side into the harbour is one of Billy Bishop's runways.)  On the left-hand side, you can see the Empire Sandy's three masts poking up above the treetops.

Bark, snowberries, and a squirrel

It was brisk and pretty cold out today -- all of 7℃ with 39 km winds.  Brrrrrr.  The fall foliage is quickly disappearing off the trees that get the wind off the lake.

But, up at the north end of Little Norway Park I saw that the birch trees have turned golden rather than silver.  I've never looked that closely at these trees before, but it's a particular row along one walkway.

Golden birch, I think.

In the sunlight they're pretty captivating -- I thought, at first, someone must have painted them bronze.

Another birch.

At the south end of the park, there are snowberries along the fence for the toddler's play area.

Snowberries

And finally, he's very hard to see in this photo, but this little squirrel managed to find a whole piece of garlic bread to snack on.  It looked very happy.

Right in the middle there.