Inside Baines

I have shown this building a few times in passing although it has often been from farther away. At other times only parts of it may have appeared in photos.

I cannot find confirmation again now, but I am fairly certain that it was once Baines Machine Shop or machine something. It has sat pretty idle in our 20+ years here. Most first-floor windows are boarded up, and many of those on the second floor are broken. We have seen birds and squirrels going in and out.

Having concluded that the building was being left unused to continue dilapidating, we were quite surprised to see a truck at the door. Four men were loading tables and chairs from the building into the truck. In conversation, we learned, surprisingly, that the items were going to a restaurant in Ottawa.

The very nice men granted us permission to go inside, and this is what we saw: just random items of no historical value except for the structure itself. 

I like the distortion in the phone pano.

We were advised that it would be best not to go upstairs which was said to be very grungy and dirty. It would have been nice to have a look, but it was great to see to see what we did see.

I don't think too many townies have seen inside in the last few decades, so we'll take this as a win.

Addendum: Sus has since put together a composite which reveals the whole story, including the truck.

So That was Easter

Easter, to me, is the whole weekend. If I need to be specific, I will call the actual day, Easter Sunday. It's just how I have always thought of it. So it was that our family Easter occurred on Saturday.

As you know, Saturday began with the pie pickup and included the discovery of the nascent tulipa in our garden. But I have already posted of that, so let us move on.

During the day it became confirmed that our little clan would be able to convene here in late afternoon. When it came to pass, dinner for our huge, extended family of five was chicken cooked in a hoisin-hickory sauce and served with rice. Of course, there was pie with ice cream, or as the cultured might say, pie à la mode.

Accomplishing the gathering was touch and go for awhile, and so it was a somewhat unexpected treat to get together. But can you believe that neither Sue nor I thought to take even one picture? That is just crazy.

Sunday's weather was a miserable as sin, which doesn't seem appropriate for Easter. We went for a walk regardless and were not unhappy when it was over. We did treat ourselves to a drive-through Timmies coffee, which we have been doing a lot of recently, as we have perhaps been a tad overindulgent at Easter. I've had a bit of chocolate too, but I have been relatively restrained.

We did receive a surprise Easter gift, aside from the chocolate bunnies that Sha and the kids had brought over the day before. When we got to the window at Tims yesterday, we were told that the car in front had paid for our coffees. How nice! They were already on the road, and though I waved in gratitude, my thanks went unnoticed.

I contemplated returning the favour to the car behind, but I thought that if I did that, we wouldn't really have received a gift, so I decided to not make that gesture. Perhaps, I will pay it forward someday: forward to the person in back.

On our walk, which we took before the Timmies stop, the poor crocuses were still tightly furled, so neither of us attempted another photo. Surely, we will be able to get in one or two more photo ops before their fleetingly short lives expire until next year, but darn it if it didn’t snow overnight — just a dusting though 

I did take some pics of the raging water that flows under Gillies bridge with the idea of taking a still but then merging it with the soundtrack of a video clip for your listening pleasure. It was an amateurish and inelegant work-around and probably a dumb idea, but I managed to do what I aspired to: 7 seconds of a still photo accompanied by the sound the rushing water  

And that, dear folk, was Easter.

A note in passing: some of you have requested more information about the tower greenhouse that I recently mentioned in passing, and I shall comply in the fullness of time. Unfortunately, I have yet to uncover a photo other than the corner of the greenhouse that you previously saw.

Easter Synchronicity and Serendipity

On Easter weekend, I picked up our pies from Ashton United Church. While I have posted photos of this church in the past, they were all made with a real camera :) but this was an iPhone shot because that is what I do now. It was a pano sweep, and with a little adjusting, it turned out quite well.  It's a unique building with the pews arranged in an arc around the podium in the corner. (There are objects (speakers etc) that I could remove, but we'll let them be for now.)

Now for the Synchronicity and Serendipity of the title, and I do think that both apply.

It's Easter Weekend, and with the front yard glacier* in recession, I noticed tulip shoots appearing where there had been snow just hours earlier. That was on Good Friday, but I took these on Saturday after returning from the pie run. I wanted to capture the shoots with the glacier :) still looming in the background. In point of fact, if you look carefully in the background of the first two photos, you should spot tulip shoots poking out of the snow glacier*.

I think both words — synchronicity and serendipity — apply. The tulips were synchronous with Easter, but they were also serendipitous because I wasn't expecting to see them and just happened to check out the garden. Do you not agree?

*Speaking of the glacier, it is greatly diminished and very grubby with accumulated dirt, so I am not overly eager to post a photo. Snow-cover is generally all but gone in our area, remaining only where it was piled deeply by the snowblowers and/or where it lies in very shady spots. I will be happy to report again when the darn glacier has been consigned to history.. 

Caturday 90: Sandy

I have posted at least once of my adopting or being adopted by a cat when we lived on a nursery where my dad worked. Said cat left me one day, presumably perished, but her sister. Mixie, remained, and you shall see her later in this post.

Mixie had a litter under the back stoop which you shall also see soon enough. She had many litters, and more than one in the same location. The first kitten of hers that I saw was Sandy, and I wanted him. All of the other kittens were given away, or I guess sold off, but Sandy remained with us for at least a decade.

He grew to be a very big cat. Most people remarked that he was the biggest cat they had ever seen. I suppose the Maine Coon breed that is now popular is even larger, but this is now and that was then, and Sandy was impressively large. (Note: Maine Coons didn't become a recognized breed for about 30 years afterward.)

My Dad holding Sandy

probably circa 1965-66

That is the edge of a unique tower greenhouse that my dad oversaw
along with 4 other normal greenhouses.

When Mixie had that initial litter, the first kitten that I saw was Sandy. At only a day or two old, if memory serves, he clung to Mixie's fur as she egressed from her cave. She quickly restored him to his proper place, but he became mine. Actually, as the picture indicates, he became more Dad's than mine, for dad was always close-by on the property.

The next and final photo shows me sitting on the stoop under which Mixie had several litters. I am pretty sure that it was Sandy that I was holding with Mixie sitting beside me. That would have been 15-year-old me in 1963 before Sandy grew up to be a very big boy.

When I was still youngish and living at home for about the next 5 years, I would often become aware of big Sandy occupying space at the foot of my bed. I would push him off and attempt to go back to sleep.

One more thing. The owners of the nursery would bring people by to see and purchase the kittens. At least once, I refused an offer for a buyer to purchase Sandy from me in addition to whatever price they would be paying to the owners, which was probably a dollar or two.

I was not about to let Sandy go for a mere buck or two. 

Tightly Furled

While the weather permits, we will continue to check in on the crocuses. I know it is repetitive, but the season is so very brief and so very desired.

Yesterday was not acceptable to the poor things, so the little clump that I showed recently was tightly furled.

However, I did discover one yellow crocus, and it was open.

On that outing we took our little phone stands to try to stabilize our attempts, but it was still difficult to get old bodies down there, and I couldn't get a clear view of the screen. I pointed, hoped for the best, and relied on cropping in post to get a somewhat decent composition.

Shopping Lists

This is the list that I took to the grocery store yesterday. There is nothing to see here: the point is that it was a list.

I expect that we of this somewhat senior blog circle take paper lists to the grocery store because we are of an age when this was the only way to do it, for we had no handy dandy portable electronic devices. Apparently, we are thus doing a good thing for our brains, or at least this VegOut article so says. I post a little of the article below, but you now have the link to the whole post, which isn't terribly long, should you wish to click and read a bit more.

When writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns were far more elaborate than when typing. The researchers found widespread theta and alpha connectivity coherence between network hubs and nodes in parietal and central brain regions. These are the same frequency bands and brain areas that existing literature identifies as crucial for memory formation and encoding new information.

When participants typed, those connectivity patterns largely disappeared. As lead researcher Audrey van der Meer explained, the simple movement of hitting a key with the same finger repeatedly is less stimulating for the brain than the intricate, precisely controlled hand movements involved in forming letters.

This is not just an academic distinction. It means that when you write "eggs, bread, olive oil" on a piece of paper, your brain is doing fundamentally different work than when you tap those same words into a phone app. The handwritten version engages visual processing, motor planning, proprioceptive feedback, and spatial awareness simultaneously. The typed version engages mostly repetitive motor sequences and visual confirmation.

We have three Alexas in the house (don't ask), so when we realize that we need to add an item to our shopping list, we simply hail Alexa. "Alexa put X on the shopping list." When I am ready to shop, I grab the back of an envelope and write out the list more or less in the order that I will find the items in the store. I guess I make the best of both worlds: the convenience of compiling a list from wherever I might be in the house but then doing my brain a favour by writing it out.

How Sweet It Is

May we talk about peppers today?.

For years, we've often had one in the house, usually red. I often consume a few strips during lunch.

I have noticed that we could purchase small bags of peppers, perhaps with 1 red, 1 yellow, and 1 orange.

But at the rate that I consume them, what would I possibly want with three peppers?

One day, Sue noticed that she could purchase one of these bags quite cheaply and get 3 for 1 as it were.

So, she did just that.

The sweetness was remarkable: so much better than the single peppers from the bin.

I wasn't mistaken, for the next single pepper that I purchased tasted less sweet once again. Following that, we purchased another bag of three, and it was also much sweeter, just like the first.

Photo by Alamy

What is up with that? Has anyone else noticed this? Whatever the case, I shall forevermore purchase peppers in the bag if I am given the option.