You never know what might be going on in the park, unless you are there to observe it (or Parks installs surveillance cameras). In early June, my friend Tony Lippa sent me some photos of a happening that he described as a “rave” under the Glen Cedar footbridge. I had forgotten about them until he reminded me. Here they are:
Tony said it was some kind of popular music. Make of them what you will! It certainly illustrates the range of activities that go on in our park.
Bob Kortright and I have continued with our stewarding sessions on Saturday mornings. On 11th July, after about 6 weeks doing mainly garlic mustard, we had a change of pace. First Bob took us on a bit of a tour of MU1 (Management Unit 1), pointing out a wide variety of plants and trees, with their names. One of them rejoices under the name enchanter”s nightshade (circaea lutetiana). It is native:
Here is the group near the Glenayr entrance:
Anne is at left, holding 2 shovels. Rachel and Bob are seated on the bench. I am holding our new (much larger) banner. To the right of me are Dalbert, Isabella and Sebastian. Debbie took the photo.
We needed the shovels, as we were removing Japanese knot-weed on the slope behind Millbank Ave. On the top left below, you can see something like the “before” picture. To the right is the “after” situation.
On the left below is Rachel taking a breather beside our banner. To the right you can see 5 of the stewards hard at it.
These grapes were on a vine that had attached itself to a tree that had then fallen beside the path near the cattail wetland. taking the grapes with it:
At left above is Sofie, our new recruit to the Tuesday litter pickup group, taking a photo of the fallen tree (this was her second outing on 14th July)|. At right is the whole tree.
As you will have gathered, several people now send me photos. My friend Phil Aber sent this one of apples near the Elaine Mitchell memorial bench:
There are several apple trees in the park. All of them are non-native and have probably grown from seeds in cores dropped by passers-by. There is only one native apple species in Ontario. It is the wild crabapple (malus coronaria), known as the American or sweet crabapple and found only in southwestern Ontario. Its fruit is extremely bitter.
It is the title of an Ingmar Bergman film. Since we had some in the park this year, I felt I had to include this photo of them
Wild strawberries (fragaria virginiana) are native. Sadly, these ones appear to have had a brief life. The photo was taken early in the spring. Soon after, the strawberries completely disappeared.
We are coming up on our second event in the Community of Practice series, envisioned, organized and led by Valentina Gastaldo. The first was our Community Walk in the park on 6th June. This one will be at Wychwood Library next Tuesday 21st July from 5.00 to 6.30 pm. It is limited to 30 attendees and has already sold out. If you are one of those 30, I look forward to seeing you there!
PS: If anyone has any photos of the smoke in the park, please send them to me.
John
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