Mary Soderstrom's Blog, page 107

And the Winners Are...

Congrats to Scotty in East Providence RI and Jeffrey in Las Vegas who won the Goodreads Giveaway for my book, Making Waves: The Continuing Portuguese Adventure.   Your copies will be in the mail by Wednesday.

And for those of you who'd like to read it even if you didn't win, the book is available from the various Amazons and directly from the publisher Véhicule Press 

Saturday Photo: Fabulous, Dangerous Weather

The termperature is just about perfect today--24 C. or mid-70s F--with no humidity to factor in.  What is more, on this last weekend of the official summer, the neighborhood seems moreor less deserted as people try to stuff in one more good time before things begin in earnest.

Ths was taken at high noon in the backyard.  The grass practically glows in the sun and the shadows are deep.

What the photo doesn't show is how dry things are.  We had a little bit of rain Friday, but not much.  The forecast is for rain on Wednseday (perhaps Isaac-relatled?) and it won't be a moment too soon.

One Election Winds Down, Another Heats up

We're going to the polls on Tuesday in Quebec.  Here's a nice little video made by cinema wunderkind Xavier Dolan, urging people to vote.


VOTE QC 2012 1/2 from SonsofManual on Vimeo.

And here's something about Mitt Romney that is hilarious (aren't most things? )

Want to Make Waves....

Don't forget: today's the last day to enter the Goodreads Giveaway of two copies of my book Making Waves: The Continuing Portuguese Adventure

Putting Out Fires Because Music Can Be Too Hot: A Tale of Free Pianos and Carelessness with Fire

Much to-do this morning about two decorated pianos installed on Montreal corners for the month of September to provide a place for impromptu music.  Great idea, even if not totally original: Toronto had 41 during July, and apparently artist Luke Jerram has inspired a couple of dozen other cities to try the idea: Play Me, I'm Yours.

Mike Kowalsky who posted the photo on the left to Facebook notes that the piano at the corner of St. Viateur and Casgrain is painted with flora and fauna found in the nearby Champ des possibles, a former industrial space/parking lot owned by the city of Montreal and now gone to glorious abandon.  Another great idea.

But just a few hours before that piano was inaugarated I had an experience in the Champ which is troubling.  While out walking I came upon a big tree trunk burning in the Champ, apparently the remnants of a campfire of the night previous.  With the aid of a young man cutting across the field on his way to work in one of the lofts in the nearby transformed light industrial buildings, I was able to turn it over so that the burning surface faced the ground.  Then I was able to cover it with dirt and gravel.  Stopped by the firehouse on the way back, just to let them know so they could check to see if the first was indeed extinguished.

Okay, camp fires are nice, and wild places in the center of the city are even nicer, but to keep them EVERYONE has to be careful of them.  This summer has been hot and dry, and even if it rained a bit the night before, it's quite possible that left undisturbed, the fire inthe trunk could have smoldered for hours or even days before bursting into flame.

Hey guys, be careful when you play with matches--and with the commons that we would all like to protect!

BTW. the second photo is of the piano on St. Denis and Marie-Anne, a much more urban setting.

And We Think We Have Animals in Our Backyards..

The racoons ranging in our backyards seem to have disappeared--or maybe they just figured out how to get out of trash cans and so don't make so much noise.  Whatever, we haven't been bothered by their shrill cries for the last few weeks.

But I just checked back to see the variety of pictures that readers of T he New York Times have posted about the wildlife that comes to visit.   Cynthia Williams reports: "Thiss little red fox lives in the wooded area by our home near Minneapolis. He seems to be very comfortable sitting on our back step while we run for our camera."

The Case of the Missing Ducklings

For the last several summers we've watched with pleasure as ducks raise ducklings in at least one of our neighborhood parks.  This photo was taken two years ago when it appeared that two couples had a total of 16 offspring between them.

But this year we spied one couple early in the summer in the park, but they seemed either not to next, or not to hatch babies. 

That's why we were very pleased when Lee spied two families last week gliding around the ponds, looking very happy.

This morning they weren't there, or in any other nearby park.  Perhaps they had been just passing through on their way somewhere else.  I'd like to think that their stop meant that the parents were showing the young ones possible places to nest next year.

But who knows?  And who knows why no ducks were successful in nesting there this year?  We have had an explosion of the racoon population, and I wonder if the greedy beasts might have feasted on the eggs before they hatched. 

Tha balance of nature is a tricky thing, as we are learning as the climate changes.

Saturday Photo: Urban Agriculture

There's been a lot about urban agriculture in the press around here lately.  Hard to tell just how much impact the movement to grow your own food in the city is having, but it's clear that many people have long cultivated their own little gardens in the center of Montreal.

This summer has been excellent for growing things, provided you have access to wter.  This garden in the back of a triplex was doing well when I took the picture a couple of weeks ago, and now has many goodies ready to harvest.

We had a few pears that I saved from the squirrels, but since I don't have hoses installed under the two trees at the back of our 25 by 100 foot lot and they suffered before I realized that they needed some extra help.  Last night I cut a few up for a fruit salad, and while they were a welcome addition, they didn't match the marvelous taste of this year's Ontario peaches.

Celebrating Birthdays Today!!!

Lukas's birthday was Wednesday, Jeanne's will be Sunday, so we're having the gang (11 of them, counting Jeanne)  over for barbecued leg of lamb and other good things this evening.

It'll be Lukas who'll be doing the barbecue honours: his idea, I assured the butcher who butterflied the gigot for me.  But there's a lot of other things to do, so I'll not be posting anything more profound than this.  Carpe diem!

Let's Hear It for Montreal: Two Articles Laud My Favourite City

Montrealers have been beating up the city for the last little while: crumbling infrastructure, too much road repairs/reconstruction, doubtful influences in contract awards etc.  So it is refeshing to come across two stories on successive days which laud the city.

The first is from a well-read blog on urbanism, Placeshakers and Newsmakers.  In it Hazel Borys calls Montreal a place where lessons in urbanism are delightfully on display. She winds up: "..our 7-year-old enjoyed the shows (about Star Wars and the Biodome,) however at the end of the day, preferred riding the Metro and bus system and walking the streets, along with the visit to Saint-Joseph du Mount Royal. Just as with the urbanism, the bells and whistles are rarely as valued as much as the permanence. Even if you’re seven."

The second is rather old news: a story in The New York Times from last November about "Hip Cities That think about How They Work."  The selection was eclectic to say the least: Aukland, Berlin, Barcelona, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Curitiba, Santiago, Shanghai, and Vilnius, Latvia, besides Montreal. 

So there you go: it's a city that we didn't set out to move to really. We came because Lee got  a three year contract Lee, because, well, why not?   But that was in 1968 and we've never seriously considered living any place else.

Photo: Mount Royal in June.