Joker’s Hill is a chunk of land north of the city on the Oak Ridges moraine.  A moraine, of course, is the thing that happens to the land when it’s right at the tail end of a glacier for a few centuries or so.  The ice flowing forward from underneath grinds down all the rocks and shovels stuff forward into a big heap, and the stuff on top pushes forward and recedes each year with the seasons, so basically you end up with great heaps of sandy, rocky soil.  Now this moraine is kind of important, because it does all the water filtration for our lovely city.  This is not my image, but it does a damned fine job of explaining things:

Complete with explanation.  Sweet.

Right, so the moraine is kind of a big deal.  It’s also under a lot of pressure from the suburbanites.  Think of it - a lovely bit of woodland, an hour from the city, and right by some of the best farmland in Canada, so you know the farmer’s markets are fantastic.  Who wouldn’t want to live there?  Thankfully, a sizable plot of land was given to the University of Toronto a number of years ago, so it’s well protected.  They use it for research and education, primarily.

Did I mention I’m taking a forestry class this year?

We had a little day trip out to Joker’s Hill to learn all about estimating basal area, measuring biodiversity, and other really essential life skills.  Okay, it wasn’t exactly survival stuff, but it was interesting.  I brought my camera in the hopes of seeing some interesting critters of the many-legged variety, but the day was chilly and wet, so everything but we stupid humans were tucked away snug in little leafy beds.  Hence I present to you some pretty fungi.

And as an added bonus, some bored students:

I don’t think I’ve mentioned my cousin Nathan here before.

Nathan is a pretty cool guy.  His dad died when Nate was just a wee bugger, but his mother, sister and older brother all made damned sure that Nathan’s life was full of music.  Despite (or perhaps because of) many years of being compared to his father, Nathan has grown up quite nicely into his own skin.  He’s got Stan’s talent, but his very own style and passion.

I went to see Nate play the other day at his CD release party at Hugh’s Room here in Toronto.  I knew he was good (I own his last CD), but he’s even better live.

I’m pretty sure mom would kill me if I didn’t at post a couple of photos, so here he is

Bus stations are impossibly depressing.

I grew up riding the old Voyageur buses between Kingston, where my mom lived, and Toronto , where my dad’s family was, so heading down to the bus depot this morning to catch a bus to my mom’s new (well, new in the sense that they didn’t live here when I was a kid) house in Bracebridge (home of Santa’s Village!) felt like old times.

They cleaned up the bus station in downtown TO, but it’s still pretty dingy.

Beautiful downtown Gravenhurst, as seen from the window of the Ontario Northland bus:

This nice old lady was picking her nose the whole way:

More later; have to go celebrate mom’s 60th!

I spent a day on Toronto Island with my sister and Aunt this week.

Part of what I love about the island is feeling so far from the bustle and concrete  of downtown, without actually having to leave the city limits

There’s the famous CN Tower in the background, looking rather wee.

There were an extraordinary number of spiders in the residential area; I think they must have have a good year.

Do please biggify that one - you really can’t appreciate the sunlight playing on the webs at this resolution.

Couldn’t help taking a few shots of some run-down playground equipment

And I would be remiss if I neglected to post this fantastic custom bike costume that we saw on the ferry.  Apparently the young lady’s boyfriend made it for her.  It was originally a tiger, but then its head fell off

As always, you can find more photos in my gallery.