Ontario is the Best Place to Live in Canada

[Dougie93]

I've actually gotten into gardening.

The folks we bought this property from, the wife went all out to landscape it with meticulous perennial gardens, terraced even, with an underground watering system.

My wife hates gardening.  So it fell to me to keep them up.   But I've gotten into it, it's my gardens now. 

It all comes up in stages. Tulips, lilies, Poppies, Aloe, now it's late summer and the Rose of Sharon's are in bloom, the bees all come now, I watch them do their thing.

Trees in the lower yard,  that's the park, the upper yard is the gardens.   Zen.  I dig it. 

Edited August 27, 2019 by Dougie93

[cougar]

12 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

I've actually gotten into gardening.

I have no real garden - just a front yard, back yard kind of thing.  We have planted a couple of cedar trees and a couple of roses and the roses want to go higher than the cedars!  Just put new metal racks to support them at 10' off the ground.  We get some bees and some hummingbirds in spring.  But I have a huge wasp colony in my backyard which seems to be dependent on one large tree I have there.  Wasps feed in the tree canopy and come back to their nest under my balcony.  I would have destroyed them, but my wife doesn't want to harm them, so despite being stung on my head for nothing, I let them be.

If I had a big yard, then the tasks of grass cutting, snow shoveling, vegetable planting would cut into my fishing and dog walking time.   The trade off is fine.

Edited August 27, 2019 by cougar

[Dougie93]

5 minutes ago, cougar said:

If I had a big yard, then the tasks of grass cutting, snow shoveling, vegetable planting would cut into my fishing and dog walking time.   The trade off is fine.

I do all that stuff, I got some vegetables going on the side patio, I like to mow the lawn, I mow my neighbors lawn too, she doesn't like to do it, I use a snowblower not a shovel,  the bottom of my yard has a gate which opens up into the woods where there is a river, the dogs swim there , and I can fish, although mostly I just swim too, maybe try to grab the fish with my hands.

[Dougie93]

I've got wild rabbits here, there's four of them out on the lawn right now, they eat the clover. 

My dogs used to terrorize them, run them down and kill them, but now my dogs are old, so the rabbits have nothing to fear, it's like Watership Down up in here now.

Lots of birds about, song birds, turkey vultures, herons, osprey, they congregate around the river.

And coyotes.  The song dogs live all around me, the howling at night is lovely actually.

[Dougie93]

It's like I'm still five minutes from Costco here, and yet I can't even hear any traffic, all I can hear is the crickets and cicadas and the wind in the trees.

Best of both worlds.

[cougar]

4 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

It's like I'm still five minutes from Costco here, and yet I can't even hear any traffic, all I can hear is the crickets and cicadas and the wind in the trees.

Best of both worlds.

Sounds really nice.   I hear close to nothing in my backyard. Sometimes there is the odd pigeon, raven, squirrel, the neighbor's dogs.  And the hummingbirds can be heard in the front yard.

No coyotes.  We have wolves, but I do not hear them howling and although I find plenty of their tracks in the winter they have never made an appearance.  I am grateful for that because of my little dog; wouldn't want to lose him to them.     He caught a rabbit once ; a small one.   I saw him in funny situations chasing bigger rabbits that came towards me but he couldn't find them.

My standards are probably low.   I am happy I am away from the place where I first settled back in 2001 - the intersection of Bloor and Dixie in Missisauga, so much traffic, so much noise at night.   

Now I hear nothing at night and I have a sound sleep.

Edited August 28, 2019 by cougar

[Dougie93]

24 minutes ago, cougar said:

I am happy I am away from the place where I first settled back in 2001 - the intersection of Bloor and Dixie in Missisauga, so much traffic, so much noise at night.  

Yeah, that's not my speed neither, I'm not a suburban guy, I went from right downtown, all the way out to the country, Mississauga is a wasteland.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Dougie93

[eyeball]

12 hours ago, Boges said:

And that's where the real money is, and should be, going forward. If a robot can do a man's job, the man should learn how to control the robot (eg. Software)

Yabut how long will it be until these learn to make robots that control robots?  Will robots be programmed to hold the same sort of moral grudge usually reserved for those who can't find meaningful employment?  Maybe that'll be in the will and testament of the last oligarchs who control everything. No doubt we'll all be polarized all to shit over it and slackers of the world will divide!

What, that's too dystopian?

Edited August 28, 2019 by eyeball

[SpankyMcFarland]

On 8/27/2019 at 6:09 PM, Zeitgeist said:

Newfoundland has been the single largest recipient of transfer payments per capita until its small oil boom.  At least the impoverished have had the freedom of migration in Confederation to come to places like Ft. McMurray and Ontario for jobs.  They would have it harder without Confederation.  

We’d be a lot less dependent if we’d been allowed to renegotiate the Churchill Falls deal with Quebec which depends on a power resource in our province. Had Canada negotiated such a lop-sided contract with a developing country, it would have been shamed into tearing it up long ago and Quebec would not have tolerated such injustice either, needless to say - some way out would have been found. I suspect our province will never escape from that ruinous agreement - an extension will be engineered for Quebec’s benefit, perhaps when NL goes bust. Ironically, one cause of our financial destruction may turn out to be the Muskrat Falls project which was made far more expensive because Danny Williams refused to involve Quebec in any way after our last unpleasant experience. 

Edited August 31, 2019 by SpankyMcFarland

[Zeitgeist]

9 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

We’d be a lot less dependent if we’d been allowed to renegotiate the Churchill Falls deal with Quebec which depends on a power resource in our province. Had Canada negotiated such a lop-sided contract with a developing country, it would have been shamed into tearing it up long ago and Quebec would not have tolerated such injustice either, needless to say - some way out would have been found. I suspect our province will never escape from that ruinous agreement - an extension will be engineered for Quebec’s benefit, perhaps when NL goes bust. Ironically, one cause of our financial destruction may turn out to be the Muskrat Falls project which was made far more expensive because Danny Williams refused to involve Quebec in any way after our last unpleasant experience. 

It’s hard for the Atlantic provinces to get an equal footing with Quebec.  

[-TSS-]

Canada is such a vast country that I guess that it is not uncommon for many people in Toronto or Vancouver never even have visited the other city let alone live there. 

I think Toronto and Montreal know each other well and Vancouver and... Seattle on the other side of the national border know each other well. 

 

[Dougie93]

1 hour ago, -TSS- said:

Canada is such a vast country that I guess that it is not uncommon for many people in Toronto or Vancouver never even have visited the other city let alone live there.

I've visited every part of the country and lived for some time at least in every region. 

Vancouver is fine, but it's like living in Vail Colorado, it's la-la-Lotus Land, with an infamous ghetto, end of the road for the hippies and the junkies.

Used to be different, back before 1986 Vancouver was a gritty port town with soul.  

It basically got taken over by the rich, so it's not Vancouver of yore, which was lovely at the time, and my place of birth.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

Montreal is a great place to visit, but it's Venezuela North, so it's not good if you are a landing owning tax payer, I have relatives in Montreal, they like the vibe, hate the government.

My favorite place in all of Canada is Ville de Quebec, Plains of Abraham, birthplace of my nation.  I'd live there if I had to live in Quebec.

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Dougie93

[-TSS-]

In a country like Canada this present-day climate change-hysteria which includes the idea that you shouldn't fly because flying is unecological is simply laughable.

Even here in Finland we have internal flights, which I find rather silly since Finland is a rather small country compared to Canada. If you have no patience to sit on a train for six hours and prefer to fly 45 minutes I think those people in this country should be super-charged for their air-fare.

However, in a countery like Canada you can't expect people to travel from one end to the other by train. Life is too short.   

[Dougie93]

8 minutes ago, -TSS- said:

In a country like Canada this present-day climate change-hysteria which includes the idea that you shouldn't fly because flying is unecological is simply laughable.

Even here in Finland we have internal flights, which I find rather silly since Finland is a rather small country compared to Canada. If you have no patience to sit on a train for six hours and prefer to fly 45 minutes I think those people in this country should be super-charged for their air-fare.

However, in a countery like Canada you can't expect people to travel from one end to the other by train. Life is too short.   

I don't fly unless I'm going to Euoppe, I just drive.  I've driven across the entire continent multiple times, ain't no thang.

I don't want to travel around most of Canada anymore, but I drive to California, Texas, Nevada, Florida, no problemo.

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

What I wish, is that America would drop all this high speed rail bullshit and give the people what they want.

American Autobahn.

Cannonball

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

19 hours ago, -TSS- said:

In a country like Canada this present-day climate change-hysteria which includes the idea that you shouldn't fly because flying is unecological is simply laughable.

Even here in Finland we have internal flights, which I find rather silly since Finland is a rather small country compared to Canada. If you have no patience to sit on a train for six hours and prefer to fly 45 minutes I think those people in this country should be super-charged for their air-fare.

However, in a countery like Canada you can't expect people to travel from one end to the other by train. Life is too short.   

One can’t easily go from one end to the other by train in Canada as the railway was abandoned in Newfoundland many decades ago and trains on the mainland are slow for the most part. Even driving from SJ to Victoria is weird; each province seems to arbitrarily name a road as their bit of the Trans-Canada Highway and we pretend we have a national motorway. It’s not a proper unitary system like the US interstate. The TCH should be entirely under federal control. 

Edited September 2, 2019 by SpankyMcFarland

[Dougie93]

There's only two reasons to go to Europe anymore.   To Grenada in Andalusia, South of Spain.    And to drive on the Autobahn in Deutschland.

[Nefarious Banana]

Don't think a person could 'see' all this country has to offer in that persons lifetime. . . .  

Did live briefly in the then Port Arthur. Dad held me on his shoulders as Princess Elizabeth went by in a white car. She was pretty. Many moons ago . . . 

 

[Dougie93]

Another spectacular sunset in God's Country.

Bright crescent moon in the dusk twilight.

A symphony of crickets and cicadas.

/haiku

[zmednick]

On 8/13/2019 at 8:09 AM, Nefarious Banana said:

Good punch line ! 

Can I use it ?

Royalties ?

excellent punch line indeed!