There's Something Green and Living in the Garden. Yeah!!

What are ya'll complaining about?

There I was all worried because of the drought talk, but I see that my weeds are doing just fine thank you!

What're the rest of you doing wrong?

And To Think that I saw it on Delaware Street.

I went for a walk up Delaware Street, a zone that seeks calm, but that's not what I meet....

I looked at each home, and at each little yard and saw more that was wild than was calm to my eyes...
A riot of thistles filled this home's front yard,
and a shadowy arch was enticingly private
I think Seuss himself imagined these balls, so round and so blue, so spiky and tall.
The ginko was fine, all ruffled and green,
the Japanese maple glowed red in the sky,
Then the riot of colour spread to some houses, a cheerful red door for a sweet yellow porch,
And speaking of yellow, well yellow is yellow is yellow is gold. This squash blossom truly was fine to behold.
I continued my walk and saw cone roofs galore, here five in a row like blue and brown hats
Even the Taj Mahal found its place on this street, with its own little riot of blue morning glory, all twisty and tangled, and climbing up skyward.

At each stop on my walk, I was happy to see, that calm was for cars, and the rest was let be.

This turned out to be good, because guarding the house was a ferocious black dog the size of a mouse. He was ever alert, and so kept the place safe. Not too much calm can spoil this place.

Positively Prehistoric Bug!

This fellow was not fazed in the least by the camera clicking right in his face.
He turned this way and that, as if to show off just how very fine he was.
He has such an intelligent expression, he almost looks...um...like... aaahhh bug.

A Little Piece of Heaven.

Sometimes Eden is rocky and wild, with cold water and windswept pines. And it doesn't matter if it is day or night, beauty surrounds you.

In the cooling water,
a boy at dusk with a stick,
a girl on a rock with a book,
small boys running free,
the setting sun,
the rising moon,
late day light illuminating the smooth warm rocks,
still water and silver clouds
boys absorbed by their book in the dim light of a flashlight.

When we ran away from the heat of Hades this is where we ended up.

Graffiti and a Secret Garden

Yesterday my sister took us to Graffiti Alley. This is a back alley just south of Queen street running between Spadina and Portland Ave. Here in Toronto they have a dastardly mayor, Rob Ford, who has a mission to 'clean up Toronto'. (He's a jerk) So he is having all graffiti removed, including, as it turned out, some commissioned art paid for by tax-payers money. Which of course he had removed with tax-payers money. (That was an embarrassment).

Anyway, here is a place where graffiti artists are thumbing their noses at The Establishment.

(Apparently there was an image of Ford himself that someone had painted with the sign 'remove me' by it. Clever. He has been removed, but only unfortunately from the wall. Hope you enjoy the walk and the garden.

SO... here we go:

You'd think Joseph would be excited by a graffiti walk. Nope. It was the 'walk' part that killed it for him I think.

We saw some very cool images..

And I really liked the vines growing down over the graffiti

Sometimes the words seemed out of place in this setting

Joseph was a little concerned that this image might just jump out on him.

Yikes.

BIG walls of horses

And someone who expressed Joseph's sentiments about the whole thing.

We saw lots of cool cartoons, with the yellow bird being a regular feature.

Hope this guy doesn't need to get a criminal background check.

We liked the yellow bird in this one. It's so happy.

I liked the smoky-ness of this one.

We are in Canada after all

And a rather nerve-jangled cat.

Joseph being jollied along by his auntie. (Actually, by this time he realized that it was all pretty cool.) AND THEN. SUDDENLY. WE DISCOVERED....

A garden. Right there off the alley. A little inner-city community garden. It was enchanting.

Check out this rain water collection system! This pipe arched down very dramatically and dumped into:

These tubs. The top one had over flow spouts into the lower. All three were almost full. (We're not in Texas now.)

Here is the whole picture. Very cool.

It was a lovely little oasis.

Little gravel paths separated the beds.

One of the only ones we could read: ADORE.

Fierce Owl. And then, finally. My personal favourite:

That's right. "Piss off, ye wee snakes!"

A great interlude. So, Piss off ye wee Ford, is what I say. And thank you for the garden too.