Well it looks like we’re finally in for some good weather for this weekend. I’m sure we’re all looking forward to it! I for one am. We’re celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary this weekend and we’ve got a great trip planned to Port Hope! The warm sunny weather this weekend will make the trip so much more enjoyable.
We’re staying at Penstowe – an absolutely fantastic bed and breakfast with tremendous services, hospitality, food and accomodations. All for less than a regular hotel! This will be our third time staying there and it seems to get better each time.
The only difference this time is that we’re bringing our five year old son – which apparently is not a problem for the bed and breakfast. They just gave us the bigger room.
So keep your fingers crossed for great weather and make the most of it while it lasts this weekend!
Wow. Mother nature has sent us yet another rain storm with amazing lightning and thunder. It’s about 10 pm at the top of Grandview at Taunton at our house and the rain storm is just coming on strong!
Looking out our front porch you can see buckets of rain falling flooding the street and our gardens. This is accentuated by the non stop lightning way up in the clouds and rolling thunder.
Twice in the last 20 minutes we’ve had two really loud thunder claps – the lightning must have been pretty close for those.
Hopefully we won’t see any tornadoes – we don’t get those here! Hopefully August will be a little drier.
I used to do a lot of mountain biking when I was in University. However, after having my last bike stolen, then getting married and having a family I left that behind me. That changed last Christmas when my wife bought me a new mountain bike. This summer I’ve spent some time exploring the local trails and am thrilled to be living next to Harmony Valley Conservation area.
It’s a great series of trails along Harmony Creek both in the forst and fields. There is even a leash from area for dogs. I’ve never run into any problems since these dog owners are the real thing ensuring their dogs are well trained.
The other day I popped out for a ride a little after one of those wicked rain storms we’ve been having. The creek level was pretty high which was interesting. What really caught me by surprise was a snapping turtle. I guess he climbed out of the creek for a break from the extra rush of water and made it to the other side of the trail before I came up on him. He was pretty large – maybe a foot long plus his rather large and spiky tail. I’d never been that close to a wild turtle before – especially five minutes from my house. The only camera I had was my Blackberry Pearl so I took it out and shot a really bad several seconds of footage. You can watch it below. So now, I can add a turtle to my list of wildlife spotted in Harmony Creek – too many birds to mention, a dear and now a turtle! I love living here!
Oshawa it would appear is poised to have an Ethanol Plant put down on the waterfront. For some it may be a good idea. With the looming layoffs and downsizing at GM a new Ethanol Plant would help to employee some of these hard workers. Same with another Nuclear Power Plant – that’s going to generate quite a few skilled contracting jobs for a long time during construction and afterwards for maintenance.
But – is the Ethanol Plant a good thing in general? Is it good for the waterfront and is it ultimately good for world economy. There are several arguments on both sides of this story.
On the one hand Ethanol manufacturing is driving up the cost of food prices around the world and removing corn from the table and placing it into our cars. On the other hand it does reduce emmissions and employs hundreds if not thousands of people.
I’m not sure where I sit on this debate. I like the idea of generating jobs for Oshawa. But I’d like to make sure that the Ethanol Plant proponents were also responsible for cleaning up a significant part of the waterfront if that’s the site they are going to build on. I guess I’ll have to do some more reading about it and see what else is being said.
If you’re interested in following this debate I suggest you visit the “Take Back Oshawa’s Waterfront” group on Facebook. Brian Nicholson and Mayor John Gray are members of this group! The group is running its own poll which you can vote on here. You can also vote for your opinion on the DurhamRegion News site.
I encourage you to leave your comments here and share your thoughts with our readers!
It’s day two and the new site layout is coming along nicely. I’m trying to decide which categories of information to feature on the home page. I suppose I’ll figure all of that out over time. Please feel free to leave me a comment – there all followed and I like the advice and information.
Hey everyone – if you happen to come by the site you’ll notice a new theme layout. I am working on it now. I should have it up and running a week or two!
Cheers,
Chris
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