Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Because of school, I don't actually get to spend a ton of time with Nefarious during the week (an hour or two in the morning and the same in the evening), so I like trying to do things on the weekend. Today we went out to Taylor Creek Park… On the way there, there was a giant accident (luckily in oncoming traffic, not on our side) and traffic had crawled to a halt due to the flipped over car in the middle of the highway. When we were walking through the park, we could actually see cars with blown radiators, they'd been sitting in stop-and-go for so long (look at the rightmost car on the bridge).

Taylor Creek is the park that you see just south of Eglington on the DVP (access via Don Mills) that has those big elephant or polar bear or whatever they are sculptures. They're actually pretty cool functional art, done by artist Noel Harding (“The Elevated Wetlands”). They're made of recycled plastic, with local plants growing up on top of them. Using power from solar cells, water is pulled up from the [polluted] Don River, and is pumped through the structures, going through a natural water filtration system (almost like a greywater system in an earthship) before they re-enter the water table.

I really think Toronto has some of the nicest parkland (and tons of it) of any city I know, but I have to admit that every time I visit the park I miss living in the country a lot. It had it's problems, but I really think Tweed was one of my favorite places ever to live… I hope that after the winter I'll be able to look for a permanent property somewhere rural enough that I can have more space to play.

Other than that, I'm taking it easy today, and tomorrow a fun new project starts.