I don’t know what’s more embarrassing actually, Rob Ford or The Toronto Star.
It’s not like there’s a competition. They can both be equally embarrassing in their own special way!
Just finished hosting a Canada Day BBQ party with friends, family, and neighbours. Good food and good company to celebrate the day.
This year is the 129th Dominion Day Regatta, run by the Dominion Day Regatta Association, but the event is now called the Canada Day Regatta.
We’re special so we get a day named after our country. 
Ah, my people - I can bitch about the heat here and you guys (probably) won’t laugh at me because it’s so cold here compared to what you’re used to. 
36ºC this afternoon! It never gets to 36ºC here! I looked up the temp. online, and it said 36; I said, “Oh, it is not,” then turned on the tv to check. My exact words upon seeing the Weather Channel - “Holy fuck, it IS 36!” :eek:
We may be sleeping in the basement tonight. 
It’s been rainy and a little cold here lately.
Today it was cloudy. It was also hazy and smoggy because of forest fires further north.
Well, how about that - according to the local weather people, it’s only (only!) 32.5 degrees here. Well, it feels awfully damned hot!
Someone must have ordered a pool heater for the flood water.
I was wondering if the high temperatures might evaporate some of the water.
It might, but it’s also making it humid as fuck!
And it was 41C with the humidex. Ugh.
I picked another couple of pints of saskatoons by Finch subway station this evening. One couple stopped and said: “You can eat those? We’ve got a tree that has tons of those berries in our backyard!” Bon appetit, guys.
It blew my mind when I read that saskatoons are called serviceberries in Ontario, and only planted as an ornamental shrub, not for eating. Best tasting berry out there! Saskatoon berry jam and saskatoon berry pie are my favourite jam and pie, respectively.
We find the same thing with nanking cherries here - people don’t know that you can eat the cherries, and they’re damned tasty.
EmAnJ, I hadn’t even thought that the evaporation was what was making it so unusually humid. That makes sense!
The humidity is all over southern Alberta; even here, where there were no floods. Reminds me of the summers I remember from living in southern Ontario: hot, humid, and muggy; where just stepping out the door built up a sweat.
Honestly, I don’t remember anything called “serviceberries” from when I lived in Ontario, ornamental or otherwise. And I never heard of “Saskatoon berries” until I moved to Alberta.
Of course, now that I’m here in Alberta, I find them delicious. But I never encountered them in Ontario, by any name.
Maybe what I was reading was talking about serviceberries becoming more popular in Ontario.
Serviceberries?
Huh?
We may miss our crop this year - they look like they will ripen while we are away.
Ah well - Dad will get some saskatoons while he waters my plants and feeds the beast.
I’m really glad it’s not so freaking hot today. The kids thought the basement camp out was super fun, but I’d rather sleep in my own bed!
The only place I’ve ever seen the term serviceberry (outside of the Wikipedia article for Amelanchier alnifolia) is at the Guelph arboretum; they have a serviceberry collection.
EDIT: Here’s a Toronto Star article, for those who can stomach reading something in the Star.
Saskatoon berries grow and are made into jam in Thunder Bay, Ontario, but we’re toward the west of the province. In fact, in Kenora a Manitoba police force and an Ontario police force once spent their time locking each other up during a border dispute between the two provinces, resulting in no law and order, and two provincial elections on the same day.
I remember there being saskatoon-berry-flavoUred ice cream when I went to Saskatoon. I opted instead for more traditional chocolate and vanilla, though.
I did try some of the local cuisine while I was there: bison sausages.