The Beaches November 25 2017

The weather looked ominous. Thick grey clouds all over Toronto. Raining in some places. We headed over to the Beaches area anyway.  It turned out to be a very nice afternoon for a walk. The rain held off and the temperatures hovered around 10C.

Started at the RC Harris building (not my photo, I forgot to take photos except little library photos).

We met some great dog people running their dogs up and down the RC Harris grounds and on the beach. I didn't take a photo so here's my interpretation:

We saw dozens of Long Tailed ducks bobbing on Lake Ontario. They nest in the Arctic and some reside on the lower Great Lakes during the winter to feast on zebra mussel. 

Collected a couple of handfuls of beach glass. Looking for bits of glass turns out to be very focused and meditative. I didn't take a photo but this one gives a good idea of the bits and pieces we found:

Here are the 3 little libraries we visited:

Silver Birch Avenue

Kingswood Road

Fernwood Park Avenue

To finish off our walk we had coffee at the Remarkable Bean. Sat on the benches enjoying the warm November weather.

The Danforth Sunday October 22 2017

We were trying to get down to the Beaches area for some beach glass hunting, and then little library walking but got stopped by the Waterfront Marathon barricades. So went north to the Danforth area. We'd been here before for little library walking back in January. Since then more have been added to the map. We had a good weather day of walking and discovering new libraries, 25C and sunny.

• 17000 steps
• 10 new little libraries (and two revisits at 35 Eaton and  31 Muriel)
• Coffee at an indie espresso shop on Pape. Yeah!  

WS Map

Condor Avenue

Condor Avenue - left the 419 book and our usual WS booklet

Stumbled upon this little box on Shudell Avenue.

Myrtle Avenue

Myrtle Avenue. Left 3 books. Took the Small Gardens book.

A charming hobbit style little library on Harriet Street.
Tucked into the bushes and about 4 feet tall.

A bicycle sprocket for a window

This is what it looks like behind the hobbit door

A sweet little pink library on Hastings Avenue

Loved the title of this book

A beautiful frontscape on Prust Avenue,
with a blue glass tree sculpture

Walpole Avenue

Highfield Avenue

Stumled upon this Little Free Pantry
on Highfield Avenue. Nothing inside.

Gainsborough Road

Gainsborough Road little library. Nice set of tiles.

On the way back to the car we cut through
this nice community garden

Community garden painted walkway tunnel

Fielding Avenue

Stopped for delicious lattes at 808 Pape Social Espresso

Last one of the day was a quick stop on our ride back home.
This British beauty is on Burnamthorpe Road

Some Danish Hygge and Little Libraries in Oakville

We met up at the Gairloch Gardens at 1306 Lakeshore Rd E to stop and smell some roses.

Then we drove over to The Danish Pastry House 487 Cornwall Road,  for some baked goods and coffee hygge. 

We shared a Viking slice. Pastry filled with almond custard cream and slathered with a dark chocolate topping. Wonderful. 

Afterwards it was off for some walking and visits to local Little Libraries. Visited 5 today, didn't stumble upon any.  There was a section south of the Danish bakery that had 3 little libraries. As usual, each book box was unique and impressive. Wandering the Oakville neighbourhood was very nice, even in the rain. We didn't bring umbrellas but it was raining lightly off and on, until one point on our walk (see below)....  

Our first Little Library visit on Second Street

Didn't take anything. Left a Dr Who colouring book and our booklet. 

Douglas and Palmer

We thought this big little library was gone
as we stood on the corner scanning the streets.
Then we turned around and it was about 3 feet away. 

Inside the Douglas and Palmer dollhouse little library

This is the teacup style
little library in Grimsby. 

Maple Avenue
Looks like it came straight out of
Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
It's a similar to the one we saw in Grimsby.
Here's an article about this Little Library.

After the Maple Ave library we drove over to
Sedgewick Crescent to the French immersion school.
The library was filled with french language books. 

Village Wood Rd
We parked here and walked around the neighbourhood,
taking a trail through Chalmers Park and ending up on Riverview Street.

Then the skies darkened and it started to rain.
It rained hard. Teeming down.
Standing under a tree was lightning risky. Plus the tree wasn't doing much for cover,
so we ran over to this house and stood under the porch roof.

Then the door opened.
A daughter and dad poked their heads out and invited us in!
We were also greeted by a beautiful blond labrador retriever.
The young lady kept us company as we peered out at the rain.
She even offered us a ride back to the car if the rain didn't stop.
But the rain was letting up, so we thanked her for saving us from a drenching
then set out on our merry way.
What a great moment. One we won't forget.

Back to the car, and a drive back to the Danish bakery (where we left the other car).

We each picked up a rhubarb cake to take home, which I'm eating as I write this blog entry.

We stayed for more coffee, a couple of treats to share, and a gab with the Danish bakery assistant, comparing Denmark to Canada.

Danish Tree Logs Traestammer
Rum ball filling inside,
raspberry around the rum ball filling,
marzipan outer layer,
ends dipped in chocolate

Danish pastry with an apple custard filling and chocolate dip

Little Free Wine

Spotted this box on a tree in Dundas, Ontario. I think this may be a new craze similar to the Little Free Library trend. :)

Little Free Wine boxes!

I stopped to check if there was wine inside. None. Maybe the home owners are hoping for donations.

Finch's Rules For Wandering

Hey sister, 

This is almost what we practice. 

We wander with much the same guidelines:

• We use a map of Little Libraries as goals, but no carved-in-stone route
• Strict Finch's Rules wandering would mean no phones to get us there, but I can not be trusted with a paper map
• We alternate choosing places to go and are willing to go where the road takes us--grand, small, bizarre, beautiful, ugly, and surprising
• At each site we leave something, as an offering--our booklet

Finch's Rules for Wandering is an excerpt from a book called "All The Bright Places". We'll have to keep an eye out for it in a Little Library.  ---Sister -R-       

FINCH’S RULES FOR WANDERING

1) There are no rules, because life is made up of too many rules as it is

2) But there are three “guidelines” (which sounds less rigid than “rules”):

a) No using our phones to get us there. We have to do this strictly old-school, which means learning to read actual maps.

b) We alternate choosing places to go, but we also have to be willing to go where the road takes us. This means the grand, the small, the bizarre, the poetic, the beautiful, the ugly, the surprising. Just like life. But absolutely, unconditionally, resolutely nothing ordinary.

c) At each site, we leave something, almost like an offering. It can be our own private game of geocaching (“the recreational activity of hunting for and finding a hidden object by mans of GPS coordinates posted on a website”), only not a gamed just for us.
The rules of geocaching say “take something, leave something”. The way I figure it, we stand to get something out of each place, so why not give something back?
Also, it’s a way to prove we’ve been there, and a way to leave a part of us behind.

Mother's Day 2017 - Grimsby Victorian Painted Ladies and Little Libraries

2 sisters on a Mother's Day adventure in Grimsby Ontario. Our goal was to visit Grimsby's little travel secret: the Painted Ladies by the beach. What a great visit.

We found 8 Little Libraries from Grimsby to Hamilton.
Went to 2 coffee shops.
We survived Hamilton's one-way streets and we clocked 18000 steps, 12km on the fitbits.

A Victorian bird house to go with the sunflower house

This is the man, Ed, whose restored Painted Lady vision

has spread to the other houses in the area.

[Not my photo]

More about Ed and the houses

Our first Little Library visit.
A perfect little Victorian library.

We each took a local magazine and left our hygge booklet

Tin roof. Scalloped details.
A pitcher, teacup, pot lid, glass and ceramic steeple
for the library.

Coffee at Station 1 Coffeehouse in downtown Grimsby.
It's use to be a firehall.
We had lattes and a delicious coconut vegan macaroon each.
[Not my photo. I forgot to take one.]

From the coffeehouse we walked over to Murray Street
to this pretty yellow house with matching little library.
There's a pretty fish pond behind the fence.

A big little library on Morrison in Grimsby

I had seen these elephants on the web but had no idea where in
southwestern Ontario they were,
then lo and behold we drove down Watercress Drive in Stoney Creek
and there they were. Serendipity.
A family of elephants on a residential lawn.
This is the second set of full size lawn elephants (well almost full size)
we've seen on our Little Library hunting expeditions.

Palacebeach Trail and Watershore Dr, Stoney Creek
We didn't see a camera.
The sign was likely used to prevent vandalism.

Palacebeach Trail & Watershore Dr, Stoney Creek.
Beautifully painted.

This is an octagonal side table turned into a Little Library.
On Brentwood Drive in Hamilton.

Nice stuff inside.
Besides the great books, there were handmade bookmarks.
The owners had a guest book. I love guest books in little libraries. Signed it. :)

We took one as a momento and left our booklet. 

We drove on to the Gage Park Delta West area,
where we did most of our walking and visited 4 little libraries.
This one was temporarily closed, despite books inside.
We didn't open it or leave a booklet.

Wexford S in Hamilton
Our first newspaper box little library find.
Nice friendly family lives here.

Some cool cruise ships on this veranda.

There's supposed to be a Little Library at 81 Graham Ave. S, but there is no 81 Graham.
There's 79 on the left and 83 on the right.
Where's house #81? Why is 81 missing?
We continued down the street and saw....

85 Graham Ave South
There was a box on the porch step and it turned out to be a little library.
But it turned out not to be the one that was supposed to be at #81.
We lucked out to find a little library on this street,
but still....what happened to both a house and a LFL that are supposed to be
between house #79 and #83????

A cute schoolhouse little library on Grosvenor South.
The double doors have tiny little door latches.

Before heading home we decided to stop for coffee.
We battled the streets of Hamilton and almost gave up.
But we managed to make it to the Locke Street area
and someone was leaving a parking space
so we took it and headed over to  Finch Coffee.
Nice little coffeehouse.
We sat out on the back patio and drank lavendar lattes
(and I munched on chives growing in the herb garden that was right next to where we sat).
P.S. Someone needs to make "I survived Hamilton's one-way streets" t-shirts.

Finch Coffee on Locke Street

We spotted this Little Library on Poulette Street
 while driving over to Locke Street, it ended up being close to where we parked,
so after coffee it was our last Little Free Library visit before heading home.