Ontario's Forest Carpet - The Trillium

Grand Ole Opry

Trillium

Yesterday 25 degrees, to-day 10. Spring is here but temperatures are up and down like a yo-yo. The rains come and they go and there sure is a lot of standing water in the woods round about. Mosquitoes shall breed there in their droves this year. The Waterway may not open to boats as scheduled this week, water levels are so high. To-night I fear frost so the plants are all inside. Earlier under a blue sky I went in quest of an icon of the season, the Trillium, Ontario's official flower. They are abundant. While on my bicycle quest I saw a wild turkey fly into a tree which surprised me since I had always thought they were ground lubbers. Then I went near the railway track right of way and thought I was going to get arrested some minutes later when the cops came by. In two years I have never seen them in that vicinity. As I progressed I stopped on a bridge to watch fishermen below. Lo and behold a school of fish went by (perch probably) and from my perch I could see them approaching hooks and their demise. But they all swam non-chalantly by, no bites, to live another day. So I am going across a level crossing and I spot a turkey vulture eating a porcupine between the tracks not far from me. As I get my camera out a hawk lands on the telegraph pole beside me and another bird of prey flies just above. What a menagerie. May, seems like a good time to upload a photo of Paris.

Wind Farm

What's In a Name?

So Mexico is in the headlines after all and Canadian reporters are clambering all over the Swine Flu story. More than 240 cases in Canada now although no deaths and only one case considered severe. But how to report on the health hazard? What to call it? Pork producers are livid that their industry is associated with this negative story. They want the disease to be named something else and they may have a case since the virus has been analyzed to be five parts swine, two avian and two human flu. But what do you call the damn thing if not Swine Flu? Pandemic Influenza, Pig Flu, Influenza A Swine Flu, Mexican Flu as several Heads of State are quoted as saying, or Influenza A H1N1 as the World Health Organization have been instructed to say. How about Human Flu, given the fact a whole herd in Alberta has been infected by an employee at a piggery who contracted the disease while in Mexico. Homo sapiens is a scary breed is it not? On the subject of Mexico, hear about the seven policemen assassinated in Tijuana on the same day? Well maybe in a single ambush you say? Nope, in four separate incidents is the answer. Can you imagine the same story in Germany or Israel or the USA being so under reported?