Cliff becomes hole

The view from Primrose of the lot beside the staircase up to Upper Lorne Place and the upper section of Primrose.

The former cliff becomes a squared-off hole, ready for footings.

Neighbours tell me there will be a 3 storey house, with entrance and parking garage off Upper Lorne and the house having secondary entrances off the staircase. That is similar to what was there a number of years ago, when the existing red house at the foot of the stairs had its main entrance on its second floor off a landing on the stairs.

Nanny Goat Hill infill

An infill house is being constructed at the north end of Upper Lorne Place, where the staircase goes down to Primrose Street. This picture is taken from the bottom of the stairs. The back of the Dominican College library is in the background, which holds some Dead Sea scrolls. 

View from the top of the stairs. The house will be three floors, with a garage on the Upper Lorne Place side.This house will have high visibility from all four sides -- thus far we have no idea about what quality the exterior will be or what its design is.

Primros

Stairway to Development

The forrested slope on the south side of the Primrose staircase up Nanny Goat Hill has been cleared. The stone retaining walls  that reminded me of Machu Pichu have also been removed. A multi-level infill house is proposed for the site, with entrances on the Upper Lorne side and onto the landing of the staircase. The previous staircase used to have an entrance onto its staircase also.

Mack sees Bell

This particular cement truck is often to be found on Preston Street. Mr Simpson on the front grill makes the truck distinctive. When walking on West Wellie near Holland, I met him there too. Busy man.

He is going to continue to be a familiar sight on Preston near Primrose. Bell has decided that since the street has been reconstructed, the sidewalks put in place, the landscaping done ... they are now going to dig up the above intersection and put in an underground vault or chamber. Not content with digging up the corner for three weeks, they are then going to dig up another block of Preston to run new underground cables ducts to Elm Street.

It's enough to make one cry. Except that my shares in Bell went up in value. It's hard to figure out why.

Windsor should be happy

From time to time we pedestrians find mysterious heaps of salt on the sidewalk. The little Everest shown is on Primrose Street in front of the park.
Presumably, a sidwalk plow was re-loaded with salt at that point, and a little spilled over. Oops.

I wonder how many street trees are mysteriously dead in the spring, or concrete surfaces pitted from unknown causes ... when the spring comes, the evidence of the salt dump cause disappears.

Windsor, or the Magdalene Islands, or where-ever it is that our fair city buys its salt from, should be happy at our generous distribution of the stuff. I'm vacuuming hundreds of granules off the floor of my front entry every day.

Mailbox heaven

At this location on Preston, the mailboxes used to be sitting on the grassy area beyond the sidewalk. When the corner sidewalks were laid, this little paved area appeared offering splendid access to boxes. Civilized.

A tale of two houses ...

Both houses are on Primrose Street. The top one had its second floor stucco exterior wrapped in "house wrap", which prevents air infiltration but allows the passage of vapour (usually out of the walls). I am disappointed they did not put any additional insulation between the wooden strapping that has been applied for the new exterior cladding. I am a strong believer in insulation, but probably like for the City Living houses "renovated" along Albert, the person doing the renovation doesn't pay the utility bill, the tennant does, so additional insulation is not installed.

Next door is the green house subject of earlier posts, because of its sagging rear addition and the reveal of old signs on the wooden exterior. This house is also getting wooden strapping and new exterior cladding ... but is also getting some foamboard insulation AND housewrap too
In a few days, I'll post pix of the different exteriors.

Put my foot in it ...

I have been known to put my foot in it ... some may feel I always do. But in this case, it was literally not figuratively.

I was walking on the new sidewalk along Preston at Primrose - you know, the one with the missing sections and occasional mountain goat sections where you have to leap over walls, scramble up gravel mounds, etc. I steped into an area of sidewalk that had been filled around a utility hatch. It was a good foot below the finished sidewalk level so I got some good momentum. Alas, the cement there was not dried and I left a souvenir footprint. A few hours later I noticed the dimpled wet cement now had two safety cones on it.

The hazards of being a blogger...

Just Resting

Chair put out on garbage day in Little Italy.

Getting the last nap.

More Woodpeckers

One of the first blogs I ever posted, in April past, was of a large woodpecker on Primrose Street. It got lots of comments and people stopped me on the street for weeks afterword to tell me what type of bird it was.

Maybe it was fruitful and multiplied, because I have been watching two much smaller ones in the Flemish Beauty Pear tree in my backyard all week. Only the red-headed one is shown in these pictures; sometimes there is a very similar bird without the red head.

To find the previous post, use the word cloud at the right, find woodpecker (hint, look to the bottom of the list) and click on it to go to the post.

The 100 mile diet

As seen on Wednesday, on Primrose Ave, some local residents have very much taken to heart the exhortation to eat locally. I am proud to call these young male residents my neighbours.

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The dozens of pizzas certainly support local businesses and pizza-farmers; and the variety of beer cartons shows we are dealing with gourmands who are taste-testing their way through the local artisanal beverages (click to enlarge photo to inspect the brands). Such dedication is (fill in your adjective here).

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My biggest complaint here is that the garbage is being put out on a Wednesday, when collection day is Monday, except for this holiday weekend when it will be Tuesday. More and more often I see people just put out their garbage on whatever day they please, without bothering to think about when collection is and certainly without consulting their calendar for blue box - black box - leaf bags - and soon, green compost bins. For some people, everyday is garbage day.

Knock Knock, Ottawa Police

While creating the following post on double-tracked pathways in Toronto (punnily entitled: InAction), there came a knock at the front door of my house. Two Ottawa police persons were there, giving competition to the UPS men in short pants category. One officer was hanging off the end of my verandah to peer over my driveway gate, which is 7'6" high.

The cause: my elderly Cdn tire 6speed commuter bike was parked in my driveway, the front door of the house was open (although the glass aluminum door was locked). It seems there is a burglar active in our area, age 35-45, druggy-skinny, scruffy, riding an old bike. They advised I call 9-1-1 if seen, regardless of what he is doing, and the police will check it out. It looked to the police officers that they may have stumbled onto a b&e in action. No such luck for them, however, and after a social chat, they wandered off. On foot. No police car in sight.

I then realized that it must be fairly serious for the dept to have two constables on foot wandering around the neighborhood hoping to catch a burglar in action. Of course there are other benefits to having them foot patrol residential streets, but the rarity of this impressed me that the b&e's must be awfully frequent and blatant to warrant this response.

In 25 years, we have had only one b&e, which my (then) seven year old son interrupted in progress. Since then, the front window has been nailed shut and a driveway gate constructed. I maintain I live on a very safe street, and in a safe spot on said safe street. Nonetheless, resident vigilance is required (and this is not blaming the victim).

Lonely Luigi

Luigi is the mascot/image for Preston Street. His image on signs reminds people that the restaurants and businesses are still open. I found this Luigi sitting on a doorstep on Preston Street near Primrose.

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During Bluesfest and the following classical music nights, I noticed people taking pictures of themselves with Luigi signs at the corner of Preston-Albert. Weird, I thought. But then there is the picture above showing a passerby loving Luigi. Maybe the BIA has something here ....

Behind the Siding

I am not a great fan of aluminum or plastic siding. Who knows what sins are hidden behind the smooth facade, what is rotting the soul of a building?

I do like metal siding in some applications, usually when it is designed into a building from the beginning. And I like corrugated metal much better than the fake-board version.

At the corner of Primrose and Cambridge is a corner store with apartments above. Expand on the pictures to notice the addition that was built onto the orginal structure and that is now "separating" from the main structure. Notice too the evidence of original signage on the unpainted wood siding. And how the windows have been bastardized over the years with ever-cheaper and more inappropriate sizes and styles.

Nanny Goat Fish

A dangling fish recently appeared in the shrubs in the little parkette at the top of the Primrose staircase, which ascends Nanny Goat Hill. This is directly behind the Dominican Priory, the large stone castle on the cliff.

Woodpecker on Primrose

Saw the pictured woodpecker on Primrose St in front of St Vincent Hospital around 1pm on March 17th. He had created a significant litter of woodchips on the lawn and sidewalk, which is how I spotted him, since his pecking was silent. It was bigger than a robbin, smaller than a crow; much larger than the woodpeckers I normally see in this neighborhood.