Colors of autumn

Around this time of October, the summer heat replaced by cold winds and the leaves of non-evergreen trees start to lose their green color and turn into bright reds, oranges, and yellow. Form what people have told me, the trees turn color and the leaves start to fall in time for Halloween and the ground is covered with a carpet of red leaves. However this time around, it’s not really going according to the timetable.

Most of the trees in the downtown area are still green or has turned into a rusty brown, instead of their characteristic red hues. Only about half of High Park has turned red. Even people who live here are saying that this autumn is not as beautiful as years before. Some say that spring was late in coming and that is why the leaves are still not turning. Moving out from the downtown area and into the suburbs, you see a little more color. Could it be an effect of the city like an urban heat island? An effect of global warming? It is a possibility.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem to have any effect on falling temperature. These days the temp is around 10-15C and gradually getting lower. Soon it will hit zero and then minus, and the snow and the snowstorms. Oh boy, I can’t wait for that fun to start.

Anyway, went to High Park last Sunday, which was a beautifully warm day by the way, and took some pics of the colors of autumn.

Enjoy and cheers.

Google map location of high park

A squirrel, storing up on nuts

There is a small zoo inside the park with couple of animals. This one is called a Mouflon Sheep

Wallaby

Capybara

Mallard ducks. These guys are everywhere

Canada Eh!

Well, I’m back in Canada for another stint at client site. Said good bye to good old SL last Thursday, the 29^th, and will not be seeing her for some months.

Thanks to the time difference, you get to land in North America on the same day as you left Sri Lanka. So, I left early morning of the 29^th SL time and landed in Toronto in the evening of the 29^th. The flight was long and tiring. Spent 20 hours in total, including a 3 hour transit at Abu Dhabi.  This time around flew on Etihad Airlines, and the service was quite good.

I’m a bit upset about the timing of the trip because I missed Hon. Pusswedilla’s third campaign. I was so looking forward to this for a long time. Oh well, maybe he’ll have a 4^th campaign.

The weather is quite cold, hovering between 10-16 C, and it’s still the beginning of fall. Even the trees are still green. I have a feeling I’m in for a very cold winter. The last winter that I was here was pretty hard, but both the previous one and the preceding one were mild. Jack Frost isn’t a fan of mine. To add to the cold, it’s raining too.

My internal clock is whacked out. No matter what time I go to bed and night, I wake up around 2 in the morning. Last night I actually went to bed around 2am, but woke up around 4. Sometimes I fall back into sleep around 6am again and wake up around 9. Unfortunately the result is a heavy drowsiness around 3 in the afternoon. You are knocked out for another 3-4 hours. Hopefully this sorts itself out soon. I have to get back to work tomorrow.

Went to downtown last night, and the place was crowded. There was a city wide, all night art show in town, so the streets were jam packed. It’s called Nuit Blanche, where various contemporary art projects are installed in public building and spaces throughout the downtown area, and it’s a night event. It went from sunset to sunrise the next day.  

Well, here’s to Jack Frost not freezing me!

Cheers!