To quarry or not to quarry

Dufferin County has a lot of prime farmland sitting on a lot of prime limestone. Should a large quarry be developed there?

The limestone is a good, hard sort that makes up the backbone of the Niagara Escarpment. It runs under cool soil good for growing potatoes, but it’s not as environmentally sensitive as wetlands or the Escarpment itself. And Ontario uses a lot of limestone every year, mostly for roads. The potential developers, however, lied about their intentions when purchasing land in the area.

Our swim

I found a picture, from last year, of our destination islet. As you can see, it’s not quite a Bum’s Rest, but not really big enough for a picnic.

Our big swim

The granddaughter and I had a good swim on our vacation, a  900-metre round trip to a tiny island. The surface water was warm and the deeper water was refreshing.

I mapped our route to get the distance. We figured about 450 metres, and it seems we were right!

Our swim at Eagle Lake Narrows

Unlike our swim a couple of years ago to the palm-tree island in Nottawasaga Bay, this one was not cold enough for wetsuits. Here’s the map for our 2009 swim in Blue Mountain, which was about 550 m each way and not quite straight.

Eagle Lake Narrows bridge repaired

Structural improvements to the Eagle Lake Narrows bridge have been completed. The bridge is almost 100 years old.

Traveller’s road information for Ontario

Here’s a portal for road information updates: Travellers’ Road Information Portal (TRIP).

Word on the Street 2008 – Toronto

Word on the Street 2008 – Toronto , originally uploaded by brilliantboy08

Flickr’s brilliantboy08 took this picture of yesterday’s Word on the Street book fair. These days it’s held at Queen’s Park instead of down on Queen Street.