
I just had quite a bit of fun being touristy in my still-new city. Not only did my visitors and I go to Niagara Falls, but we also went to a few scenic places around Toronto.
From one of them, I took this picture of the skyline. The CN Tower really does stick out in this kind of image, doesn't it? It's hard to believe it's as tall as it is, I think in part because it's a little bit away from the rest of downtown, so there aren't other tall things nearby for comparison.
(We didn't go there, incidentally.)
Instead, we went to
Casa Loma, the crazy castle-house built by a (briefly)
super-rich Canadian in the early 20th century. Can you tell that he had a little bit of a thing for Olde Tyme-y Royalty? This isn't even the biggest tower of the place--that one (from which I took the above picture, by sticking my camera out a little slit window) is still a bit under scaffolding, so my pictures aren't great.
Incidentally? There were crazy numbers of Russians at the place. It was very, very busy, I think in part because of a city architectural festival that was on this past weekend. I can't count the number of people I heard speaking Russian. I found this interesting.
As you can tell, we had fantastic weather for all this--the gardens were particularly nice, and let us be all out in the sun. And that made me want to tackle my "garden," aka my deck.
So, after my sister and b-i-l left on Monday morning, Mom and I tackled that. We got some more herbs to replace the ones that got eaten, as well as some heartier, stronger smelling ones that might repel little beasties. We planted a ton of marigolds in all the boxes and pots, in the hopes that their smell (which I personally love, but I know a lot of people don't like) would keep the demon squirrels away. We stuck pinwheels bought for a buck (oh, wait, excuse me--a loonie) each in Chinatown in most of the pots, again in the hopes of scaring away squirrels.

And we made these.
What are they, you ask? Homemade topsy-turvy tomato planters.
In a previous life, water bottles.
We cut off the bottoms, poked three holes around the new top edge, threaded twine through the holes, very carefully threaded a small cherry tomato plant (apparently larger tomatoes get too heavy for the unsupported stems) through the mouth, filled them with potting soil, and topped them off with a marigold (again in the hopes of saving them from rodent predators), and then tied the twine ends together and hung them from... hangers.
I'm so excited!

Here's what's really amazing about them. See the one on the left, how the tomato plant sticks straight down? That was yesterday when we were relaxing after our labors on the deck (and facing off with kind of scarily determined squirrels... yes, I'm currently a bit obsessed with them... I foresee a series of blog posts on my personal squirrel wars).
Today? Look!
It's already turning up to grow the "right" way!
I'm sorry, but that's damned cool. Oh, nature, and your fascinating ways.
I have also actually been knitting, though I am fairly sure that I knit NOT A SINGLE STITCH on Sunday. Shocking, I know.

I started another sweater after finishing off the hex coat, reduced, but it's not very interesting yet. It will be, because it's the gorgeous
Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I'm knitting it in Silky Wool, which is giving me a slightly too big gauge. That's actually OK, though, because my ideal size is one half way in between two of the pattern sizes, and I think because of the cabled yoke there are limits to how much you can tweak the stitch count. This way I'm knitting the size on the small size of where I want to end up, and will hopefully be able to block the thing into something appropriate.
And I'm now nearing the end of my reversible ribbed shawl. There's actually a fair bit more of it than this, now. The pattern calls for it to be yet longer than it currently is, but I'm getting--not tired of it, actually, because it's been a perfectly pleasant, and more interesting than expected, knit--but to the point where I think it should stop. Especially because I think I've decided it needs crazy knotted fringe on it.
It is also very, very soft, very, very fuzzy, very, very warm, and very, very heavy. It's kind of gorgeous, if I do say so myself.