Laurent Lussier, who participated in the Walk the Region hike, ponders Île Perry in the back river. Also known as Île aux Fesses, it doesn’t look like an arse, no – the name comes from other causes.
(Might I suggest to the Walk the Region folks that they should collect links to the writings that have been inspired by their walk and put them on their website?)
La Presse has a photo essay on the Pinkarnaval parade Saturday evening.
The embiggening of the Saputo soccer stadium has been held back, so the major league version of the Impact will have to play at the Olympic stadium for awhile instead.
Joel Thibert writes about the real spectacle in the Quartier des Spectacles.
The ruepublique group that’s sponsoring “journées bons voisins” on Saint-Viateur (next instalment, July 30) is hoping to work towards changing the street to a European model where motorists slow down and a more peaceable arrangement is made between drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.
More talk about urban chickens with a look at a Westmount woman with a back yard chicken coop and another look at the project at La Maisonnette des Parents, the building next to the ex-church condo on Saint-Laurent near Saint-Zotique. (The proper spelling for the local breed of cluckers seems to be Chantecler though.)
I think most people keep 4 to 6 chickens which means a few eggs every day, at least. And nothing obliges you to eat eggs the same day they’re laid.
Also, people in Montreal are not usually oblivious to winter. One would have to invest in a reasonably solid coop with some kind of heating, but if people were keen there would soon be a small industry in building or providing these things.
I have a small yard that would be perfect for chickens, but what concerns me would be natural predators. I don’t see raccoons or skunks here in the middle of town, although there’s occasionally a tang of skunk on the air in springtime. But if there were luscious, vulnerable chickens in urban yards it would give skunks and even foxes a good reason to prowl urban alleys at night.
Like many city people, I gained most of my knowledge of chickens from cartoons. I thought that roosters did the “cock-a-doodle-doo” thing once in the morning to greet the sunrise.
I learned the truth when my next door neighbors in Florida decided $2.00 a week was way to much to pay for eggs and installed a coop. The rooster begins crowing with the sunrise and continues to do so about every 15 seconds until sunset. It’s LOUD and is at least as annoying as a barking dog.
I don’t think chickens belong anywhere you wouldn’t keep a cow, a goat or any other noisy, smelly farm animal.
You don’t have to keep a rooster. Hens don’t crow.
Speaking of foxes, are there many about town? I was very surprised to spot a couple of red ones a few weeks back near the Fort St. on-ramp to the 720. It seems they live in the patch of woods beside the train tracks (alongside a few urban campers). I’ve seen foxes in Dorval while cycling around around the airport, but to see them downtown was something quite amazing.
I saw a reference somewhere not long ago to foxes in town, but can’t find it. Only time I’ve seen a fox on the island was once when cycling in the west island.
Looks like Ile Ste-Helene’s got ‘em too.
OpenFile has a piece on the CP railway line and how it acts as a barrier between neighbourhoods. This isn’t fresh news but the writer makes a good point in response to CP’s argument that a level crossing is dangerous.
My photo shows the Jarry Park level crossing over the Blainville commuter rail line where it passes between Parc station and Chabanel. The crossing is used by cyclists and pedestrians, including many children. Fast commuter trains whisk past here multiple times per day during the week, but the level crossing has proven safe since it replaced the decrepit foot bridge behind the stadium in 2007. In contrast, the CP line only sees a few slow-moving freight trains per day – people might have to wait longer, but there’s no reason to assume such a crossing would be dangerous.
Those crossings on the Blainville line might become a liability one day. Imagine service every 10 minutes, which is conceivable if they electrify. It would be a better way to increase capacity to Laval, rather than extending the Orange Line.
Of course this is less of an issue on the CP line – unless, of course, they would start using some of the right of way to run transit trains on it as well (surface metro?). Although I have seen only proposals from transit geeks to create some sort of ring line, but nothing official.
If the Blainville line gets busier they can budget in a new foot bridge. (Is there more than one legal level crossing on the line? I only know this one – the others on this line are not official.)
Several media are taking note that the Montreal Olympics opened exactly 35 years ago. Canoe has video. Some background on the Games.
A report on how the city’s fire trucks run up repair bills because of damage from potholes.
The Ste-Catherine street fair continues today under a relentless sun.
And the zombies decided to walk through the crowd late on Saturday afternoon, one minute they were congregating on St. Lawrence Blvd, and the next I bumped into them on St. Catherine Street. A lot of cameras got a workout in that crowd.
I was once again struck by how bland the stores are on St. Catherine Street. There isn’t much if you aren’t looking for shoes or clothing. Not much exotic food being offered from the sidewalk, no science stores, nothing that really can’t be found in the next block. Originally, Chapters at least had tables of clearance books, Indigo to a lesser extent, but they’ve dramatically reduced what they put out, and given the change in the stores, much of what they offered outside were gift items. HMV doesn’t even set up much. Some years, they’ve closed the Street from almost Atwater, allowing the riff-raff end of the street in, where there is variety, but that hasn’t happened in a few years.
There was a block of antique cars, a reminder of when they first closed the street, to show off antique cars, the sidewalk sale coming a couple of years later.
Michael
Thanks for the description. I never go to the Ste-Catherine thing, not being much of a shopper. I’m surprised at the persistence of the zombie meme, though.
Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo broke a significant record on Friday night while defeating the Toronto Argonauts. Some stats about his career.
I am reminded of the time I was in rural Vermont and was dropped off at someone’s house, while waiting for others to arrive. “The woman had a chicken coop in her kitchen” someone with me exclaimed, as if the woman was senile. People really haven’t given thought to that, what happens in the winter?
The concept of chickens in cities, whether or not it has validity, seemed to be more internet filler, traveling on “awesome”. Someone didn’t suddenly think about it last summer, it was already happening elsewhere. And the sad thing is it did travel on novelty, rather than concrete information. Popular Mechanics had an article about building a chicken coop 2 years ago, which puts it in perspective. And of course, gives the sort of details that really are more important than the novelty of a chicken in everyone’s backyard. “One egg per chicken per day”, is pretty important information, you sure can’t bake much with that output, or make breakfast for more than one person.
Kids get chicks for Easter, and then someone has to deal with them later, so one might as well put the cold hard reality of keeping chickens in front of “it’s neat”.
Michael