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August 2007

posted August 2, 2007, updated August 20, 2007

Friends of Dufferin Grove Park Newsletter

Comments? editor@dufferinpark.ca

Volume 8 Number 8, August 2007


The Adventure Playground

EVENTS IN AUGUST

THEATRE IN THE PARK:

Clay and Paper Theatre presents WE NEED HELP.
Wednesday August 1 to Monday August 6, 7:30 pm, outdoors in the park

A greasy black comedy about the end of oil

From director David Anderson:

“Giant puppets and live jazz animate this outdoor performance about what happens when the road less traveled becomes the highway to hell. A honeymooning couple is stranded in Northern Ontario when the world’s gas tank runs dry.”

Admission: pay what you can, $10 recommended. See Clay and Paper Theatre.

FREE SUMMER CONCERT FOR MUSIC LOVERS OF ALL AGES

PRESENTED BY “ALL CAPS!” WITH PARKS AND RECREATION
Saturday August 11 2pm to 8 pm

From organizer Ryan McLaren:

ALL CAPS! presents the Outdoor Show in conjunction with Dufferin Grove Park and WhipperSnapper Gallery.

There will be frisbee, soccer, a BBQ, sidewalk chalk, a mix CD trade (details below) and more! Dufferin Grove is a large, beautiful space, so there's a lot of room to make this a user-defined show. Bring a blanket, read a book, bring a slip'n'slide, bring some gloves and a ball and play catch, whatever you like, all while enjoying 8 amazing bands and musicians. We've got a really diverse cross section of music, from hip hop to avant experimental, Gameboy pop to acoustic folk, indie rock to math pop.

The Rural Alberta Advantage; Tetris Hold'em; The Guest Bedroom; John Kameel Farah; Atherton; Germans; Fraser Gielen; Bruce Peninsula.

The first band goes on right at 2pm, so we suggest getting there a bit earlier. Of course the park is open all day, so why not show up early and enjoy the weather?

Rain date: Sunday August 12th. More information: www.allcaps.ca.

“ERIC DOLPHY MEMORIAL BBQ”

SUNDAY AFTERNOON AUGUST 26

Toronto musician Nilan Perera is bringing together some professional musician friends for the Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbeque. Nilan and other Toronto musicians are part of a group called “The Association of Improvising Musicians of Toronto.” They want to make some music in the daytime, so that their families can come along (instead of the nighttime gigs these various musicians usually play). They’re happy to have others come by and listen too, as they do what Nilan calls “creative in-the-moment performance. The art of improvisation and surprise.”

SPECIAL ARTS PROGRAM - SHIBORI FOR GIRLS

August 29 and 30, 12.30 to 4.30:

An Introduction to Textile Design for Kids. From Jeannie Soley:

“Our shibori workshop under a tree in July was a lot of fun so another will be offered in August. Pre-registration is required. The August workshop will be from 12:30 to 4:30 on August 29 and 30th. The cost is thirty dollars per day. The participants will be introduced to textile design by making a sash using the ancient shibori tie-dye resist technique. They will learn how to make a dye bath, resist knotting, basic embroidery and sequin embellishment. The sash will take two days to complete. A second printmaking project will be included in this workshop in order to vary the day's work and give the girls an opportunity to try printmaking.

Here is a chance to become refined resist knotters, pattern thinkers, dyers, printmakers and embroiderers. A great introduction to textile design and printmaking.”

Contact: Gillian Tremain and Jeannie Soley at fjsoley@hotmail.com

NEIGHBOURHOOD EVENTS

WEDNESDAYS SUSAN TIBALDI PARK GAMES NIGHT AND BBQ

Wednesdays 5 - 7pm

Every Wednesday from 5:30 - 7:00pm is games night at Susan Tibaldi Parkette (on Brock, north of Bloor). Everyone in the neighbourhood is invited to come out and meet their neighbours over some food, lots of kids' games and maybe even a friendly game of badminton! There are always hotdogs (veggie and beef) cooking over the hibachi but more food is welcome too. (Games night is in collaboration with Dufferin Grove staff.)

REGULAR PARK EVENTS

DANCING AT THE PARK WITH EROCA

Down by the playground in August, Eroca teaches dance:

Saturdays

  • 1:45-2:30pm is for ages 6 to 8;
  • 2.30pm is for ages 5 and under

Sundays

  • 1 –1.45 pm is for ages 9-12.
  • 1.45 pm all ages Dance & Instrument Jam

This year we are encouraging people to pay what they can for classes, with a suggested donation of $5-$8 per class. But as always, money will not prevent anyone from participating.

If anyone has instruments they would like to donate to the program, or any questions about the classes, contact Eroca at info@dufferinpark.ca.

PIZZA DAYS:

The bake oven is available three times a week for people to make their own pizzas. The open times are

  • Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 12 noon to 2 pm, and
  • Sundays from 1 to 3 pm.

For $2 you get a lump of dough made in the park kitchen, plus some tomato sauce and some grated cheese (both from No Frills across the street). As the herbs and the little tomatoes and peppers ripen in the park gardens, pizza makers can go into the gardens and pick additional toppings there – no charge.

For groups and birthday parties, people can book

  • Tuesdays from 2-3pm,
  • Wednesdays from 11-12pm, and
  • Sundays 12-1pm and 3-4pm.

The cost is $45 for additional staffing plus $2 per pizza.

FOOD IN THE PARK:

Friday Night Suppers are at the picnic tables by the oven (6 to 7.30 p.m., $6 for the main plate, between $2-$3 each for soup, salad, dessert, no reservations necessary). Also, seven days a week, the playground snack bar serves good snack foods, much of it prepared from farmers’ market food. The price list reflects how much money is needed to pay for the materials that went into the food, plus a bit of fundraising for other park uses. But if your grocery money is tight, and you and your kids are hungry, even the cheap snack bar food prices may add up too fast.

If you’re hungry, but you can’t pay as much for the food, pay less. Park staff also like to do trades – if you can do something for the park (help shovel sand back into the sand play area, wash dishes, sort tools in the tool cupboard, break up wooden skids for the bread ovens) the park staff will tell you that your money won’t work at the snack bar, and you have to eat for free. That goes for kids too.

On the other hand, if you find the food very cheap and good and think it should cost more, pay more. Every penny goes to the park. (This “cookie money” is currently administered by the CEntre for LOcal research into public Space, CELOS for short. To find out how those funds are spent, go to the web site: www.dufferinpark.ca and click on “about us.”)


Friday Night Supper

DUFFERIN GROVE FARMERS’ MARKET, EVERY THURSDAY 3 TO 7 PM

To get market manager’s Anne Freeman’s weekly market-news e-mail, send your request to market@dufferinpark.ca. In the August 1 market news, Jesse Sosnicki wrote:

"Ben and I will be loaded with tons of field fresh sweet Cantaloupes tomorrow! More fresh cucs; get them before they are gone. Lots of fresh dug Yukon and Red Norland Potatoes, Cherry tomatoes, Slicing tomatoes, lots of zucs, the first of our beets, the first of our green and yellow beans, bunched sweet onions, basil and parsley to round out our very, very hot sweaty day of harvest, but soo worth it!"

PARK ACTIVITIES

THE ART OF THE PICNIC: table painting day coming

Every weekend and on many summer evenings, Dufferin Grove is full of extended-family-plus-friends picnics. The smell of barbecues is in the air and the mood is lovely. People play frisbee or soccer or volleyball, or they strum guitars, or they just catch up on all the family news.

Dufferin Grove Park staff keep a close eye on the number and location of picnic tables, so that picnics will flourish in the park. Now, some of the tables are badly in need of paint, but the Parks department currently has no provision for painting them. To make sure the tables and benches don’t wear out sooner from lack of protection for the wood, Recreation staff are collaborating with park friend Michelle Webb to help her set up another picnic table painting day. The last one Michelle organized was a lot of fun and very successful. Watch the park bulletin boards and www.dufferinpark.ca for more details.

CAMPFIRES:

Three park staff take campfire bookings: Anna Bekerman, Mayssan Shuja, and Amy Withers. The bookings used to be less formal but this year they must be made two business days before the campfire. As in other years, park staff lend out the cooking grill and help with kindling if they have extra – other wood must usually be brought from home. Park staff also provide two buckets with water and a shovel (to shovel sand on the fire and extinguish it at the end). There are no permits for bonfires, only for small, pleasant campfires. Sing-songs are very nice, but there can be no drumming, it’s too disturbing to the neighbourhood. All fire permits are over at 11 pm.

This past winter the CELOS library added a wonderful book on cooking with fire (A campfire handbooks for parks) in addition to the original (Cooking with fire in public space), which is in the reference section of the rink house kitchen. Anyone is welcome to read it there.

SAND PIT ETIQUETTE

The park staff have been reminding people this summer that the sandpit is an adventure playground built for older children. Although little ones are not barred, when it’s crowded with older kids intent on their projects, caregivers need to move their smaller charges over to the more protected sandbox inside the playground fence.

Shovels: A word about kids using real shovels to build their rivers and dams and shelters: After 14 years of using such shovels, there have been far fewer injuries than, for example, on the monkey bars in the playground. Why metal shovels? Because they work better when kids are trying to build something. Plastic shovels either break right away if they’re cheap (and broken plastic can hurt kids) or they are prohibitively expensive if heavy-duty. Occasionally there’s a child who seems unaware that s/he mustn’t swing shovels behind them. Once in a long while a child actually threatens another child with a shovel. In either of those cases, any nearby adult or older child should (and usually does) try to stop the child from using the shovel in that way. The next step is to call over a park staff and ask them to deal with the concern. (Note that in any such situation, the snack bar staff will gladly leave the snack bar immediately and attend to the child, together with the caregiver.)

Water: It took three or four years after the playground sand pit was put in, for the kids to teach adults the importance of water play. Then the adults gave in and let the kids use the hose from the park water supply. Water is fascinating to humans of any age, and when kids have a chance to make rivers and dams they can spend hours learning how water works. The more collaboration between kids, the better the water systems work – and that’s one way kids build friendships at the park.

There’s been some concern about wasting water when kids play in this way. And it would certainly be wonderful to make the kids’ little rivers available to the park trees rather than running that water down the sewer. All suggestions of how to divert the sand pit water are welcome: please bring them to the park staff. Maybe it’s also possible to think of a way of using some of the wading pool water to water the trees instead of draining that huge amount of water into the sewer at the end of every day. Ideas? Practical help? A challenge for this summer...

THE “PEE TREE” – NOTE FROM THE PARK STAFF

From park staff Lea Ambros:

“We have great compassion for the little ones who cannot quite make it to the far-away washrooms and especially for their strapped caregivers who often have multiple charges who all have to be brought across the entire park for one child’s impending disaster. That being said, we would like all park users to keep in mind that a "pee tree" should only be used in emergencies. The wading pool staff always have extra swim diapers on hand that can be bought for $1 if a child can’t cover the distance to the toilet. If an emergency does occur please ask the staff for a bucket of water so that you can at least swab down the ground.”

EDITORIALS

posted August 20, 2007

BUDGET MATH FROM OUR “CELOS” RESEARCH GROUP:

Mayor David Miller lost the first round of his attempt to gain some more taxes for the city by charging drivers and new house buyers extra. He may win the next try – after all, cities are legally required to balance their budget, and the 2007 municipal budget was over half a billion dollars too high. City Council will have to do something. Here’s the math:

The big-picture financial situation: Toronto’s debt (also called “liability,” from capital expenditures and employee WSIB claims, retiree benefits, sick-leave pay-outs and employee separation costs) has increased every year and is now $2.39 billion. (For comparison, from 2005: Montreal: $6.049 billion debt. Ottawa: $253 million debt. Vancouver: $7 million debt. Calgary: $561 million assets. Edmonton: $2.531 billion assets.) Interest payments on the city’s debt come from the city’s operating funds: almost $203 million last year, if we read the financial report right. And Toronto’s operating expenses continue to rise. In 2005 the gross operating budget was $6.8 billion; by 2006 it had risen to $7.1 billion.

The Parks, Forestry and Recreation financial situation: It’s no better. The major chunk of the operating costs is staff payroll, and in the last four years, as the budget over-run increased, so did the size of the Parks, Forestry and Recreation staff. Management staff seems to have gone from 161 to 226 in since 2003, an increase of 65 management positions. 25 of those staff plus the general manager earn over $100,000 (several earn close to what the mayor earns, on either side.) During those four years, permanent full-time staff went up by 250, from 1556 to 1806. The increase of part-time/seasonal/casual staff during that four years brings the total “full-time equivalent” positions at Parks, Forestry and Recreation from 3592.7 in 2003 to 4005.7 in 2007, with another 111 positions approved for the 2007 budget: a total increase of over 500 positions in four years. (Note: these numbers are taken from the analyst budget notes and audit reports of the various years. The reports are rather confusing, and CELOS tried to check these numbers with the financial staff. However they were unable to respond within two weeks.)

Meeting such a payroll is made even more difficult by the City’s cost-of-living allowance and union agreements, which mean that even if no more staff were hired, the payroll for Parks, Forestry and Recreation would still go up by around $10 million (wage increases) every year. And from the 2007 budget analyst notes: “Due to the mix of its staff complement, the Program’s salaries and benefits are likely to be overspent again in 2007. No provision has been made in the 2007 Recommended Operating Budget for higher overtime costs or unachievable gapping targets.”

But the staff numbers don’t tell everything. The disparity in incomes among Parks, Forestry and Recreation workers is also remarkable, with some supervisors of as few as 3 -12 people earning up to $87,000 a year while many recreation program staff make less than $20,000, with little outlook for improvement. In addition, during this time of steep workforce increase, the number of plumbing staff to fix water-fountains and park toilets was cut in half, and picnic tables and benches stopped getting repaired.

The payroll together with other costs means that the Parks, Forestry and Recreation budget 2007 is around $303.4 million gross (we couldn’t find the exact number in the documents). Revenue from permits, user fees and various provincial and federal grants reduces the budget size to $226.146 million. But that’s still quite a lot.

posted August 20, 2007

HOW TO CUT COSTS AND STILL HAVE FUN

When Mayor Miller raised the alarm, City managers decided that one way to save money was by cutting the hours of Parks and Recreation part-time workers. Community centres are to be closed on Mondays; outdoor ice rinks are to stay locked until January; golf courses will close a week early; and the cleanup workers will disappear from the parks well before the leaves fall.

There are some puzzling things here. For example: community centres also make money, by charging fees for daycare or weight rooms or swimming lessons. Laying off the part-time program staff will save on wages but will also mean lost fees (and full-time staff will have to be paid whether the centres are open or not).

As for keeping outdoor ice rinks closed until January: these rinks use less energy during the low-sun months of November and December. Not opening them until the days are starting to lengthen means higher energy costs. (Earlier opening and earlier closing would make more financial sense). In addition, the City has just spent $10.3 million doing energy retrofits on all the outdoor rinks and some of the indoor ones. And according to the capital projects list on the City’s website, $4.089 million was just spent doing repairs and replacements of outdoor rinks citywide last year. In this neighbourhood, for example, Wallace Emerson just got a new rink for $1.1million, and Dufferin Rink got new pipes for $200,000 this spring. Does it really make sense to board up the house after you just renovated?

It’s possible that the outdoor rinks have been selected because the energy retrofit program is unusual. It was done on the assumption that if the City borrowed the $10.3 million to put in weather-stripping, pipes-insulation and computer controls for the ice-making plants, the energy savings would be so high that the retrofit work would in effect pay for itself. The money saved on utility bills would be used to pay off the loan. However there was no reliable baseline of previous energy costs, and now, as utility costs keep going up anyway, Parks Forestry and Recreation must pay high utility bills and the borrowed money – at the rate of $1.3 million a year (for the next ten years). What’s unusual is that the money must come out of the operating budget, which is also meant to staff the rinks. It may be that Parks management is a little doubtful about the “deemed savings” forecast for this project (without an energy baseline, who can tell if the City got value for money?). However one sure way to reduce energy costs is not to run the rinks.

There must be better ways to save money than these citywide closures. One suggestion: save money on payroll. Since management staff are the highest paid, they can set the good example. If each of the 226 management staff of Parks, Forestry and Recreation worked one four-day-week a month, expenditures would go down nearly $1.5 million (yes, “Rae days” for management). That’s a start! And there are other good possibilities, long-term solutions to a problem that won’t go away even with new taxes. This needs well-informed public discussion! CELOS is putting together its Parks, Forestry and Recreation budget report for citizens, so everyone can help with solutions. Fact-checking has been tricky since questions often take a long time to get responses. But the report’s first version is almost ready – watch for it at the park or on the web site. It will make lively reading, and hopefully, lively discussion too.

posted August 20, 2007

BUDGET HOUSECLEANING

Mayor David Miller lost the first round of his attempt to gain some more taxes for the city by charging drivers and new house buyers extra. He may win the next try – after all, cities are legally required to balance their budget, and right now the 2007 municipal budget is over half a billion dollars too high. City Council will have to do something. What’s more, Toronto’s debt (from capital expenditures) is about to hit 2 billion. So it’s no wonder that when City Council refused to order the new tax now, the Mayor asked City staff to help out by reducing City operating expenses by $100 million.

He can ask, but can the City management deliver? It’s tough. In the case of Parks, Forestry and Recreation, they’ll have to reduce their almost-$300 million operating budget by at least $5 million this year. How can that be done? There’s a hiring freeze now, but just paying the existing staff rises by $9 million a year because of negotiated pay increases and cost of living adjustments. These pay increases for permanent workers and management have hit Parks, Forestry and Recreation even harder because over 400 staff positions were added in the past four years, bringing the total staff positions to over 4000. And just hiring more staff doesn’t seem to help get the work done: new trees still don’t get watered, picnic tables and benches rot for want of paint. Meantime, formerly free programs have escalating user fees, which still fall far short of covering the operating costs. It’s a puzzle that will have to be solved soon.

CLEANING OUT OUR OWN PANTRY, MAKING DO WITH WHAT WE HAVE

Every park has to help reduce the operating costs while the City tries to dig itself out of its deepening fiscal hole. Here are some immediate suggestions for Dufferin Grove Park, based on talking with on-site staff and park users.

  1. Put the $250,000 wading pool rebuilding on hold. That’s a capital cost, but since the money for such capital projects is entirely from borrowing, there will be interest, charged to the operating budget. (And a City that’s $2 billion in debt should suspend borrowing more, maybe…)The wading pool still works fine except for the antiquated system for turning the water on and off, which can be fixed by some skilful plumbers.
  2. Reassign the extra two staff who drive into the park every night and lock the field house washrooms. On-site recreation staff can resume locking the washrooms as they have for years, helped out by volunteers.
  3. Cut grass cutting by half. This will free up maintenance workers for other tasks (like fixing missing bench slats and helping with tree watering) and save on fuel as well. No need to run the big diesel mowers during the dry days of summer, even if a few hardy grasses pop up to sway in the hot breezes.
  4. Free up existing Parks by-law workers to deal with dog problems and other major issues. They can focus on bigger problems by collaborating more closely with Parks maintenance staff and Recreation program staff, who can deal with the little annoyances in the day to day. At the moment, there’s so much specialization of function that by-law officers often operate without direct communication with on-site staff. This has sometimes caused confusion and the need for extensive bureaucratic damage control – costing extra hours for a lot of people.
  5. For winter: fit the rink season more to the angle of the sun (open earlier and close earlier), to reduce energy costs for keeping the rink frozen, and at the same time to reduce ice repair time for the workers (the high sun of March makes ice maintenance much more time-and-energy-consuming than the low sun of November).
  6. Encourage park workers (maintenance and program workers, supervisors) to use bikes or the TTC to go between parks when possible, saving fuel and repair costs for City vehicles.
  7. Reduce paperwork by letting Recreation staff resume doing programming without having to clear every detail with two other branches (Permits and Parks maintenance). The amount of internal paperwork even for long-established programs, in the new centralized departmental structure, takes a lot of extra staff time at every level.

In the mid-August print run of this newsletter, we’ll have some larger recommendations for the Department as a whole, with more details about money that can be saved. Park users, this is your chance to shine: add your suggestions and either tell them to on-site Recreation staff or email them to: editor@dufferinpark.ca.

PARK NEWS

posted August 20, 2007

THE HUMOUR OF TREE WATERING

One recent Sunday in the park, recreation staff Corey Chivers was dragging a hose from one tree to another, watering the young trees that were planted last fall. Some park neighbours were having a picnic, and Corey heard them laughing. The reason: a gentle rain was falling. He was watering the trees in the rain!

But the fact is, although that beautiful light rain lasted for almost two hours, the drought has been so bad this year that when the rain had stopped the soil was still bone-dry one centimeter below the surface. Until there’s a whole day or a whole night of good, steady rain, any recently-planted trees are in trouble. They need a lot of water, and if they don’t get it, many of them will die.

So the tree watering campaign continues. At Dufferin Grove Park, there are five volunteers helping out: Katherine Betts, Lorna Weir, Josh Shook, Nancy Winsor and Michael Monastyrskyj. And recreation staff Corey Chivers and Mayssan Shuja have gone around to other nearby parks talking to wading pool staff about putting daily pails of water on the new trees there. This has been a bit of a struggle, since some young wading pool staff at other parks feel rather strongly that tree watering is “not my job.” Even after they were encouraged by their supervisors to help out, some of these young staff were very resistant, and were pretty sure that the union must protect them from this task (it doesn’t). Hopefully all of wading pool staff at other parks will eventually acquire a spirit of pulling together. And those who already “get it” have been rewarded by a quick response from the trees. Within four days of getting water, some of the most stressed trees began to put out new leaves, catching up and repairing the drought damage. During the hot weather, parks without shade are mostly empty when the sun is high. As these new trees grow big and spread their shade over the sun-baked playgrounds, more families will be attracted to go there in summer – and the next generation of wading pool staff will be more comfortable too.

posted August 20, 2007

WADING POOL TREE ALERT

The city’s budget emergency has not seemed to stop the city from borrowing more money to build, and the Dufferin Grove wading pool is on the list for this fall, to be replaced for $250,000. However, there’s a new issue. City foresters say they can’t guarantee that the big trees shading the pool won’t be damaged by the jackhammers digging up the concrete around the roots. The four giants located right beside the pool pavement are what make the Dufferin Grove wading pool so unusually pleasant in the summer. The construction company is willing to replace these giant maples with new trees, but it would take about fifty years to get the shade back.

Councillor Giambrone has been informed of this issue and his office has suspended construction plans until more is known about the trees. The funds for this kind of project come from “state of good repair” allocations. Happily, the wading pool is still in quite odd repair except for fairly minor plumbing work in the “pit,” so there’s no need to fix what isn’t broken. Preserving one of the handful of shaded wading pools seems like a good project.

posted August 20, 2007

BIO-TOILET UPDATE


Michele Landsberg

There’s been no word on the bio-toilet building permit, so its clear that it will be another year before it gets put in. (Three years now!). Meantime new bio-toilets seem to be popping up all over. Park friend Michele Landsberg just sent this to cob builder Georgie Donais: “The world-famous Bronx Zoo has just opened an eco-friendly “rest room” with composting toilets---they expect to save a million gallons of water and to use the waste of 500,000 visitors a year for fertilizer for the neighbouring New York Botanical Garden.” Their project took even longer to get the approvals than the Dufferin Grove bio-toilet, but they got them, and visitors describe the “restroom” as clean and attractive.


Michael Monastyrskyj

WATER FOR TREES IN THE PARK

You can help...

Park trees need water in this dry summer. Last month garden-volunteer coordinator Jenny Cook: sent out a message asking for help in watering the park’s 26 new trees, planted last fall. (There were 32 new trees, but six didn’t make it through the winter.) Michael Monastyrskyj stepped up and adopted NINE little trees. Two of them were in bad shape already but are now looking like they might stick around. Recreation staff are watering the other 17, and now that August has come in hot and dry, Councillor Adam Giambrone is supporting park friends’ efforts to involve the Parks maintenance staff in watering as well. From Jenny:

“There’s only one chance to get these little trees over the hump and see them well-established in the park. If you’re inspired by Michael, talk to any of the park staff at the playground, pizza days or Friday Night Supper. It will be a great thing to show your children or visiting friends when you get older: I saved this tree from drought when it was only ten feet tall, and look at it now!

NEW TREES FOR THE PARK

The City of Toronto Tree Advocacy Planting Program not only includes front yards of houses but also parks. Last year for the first time in over ten years, new trees were planted in Dufferin Grove Park. City Tree advocacy staff Uyen Dias has sent Councillor Giambrone’s office a list of the second stage of this planting, to be done in two sections along Dufferin Street this fall (as a side effect, giving some protection where the four-lane traffic is most daunting for park users). The trees in the plan are:

  • Two large caliper trees
  • two tulip trees and two burr oaks
  • 35 deciduous trees: 5 red maples, 5 sugar maples, 10 redbuds, 5 ironwoods, 5 burr oaks, and 5 red oaks;
  • 5 evergreens: white pine;
  • 40 shrubs: 10 serviceberry, 15 red osier dogwood, 5 American elder, and 10 nannyberry.

Dufferin Grove Park used to be renowned for its tall, beautiful white pines (they’re in early photos from the City archives, posted on the web site). Maybe that time will return. But even before that, all those berry bushes may attract not only wildlife but also people. There’s one serviceberry bush in the park already, near the bake ovens. It’s full of berries (they taste like blueberries). The park’s cooks have used them for upside down cake for Friday Night Supper, and there are still lots left for sampling. If 10 more serviceberry bushes are planted in the park, that will make some very good pies. There are two elderberry trees too, and once Jane Jacobs ate some of them baked into a pie. With five more elder bushes, there will be enough for people to harvest for home...

CREDITS

Newsletter Sponsor

Newsletter printing sponsored by: Andrea Adams and Jason Brown

PARK STAFF THIS SUMMER:

Park recreation staff (part-time) are Amy, Sandy, Mayssan, Lea, Corey, Anna Galati, Anna Bekerman, Mario, Ted, Sarah, Christina, Karl, Erinne, Eroca, Jenny, Mary, Daryl, Zio, Elise, Ava and Fiona. Additional program helpers are Heidrun, Yo, and Gregory. Park maintenance staff (seasonal) are Joe and Ian. Lead field house washroom maintenance person is Marjorie.

For any park concerns or information, call the park staff at 416 392-0913. Or e-mail them at staff@dufferinpark.ca.

Newsletter and Website Credits

Newsletter prepared by: Jutta Mason
Illustrations: Jane LowBeer
Web site: Henrik Bechmann

Park phone: 416 392-0913
E-mail: mail@dufferinpark.ca
web address: www.dufferinpark.ca


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