I have been having constant problems with this website.

As well as some native posts, I was cross-posting all my splynch.blogspot.com posts here. This seems to have been a mistake, resulting in constant out-of memory errors, problems with my back-ups and finally total breakdown of the site.

5″X7″ Oil on board, $75

I have rebuilt the site from the ground up and have decided not to continue to cross-post. However, there were a few native posts on my old site that proved quite popular, so I have imported those onto this new platform. In doing so I had to relink all my images, so I hope that everything is working properly.

This tiny orchid traveled back with me from Puerto Rico. I pulled it off an orange tree and it was in a pocket of my shorts. I have been nurturing it for four months and it has finally repaid me with this delightful little flower, only a centimetre or so across. The pencil gives some idea of the scale.

Who says you can’t grow paperwhites outside in Ontario? They look like paperwhites, they smell like paperwhites, I think they are paperwhites. I must have planted them by accident last year, there were a bunch of left-over bulbs in the shed that I thought I might as well throw in somewhere, and look what I got.

Hugh and James McSloy established the Canada Hair Cloth Company in 1884. In 1888 they bought a parcel of land behind St. Paul Street from the Dolphin Paint Company and built a 3 storey brick building. The site was ideal because it was next to a mill-race where water wheels provided the power to run the machines. Within a few years they bought an electrical generator which used the mill wheel as its turbine making it the first company in St. Catharines to use electricity. The Canada Hair Cloth business stayed in the family until sold in 1996.

The Welland Canal was the first Canadian canal built for both transportation and waterpower (1824 & 1833). St. Catharines was one of the main water-powered industrial centers along the canal. Remains of the raceways can still be seen behind the Canada Hair Cloth building and the name Race Street reminds us of the city’s hydraulic heritage.

Sources:

St Catharines Historical Society

Pauline Desjardins