Springtime seduced us this week with her sunshine and abnormally balmy weather, causing us to do all sorts of strange things like barbecue pieces of t-shirt and transform a gnarly chunk of steel into a fountain for the backyard. It’s been a good week.

On Monday we biked over to The Leslie Spit, one of our favourite spots in the city. Also known as Tommy Thompson Park, the Leslie Spit is a man-made peninsula, 5km long, that juts out into Lake Ontario. Originally it was intended as a breakwater for harbour expansion over 50 years ago, but that expansion never happened. Instead, the Spit became a dumping ground for non-toxic building waste: old bricks, tiles, rebar and concrete. As the years went by, as years do, the landscape eventually transformed and naturalized. (Life always finds a way).

Today the spit is home to hundreds of different plant, reptile and bird species, all living harmoniously amongst decades of urban waste. It’s a strange and beguiling place to explore. Last year we actually took a group of artists out here, camped illegally, then hosted an art exhibition about the experience.

But back to the fountain…

We found this hunk of metal (likely an old steel guardrail) near the shore beside an entanglement of rusty rebar. A little de-rusting, some lime green paint, and the addition of a water pump, and voila. We now have a fully functioning, absolutely weird looking, contemporary bird bath vessel. Depending on the angle, I’d say it remarkably resembles a cross between an oyster, a flower, a lilly pad and a chunk of guard rail.

Tomorrow morning we head off with our canoe up to Georgian Bay for our first camping trip of the season. Posts will resume on Monday.

Happy weekend.