{Roxton Road Parks} Monday, first visit

I'm starting a new series here to to track personal observations of my thesis site--a park located in Toronto's Little Italy. I plan to visit the park at least once a week for the month of August and September, While I'm there I'll document my experience with photos and words. I tend to ramble on when writing in my notebook, so I will only post excerpts here along with the photos. Here are the bits of the first one.



I settled at the picnic table under the trees, took out my Annie Dillar book to read for the rest of the afternoon. It is interesting to read her book in open air--the rustling leaves and quiet breeze set good mood for the read. I'm a slow reader and I get distracted too easily. As soon as I sensed movement around me, my eyes wondered and my train of thoughts quickly shifted to notice my surroundings in order to satisfy my curious heart. As I lifted my eyes away from the book, I saw a little sparrow landed on my picnic table, only about six inches away from me. I thought sparrows are easily startled, but not this one. It hopped two steps towards me, looked down as if it was checking on my reading progress, then it quickly flew off but landed on the other edge of the table right beside my arm. With it's tilted head again, it's attention seemed to be on what was going on below the table--on the grass. I was not a hundred percent for certain if it was the same sparrow, but the bird came back a few more times, staying for about half a minute each and hanging out really close to me. I was happy someone was interested in what I was doing, but I was distracted and needed to get back to my reading.

As it was getting too windy and cold under the shades, I started rubbing my two arms and debated whether or not to relocated again, maybe this time to a half sunny and half shaded spot, this way I can easily oscillate between the two and find a good balance in temperature. While I was pondering on my options, I noticed a tiny bright yellow dot between the pages of my book. It was crawling in a slow pace and I could see its hair thin legs wobbling on the page. Its body is very yellow, almost the same colour as a lemon's skin. I have never seen a bug of this colour before. There is this South American bug called Cochineal that I learnt about when I tried natural dye in a studio. It is a bug that has has bright pink guts, so they grind them up and use them as a dye. I wonder if this bug may have yellow guts, and it may sound cruel but I imagine the colour would be quite beautiful.