I figured out how to stand up popsicle sticks - use dice! Lay down a popsicle stick (for framework) across an ice cube tray. Lay a die on the stick and attach a temporary little roll of scotch tape to the die. Stand up a popsicle stick (for the popsicle) and have it stick to the scotch tape. Alternatively I could do what normal people do, what I actually did, which is put a stick in while it is slushy. That requires timing.

It turns out that different ice cube trays have different cell size and cell numbers. Anyway, it's time to, uh, freeze the design.

Lychee and Peardrax make great popsicles. We'll never know if birch sap will make a good popsicle. In the packaged drink sugar is used as a preservative, which affects the pure taste of the birch sap. Will it freeze? It is the sap of birch trees.

I'm going to go to town making popsicles, and plan to give sets of them to three sets of friends and relatives. I will recommend that it be consumed on Canada Day. I'll throw in a Milkybar if I can track some down.

While chasing down drinks at the specialty candy shop, Milkybar got my curiosity going, and I bought it. Objectively it is what it is, but right now I have a real crush on it. It tastes like milk chocolate, because that's what it is, with an aftertaste of powdered milk. It tastes sweet, but apparently they reduced the amount of sugar. Product of Britain. This small bar could be a stocking stuffer.
 
 

My brother gave my dad a bicycle to ride, but my dad couldn't. Living in leafy River Heights, close to Assiniboine Park and the (struggling) shopping centre, it was inevitable that I would ride the bike repeatedly, just like when I was a teenager.

Why do they make bike seats so hard?

I headed off to the park, with its trails, pavilion and duck pond. There was a good number of people, with basically nobody wearing masks. I would argue that with distance, outdoors, humidity and very low infection rates it doesn't matter, but you had best get this information from a health professional rather than a game site.

There was a village of gophers - or Richardson's ground squirrels - at the park. There was also a falcon swooping by low. It might have been a peregrine falcon. It had a striped tail.

In my day I never wore a helmet, which was bad. Nowadays everyone wears helmets. I used to go back and forth between going on the road and going on the sidewalk, whichever led to safety and being nice to people. Since then it is against the law to ride on the sidewalk, and you can get a ticket. That did not affect me, thank goodness. Now it does.

I went to the nearby corner of Queenston and Academy at the lights. An older lady nudged out with her car as I was crossing. That was rather rude and wrong. Toward the end I realised I was crossing against a red light.

Later at that same corner a guy drove by with what I described as a model T Ford. My dad says there is someone on Queenston who has the rarer model A. I spoke with the guy and verified this.

The beautiful, wide Wellington Crescent has nice, old, rich people houses. I like to see the old houses kept, but change is inevitable. I checked out the old Carstairs house, and its metal gates were closed up with a sign on them, No Tresspassing, with a truck parked. Restructuring? Don't like people? A movie shoot? Pest removal?

A closer look at the two signs showed that they said "DANGER" "Firing Range" and "Department of National Defense". What the heck is that?