The first thing you will notice is that city owned lands such as parks and rights of way are now being left to grow. This 'naturalization initiative' served two purposes, first it allows for more natural habitat for wildlife, such as birds and small animals, raccoon, skunks, rats, etc.
Secondly, it reduces the amount of CFCs being let into the atmosphere by scores of gas sucking lawn mowers. The result of this initiative will be cleaner air for all, including the wildlife. In the parks, you can see our children playing in the tall grass, games of hide and seek have never been so fun! The kids are loving it. They can also engage the wildlife in a more natural environment - those on the east side no longer have to drive to the west side to see the Ojibway Nature area. A natural extension of that unique environment is spreading across the city.
A new attraction this year is 'Art in the Meadow', formerly known as Art in the Park. However, some vandelous citizens who don't share the city's vision, cut all the grass last week at Willistead. There are always elements of society who rebel! Sadly, there is only a week of growth today to enjoy this unique natural event.
This new vision has also had side effects that were only dreams - The pesky Corvette show at Dieppe park every year has moved to LaSalle this year. Really, who want to go to a park and see a bunch of old cars sitting on the grass. We can see old cars parked on every street in the city, we don't really need them on our green spaces as well. These guys get the right one day every year to drop their 'prize' cars on the grass, getting in the way of people walking their dogs and playing frisbee.
The city has also decided that the people of Windsor are too dependent. Taxes are being wasted on having dozens of trucks fan out every day to do for the citizens what they should do themselves - clean up their own mess. How often do we tell our children to clean up their own messes, there is no butler to come along behind them. The city has taken this to heart with the citizens. We are now expected to get off our lazy computer loving TV watching lazy asses, and pick up after ourselves. Taxes will be redirected toward other city projects that are much more useful and tourist friendly than garbage and recycling, such as a canal through our downtown core. A worthy project bound to attract tourists and wildlife alike. In the meantime, we will pick up after ourselves, having learned a valuable lesson from the decision. We really are a lazy group! The landfills are benefitting too, not being filled up on a daily basis with trash from over 200,000 people. A lot of people are now going back to basics, composting, recycling, and just simply throwing out less crap. We all win!
This philosophy also extends to our public spaces. The city has redecorated its parks with carefully placed items we no longer want. The intention here is to remind us of the items that can be thrown out, with visual demonstrations of why - do you want your yards looking like this? Then take care of it. Essentially these city owned garbage piles are advertisements to us.
We should all enjoy our new Windsor. Back to basics, back to nature. The City and CUPE have done their parts to change this city, we should all too. So come visit us this summer, with festivals like Summerfest, BluesFest, Red Bull Air Races (which sadly, cut the grass), and others. We can all enjoy nature again without the insescent hum of lawnmowers and garbage trucks. We can hear the geese and the pigeons. We can see small animals that normally wouldn't visit us, we can admire true nature. I would like to take this opportunity to declare this summer in Windsor Naturefest.
Welcome to our beautiful city.
Well put.
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