5 July 2026

In my neighborhood on 1 July I encountered a deer very close to the sidewalk who didn’t care that I stared at her.

She was eating a large Japanese spindle hedge (Euonymus japonicus)*, a plant that is toxic to humans and pets but not toxic to deer. She must be eating it day after day because the long hedge is damaged and see-through.

Japanese spindle hedge browsed by deer, 1 July 2026 (photo my Kate St. John)

Terribly hot weather. Even the sunset looked hot.

Heatwave sunset, 2 July 2026, 8:41pm (photo by Kate St. John)

So we’re on a mini-vacation in Hamilton, Ontario where it is not as hot. “Why Hamilton?” asked the Canadian immigration officer at the Peace Bridge. Well, we didn’t want to drive all the way to Toronto. Fair enough.

Hamilton (H on the map below) is on the way to Toronto (T) and more than an hour+ from the Peace Bridge in Buffalo (B). As we learned, there is a lot of stop and go traffic on the expressway.

Annotated Great Lakes satellite map from Wikimedia Commons

Hamilton is at the westward tip of Lake Ontario and is bisected by the Niagara Escarpment, a 650-mile cliff that arcs from New York state to Ontario, Michigan and Wisconsin. It is not a fault line but the result of unequal erosion with hard rock on the cliff top and eroding limestone on the cliff face. Both the Genesee River in Rochester, NY and Niagara Falls cascade over the Niagara Escarpment.

Both the lake and the escarpment are visible from our hotel windows.

Lake Ontario seen from Hamilton, Ontario, 4 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)

A portion of the Niagara Escarpment as seen from Hamilton, Ontario, 4 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)

But not visible today. We were going to see the escarpment but it’s foggy.

Fog in Hamilton, Ontario, northeast wind, 5 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John)

(*) p.s. It’s possible that I’ve misidentified the hedge the deer was eating. Cultivated Euonymus japonicus and E.Fortunei are very similar.