The first Monday in August is referred to as Civic Holiday. As I was sitting down to write this entry I wondered what exactly is "Civic Holiday". Once again the Internet comes to the rescue with the following information "Each municipality that opts to declare the holiday can give it a unique name. It's called the "civic" holiday because it's the holiday that cities have authority to declare." In Toronto it is called Simcoe Day. According to the website I found Newfoundland's Civic Holiday is called Regatta Day and is held on the first Wednesday of August depending. If weather is not suitable, and wind conditions are very important, the event is postponed until the next suitable day.

Ed and I invited my mother and brother up for a visit and smoked ribs on Sunday. The forecast was iffy but we hoped for the best and put the ribs on the smoker about 12:30 with a finish time around 5pm. Unfortunately, mother nature had her own ideas and just after 4pm the skies opened and water poured down on us. Plan B went into affect and the ribs were moved into the oven for the last hour of cooking. Turned out Plan B was a good plan as the ribs came out really tender.

The first wave of the storm passed, so my mother and brother headed home and luckily had good weather for the entire drive. Shortly after they left, the second wave of the storm came through bringing a bit of hail with it and a tornado. The tornado touched down in Teviotdale, about 40 minutes into the drive to Burlington. A lot of trees were uprooted, one house had the roof torn off and debris damaged a number of police cruisers two doors down at the OPP station. The building in between didn't appear to have any damage.

20150806-teviotdale photo from internet.jpg
I downloaded this photo from the Internet.