Getting paid in liquid gold.

Is there a more suitable currency? I think not. I went out to help out at the apiary again this week. After finishing up I asked if I could buy some liquid honey. Instead I was given two gallons of it. I then proceeded to start making a wild berry mead with green tea addition. Not only is this bad boy going to taste like heaven, it is going to be around 18 percent for alcohol, and it is even going to be caffeinated. This could be a dangerous situation, but it is a dangerous situation that I am going to dive head first right into.
In the big barrel is where the mead is being made, the little buckets are what the honey came in, The big glass carboy is holding the Saskatoon wine and the two little carboys have the dandy wine in them.

Now thats Fresh!

Sometimes you get a call at nine thirty in the morning-

"Hey dude... I just woke up in a back alley somewhere near your place, can I come over?"

These are the tentative words that will make us glance at the reflection in the mirror. Did I do something wrong? Is my life okay?

Of course you are alright! Everything is just fine. In fact Jason, two hours after this conversation ends I am going to wake you up, ask for your hand in harvesting a chicken and our taste buds are going to take a ride on the gravy train in the Sunday morning sunshine. There is nothing wrong here. All is alright. It's not time to stop drinking, you may have forgotten that there is 100 bottles of wine being processed in my living room.....

NOW THAT IS FRESH CHICKEN.

Wine

Saskatoon/Raspberry wine is currently in the primary. Going out tomorrow to help with bees. hopefully they hook me up with some honey to make me some mead. So good it could knock the spots off a Dalmation . The wine is probably the tastiest thing you can smell right now, but then again...it is not wine yet.

saskatoon jam

Made a bunch of this the other night. Pretty stoked to spread this on all sorts of grain products.

pictures from canoing

NOTE- There is one picture that involves lawn chairs. The second night as evening was approaching, a man hailed us from the shoreline and offered his land for us to camp on. The property involved comfy chairs, a tap, a fire pit and even an outhouse. I may or may not have left this part out of the original story I wrote because it is in fact not very hard.

Garden

Paddling the South Saskatchewan.

I have some pictures to add to this later but here goes the story anyway.

Day 0- Jeff and JJ have not yet joined the procession. Jim and Joe, the brothers, paddle from the damn at Diefenbaker to Outlook, grasping the beauty all the way through. Spirits are high, beer is plenty and food everywhere. A six point mule deer is spotted swimming across the river. The duo paddle up in an attempt to pet the deer but are outsmarted by this cloven footed creature.

Day 1- Spirits are high, Jeff gets off work at three, picks up JJ and away into the yonder they go. The friends cut a deal, Jeff buys the gas, Jeff drinks JJ's beer and eats his steaks. The duo greet the brothers on the mean streets of Outlook, The spirits of the brothers are low after having to sober up on account of waiting for the late bloomers all afternoon and evening. the group paddles across the river to the camp that the brothers had set up the night before. Conveniently the camp is located across the river from the pay for a site RV park. Beers are cracked, spirits are raised. Quiet time passes at the RV park to hoots and hollers from the foursome across the river. Fireworks are set off and O Canada sang at the stroke of midnight as spirits rise to unprecedented heights.

Day 2- The friends must paddle across the river to grab the trucks and drop one off near toon town. Voices are taken to their threshold in singalong without a working radio as the trucks stumble along, barely reaching a hundred even when the peddle is pressed tightly against the floor board. The troupe stumbles across an extremely ritzy golf course along the shore near Toon town. Mildly out of place in cow boy boots and wrangler jeans, Joe and JJ park the dusty old 400 dollar, two door, light blue, 1990 Ford Ranger Pickup between an Escalade and a convertible Cadillac. The four then sandwich into the bench seat of the other truck, the one that no one is sure of how it made it there in the first place. Joe picks up the MP3 player in the exact right way so that it properly works and the jams start off with Steve Earle's Guitar Town. Spirits are back at last nights level and the troupe sends themselves off to outlook to the soundtrack an outlaw cowboy.

Canoeing for the day goes off without a hitch except when the rain begins and JJ has to improvise a slicker out of a garbage bag. Jeff and JJ spot a lone coyote crossing the river. As it reaches the shore and scampers up the bank, they can't help but wonder if the coyote is following them, watching them with intrigue and perhaps a slight amount of hunger. Camp is made, spirits rise once again, coolers get a little lighter but no one goes hungry.

Day 3- A day filled with lazy river paddling and naked sand bar bathing. Cliff jumping takes on a new level and Jeff discovers the wonders of making Saskatoon berry chocolate chip biscuits, cooked in bacon fat over a bed of hot coals. The last night on the river raises toasts to the trip all evening long as the group vows to not bring any beer home tomorrow. They do not disappoint. Spirits rise, then plummet as the environment mimics the mood of the drunkards and a thunderstorm rolls in to bring a force down upon the beach where the group has camped. Coolers become empty, self respect drops and meat becomes scarce.

Day 4- Spirits are low at the prospect of returning to careers, wonderful but time consuming families, and empty houses. Thoughts are thrown around about throwing it all away and paddling the water ways all the way to the great Hudson's Bay. An excursion that would knock the socks off just about any grizzled lumberjack. Paddling down the river with anticipation of reaching a destination of sorts, JJ routinely scours the banks for a human that could let us know our location. Gazing off into the distance he spots someone, just as Jim spots the naked man, leaf covering his genitals, standing on the side of the bank holding a friendly wave. Spirits rise slightly at the hilarity of the event. Finally the troupe arrives to interrupt a Sunday morning golf game just as little white balls come flying purposefully in their direction. Hauling the canoe up the side of a valley through thick bush is no easy task, but the men tackle it with pride and resourcefulness. The smell of man is thick in the air, you could cut it with a six inch bowie knife, and luckily, JJ has one strapped to his left leg.

The trip is over. Back to life it is.

Updates

The Garden- Is growing faster than an awkward pubescent girl. Raspberries are getting eaten, so are peas. Carrots will be big enough to chow on soon and green tomatoes are starting to pop up. I must take pictures tomorrow on my day off to put up here. In comparison to most gardens I have seen so far this summer, mine is miles ahead.

Methane Digester- Was a bust, but it did yeald some compost tea that was both smelly and a huge kickstart for my tomatoes.

Dandelion wine- Is still fermenting, I think this may be a pretty potent batch. Looking forward to drinking it when it is actually ready. Me and some friends may have gotten silly earlier this week and drank half a bottle of unfinished wine. WOops.

STOONS!

It is Saskatoon berry season once again. Fuck Yes! Fight me if you think there is a tastier berry. Actually raspberries are pretty good too, but not as plentiful. So this is the first bag of the season and there are still oodles of unripe flavour explosions on the branches. Last year I made some fantastic Saskatoon wine so hopefully I can get out enough this year to collect a sufficient amount for that. Also the jams are always the best to, I had to start rationing those goods this winter they were just so darned tasty. But the ones in this here picture or most certainly going into some breakfast biscuits tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and the day after that even.
If your wondering where to procure some berries of your own(No I am not giving out my secret spot). Buuut, if you head out to the country go for a drive down some smaller country roads in valley type areas or go for a walk down an old set of rail road tracks and your bound to find all kinds of berries on public land. These were harvested not ten minutes from Regina so keep your eyes open.

Great Weekend

Sometimes you have no plans for a weekend. Sometimes you remember about an invite from a friend to a destruction derby in the small town of Lipton, Saskatchewan. Sometimes you get in the truck and drive on out there. Sometimes it is just as awesome as you would imagine. Sometimes you head back to the local watering hole. Sometimes dinner comes and you need to grab a bottle of wine to take to the barbecue. Sometimes you ask for that bottle of wine, and the only thing that comes out is Royal Red cooking wine. Sometimes you buy that bottle of wine. Sometimes the cap doesn't come off while your driving to the party in the back of a pick up. Sometimes you have to cut off the cap with a buck knife. Sometimes you head back to that friendly local watering hole. Sometimes you witness someone take a bottle to the head. Sometimes your friends follow the commotion outside. Sometimes your friend somehow ends up in cuffs in the back of a cruiser. Sometimes you wake up the next morning and his parents make you all a delicious breakfast. Sometime your friend shows you the old wind up gramaphone and puts on that old Hank Willams 78 just for you......

Sometimes life treats you pretty good.

lazy river floating

Well heres a good trick! But watch out because this is a limited time offer. You will likely never be able to do this again. Right now the Qu'appelle is still almost at flood hight, which means it is deep enough that you can swim in the river and not touch the bottom. The only other time this would be possible is in the spring time, but everyone knows melt water is far to cold to swim in. So anywho, me and my good friend Brett put on some life jackets friday afternoon in the blazing sun and jumped in the river with Brett's bird dog. We lazily floated around, letting the current take us until we got back to his jeep. Tons of fun, I wish I had pictures to share.

Rescue team

The family was out at the cabin today celebrating fathers day. While we were there a couple of neat little things happened.

My pops spotted something in the water, thinking it was dead, he picked it up only to realize that it in fact was not dead. It was a baby warbler that had fallen out of its nest above the shoreline. Dad took the soaking creature into the sun where it began to shake and shiver uncontrollably. Things did not look good, but slowly the sun got stronger and the cute little guy started to warm up. Finally he started chirping and his eyes began to open after his truamatic experience. After about ten minutes of crying you could hear his folks begin singing up a storm in a nearby tree. We decided it was best if we skedaddle and watch the proceedings from afar. The adult birds came down to him and started hootin and hollerin and jumpin this ways and that. Down from the barrel the little birdy went, opening up his wings for a short second to try to reach mom and dad. A little further the next time he went. With mom and dad still hootin and hollerin encouragement he made it a touch farther this time. And finally on the fourth attempt the little ball of down made it into a tree. In one short hour the little guy went from the brink of death to making his very first flight.
A pretty cool sight to see


Second cool thing was that with all the rain we have had, the water in the lake is very clear, especially when brother lent me his expensive polarized sunglasses. A school of Perch had decided to make home intermitently underneath the dock today so I could drop down my hook and literally watch about 30 fish investigate my bait before finally one would try his luck at dinner.

Down In The Valley Below

If all this rain is good for anything besides pushing us towards our generation's Atlantis, it is paddling. While a person can do the Qu'appelle at any time in the summer, the fun increases with the rise in water. Normally at this time you would be scrapping muddy bottom on every third paddle stroke, but not so this year. I failed to touch the bottom even once with my fun stick. This weekend i picked out a portion of the river I had done before knowing that it held a zip line somewheres along its length. However when we got to the line it was clear that it had been taken out in the spring time by log jams mixed with raging torrents of ice. Not one to be dismayed, I kept my eye out for other sorts of fun. stumbling upon a tree that had been overtaken by the river, I got the light bulb in my head that it could be used as a diving board.

Other sights seen on this excursion- owls, pelicans, baby geese, ducks, herons, carp, raccoons, cedar wax wings, normal deer, angry deer, deer with velvety antenna, fat beavers, lazy beavers, beavers that think they can fly, oh and even a couple bovine.

Broody Hens

So I have a broody hen. What does this mean? It means it is trying to hatch its unfertilized eggs. Why are chickens so stupid? I am not sure. A broody hen poses a number of problems. In a coop like mine with only one nest box, the other chicken is never able to get to the box to lay because the other hen is being a stubborn bitch. The broody hen also greatly slows down its food intake as well as neglecting water because it is busy being lazy. So what do you do? You keep tossing it out of the nest box while avoiding pecks from every which angle. Google also told me to try dunking it in water to cool its body temperature down, making it uncomfortable to brood and hopefully waking it from its predicament. We will see how it goes. Up until now my hens have been excellent, producing just about one egg a day each and keeping very silent. I sure as shit can not be complaining about four egg skillets on lazy sunday mornings. Could be better if the skillets were brought to me in bed by cute girls with loose morrals, but I'm better at dreaming than convincing. The city also has not caught onto me yet and hopefully we can keep it at that. I'm sure the city workers are all just to busy working hard... right?

This

Is a methane digester. If it does what I have been telling it to do, it will run my barbecue. The idea is simple. I'm not a scientist but basically this is what is happening. Inside the white bucket without the presence of oxygen the chicken poo and garden scraps are breaking down and one of the main byproducts of that is methane. The methane will bubble up and become trapped in my upside water cooler tank. then when I figure there is some methane in there I can hook up my BBQ hose to... you guessed it.... a BBQ, open the valve and light a match. If it works this will rule. If not, it was a solid way to spend a rainy day with no work and no play.

This redneck here was my inspiration

row row row your boat

So last summer I wasted 800 bucks buying a metal boat with a motor and all the fixins. It's nothing special really and it was fun for the 4 hours that the motor was happy with me, but after that it seemed to become displeased with my pleasant disposition. Now the motor sits in a corner of the shed, I have neither the patience nor the know how to figure out such mechanical devices. I may have been born to work with my hands but they were meant to play with wood and not metallic objects.

Anyway... So I decided that I still love my boat so I went over to Canadian tire and bought a set of oars, and now I have myself a cute little row boat. Life rules!

cute

Well it was the middle of the day so they were not coming out to play. So we stuck a camera into the culvert and here is what we found.

Foxes!

Probably make the cutest animal. On the way home from work yesterday out in Boggey Creek valley I stumbled upon a fox den not ten feet from the road. Screeching to a hault I pulled over to have a gander and there were three of the cutest most curious little foxes you have seen. I was able to get within ten feet of them because they have not yet learned to fear humans. Tomorrow I am going back with my camera so hopefully I will have some pictures for you.

tis the season

For dandelions that is. For most folks, dandelions are the most pesky of weeds, hard to pull up and they are fucking everywhere(this is true, I picked enough flowers within 40 feet of the back porch. And lets face it, they really do suck when they are crowding your garden. BUT! they also serve the greater good. Dandelions can be put into salads, used for herbal remedies, made into a tea, the roots dried as a coffee substitute, and in this particular case, they make everyones favorite wine.

For price of chicken scratch(15 loons) I was able to make a little over 2 gallons of wine. This should give me ten bottles of wine after all the sediment is left over. A buck fifty a bottle eh? NOT BAD. I would say from start to finish I probably put in about 2 hours of work, but it was enjoyable work, and it would have either been that or twidling my thumbs wathing the evening roll past me....and I prefer to do things.

I used the second recipe off of this interwebs site here except that I doubled it and added some cloves when I tossed in the orange peelings.

This is also only the start. Hopefully this year will yield more saskatoon and apple wine and hopefully will see me try a sand cherry wine for the first time. But these will have to wait. Maybe by the time fruit season rolls around I can get good and sauced for the pickins off of this dandy goodness.

the trails

Well I was bored a couple days ago so I went out for a little hike by myself out to Wascana trails. I did not really see anything that interesting but it was really nice just to be out there. Here are some pics of the wonders of the natural world from that happening. Also while I was there I had to check out the water levels to see if I could get a paddle in there just once more. I have read the flow charts for the Wascana in the past and noticed that once or twice a year during the summer, the levels peaked again, obviously due to a hard rain. This had always intrigued me. On a side note I really wish I was into paddling when they drained the whole fucking lake to deepen it. That would have been something else.

Anyway, with all this darned rain we have had, the river has actually swelled almost to spring levels. So today we went out to do a run on the trails. A perfect day for such an adventure. Not to hot, not to cold, just right and tons of fun. Oh and no one even ended up in the water this time.