Month: March 2025

Has been a few moons since I went out to be sociable twice in the same week, let alone back-to-back. Feels good. A nice change up from the ordinary. Didn’t hurt that I was able to watch the Leafs game during both outings. Not only that, but I was home before ten on both nights, that’s perfectly cromulent in my book! Thank you, and good day sir.

If I recall I had some plans to try to complete my children’s book this winter. I have failed miserably in this regard. I have not opened it, nor thought much about it since making that post around Christmas. My bad. Not that it’s a Pulitzer prize winner, or going to begin a second life as a monster hit, by any means. To date I have sold exactly one (1) copy of my collected work of short fiction, available on Kindle Unlimited via Amazon, so I have no illusions that this would fare any better, either free here as a pdf, or on the Kindle once more. I had hoped that it might get read by a handful of people at some point, or that somebody would like it enough to download & read book two aswell. But I shan’t hold my breath. One nicely starred review would blow my mind, but with so much available out there, my take on things, is just one of a hundred million. Not AI generated though. I typed all that shit out on my phone, then transferred it to Word, and edited it over a period of a few weeks. It took effort, and time. Brain power too.

But, yeah the children’s book has stalled out. I think my desire for better than average art has killed it, since I don’t draw or paint much at all anymore. I can go several years in between projects like that. So… that’s where it’s at. In a folder on my computer waiting for me to finish it. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

In other news it is Friday today. Yahoo. We had some flurries last night, and bitterly cold temperatures this morning, but now that we are into the spring season we can trend towards warmer days, if slowly. That’s gotta be a plus for most of us. The tiny taste of decent weather reminds us all of just how much we are sick of the cold, and the snow. Bring on the warmth, and the outdoors!

It’s official, today is in fact the first day of spring around these parts, and what better way to celebrate that than with gingerbread tulips, and a warm gentle rain. It’s not spring without puddles or mud. Though I don’t have high Hope’s that this warm spell will last, I do expect at least one more dumping of snow about 3-4 inches worth before we are actually done with the stuff for good this year. It’s way too early to have this much (dry-ish) grass shown all over the place. You can’t have April ice puddles and slushy snow banks in the park if the snow melts by the third week of march. That’s just crazy talk. No-no, to be consistent we need long submerged icy patches in the grass surrounded by meters wide 1/8 inch deep puddles absolutely everywhere, as far as the dye can see. Clogged sewer drains full of backed up ice and grit with no flow. That’s April in Ontario, not dry grass, open roads, and above zero temperatures. April is when we DREAM of patio drinks, not when you can actually do it without a parka, toque, and an insane denial of the actual outside temperature. Come on, get with it man!

Thursday is here. Father in law is on his way back to Florida, hope he doesn’t get nabbed by ICE to make a statement about the US/Canada relations gap. Passport or not, he might potentially have some trouble. He does have a resident drivers license for his place in the Keys though, so maybe that will be ok? I don’t really know. Hope it all works out smoothly for him, and any other Canadian travellers to the US over the next four or so years.

The Leafs won their second game in a row, managing to beat Colorado whom only recently demolished the Leafs 7-3 a few nights ago. Good to see the Leafs hold things together, largely in part because Woll had a hot glove, and was making many much needed saves. The offensive portion of the team needs to step up and put more pucks in nets to help the poor guy out a little. The last few minutes of the third period were a real pressure cooker. Not to mention how many empty better chances the Leafs bungled by shooting wide right, and wide left. Those should be gimmies at this level of play. But, they won, so the criticisms calm down a smidge.

What else is new? Oh yeah my eldest daughter got her glasses yesterday, that didn’t take long at all. She seems pleased as punch to have the helping hand with reading the smart board in class. Let us hope that it does something positive so she is less stressed about school. Also we’re all paid up until the end of June for Taekwondo, so she should be able to take her red stripe belt test before we pause for the summer break. That would be a welcome break, to have the new belt in hand prior to going off for two months. That way when we head back at the end of August she won’t have forgotten any of the new red stripe patterns, because she won’t have been able to learn them yet. A fresh start at a new level come September.  That’s a nice way to head into the fall. Love it. From here she has another couple of belts left to go. Red stripe, red belt, black stripe, and then a massive commitment to move ahead with black belt training. But I figure that both the red belt, and black stripe belts are 6 months or longer to achieve, so she’ll be heading into grade seven or eight before needing to decide about the much more expensive, and difficult testing for a black belt. Still have time to gut check that in a few years time. We’ve come an awful long way from white belt training, let me tell you.

Finally picked up Space Marine 2 the other day because it was 31% off, and I can get away with $60.00 for a single player campaign game. Thus far I am still in the tutorial stage. Not as nimble with the fingers and buttons as I used to be. It plays well different to Diablo 4. I enjoy fps games, but i really like the top down button masher, melee combat style games now. Adjusting tastes. The first Space Marine was one of the rare games i actually completed on the 360. Besides the Gears of War games, and a bunch of Halo stuff. Once the price came down from nearly $100.00 i jumped on it. Bam! Mine now.

Looking at a busy Wednesday today. I’m in the process of building an in store, in situation, retail display render, and it has eaten up a good portion of my day so far. I should be able to send it off in a little bit though, so that’s good.

I recently ordered some grip trainers, and I might have gotten a little ahead of myself, as my grip strength I’d much weaker than anticipated. I struggle with the 100lb. So I have the one set down coming soon, so hopefully I can work up to, and over & beyond the 100lb. I’m well aware that I can not tackle any climbs above a 5.8 until I significantly boost my grip strength, and up my skill level on routes. That takes time, but I can actively strengthen my hands & forearms while I build up the institutional knowledge regarding climbing and/or bouldering.

So that’s what I intend to do. I’m still holding around 195lbs. I didn’t take the time to tun on the elliptical while at the cottage. I forgot my headphones anyway. And there’s no radio that I could commandeer for the task. I would like to get on it a bunch this summer though, if I can. I’d rather ride my bike or skateboard, but it is what it is. I’m trying not to get ahead of the weather right now. Yes it is sunny and warm, but we are weeks out from Easter so I fully expect one more dumping of snow to take us back to square one with the grass, and the overall temperature.  A patio seasoned April is a real boon, but I don’t trust it right this moment. Not when it isn’t even officially spring yet!

My youngest has started to play goat simulator on line with her cousin, so that’s caused a lot of issues in the house the last few days. Fun, fun, fun around here at all times. Yay!

Means a few things at our house. Recycling and garbage goes to the curb for 7:00am in our neck of the woods. We have Girl Guides for nearly three hours in the evening, and I take the youngest rock climbing in Markham for the late afternoon. Poor poochie has to stay home alone to watch over the house, bark & snarl at passers by. This morning was pretty chilly, but I do hope we get that +15°C warmth we’ve been promised, even if it’s just briefly. Hard to estimate just how much I like a good warm sunny blow-up on exposed skin this late in the winter. I realize it will officially be spring come Thursday, but today, today I would like a warm sun on my face at school pick up, because it was frosty AF this morning.

I did manage to run the vacuum around yesterday, and oh my good lord the house was a mess. That’s what happens when you don’t clean before you go away for a few days, the dirt compounds, and settles in the corners. The dog shaking this loose every so often doesn’t help much either. I can begin the next round of purges soon enough, as spring cleaning will be a thing I do shortly.

Boots, coats, snow pants and mitts. Old shoes, rain jackets, splash pants – oh my! Closets to pilfer, and drawers to declutter. Hidden pockets of junk discarded. Old skates, helmets and equipment can be moved on down the line to younger family members. It truly is a wonderful time of year. Does my oldest child really require 32 sweaters??? 50 some odd pairs of pants. Nearly 70 t-shirts. It’s too damn much. Far too much. We could clothe half her class easily, for a couple of days at that. It’s ridiculous. Bedrooms are far too small for this sort of display.

Don’t get me started on the piles of unopened birthday & Christmas gifts. Madness. The whole lot of it. Utter madness. But I digress.

First day back to school after March Break has hit a bit of a pause button action this morning. Heading over to the optometrist office to have the kids eyes checked. Eldest has been complaining as of late that she can not read the smart board from where she sits. So she may potentially require glasses. I have told her to ask if she can switch seats so as to be able to read the board, but to no avail. Either she (my daughter) has NOT asked, or has been denied her request. We have not met this new teacher after her initial one was so unceremoniously let go due to poor treatment of several students. His “roast” battles were getting ugly, among other things. Nothing touchy-touchy, just poor judgement for punishments towards disruptive students. Anyway, besides the point. New teacher is here, we’ve not met her to inquire about the seating change, or reasons for a lack thereof, so now we go to the source and get her eyes checked. Then we can go after the teacher once we know more if it is required.

So while the schedule has reset back to normal, we have this one little hiccup to attend to for both kids first. Then we go back to normal – sort of. Today is a bust for being a cookie cutter typical day, but for the most part we all go back to our regular  daily schedules. Huzzah!

So here it is,,Monday in all of it’s cold, damp glory. Saint Patrick’s Day at that! Green things all around. This was always a bigger than normal holiday for the brewery crowd I worked with back in the day. Distorts how popular this day is for the regular world when you work for a brewery. It seems like it’s as big as Valentine’s Day or even Boxing Day from that vantage point, but it really isn’t much of a big deal for regular folks. For Alcoholics I imagine it’s up there with Christmas,  New Year’s,  Thanksgiving,  and the Superbowl, and World Series. But to the rest of us it is just a cold day in mid March.

We did the kids laundry yesterday. So I don’t need to do it today! Yay. We came home a full day later so I had less time to prep things around the house for today. Still managed to go get groceries, and fill up the car, and chop down some wood pieces. Today I focus on report edits and vacuuming the house. Dog hair waits for no man!

I do not recall ever dropping anything on my left shoulder, but boy oh boy do the bones at the very top hurt a lot. Doesn’t feel like the muscles, but rather the solid bone which hurts. I think I’ve been trying to avoid it by changing my posture because as of yesterday the muscles down the interior side of my shoulder blade hurts now too. The sude inwards towards my spine, if that makes it easier to visualize. Very odd.  Makes sleeping most uncomfortable too. Not a fan. Do not reccomend. Zero stars.

Spent some time this morning running about doing some family errands. Gas in the car, grocery shopping, laundry among other things, such as tidying up the main floor after my chaotic kids have rifled through it in a tizzy. Never ends around here. Believe you me. But! He shouts emphatically — tomorrow is a school day and it all goes back to one then. March Break is complete, we are all home safe and sound. Bonus points to all whom scored!

If I could just figure out what I did to my shoulder, and the bones, and/or the muscles I would likely have a sense for just how much longer it will hurt. Aging, such fun. No matter, on to bigger and better things. Such as? You might ask. Oh-oh, like getting into the garage to cut down those longer pieces of junk wood so that they’ll stack on top of the cardboard box full of smaller hardwood pieces. Yes! That exactly. I did that yesterday, and I can once again walk all the way around my shop. It’s really rather glorious. I need to find a place to take/dump them that isn’t in the middle of my garage floor. I’ve had this problem since October. Had been told to wait for March Break when it would all go, and only 1/3rd of it went (because I packed it & took it myself). Could have done that months ago. But no, had to wait. And now I’m still waiting. Nice. It’s a first world problem I know. I whine about it a bunch. More annoyed by it than mad. The kids kitchen was supposed to go up too. That’s still in there collecting dust & cob webs.

Lazy Sunday is here, the temperature is up around +10°C, with significant cloud cover, and a high wind chaser to boot. Fantastic day to curl up and read a book, or play a board game as a family.

At three pm yesterday we finally got 10 16 liter buckets worth of sap into the evaporator pan to start boiling for Maple Syrup. No chance at a tan as the sun was dipping into the tree tops when it finally got started for real. We’ve waited all week for this, but unfortunately we can’t stick around to help now that it has actually started. Too bad. It was the whole reason we came over here in the first place. But with multiple days of rain ahead, no point running an outdoor evaporator. Can’t outpace potential torrential downpours. You’d add needless hours to your boiling with the incursion of rain water into the boiling pan. Not to mention trying to keep the fuel dry enough to burn without having to erect tents, lean tos or tarps which would inevitably trap smoke too. Shame really. This is one of my favourite times of tear to stir up ice chunks, boil sap, cart wood around, split logs, and be outdoors with no bugs & limited sun exposure. Maybe next year we will be more organized.

But know this, if I’m running the program for you we are running the sap deep, and the fires as an inferno! Hot & deep. Helps to freeze off water from the sap buckets over night before you start. A reverse osmosis machine can also knock a number of hours off of your boiling time too, by separating out the sap from much of the water. Less fuel used, and shorter boiling times equals better business practices.

When you think about how it takes forty liters of sap to give you one liter of syrup you can get a sense of just how long it can take to boil all that down to a useable syrup. And we started with 160 liters of sap as an opener for starting the fire, and prepping the evaporator pan. It’s not a small operation here, but we are by no means large. If we were smart we’d vacuum pull the sap directly from the trees, via tubing lines, and strain it, filter it, drain it into a giant holding tank that the bobcat could maneuver around, and just open a tap to flow across a much larger evaporator pan, that was wound with copper wire to heat up water for washing & cleaning our set-up while we were at it. But I digress. Not my show. Also a partially sheltered concrete pad to work off of, and storage bins for fuel near by would be a plus. Pressurised warm/hot water would help for late stage clean ups wouldn’t hurt either. I’m too pragmatic for my own good.

I’d also build a wider evaporator pan, with a longer drainage spigot, and some metal filters that I could slide in, pull out when draining the pan. Wider doors for shoveling in the fuel, and cleaning out the ash/charcoal afterwards too. But I tend towards day dreaming alot, so what do I know. Have a nice weekend at the tail end of March Break. Ciao Bella!

Obstacles and things such as life got in the way of the sapping operation, so we opted to skate more often, and use the hot tub cold plunge combo. That was truly pulse racing! Not a fan of being icy cold up to my shoulders, no thanks. Tried it twice, hated it both times. Love the 100°F hot tub though, that I could do more of any day of the week. The kids went for several sleigh rides behind a snowmobile, which was a lot of fun for them I’m sure. They also went out to tap trees, knock in the spials, add buckets, and affix the hoses needed for collection. We pulled the evaporator out of the show, cleaned it off, leveled it, and got a fire going in it to help clean it off.

Now the operation needs to begin in earnest otherwise we should gather up our things and call it a day. Lots to be done elsewhere, or for other things around the house. I did manage to send 1/3 of my cut off pile north, so that’s great. Not the whole load like I had hoped for, but some is always better than none. Which means I once again need to look into how I can dispose of it myself. Or dump it at the farm for the burn barrel there. I’d run it 24/7 if I could to eliminate all of my cut offs, and scrap wood junk that I have accumulated over the years.

In other news we saw the Leafs lose to the Florida Panthers in a 3-2 regulation time loss. That sucked. But atleast it was over before 10pm. Ha.

The ice won’t wait forever, so we have to duck out to the rink to skate asap or else we will lose the chance to skate again (outdoors) this year. Time to lug all their gear down to the rink and wrestle them into their skates & helmets. Find all the loose pucks, and find a selection of childrens sticks while I’m at it. Gotta hurry though or else it will all turn to mushy slush and the kids won’t be going anywhere on ice.

And I cannot overstate this enough — pfft! I do not care for the time switch at all. This week is a real Jimmie and I’m still surprised when I read the clock to discover what time of day it is at any point. It’s like het lag, but without the exuberance of international travel, or the once fun jet setting hopping airport lounges, and eating/drinking at all hours of the say. Less fun, same out of body fatigue. Zero stars, do not reccomend. Dog hates it too.

I somehow hurt my left shoulder yesterday without realizing it, because it gave me grief all night long. The kids and I took turns trying out their uncles cold plunge pool. I tried twice and hot down to my arm pits once and stopped, but the kids tried again, and again, and again, eventually submerging themselves for 20 seconds or so before jumping back into the hot tub. I’m lead to believe that it is a more pleasant experience if you do it from the sauna instead. But we had the hot tub fired up, so we went from there instead. It6certainly cold. Not my forté by any means. I hate the cold. Despise it actually. Not that I like the outside temperatures being in the 90’s or higher either.

If my calculations are correct today is Wednesday. This will be the coldest day this week before it climbs back up towards double digits, sunshine, and then finally rain. I’m going to need to take the shovel around the house once more to make room for the rains to glow out onto the grass unimpeded. I want it all to run off, not flow back towards the house, or pool near the foundation. Home ownership is fun! At least now the eaves troughs are stuffed right full of ice! That has got to count for something, right?

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day on Monday, so green beers for everyone. I know what I’ll be doing! Watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia that’s what. I don’t drink all that much. I had two gigantic beers at the Leafs game on the third, which had my wobbly in the knees. And I drank a Twisted Tea in the hot tub yesterday evening (which tasted far better than its US counterparts I had in the Florida Keys only a short while ago). And that’s it. That almost entirely encapsulates what I’ve had to “drink” in 2025. More than normal for me, but not even enough to fill an 8 pack of tall cans. Rookie numbers I don’t care to pump up.

Let us see where/how this sapping operation takes us today. Happy Hump Day! Ciao Bella.