Top Ten Things to Avoid at a Cancun Resort

10. The time share pitchers promising a 'free' bottle of tequila for a little of your time. The tequila is  
       distilled pool water.

9. The hotel gift shop. $35USD for sunscreen; also made of pool water

8. Trying to light on fire a giant thatched roof building at 3am when you are totally wasted. Just 
     because you are a privileged little American spring breaker and your mommy and daddy paid for
     your trip and your girlfriends tits doesn't give you the right to burn down the place. Party Foul!

7. Going out too far in the ocean. Excessive alcohol, strong undertow, and very lazy Mexican  
    lifeguards make for a deadly combination.

6. Losing the towels from your room at the pool or beach. Another $50 extortion tactic employed by
    the hotel.

5. Having expectations of consistent service at the resort. Staff ranges from friendly to felonious:  
    Prepare for extortion with a smile...
   
4. The shallow end of the mile long pool. Seems to be the highest concentration of pool scum. Not  
     normal pool scum here, this is post spring break pool pollution, , 33% urine, 15% butt urine  
    (liquid buffet poop), 14% alcohol (spilled drinks are the replacement for real chlorine), 12% skin
     flakes and scabs, 9% toe nails,  8% sun-curdled semen, and the rest is too gross to even mention

3. The main buffet. Bill and Wendy from told me that on day 2. Same formula as pool scum

2. Montezuma. I don't know what this Demi-god of Demi-formed shit has against us tourists, but he  
    is hell bent on revenge and he will hunt you until he has gotten it. Brushing your teeth with tap
    water is almost second nature; Montezuma knows this weakness and he lurks in every tap waiting
    calmly, and like I said: He will get you!

1. Sobriety
 

The Top Ten Things Not to do in Mexico if You're a Married Man...

10. Get Engaged to a Lady Boy at an after hours stripclub in a hot tub

9. Go on a Boob Cruise and write it off as a business fishing trip

8. Pay $1000 dollars for VIP access at the beach party for the privilege of spraying twerking spring
    break girls with overpriced vodka and old man ball sweat

7. Spend $10, 000 on Mexican beach drugs and melt any emotional connections in your neural
    network connecting you to your wife and family

6.  Get caught on camera doing body shots off of a guy named Patrick

5. Suck on any toes. This also goes for unmarried men...

4. Take an extension on your line of credit to pay the "fines" for getting out of Mexican prison (twice)

3. Consult the Local Pharmacia for a prescription shampoo for the Mexican super crabs you  
    claim to have caught by "using a strangers towel" at the beach

2. Butt dial your wife at 4:00am and have her hear the whole conversation up until the last phrase:  
    "C'mon jump into the pool for more body shots with us. Your wife will never know! SPLASH!"

1. Let anything get out of Mexico...

Springing Ahead into Maple Syrup Season

"...we forget that we are a part of nature. In this world of nature we can live only by killing: this is a law that is none of our making. The noble maple is chopped down for firewood- who knows but that it too loves to live, and feels a thrill of joy when it's sweet sap surges upward in the spring. Our boots are made from the hides of cattle, our clothing from the woool of sheep, and we batten on their flesh. Whose ear is attuned fine enough to hear the plaintive sigh of the reluctant beet or carrot torn from the garden mould? Death comes apace to all living things, for no matter how we avoid killing,
 'all men kill the thing they love." Death, the end of everthing we understand, is, after all, one of the minor incidents of life."- Frank Parker Day, The Autobiography of a Fisherman



               The sap of those noble maples will be flowing again soon. It is good to know some things haven't changed since 1927 when Day wrote those lines. The sentiment of the lines is also relevant today, where our disengagement from nature is manifesting into noticable negative consequences.
 At least to those paying attention to consequences.

                I wont be chopping down any maples for firewood, just coaxing a little of that sap into my boiling pot. No killing required! However, I am cutting down a lot of standing dead softwood. Not as many btus as hardwood, but it is dry and burns good enough for me. The sap is a little slow to get going so far. There was a decent sap flow event during the  warm weekend in late february, but it has been a cold start to March.This weekend promises a few consecutive days of positive temperatures, which should get the sap flowing again.
              
                  Lots of preparation to do before boiling begins: more trees need to be tapped, more cans cleaned out, more wood cut, more, more, more. Then the season will be in full swing and there will be a need for more wood, more bottles, more containers, more wood, more time. That is part of what appeals to me about this syrup making business, the constant demand to keep up with the sap flow and to keep burning and boiling.
There is a rhythm to the work. Get wood, collect sap, boil sap, get wood, bottle syrup, eat pancakes, repeat...
                  This year I have expanded the operation in a few ways. There is going to be about twice as many trees tapped and hopefully twice as much sap, if not more, as the trees were tapped in a staggered fashion last year and I am setting all of them early this year. The wood collecting is slightly easier this year, as I have my Stilh MS361 chainsaw back from BC. The old homelite saw did its duty last season, but I don't miss the old brute too much.
                  Keeping up with all this potential sap got me thinking I had to improve on my boiling efficiency too. The old stove was retired and a new location has been made for a new and improved model stove and pot. There are some pictures here of the contraption. Basically a giant 67 litre aluminum pot and an old hot water tank stove with a hole cut in it for the pot to rest in. Lots of surface area and more direct contact with the fire than the old 'system'.

                 If Mother Nature cooperates and we get some warm weather, but not too warm, then it will be an exciting and productive season in the sugar bush.
                                                                  Looking forward to it!

June Fishing

A few more little fish...

38 inch laker

A Little Creature From the Depths...

Nutritional Facts About Maple Syrup

 From the New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association (NBMSA) website:

Tasty, Nutritious and Natural

Maple syrup does not contain any preservatives or chemicals. This product of nature is pure and natural.
Aside from its distinctive taste, maple syrup has a number of qualities that literally puts it in a class of its own. You be the judge...

Nutritional value for various sweeteners (% of Daily Value)

	Maple Syrup	Corn Syrup	Honey	Maple Sugar	Brown Sugar	Sugar
Manganese	100	0	3	29	9	0
Riboflavin	34	0	2	2	0	1
Zinc	11	3	1	5	1	0
Magnesium	5	0	0	3	7	0
Calcium	6	1	1	7	5	0
Potassium	5	0	1	4	6	0
Calories	217	241	258	170	211	194
Sugars (in grams)	54	65	70	41	54	50

Maple Syrup: Step by Sweet Step

This is a brief description of how maple syrup is made from the sap of wild maple trees.

Here is a little video for you:

It has been a good season so far. There have been cold nights and warm days, which is good for sap production. Getting close to 20 gallons of sap every day right now. Not much time to update the blog with all the collecting and boiling...

This is where I live...

^{From Wikipedia:}

As stated in the Untied Mine Workers' Journal of 1937, "Nowhere on the American continent, is there a strife which combines the elements of greed, harshness, cold, suffering, and want, as exists [in Minto]."<sup>[5]


Minto. Oh, sweet Minto.</sup>

Maple Syrup Heist!

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/08/canadian-maple-syrup-heist-serious-crime/56431/

Time to Save the World!

        The industrialization of farming has led to many problems, including global food surpluses and shortages, and the degradation of the environment. This has led to the desertification of the worlds grasslands and to global starvation.  Our current model of food production is dependent on chemical based fertilizers and is relies heavily on fossil fuels. The combination of these factors does not optimize the quality of food , or the availability of solar energy. The use of technology has enabled humans to produce more food, leading to expanded populations, at the cost of quality of life and food security. Massive crop failures caused by flooding, drought, and natural disasters are still commonplace. Remember the corn failure in the US last year?
   
         This all leads on to ask: What can be done? Or it leads one to eat a twinky and say "who cares?".

           During my time at University, I was often overwhelmed by the impending sense of disaster and panic that the subject matter seemed to contain; every institution was corrupt, every system flawed, every person disordered or needing improvement. This was not equally balanced with solutions to our shared and ongoing global demands for peace, security, and well-being. These requirements apply at the individual level, as well as on a state level. If the individuals of a certain country are starving to death or constantly murdering each other, it doesn't matter what the country's GDP happens to be.

          Many of these issues are tied to the food system, either directly or indirectly. As our food system has become more dependent on fossil fuels, this is even more the case. Those pineapples don't fly themselves from mexico! 
     
          The problems seem all to familiar, yet effective solutions are few and far between. Instead we use band-aid solutions, like federal buy-outs, farm-aid, massive subsidization, genetic modifications, chemical sprays, food aid to Africa, bombs to Bagdad, pipelines to everywhere, and everything in-between, while the world seems to crumble before us. It is like trying to cover a hole in your boat with one toe, then another hole with an elbow, then you see another one, and you can't cover the first one anymore. You get the picture.

         Maybe all the 'problems' are really just consequences of our deeply flawed food production methods, and of a general detachment with our relationship to nature. Perhaps we are denying the essential fact that as humans we are tied inextricably to our earthly environment and to the cycles and forces of Mother Nature. We are trying to force nature to bend to our will, when we need to let go and be guided by the existing natural rhythms. This might sound like cliched hippie-talk from some weirdo in British Columbia, or some other incense-burning tree humper, but it is also the beginning of the answer.
   
         This idea of embracing natural forces to our on-going benefit and not simply harnessing them temporarily for short term gains is crucial to our survival. For example, mimicking natural ecosystems on a farm and tapping into the maximum potential of solar energy on that farm is more sustainable and profitable in the long run, than damming a river upstream for electricity and flooding thousands of acres of forest and farm land for financial gain.

      These ideas are not new or original. People have understood these basic principles for thousands of years. Perhaps the 'success' of modern civilization and our mastery of technology has spawned a destructive hubris in mankind which blinds us to our folly. Perhaps our attention is shifting towards little screens and keypads and away from the sunlit fields and streams, which are left to dry up and decay in private. Perhaps there is a global shift in consciousness occurring and we are about to dawn on a new age of prosperity and harmony. Perhaps...

Here are a couple of videos that have inspired these thoughts. Watch them and think about the different perspectives and how their ultimate goals are the same.

" This can't be done industrially, it takes warm bodies, and you can't just leave it to a computer and go off and sip coffee and let engines and machines run it all. It's hands on , it's craft, it's artisinal, it's the potter wheel. We have this cultural stigma against an agrarian existence, that's only good enough for the D and the F students, the redneck-hillbilly-trip-over-the-transmission-in-the-backyard-tobacco-spittin-graa, the grammar assaulting hillbilly; that's the farmer...When was the last time you heard a soccer mom say 'My son's gonna be a farmer!'? We don't do that!"-Joel Salatin

Here is the more 'academic' Ted talk by Allan Savory. Notice he doesn't mention the need for birds and boars, or chickens and pigs, to follow the herding animals and clean up and help finish the cycle. He also ordered the execution of 40, 000 elephants, so I'd listen to the farmer before the professor...Still a great talk. Enjoy!

 And farmer Sepp Holtzer, who said:" Co-operat with nature, don't confront it."