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Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 91: Outdoor Update With Garrett
The world awakens in layers. As winter reluctantly loosens its grip, a fascinating transition period emerges where maple trees release their sweet sap, wild edibles push through the forest floor, and outdoor enthusiasts must balance excitement for new opportunities with awareness of emerging challenges.
Jerry and Garrett Ouellette expertly guide listeners through this seasonal transformation, sharing both scientific knowledge and generations of practical woodland wisdom. Their conversation reveals the hidden rhythms that govern nature's calendar – from the precise moment maple sap becomes syrup (exactly seven degrees above water's boiling point) to the unexpected relationship between trilliums and wild leeks growing in the same soil conditions.
Beyond mere observation, this episode offers practical insights for anyone venturing outdoors during this transitional time. Learn why birch syrup requires twice the sap as maple (an astounding 80:1 ratio), how tap holes create fascinating growth patterns in trees that resemble topographical maps, and essential safety protocols as tick season begins. The father-son dynamic brings warmth to discussions ranging from chiropractor visits for wilderness-related injuries to traditional methods for preparing foraged delicacies like fiddleheads and wild leeks.
Whether you're a dedicated forager, firewood harvester, or simply someone who appreciates nature's intricate systems, this episode captures that magical moment when the natural world pivots from dormancy to vibrant life. Subscribe now to join our growing community of outdoor enthusiasts learning to live in harmony with nature's cycles.
Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's Favorite Fishing Show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right Every Thursday, Ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Now, what are? We going to talk about for two hours every week. Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 3:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.
Speaker 4:From athletes. All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists.
Speaker 3:But now that we're reforesting- and all that, it's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 2:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 1:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. We can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy, all right? Well, we're back at it again and, as always, we want to thank all our listeners across Canada and all through the States, as well as Switzerland, trinidad, Tobago, ghana, all around the world. We really appreciate that and, as normal, if you have any questions or you want to hear any podcasts, let us know. We can see what we can do.
Speaker 5:Now, here it is. It's still minus three out this morning and I was out with my chocolate lab and some gunner taking them out, which was kind of nice. Here we are in late April and the temperature was cold enough to keep the bugs down, because I don't like to take them out when there's chances of him getting a tick, or myself or anybody else for that matter, but it was kind of cool. So it was brisk and nice and nice to be out, nice and clear and crisp and all that kind of stuff. But it's time to start warming up a bit, which think is going to happen and things are moving along. So there's more for today's recording. We've got our our regular guest, my son garrett.
Speaker 6:Welcome to the program, garrett hi, uh, thanks for having me again. Really appreciate being here on the show and always able to lend a hand and help out when I can well, garrett flew in from calgary where britney is, and he's here for for a bit.
Speaker 5:Then he'll be flying back. He's well, what do you got going tomorrow, garrett?
Speaker 6:I got a hockey tournament playing in for through my union, through my work. Um, we're looking forward to that because it's always nice lacing up the skates again, be able to play. I'm also back to see a chiropractor because we recently moved out in calgary uh, we're out in the house now, which is nice, gives a little bit more space, a little bit more abilities to prep for fishing and hunting and all the outdoor stuff I enjoy. Um, having a garage. That makes a big difference for that. And so when I was moving I locked my pelvis up. So my right leg's about an inch and a half to two inches longer than my left leg. So I'm a little bit hurting right now, but hopefully later today I'll get my pelvis readjusted there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we had Dr Fenella on before. We talked about pet chiropractor, but we haven't really had a chiropractor that talks about people and the things they do. And I know we have this great chiropractor, dr Oroshekham, and he's a Ukrainian guy and he does a great job and one of the things the first thing he does is he'll lie you flat on the what do they call it? An adjusting table.
Speaker 6:Yeah, adjusting table pretty much what they use there.
Speaker 5:And then they measure your leg length to see if there's any issues with that. Well, now Josh Garrett's brother, who we had on the program a couple of times as well. Now Josh had scoliosis for over five years and that's a curvature of the spine and Josh's scoliosis. We had years and that's a curvature of the spine and Josh's scoliosis. We had seen a specialist Go in and see the specialist. Oh, you need to do this, you need to do that, you do everything else. And then my wife Garrett's mom, diane, up at the store that she was managing one of the people she had there. They were into a conversation where the university student she just hired her sister had been in and got her scoliosis fixed. And I said, oh, how'd you do that? And they said, well, actually we went in and saw a chiropractor and the chiropractor straightened it up and I thought, geez, I happen to know a guy, so, sure enough, we set up an appointment.
Speaker 5:Take Josh in and remember he'd been going to a specialist, a Western trained medicine specialist, for over five years. And you need to do this, you need to do that. And I got to tell you he puts him on and he says well, the problem here is your one leg is way longer than the other, your one leg is way longer than the other, which usually means there's a hip problem and your hip seized up and your spine's kind of caught inside there. And he said and in one visit, fixed his scoliosis. It was just like what Five years with a specialist, one visit to this chiropractor and he fixed his scoliosis, which was phenomenal.
Speaker 5:So a year goes by and Josh says Dad, dad, you know, we got to make another chiropractic appointment. I said, well, you got problems. He said, no, I just want to make sure everything's okay. Well, sure enough, we go in and he says, no, everything's fine. And his back was fine, his scoliosis was fixed, no problems at all. And it just goes to show you you got to think outside the box sometimes to get these fixed. So what do you? Got hooked up here, what are you looking to get fixed, garrett?
Speaker 6:So I was moving all those awkward boxes and heavy positionings and all that stuff there, my pelvis, my right pelvis, is locked in an open position. So if you think of like you were to cup your hands together kind of thing, and you were to take your right one, you had it flipped open. The other one's kind of sitting there. It's kind of flipped in an open position, so it's a lot more exposed and a little bit more vertical there. So it's causing my right leg to be longer than my left leg, which is putting a lot more pressure on my right foot than my left foot. So I just need to get my pelvis readjusted there because it looks like I'm pinching a nerve, because I get a little flare-up every once in a while when I walk a certain way or sit down at a certain angle, kind of thing. So I just got to get my pelvis just popped back in place, kind of thing.
Speaker 5:Oh, that's good. I know that Baba, which would be my mother, my Garrett's grandmother, she's Ukrainian, she had the same thing. She was locked up and you could tell Now one of the ways to do it. You know, kind of feet shoulder width apart and hands on your hips and you swing your hip out to the left or swing it to the right and you kind of tell by the distance of your swing. And I'm not a doctor, we can't give medical advice. This is just some of the stuff that we see, anyway.
Speaker 5:So the same thing with Baba. Her hip was all locked up and so he freed that up. And she says to me the next day she says, you know, I couldn't figure out why. I was always kind of when I was trying to walk straight, straight, I was always going to one way, to the right a bit, and that's because her hip was locked up. So it was all back to normal. Now fixed her up, good, but it's like anything, and you tried somebody out in Calgary and it was not so well. It wasn't what you were expecting, right, garrett?
Speaker 6:No, it was a very half-asset thing, kind of like instantly they didn't even ask me like what was wrong, just assumed what was wrong. And then I tried to fix my whole back. Like he started with my center of my back kind of thing, cracked that, which I'm like you know, great, it feels nice, but it didn't really do me anything. And then went up to my neck, tweaked my neck and then tried doing my pelvis and then, when he was done, trying to wrap up, I stood up and just did my little test there that orders, uh, showed me and I said to him like hey, I only got four inches of movement on my left side and I got eight or nine on my right, so I'm still locked up. Can you release me?
Speaker 6:And he kind of took a step back, being like, oh, like, and kind of was almost like offended that I called him out for not fixing me right there in the first place and trying to wrap up. So I got him to release it better, but obviously didn't quite get it quite right. So now I'm looking to get fixed up better. But yeah, it was just a very half-asset effort. Didn't even tell me, didn't even show me what was wrong, just assumed the whole back was messed up.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's like anything. You got to find the right person to do the right job and we very much appreciate it. I actually have quite a few people come in from all over Now. They're coming in from Calgary. I have them driving down from Peterborough. I actually have them coming in from Kingston to come in and see them to fix them up as well, and there's actually somebody flying in from the Bahamas to go see this guy, but I couldn't get them in anyways to fix them up. But it's like anything you've got to around. You got to find somebody that works with you and somebody that works with you may not work for somebody else, and the same thing goes vice versa. So you find some people that are good, but what else is happening out west? What's the temperature like out Calgary?
Speaker 6:way. It's odd, but it was plus 16. Brittany was telling me there just plus 16 when I left, which was amazing. So I was like, oh, plus 16. I'm going to get back to southern Ontario here and it's going to be nice and warm, and I get out of the plane and it's like one degree and then overnight it's minus five. So I'm like, well, that's very unexpected.
Speaker 6:But the funny thing was, though, in Calgary it was like four days before that we had it was on like a Sunday there and all of a sudden we had a snowstorm and I was surprised the snow was sticking to the ground, because two days before that it was like plus 12. And then before that, we had a nice hot stretch. I think it even reached like plus 16 the one day. But yeah, it came back and now it's nice and warm, and so I mean looking forward to the spring now, or the warmer weather for sure, because once it hits, I'm definitely like all right, winter, I'm over, even though I love it, but I'm like, yeah, I'm ready for warm weather again.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we had a good winter. It was the way I like it. You know I don't like the freezing rain. Three saw, three saw it was cold, it was winter. Okay, we're done that. Let's move into the spring, in which we're having a bit now. Today's a great day here. I think it was plus 13, where yesterday was well, this morning, like I said, when I took the chocolate lab gunner out, it was minus three this morning, so it was a bit brisk, but it was very nice and refreshing, which is great, and yeah, so that was nice to be able to get out and the temperature's starting to warm up. So I'll be swinging the golf clubs fairly soon.
Speaker 6:Yeah, which you know. Golfing's always nice, but other than I know the seasons are not quite ready for it. I know some courses are open, but how are things going down here? Anything I've missed or need to know about?
Speaker 5:Well, it's that time of the year. We could have used you a while ago when we were hauling sap pails out, and yesterday I checked and it wasn't running yesterday. But after that cold weather we had the past couple of nights. We may get one more day of run, but we'll see. It's hard to tell, but it looks like it's near enough over. So the maple sap appears to be done, and I'm not sure about birch sap because I didn't tap any birch trees to see if it was running or how things were going there. But there could be the possibility that birch sap was start to run, which is a different environment or process completely.
Speaker 6:Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I know I'm always like being around for maple syrup season because you know what. It's just something fun to do. It's nice to get out and collect the sap, but at the same time it's also a lot of work. And yeah, I'm surprised to hear that with the cold weather here that it's not running as much. I know the birch trees always run, usually right after the maple syrup stops, kind of thing. But yeah, like you know how'd the maple syrup go this year though?
Speaker 5:Well, it was a really late season because February was so cold. Last year I talked to some maple syrup people that were actually doing boil their first boils in January last year, because it was so the weather was so conducive for sap to run. But this year nothing really started until well into March. So it was kind of surprising, and I spoke to a number of producers in the past while that were just finishing up their final boils here at the middle of April, which is a bit different, but it's the same thing. I haven't tapped any. I should probably throw a couple of taps in some of the birch trees to see if that's sap running. But there's a big difference there, because birch sap, maple sap okay, you need 40 liters of sap to make one liter of syrup.
Speaker 5:And most people know and we talked about this, I got a couple of podcasts with that where what we do is we boil water with a special maple syrup thermometer and then you adjust the, because most people don't realize this, but different pressures will actually have water boil slightly different, believe it or not.
Speaker 5:So they have a gauge that you can set. So, at the pressure of the time when you're boiling your water, we'll set it to zero. And then what you do is you check your sap, and maple sap turns to maple syrup at plus seven. But you got to make sure you're at your actual plus seven. So what happens then is you set your gauge and then you go check your maple sap boil to find out what it's boiling at, and once it hits plus seven is when it's actually one of the ways to tell that it's actually turned to syrup now. And now the birch syrup is quite a bit different, because you're running birch syrup. It's like I said, 40 to 1, 40 liters of sap from maple to 1 liter of syrup, and birch is actually quite a bit different.
Speaker 6:And by different, what do you mean? Because I mean I've been familiar with tapping birch trees, but I don't know the exact numbers or science behind it. What do you mean there?
Speaker 5:Well it's 80 to 1. So you've got to have 80 liters of sap to produce one liter of birch syrup. So it takes twice as much energy to take it down to that next level. So it can be quite costly.
Speaker 6:So you're saying 80 liters to 1. So I guess, as a person, if I was asked a question about this, it's like does that mean you got to have have more taps? Can birch trees produce more? Or is it kind of a situation of you're just going to get less of a yield of the birch trees because they're not flowing more than the maple trees? Like, are you tapping the trees more or less kind of thing to get this 80 to 1? Are you just still at the same pace as a maple syrup tree would produce its sap at?
Speaker 5:well, I don't know. I haven't done enough research on birch syrup and I probably should try and see if we can get somebody on. But I know because usually you get about a liter of syrup per tap with maple. So if we tap 200 trees we usually get about 200 liters of syrup. But I don't know, because of that ratio, if it's with birch, if you need to tap 400 trees to get 200 liters because it's double, or whether that tap and there's more syrup in the tree, and I just don't know about that.
Speaker 6:That's good to know, like definitely something to look into or be interesting to find out, just because I'm sure people are out there curious're curious about you know different things in the world, and different things about maple syrup, for that matter, here in canada right, yeah, well, I know that.
Speaker 5:Uh, some of the things that I see is in eastern canada the maple is very prominent where in western canada they don't get a lot of maple trees, so they do a lot of more birch syrup. But it's like I said, and of course, ours, especially because we control the temperature, so we use propane, which can be very expensive this time of the year.
Speaker 6:Well, I've got another question for you then here if you've got any expertise or information on it. But so there's maple syrup and there's birch syrup. Is there any other trees that you could tap for syrups and stuff like that?
Speaker 5:Actually, the only other one that I've heard of is walnut and I don't even know. I've talked to some of the maple syrup producers that were telling me that there was individuals that make walnut syrup, but I don't know any of the properties of it. I have no idea whether it's 40 to 1, 20 to 1, 80 to 1, 60 to 1. I have no idea about walnut syrup at all. But you know, one of the things that Garrett was it was kind of interesting is when, way back, oh, quite a few decades ago, in the early 90s, when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I used to bring out for cuts, for harvests, I would bring out companies to look at forests, to buy the trees once they were cut and hauled out, and at the roadside, and one of the ones was a company called Birchland and they wanted to know if any of the trees, whether they were the birch trees and the maple trees, were tapped.
Speaker 5:Because what happens is is it changes the way your veneer comes off. The growth rings in it actually grow towards the tap holes and put specific lines in it. So when it starts, when they v veneer, shear off the veneer, it actually looks very different and and the quality of your veneer is degraded quite a bit, and a lot of them actually did not want any of the trees that were tapped for maple syrup or for a birch. Now, mind you, if, if the tap holes were low enough and the tree was big enough, you could go above the tap holes and you won't get these growth ring lines that kind of gravitate towards the maple syrup holes that give you a very different looking veneer. So it's almost like it's basically set up or intentional that they have these growth rings that grow towards these holes, and it's very prominent.
Speaker 6:That's something I never heard of and I'm kind of curious about this walnut sap because I mean in my downtime, when I get very little of it, but when I do get my downtime I watch a couple of cooking shows here and there and walnut seems to be a very unique item, especially in the Italianian uh cooking, uh mentality out there and I'm curious to how that would taste. But obviously we haven't had any samples, so something I have to look into and find out how that would go over. But I guess another question would be is so when you said it tap, when you these tap marks in the tree affects the veneer of the wood? Yeah, do you think that would actually be more beneficial in today's society? Because there's always you, you see flooring now in the stores and it's got these unique patterns and colors and unique waves and grooves of the wood and the growth marks and everything like that. Do you think that'd be more beneficial nowadays to have those marks in the tree, Like that'd be more of a prize to have?
Speaker 5:Well, that I couldn't tell you. It's tree, like that'd be more of a prize to have. Well, that I couldn't tell you. Um, it's. It's surprising what people want and what, what. What you know, like you said, it's unique. So some things are very, very different and it's hard to say whether people would want that or not. I know that the industry was looking for very consistency and didn't want any of these tap trees for that reason, or at least around the taps okay.
Speaker 6:Well, my question would be is then like well, I guess not a question, more or less like a thought here, is that burrows on the tree? They always go for those because they're very like unique grooves and like edging and marking and everything else is very, very unique. Once you process that down, you make it into wherever they want to make it, whether it be for bowls or wooden spoons or utensils, or you know if Rolly was here for tobacco pipes and stuff like that. But do you think like nowadays that'd be more interesting though. Like like especially cause I mean I was never a knee high to a grasshopper back in the nine 1900s here, but I was, you know, maybe a late knee grasshopper there, cause I was born in the 1900s, in the very last few years of the 1900s. But my question would be like isn't that more of a target now is having those unique aspects there?
Speaker 5:Well, you never know. You never know what people like and it's hard to determine or to explain on a podcast what these groove lines or growth lines would look like as they gravitate towards the whole, and you know. But that's what industry wants at that time and things change and it's like a lot of stuff Some people want to. I mean, live edge stuff was never something of the past. You know the live edge wood that they use, the making tables and everything now, but live edge is a huge demand so I'm just thinking here to kind of give people a better example.
Speaker 6:What if people know what a topographical map looks like? Yeah, right, so you have like the depths and those rings that show you as the elevation changes, say, you have the deepest spot would be like where your tap hole would be. Would that be kind of the imitation there that people would expect to kind of get this rough idea of how it affects a tree?
Speaker 5:yeah, your, your, your growth rings. Now they have these kind of exactly. I was trying to think of something that would be and I think you kind of coined it exactly right if you look at topographical mac and you have these, these, um, the, the lines that show you the elevation lines and how they get smaller and smaller and smaller as you get a hill, and it would be the same thing towards a taphole. They would kind of look like elevation lines on a topographical map towards a taphole and there's a very consistent as opposed to the way it normally with growth rings, and when they do their veneer they're very different.
Speaker 6:Oh well, it's a very different.
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Speaker 5:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Hi, it's Jerry from Chaga Health and Wellness. We're here in Lindsay with Tula, who is actually from Finland and uses Chaga. Tula, you've had some good experiences with Chaga. Can you just tell us what that experience is?
Speaker 7:Yes, I got sick with fibro and one weekend my husband came here alone I was doing. Because of that, the chaga has been the steady one Right. I would not want to live without it, oh good.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so it's been working for me Very good, lots of ways, and you had some good luck with blood pressure as well.
Speaker 7:Oh right, yeah, Thanks for remembering that. That's. Yeah, I had a little bit of high elevated blood pressure and within the two weeks of starting that every day, every morning, it went to normal.
Speaker 5:And you think the chaga was the reason why. Well, I didn't do anything else in that time frame Very good, and so how much chaga did you have and how did you have it?
Speaker 7:Well, we just put that powder in the smoothie, right? Yeah, and it's about tablespoon. Yeah, no, it's less than tablespoon for two of us. Yeah, so you don't need that much.
Speaker 5:Right, but a teaspoon, yeah, yeah, very good. Well, thanks very much for sharing that. We really appreciate that and wish you all the best with the Chaga.
Speaker 7:Oh, you're from Finland as well, and Chaga is pretty popular in Finland, is it not? I think it probably is, because there's some professors in a university that that's teaching it and talking about it, and, of course, it's big in Russiaussia right because that's where you know the northern woods that came comes from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and of course, finland has lots of perch trees right yeah, and it's the only mushroom that you can't forage in finland everything else, but not in Chaga.
Speaker 5:Oh, very good. Well, thanks very much for sharing that. Okay, have a great day you too. We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY, C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package, and each bag gives you around five or six cupsaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening. Back to the episode.
Speaker 6:So I guess another question I would not a question. I guess I don't know why I keep saying questions here. I know it's a season, so I like wild leeks and I know wild leeks are always around this time of year. I know it's not quite because it's been cold, but like or wild leeks coming in season here or pretty soon, because I know turkey hunting and trout openers around the corner and I always remember being when I was able to go to those things if I had the time for it, it was also wild leek season. So the wild leeks growing up yet have you been not eyeing those at all, or not?
Speaker 5:Well, it's great you mentioned that because I'm starting to see the patches just coming up now. So I picked a leaf two days ago and tried it and it still didn't have that kind of garlicky kind of taste to it. But wild leeks, I'll probably give them another two, three weeks. It'll be the end of April, beginning of May, when the leeks in our area will be ready to be harvested. And for those that don't know, if you're looking for wild leeks or ramps, they're actually great.
Speaker 5:It kind of looks like a green onion bulb with leaves and the leaves go spectacular in salads and we actually supply a couple of butcher shops with wild leeks and they make a wild leek sausage. That is hugely demanding and they use the leaves and the bulbs in order to give that a special flavor. But they're just starting to come up. I just saw it two days ago where the leaves were still. They're still a couple inches off the ground, just breaking through the fall leaves from the trees and if you're looking for them, the place to look is if you find trilliums growing in an area. That's the same kind of growth median that wild leeks like and do very well there.
Speaker 6:Mike, as I'm sitting here listening kind of thing. So because I'm out in Calgary and also Saskatchewan and I was in BC before and I've been pretty much across Canada, Does it grow in other areas across Canada or is it just kind of like an Ontario thing?
Speaker 5:No, I don't think it's Ontario thing. I think it chances are it grows Canada wide and but I, to be honest, I've never looked for them in other jurisdictions and of course it's very specific to the time of the year. It's kind of it's one of those ground areas, just like the trillium is, before the leaves start coming out on the trees, and that's one of the key signs for maple sap as well is when the maple trees start to bud out is basically when the sap season is done, because you're going to get a really bad taste and you may get some sap going up and down, but once the leaves start to bud out you get that. And once that canopy comes in and covers it so there's no sunlight to get into the ground, things like the leeks die off. But for the next month or so you're going to find that you're going to be in the leek season, which are great for potato and leek soup.
Speaker 5:We put the leaves in salads Plus. Quite quite frankly, it's like our buddy doug bless his soul. He used to have a jar of leek bulbs in the fridge and all he would do would change the water all the time and they would last for two, three years in the fridge and they were just great to eat yeah, because, like when you said, the butcher there that makes wild leek sausages, I'm like that would be really good, especially in a I wonder, in all these processed preserved food or cured meats and stuff like that.
Speaker 6:I wonder if that would be a good thing to do or something like that, or even like moose or deer or venison sausages there. So definitely something to have, because I like garlic as much as anyone else, and especially onion, but they always I don't know, the wild leaks are just something different, but I guess I'll go ahead there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I recall one thing when I was elected at Queen's Park I brought in a load of cleaned wild leaks to caucus meeting and everybody in caucus was there. It was like, oh, you got to try this. And I had a couple of guys I remember Bill Murdoch, bless his soul, bill was telling people, oh, you got to try this, these are great, these are great. But what people didn't know was is all of a sudden you eat these leeks and you have this kind of garlic breath but you don't notice it with everybody else. When everybody eats them, everybody has it.
Speaker 5:So everybody in caucus, unbeknown to them, was coming out reeking of garlic, actually wild leeks. And I recall Bill Murdoch and I were walking by the caucus office and somebody walked out and there was a reporter walking by and she said, oh my God, what is that smell? It was the wild leeks that everybody was having. And Bill conned her into the whole thing. He says, oh, they're wild leeks. Have you never tried them? No, never. She said, oh, do you like a kind of garlic onion? She said, oh, yeah. So he gave it to her and, sure enough, in the press gallery there was one reporter up there who just reeked of wild leeks, so it's kind of fun, but they have a lot of good beneficial aspects to them as well, you know, with blood pressure and things like that. But there's, you know, a lot of things happening and the Wild Leaks season is just about happening now and then, like I said, the same place that you're finding Trilliums is the place you're going to find Wild Leaks.
Speaker 6:That's good to know. Like I said, maybe when I go back out to Calgary there and have some free time I free time I'll go out and see if I can find something or take a look, because you never know, like you said, if it grows across Canada. I know it's not here Ontario, but I've seen, I guess, the odd show here and there that shows wild leeks being elsewhere as well. But I guess it also leads me to ask you about what's going on with the firewood season then, like is the ground dry enough? Can I start cutting yet? Or is it kind of like give it another week or month or so? Because I know that it's been a slow thaw out here and it's been a little bit colder and wet, so the ground hasn't quite dried up yet. So firewood season ready to start yet, or a little bit longer?
Speaker 5:no, nothing yet for firewood. You got to remember the saying. You know, April showers bring May flowers. And I got to tell you we had so much rain this this April that the ground is pretty wet and it's tough to get to, at least to drive into the places we go. I mean we can walk into quite a few of them and fall some trees and then, you know, block them up and split them and have them ready to go, but not ready to drive in and do any pickups yet. So it'll be a few weeks before that all dries up, probably like another month, and hopefully, like they say you know, April showers bring May flowers that the May flowers will do well and that the rain has kind of held off now for a bit.
Speaker 5:But firewood season's just starting. Well, I've been out a lot of the winter stuff that we fell and had down and I've been picking up and still doing a burn. I had a good fireplace fire last night just to kind of take the dampness out of the house. So it's still burning. But firewood is going to be a little bit of time before you can actually get in to where we are. Mind you, I'm seeing a lot of firewood piles where people are cutting and splitting their stuff already for next year.
Speaker 6:Yeah, that's true, because you got to give it a season to dry out, and especially from the spring, summer there and summer to fall. That gives it enough time for your firewood to dry out. So that's why I was asking if the ground's dry enough to start operating yet, because you want to start getting and splitting your wood now. So that way, when it comes to fall and wintertime, your wood's good and dry by then. But unless you're cutting standing deadwood though I know, that's pretty much almost dry as soon as you split it depends if it's gone punky or not. It also depends on what type of tree as well there. But I know if you're cutting wood now it'll be good to go for the fall there.
Speaker 5:So that's why I was asking yeah, no, and the longer it sits it reeks the points where it's kind of you're going to get as dry as possible. But and the sooner you get it down and the sooner you split it, the faster it's going to dry out and be good burning wood and that's the big thing is creosote up your fireplace chimney is unburnt gases, that kind of condense on the walls of the chimney and that's where you get a lot of wood fires and the higher the moisture content, the more smoke that you get in those, the more likely you are to get creosote burning up in the chimney and you need that cleaned on a regular basis. Now we took out some beech yesterday when we were checking the pails right and we burned some of that last night and it burned great. But we cut that and split that. That had been sitting all year long.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I know that one. I was sitting so long I almost forgot about it, remember. I still don't quite remember when I cut that, but, knowing uh me, I probably was like, yeah, I'll split it while I'm standing there waiting for someone or whatever the case was. I was waiting for my brother or not, but yeah, I didn't remember that one. But yeah, it was definitely there for a long time, because I don't remember it.
Speaker 5:Yeah so firewood is just about to get into that season shortly and I like cutting firewood. But I found a secret. How shall I say this? The more experience I get in life, the easier I find to make decisions on how to do things. So when I'm out cutting firewood now, I don't take the gas and the oil. I'll fill up the saw and take a file and the axes and stuff like that. But once the saw is done, one full fill up of the oil and the gas. That's enough to know that I've done enough for the day. Otherwise I push myself too hard and I'm going to see the chiropractor afterwards. Otherwise I push myself too hard and I'm going to see the chiropractor afterwards.
Speaker 6:Yeah, fair enough, I mean, yeah, there's. Then there's me, where I can go all day still, cause I got that full of piss and vinegar, as I was told as a kid. Um, but I guess, like you mentioned at the start of this conversation here about ticks, because it's still cold enough, so is tick season starting up right now, or what's going on there? Because I know I've been bitten twice and it's been like pretty much like a year. The anniversary now has turned into where it's like you know, go for a shower and you lift up my shirt, I'm like, oh, there's a tick in my arm. Like, do I got to go to the doctors again? So then the last one was on the side of my stomach. There, when I lifted up my shirt, it was raking leaves and I was like, yeah, I figured time of the year. So has tick season started up then?
Speaker 5:Well, yeah, that's one of the big things is you got to protect yourselves and your animals against ticks and everything that's out there. Once morning I said, you know, we were out to seven-ish this morning with Gunnar the chocolate lab and it's cold enough, it was minus three, so ticks aren't moving. They're not active that time, but I still. We give them medication to make sure, which I don't really like doing. But I tried a number of other things. There's this thing called permethrin that a couple of the stores sell and it I have a friend, john. We had John on the Sporting Dogs Association. He did a podcast with us where he would put this line of permethrin down the back of his dogs and been doing it for 20 years that he doesn't have any tick issues at all. But I tried it last year and Gunnar had a number of ticks on him, which really causes me concern. You don't want the dogs to get Lyme disease, because I've met a number of individuals that have dogs have died because their organs have shut down from Lyme disease. So you want to make sure. And then the other thing that we always do is most of the time when I take out, when I'm out doing firewood or doing the sap and it's warm enough out there, I'll take some bug spray and spray the dog down. Even though he's taken and eaten a medication, he still could pick up a tick and until the tick bites him and gets that poison into it and kills the tick, it's still transporting ticks around. So I give him a quick spray of the stuff with the DEET in it and I spray my pants and stuff like that. And it's getting to that season right now.
Speaker 5:But I see a number of stores that they're selling a permethrin. Actually, in one of the stores I was in, it had two forms. One was a mild one which had 0.25% permethrin, and if you look up permethrin it's actually come from an African. I think it's a chrysanthemum that they found that kept ticks and bugs away. But the shelf life, or when you put it on it, only lasted for a very short period of time, and so with modern science they changed it now and so it'll last for quite a period of time. And then they had a heavier one, which is a 0.35 percentage per mithrin. So what I'll do is I'll spray my clothes with that, which will stay in the clothes and kill off any ticks and stuff like that, so they climb on it and things like that. But yeah, you got to watch out because that's the time of the year that ticks are coming out and you or your pets don't want to be having to deal with Lyme disease.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and just for people that are worried about Lyme disease, because I've been bitten a couple times now, about Lyme disease, because I've been bitten a couple times now, when I went in and saw the doctors there, they said you can't necessarily get Lyme disease right away from a tick bite.
Speaker 6:It's still a possibility. But they said the odds for you to actually fully get Lyme disease or to get the transmission of the disease, the tick has to be on you for 24 hours or over 24 hours there. So if you're out in the forest kind of thing, make sure at the end of the day that you check yourself, make sure that you're clean, because if you are, you find yourself you got a tick that day. It's not overly concerning yet, but you should still obviously get checked out, cause then, like I said, we're not doctors, can't give medical advice. But I'm just letting people know that just so they can breathe a bit easier. It's just like at the end of the day, you the bit easier is just like at the end of the day you find yourself getting a tick. Just go and see them because you just want to make sure it's cleaned up, because you can't necessarily get lyme disease until it reaches that you know one day mark.
Speaker 5:It's been actually been biting you for that long yeah, and the reason I started, uh, started spraying, gunner and myself was we were out the other day and I was doing some pails and there was a tick on top of one of the pale lids and you could see it clear as day. So I thought, oh great, I forgot. Uh, it was a little reminder and so just a little spray down to to keep to keep um, the, the, the ticks off us in the first place, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and anyways. So, yeah, so you got to watch out and you know it's. It's uh, uh, that end of the season or end of the, the um april where fishing season will start here in ontario and I imagine it's different in all the jurisdictions around the world and turkey season as well.
Speaker 5:So those people wrote you know that was one of the times that we used to pick a lot of stuff and actually in the fishing season, when it opened, we used to do a couple that we used to pick a lot of stuff and actually in the fishing season when it opened, we used to do a couple of things. We used to pick fiddleheads as well. Would be something that was very enjoyable, but I found with the fiddleheads that if you didn't clean them properly and get that kind of brown old material out, it kind of turned the flavor a bit. But once you clean them, just soak them in salt water and then take that brown out, they have a very nice flavor when you saute them.
Speaker 6:Yeah, fiddleheads, I always forget about those, but those are really prized, especially at the farmers markets I've been to and everything else. You see them or someone selling them on the side of the road, kind of thing. You got any fiddlehead recipes? Because I know that's something that I know Brittany would love to try because she's really starting to get into the old, trying things that are naturally grown, because, especially in the world today where there's so much artificial preservatives and everything else into it, like we recently went to a farmer's market out there and we bought bread and it was just like, oh, like I was saying to you at dinner the other day, it's like, oh, it's actual bread. And it's like I kind of got puzzled Like what do you mean actual bread? I was like, oh, it's just bread without preservatives in it because it doesn't last as long but it just tastes way better. So you got a fiddlehead recipe out there off the top of your head or just kind of like a garlic butter kind of thing.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the only thing that we used to do would we saute them in a pan with garlic and butter in a frying pan, Just slow saute them. Actually we soaked them overnight in salt water and that helps clean them out and then wash that all off very thoroughly and that gets rid of if there's any bugs or anything in the fiddleheads. But I see them in the grocery stores now. I think they're coming from the East Coast, New Brunswick's doing a harvest of their fiddleheads, which is ostrich fern, before they open up and people can pick them up at some of the grocery stores. But yeah, it's another nice thing that is very seasonal and fiddleheads and wild leeks are some of the things at this time of the year that you can get out and enjoy.
Speaker 6:Good to know and you were talking about the fishing season there. I know trout opens up pretty much in just well, just over a week technically here, but Pete was saying on the way in that he was trying to go out fishing earlier. I know below the tracks was always the old school rule when that's open season based around Lake Ontario. But was he talking about fishing for something else or fishing in a different area that's open already closer by?
Speaker 5:No, pete from Outdoor Radio Journal podcast and the Fishing Canada TV show. He'll be out, I think, belleville down fishing on Lake Ontario, as I imagine where he's going, and they hit it out in Lake Ontario and the seasons are pretty different there. But it's like anything you know. You got to check your seasons wherever you are because, well, in Ontario it's quite the encyclopedia to try and figure out what's open where which it's more specific, because that way you can regulate your harvest a lot better when you know the amount of species or the type of species and the amount of sustainable harvest in a lot of areas. So it makes it more difficult to get out. It's not like it used to be. Okay, it opened up, go to it. You're allowed five, seven, whatever the case may be, depending on what you're fishing for, pretty much in the entire district. But it's not so much that anymore.
Speaker 6:Okay, good to know. I was just curious there if there was an area that was opened up that might be only an hour or two-hour drive kind of thing, because that might be something that would pique my interest. But that's okay, good to know.
Speaker 5:Well, Pete's just around the corner and I'm sure if you ask him, he'd be more than happy to tell you. Anyways, I think that's a wrap for this podcast. Garrett, you'll be heading back next week and back to Calgary and then you'll be back out working again shortly, probably in Saskatchewan, doing that potash mine, mind you. I think potash is one of the things that have been exempt in all these tariff issues that are going on right now because of the need for that aspect of fertilizer, and the farmers really need that. But so you should be back at it shortly. But it's always great to have you on the podcast and always great to see you anytime.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it's always a pleasure and it's always nice to be able to come home and see the family, of course, and always able to get on a podcast and let people know that I still exist and that some things are going on in the world. Like I said, saskatchewan's probably where I'll end up, but my name's on the list for a job in the Yukon. That I'm not too sure the details yet, but that might be a month-on job kind of thing, a month on, a couple weeks off, but we'll see. And there's a course out in Newfoundland Way that I'm still waiting to hear about what's going on there, about that project, the bigger one, the dam going up in Churchill. There will be, I'd say, a couple of years out for sure.
Speaker 5:All right, Garrett. Well, just a little update on what's going on out there. We're talking about ticks and maple sap and wild leeks and fiddleheads and firewood and all the other things that go on out there. But it's always interesting and it's a little something different and we always learn a little bit more about what's happening out there under the canopy. Thanks again, Garrett.
Speaker 4:How did a small town sheet metal mechanic come to build one of Canada's most iconic fishing lodges? I'm your host, steve Niedzwiecki, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the Outdoor Journal Radio Network's newest podcast, diaries of a Lodge Owner. But this podcast will be more than that. Every week on Diaries of a Lodge Owner, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people, share their stories of our trials, tribulations and inspirations, learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.
Speaker 6:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that might be for more fishing than it was punching.
Speaker 4:You so confidently you said hey, pat, have you ever eaten a trout? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.