Episode 134: Trail Work, Maple Sap, And Chaga Stories

Spring is waking up the woods, and we’re right there with it—clearing a new footpath at first light, dialling in a wood stove that keeps the house comfortable on two small splits, and chasing the first hard runs of maple sap with a sled full of buckets. Along the way, we swap a dog-grooming hack that actually works, unpack why “too-dry” firewood can warp your stove, and learn from a bird expert why owls target rabbit heads when lean meat won’t meet their energy needs. It’s part field journal, part home workshop, and fully tuned to the small choices that make outdoor life smoother.

We dig into practical maple syrup tips you can use right now: how snow depth changes tapping height, why you tap beneath a major branch or above a strong root, and how south-facing trunks kick-start your season while the north side helps you stagger volume. We walk through a compact, propane-controlled evaporator setup—big pan for the main boil, finishing pan to nail the grade—and the 40:1 math that turns patient hauling into amber you can be proud of. If you’re deciding between buckets and vacuum lines, we lay out the tradeoffs in cost, control, and the simple joy of hearing sap ping on a cold afternoon.

Transcript

SPEAKER_09 0:01

Hi everybody, I'm Angelo Vallola. And I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the host of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast.

SPEAKER_08 0:10

That's right. Every Thursday, Angela's gonna be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio.

SPEAKER_09 0:17

Hmm. Now what are we gonna talk about for two hours every week?

SPEAKER_08 0:20

Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them and they were easy to catch.

SPEAKER_09 0:27

Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.

SPEAKER_12 0:33

From athletes, all the other guys would go gun. Me and guys are turkey, and all the regions would go fishing.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

It's the perfect transmission environment to find the fish.

SPEAKER_07 0:47

Chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, you will taste it.

SPEAKER_09 0:53

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.

SPEAKER_08 1:02

Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jerry’s Origin With Chaga

Listener Notes And Dog Nail Hack

Trails, Community Stewardship, And Volunteers

SPEAKER_06 1:15

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 Olette, and I was honored 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 this 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. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me 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. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully, we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. And let that gentleman know, James, know that uh yes, it is available in Edmonton now, and we'll continue to do so. You know, and if anybody has always uh we appreciate the listeners, Canada states, all across the world. It's and if anybody has any questions or suggestions for the show, let me know. We'll see what we can do. Now, this morning, was out with Gunner. I gotta tell you, lately his nails have been getting long. I think I mentioned it before, and I'm gonna have to do the wrap my head in cellophane wrap and put peanut butter on it and get him to lick the peanut butter while I trim his nails. I saw it on Facebook. I I thought, that's kind of hey, wait a sec. Maybe that would work. And I did it once and it worked. Now, our dog's a grumbler. So when my wife Diane goes to work, um, just say he's going, Mom's going to work, and he grabs one of his stuffed toys, runs over to a rose on his back, and growls like he's gonna take a big chunk out of you. And I gotta tell you, when I did it, wrapped my head in cellophane and put peanut butter on it the first time, he was he didn't know whether to growl or whether to to lick the peanut butter, so he was kind of trying to growl and lick peanut butter at the same time, and it was the funniest thing. You know, and not only that, but uh when when Diane calls it a night and and hadn't uh put her head down to lay for rest, uh he knows as soon as she closes her tablet, he grabs something and runs over, and it's the exact same thing. And he gets into a little bit of routine. Now, a week from this coming Sunday we will have my son's fiance's dog moving in with us for a while, and poor Gunnar's gonna get his knickers in a knot, as we say. In that the dog kinda takes over and he just he just he's so passive, he just kind of lets her do it. So he'll go lie down in his bed for the night, which he, as I've mentioned before, sleeps beside my bed on a foam mattress that's covered on the floor. I get worried about uh something called off gases. Uh a friend of mine, Greg, his uh son has a severe disease, so he brings in technicians and that uh do regul do testing of the air. They regularly test the air. And one of the things that this technician was telling him was about off gases and whereby certain foams and plastics and uh plastic carpets and everything else give off what he calls off gases. And there's been a significant, according to Greg, a significant increase in the number of dog cancers because of these off gases. So I've got uh, you know, uh a foam uh kind of a foam mattress sort of thing, and it's very small, it's just uh enough for the dog, but then I've covered it in a slip, and then I've got to cover it uh with a blanket and then another blanket on top of that. Just hopefully, if there is any legitimacy to this off-gas stuff. Although I can't find anything that verifies it, but it certainly sounds interesting. So I uh he takes off uh when uh Belle is uh the my son's fiance's uh Doberman, it's her name. And uh he just kind of oh, do I have to? Here we go again, and that dog kind of comes over. But uh in the mornings I still take him. He gets his time with me because every morning we go out and we'll do a walk in the trail. Now the one of the people, Lori, that uh walks her uh German short haired about the same time as I do, get there about first light. We go down the trail, and uh I was noticing that there's a kind of a secondary trail at the end of where I go in, and quite a few people have been going that. So we walked it yesterday, and this morning I was out uh with my little trimmer. I have one of those handheld um chainsaw trimmers. It's a battery-operated one. It's only about I guess the blades on it may be about five, I don't think it's six inches long, and but it works great for trimming the trail. So I go down with a charged battery, and I today I was trimming up that trail. Just like I did uh with the trail that we currently walk. I worked with uh Noel Hutcheson, who is uh City Parks and Direct and Recreation Director for the City of Oshawa. We uh I asked him about this trail, and he'd come down, and sure enough, we put a trail in there. Worked with Noel, it was great, he was very receptive, responsive. And I got uh South Central Fish and Wildlife Association to come in and do chip barking of the trail a couple of times. Unfortunately, that organization has folded. And I remember that organization quite a while ago, in that I was a director for it, life member, but they're losing members because this organization was designed to work with the Ministry of Natural Resources to go into deer yards to cut areas to promote new growth at critical times, which would be pretty much the month of March. And we would go in and snowshoe in and then take chainsaws in and brush cutters and cut and pile brush and promote new growth in areas. And I remember doing the I think it was called the Bexley Deer Yard up the new French settlement road, where we went in a number of times. We did the nonquan area as well, cut out trails there. But what happened was the ministry got away from working with volunteer groups, and I happened to be at a meeting once, unbeknownst to the people sitting at the meeting. The guy turned to me and he says, Doesn't that guy understand that every time we bring out volunteers that takes one of our jobs away? I'm like, excuse me, you don't want them? So when I was minister, I pretty much set a policy that for funds to go out before the ministry can utilize them, they got to get a partner and work with partnerships in order to build relationships with outdoor-minded individuals. So I go down and and it was great. Uh so what I did was with the South Central Fish and Wildlife, they were losing membership. So I know in the city of Oshawa they have the second mars there and they needed some cleanup. Well, we got I think it was eight of the largest dumpster bins set along there and we filled them with shopping carts and garbage up and down the stream that was there, and it brought the membership back up because they had something to do. As soon as that uh got away, the um organization started to fall off. So right now that organization is non-existent because they don't have any work to do. But they came out and chip barked a trail, and the members were you know appreciative to do that. But when you haven't got anything to do, people don't want to just show up and sit around and have a a whine and complain session. So uh this trail was was pretty good. But the new one, so I started trimming the trail, and that's how I got this first trail done. I'd go in and I'd break branches off and trim them up and clean it up so it was nice and clean. And now it's extensively used by lots of people, which is great. And not only that, one thing that was interesting, this trail area that uh Rod and Noel we worked with, they used to have problems in it, in that there were when I was a kid growing up in the area, there was what they called pit parties in the area. And the local high school students would go down on Friday or Saturday night and they'd have bonfires and they'd be drinking underage. Can you imagine that? And anyways, they uh had pit parties. But as soon as people and people when I started this trail, there was people camping down there and and bonfires all over the place and and they would leave garbage all over, and it was just disgusting. But now it's regularly used, and guess what? You don't have any problems with people coming in and and utilizing or misusing the property. So it's one of the ways to increase the traffic flow, give people good walking areas and exercise, and make sure you keep the groups that you don't want in that area out of that area by having large traffic flows. So Gunner and I were out and I started on the new trail and cleaning it up, and I got uh about uh, I don't know, a quarter or third of a way through it. So and my battery died on the on the saw, so I turned around and came back. But we'll get it all cleaned up and keep it nice and clean and opened up so that it slowly opens up to a nice area and get more utilization of it, which is always good for people and for the dogs and the people who use it. Now, I'd mentioned before, but it's happening and we're running out of wood. So I got this this new insert that I regularly talk about, and it heats the house fantastic. I gotta tell you, it was spectacular in providing heat. And as I mentioned before, how do you get it through the whole house? I mean, we kind of got an open concept where the uh the hallway, the uh kitchen, the dining room, and the living room are all kind of very well heated. However, how do you get the uh because it's a ranch style bungalow, how do you get down the hallway to the bedrooms and the bathroom and circulate to the basement and turn on the furnace and circulate the air, which seems to work pretty good. It's not quite as warm as as some would like it, but I love going down in that cool basement when it's up in the twenties upstairs. It's in the teens downstairs, and I very much enjoy sitting down there reading my books. But they said that uh you would use half as amount of wood, so last year I went through, I don't know, four or five bushcord of wood, but a lot of that was we had uh a spruce tree taken down, and so we burned a lot of spruce last year in the fireplace. And so this year I only I I I quit at uh about two bushcord. And the problem was, yeah, you don't burn as much wood, but I'm burning it more often, and I'm going like a lot of times 24-7 in this cold weather. So I've been burning more. So I take that handheld saw, and I guess what when I'm cleaning up trails, I'm taking down Chicos, or Chicos are dead trees. They can be branches or they can be trees that would fall on the trail, and I cut those in the lengths and and then utilize a lot of that, plus of the other properties that we've got on the go as well. But I had to get the the the fireplace insert clean because we were getting a little bit of feedback. And so they come in, and when you damper it down, you don't burn off all the creoso. And this has got a re-burner on it. It's like a n gotta be more than a 95% efficiency rate on this unit because it puts the heat out great. And on a day like today, I've got it going and I put two pieces in, one at about uh I got up this morning at about 5.41, put a piece in then, and then I put another piece in at nine, and that'll be it for the whole day. And all it was was about a four-inch round piece at about nine that's was burning good. But they cleaned the chimney, so they came apart, and it I looked in to see if I could clean it, because I've got my own brushes and used to clean out uh the fireplace if need be. But I had a guy that would come in and he was it was great. It was a friend of my son Josh's and Gareth's friend, I guess, and he would clean it up and uh the price was really reasonable, and he would take a vacuum and do a great job and put down mats, etc., etc. So I didn't do it a lot, but I did have uh a brush that uh if I needed to use, I had one. And I mentioned this before. When I worked for International Imports, I learned from Dave, the owner, that you use a wire brush on tile and you use a plastic brush on stainless. Uh because the wire brushes will score stainless and you'll get moisture in there that'll cause it to start to break down, or you you have that stainless covering, if you get too far through it, you'll get some rust in there and it'll start to deteriorate your chimney. So plastic brushes. Anyway, so cleaned out the the the unit and looked inside. I can't find a hole where the brush would go up. It's just like, what's going on here? It's like a little wee hole at the back of the stove up near the reburner at the top, and it was great because um it was just like, how would you clean this? Anyway, so I had to call the guys and uh installed it and got them to come down and clean it, but they had to basically take all the bricks out of the thing in order to get to the hole uh that uh works it, and you can't clean it from the bottom up, you gotta clean it from the top down. So one guy was on top and one guy was on the bottom, letting them know when the brush came through. And yeah, it uh took the creosote. There was a fair bit, because when I damper it down, it doesn't burn off all the fume. So we get a bit of creoso, and uh burning it 24-7 for let me see, uh basically October, November, December, January, February, five months, we got a bit of buildup, and plus the cold weather meant uh we kept it going a lot more than than other years where we wouldn't keep it as going as much. But they cleaned it out and it's working perfect again. You know, but one of the things that I found interesting, because he asked about the um uh the uh moisture content of the wood. And I have a a moisture gauge that I use for the Chaga. And so I I grabbed the gauge and I measured a couple of pieces, and one was 7.2 to uh percent and the other was 5.4, and I said, Oh, well that should be because when you look it up when you do a Google search, it comes up you need to be less than 20 percent moisture content. So I said, Well, these measure out at 7.2 and 5.4, and they said, Oh, actually that might be too dry. I said, What do you mean too dry? Can there be such a thing as too dry? And he says, uh yeah. He says, uh what happens is is the wood burns too hot, and if you burn it too hot, then you can get warpage in the metal. But that's where you damper it down and and lesson learned, whether uh I don't think that's happened in this case, uh, but uh you damper it down or you turn the fans on full. And I've got these um echo fans that sit on top of the ledge on top of the unit, and uh they helped uh dissipate some heat and uh take heat away from the stove as well. So I keep that pretty good, but I was quite surprised and I'd never ever heard that before, that the would me be too dry at 7.2 percent and 5.4%. And they were telling me that the optimum uh moisture content is between 12 and 14 percent for this so that it doesn't burn too, too hot and works out great. So, you know, so lately uh I've been burning the the stuff that I've been burning has been standing dead wood and mostly ash. Although I gotta get in and get to do a cut, another cut not too long from now, because uh we're gonna get into that as guess what? I've been out tapping trees because the maple sap is running and I'm getting all my taps ready, and I'll be out doing some wood there. But what I do is I take standing dead wood, and you can see these uh dead trees that are about oh, maybe six inches at the base, eight inch. No, I don't think there's any eight inch left. And there are a lot of maples there, but uh they're all gray and they're standing and there's no snow on them because of their vertical still. So I'll cut a lot of that up and I'll measure the moisture content and then burn that to the rest of the year. But that keeps it uh nice and warm, and it with the snow starting to melt, you get uh kind of damp out, and this does take the dampness out, which is pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

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SPEAKER_06 20:37

Okay, we're with Bev here in Lindsay. And Bev, you've got some experience with Chaga that you'd like to share with some people. Tell us uh two stories. Start with your father's story.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Hi, Jerry. Um well, um my dad had mentioned to me that he was struggling with his blood pressure and he'd gone on meds and it wasn't bringing it down. He was running around 180, 185, and wasn't enjoying that at all. And um And so I suggested that he try the chunk of tea because I knew some other people that had had a good experience with it, and I knew my own experience with it. He started doing the chunk-a-tea every day. Um, he stuck it in with his coffee, so he only had to drink one thing a day, and within three weeks he had drunk from 180 to 140, which he was really excited about. But what he was even more excited about was that about three to four weeks after that, he had gone down to 125. So we're really grateful for the difference that chunk of has made with his blood pressure.

SPEAKER_05 21:37

And he wasn't doing there wasn't any other medications or changes just to do the change?

SPEAKER_01 21:42

No, this was the actually the only shift. He didn't shift anything to it when he's physical exercise wise at all. The only thing he added in that he hadn't been doing before was chung.

SPEAKER_05 21:50

And put it in his coffee, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

And he put it in his coffee. Very good.

SPEAKER_05 21:53

Okay, and you have your own story now. I have my own story.

Wood Heat, Chimney Care, And Moisture

SPEAKER_01 21:56

So I I started on chugga when I Um I'm I'm here just somebody real money with the minute realistic money for my digital change in the money to the back into real life. Okay in within within I mean within five days I noticed the nerve sensory issues I was having in my legs was already settling down. And within about three weeks I am the strength to walk on assist to the game. And I am about three months in and um I am I'm taking a 10-day break from it a couple of times just to, you know, you know, just to let my body you know can stay down, you know, without it. But every time I go back on it, I um I can feel the difference in mental clarity and in the way my nerves are communicating, and I'm I'm walking very, very well now.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

Very good. Well thank you very much for sharing your story with the video.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Thanks for hollering me and asking me to try a free cup that one farmer's market morning.

Wildlife Notes: Owls And Songbirds

Maple Tapping Basics And Field Tales

Small-Scale Syrup Operation Details

SPEAKER_06 23:24

Well, I'm glad it's working out for you. Thanks, Jerry. Okay. 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, Chaga Health and Wellness.com, place a few items in the cart, and check out with the code CANAPY. 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 cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening. Back to the episode. Last week uh we had uh Dr. Megan Gall on the show, and after we we shut down and stopped recording, uh she mentioned to me about uh the rabbits, because um I'd mentioned last week that on Facebook somebody on uh the local town site was posting that somebody was killing the rabbits and taking their heads off. And I briefly mentioned uh that it was owls there, and she told me, she says, you know, and yeah, it's owls that are killing those rabbits. And rabbit meat is very, very lean, and owls will cut the head off and eat the head because of the brain and in the skull, is a high cholesterol and fat content, and that's what they're looking for is high concentrations of that, or because the meat is so lean that they don't get that in that. And yeah, it's owls who are out killing all those rabbits. So I was quite surprised. They said, Well, that's the sort of thing that you know we should be telling our listeners. That she said, Ah, I didn't think they'd like all that gore stuff. And I said, No, that's a good thing. So those that are from Oshawa and listening and they're finding the dead rabbits with no heads that they're cut right off. It's owls, and we're seeing them. Yeah, there was an owl out there this morning and saw one last week again, that have migrated back in that are looking to increase their fat and cholesterol content, according to Dr. Megan Gill, who's a bird expert, that uh they're they're trying to increase those levels and they find it in rabbit heads, and that's what they're eating. But this morning, you can tell the cardinals are out singing like crazies, and the chickadees are out, but I still haven't figured out what an A note, a B note, a C note, and a D note is. But certainly it sounds interesting to uh to be able to try and determine that. And I'll have to bring my toner out to see if my my uh guitar uh it's a little battery-operated uh device that measures, make sure your strings are in tune. And bring that out to see if I can gauge what notes the chickadees are to best determine oh, is that a predator call or what is that call? Anyways, I found it very interesting. But it's that time of year, again, as I briefly mentioned that we're out tapping trees. Now they call it tapping because you drill a hole in the tree, and then you have this little spiral spigot thing that you tap into the tree that collects the sap, and it has a little hook on it that you hang your bucket on that I'm using. Now, a lot of the ones uh they uh now you'll see these lines. Actually, these lines suck the sap out of the tree. They have a kind of a vacuum sort of thing on it. And what they do is they put these taps on, and these then suck it out of the tree. Whereas I'm still using a pail system where I go in, tap the tree, put a pail on, put a lid on, and then go empty it on a regular basis. And today should be actually I got one boil because we had a little bit of a run when I first started, but not much uh um really. But uh today the sap should be running, so I'll have to empty the pails tonight and probably tomorrow afternoon after I'm done doing the chaga business in the morning, because Saturday mornings I'm up in Peterborough pushing Chaga. I'm gonna tell you that uh the first time I recall out uh doing maple syrup was as a kid, just like uh Ashley was was uh she works at uh the local Swiss Chalet. And uh she was saying, Oh, my kid would love that. Uh well I went out and uh I don't know. I don't think the kids will love trudging through the snow hauling pails of sap and 20-liter pails at seven years old, falling up past their knees in the snow. You need snowshoes where we're going. But uh I recall the first time out, and that's what I had to do was collect sap and bring the pails in to the uh to the to the shed, the sugar shack, where they had the boilers going and and do that. And then then we the family moved out and built a house. Built the house. I spent more hours than anybody else. I used to start at I'd get there at uh I'd be up at five in the morning and get there for six every morning because it was about an hour drive and dad would I wasn't old enough, I was still fifteen at the time, and dad was working in in Pickering, so and this would was a place called Crooked Creek, which is north of Newtonville, you know, just south of Kendall, kind of uh south of Starkville, east of Brownsville. Yeah, right. Anyways, um and then he would drive to Pickering. So it'd be over an hour for him to get to work, so I'd be there at six, and the carpenter uh would show up at seven, and I and then uh he would leave at five, and then mom and dad would show up and work till dark, and I'd still be there working till dark. But we got the the place built there. It's been a lot uh I had to give up my summer job while I was working at a grocery store as a box boy for anybody who knows what that is. It was a powers grocery store in Oshawa. And so we had uh 34 and a half acres, and out back, it was probably an old house foundation there, and there was an old cook stove, a wooden cook stove that had a little burner box on it with a plate top and all that sort of stuff. It's probably still there. And gee, maybe not with the price of scrap. Those plates are probably about uh um a third or a half an inch thick, and uh those plates are pretty heavy. But uh we uh went out and tapped some trees out there, and we were we had these pans sitting on the stove and we're boiling pans and collecting. I don't think we had that many taps, maybe I don't think probably even a half a dozen, which is okay. So every tap you do on a proper sized tree, you get about forty liters of sap, which equates to one liter of syrup because it's forty to one. So anyway, so we're sitting there and and boiling the sap on the tree, and uh I look over and dad, dad. Look what over there, over there. What I said we were surrounded by a pack of wolves. May have been coyotes, but they were pretty big. And back in the 70s, I don't know if there were many coyotes in the area, but uh there was a half a dozen of them, and this would be probably March, and looked around, and sure enough, it was a pack of wolves or pack of coyotes. But at that time I I'm not sure it was coyotes because I didn't know they packed up, but anyways, uh we kind of hustled our way out of there, headed back to the house, and uh picked up um uh on the farm, uh the property we were it was uh it was a farm property, actually right across from the guy, a road from somebody some people may know, a guy by the name of Ian Tyson. And uh he owned the farm across the road until he moved to uh Alberta. But yeah, the singer Ian uh and Sylvia Tyson used to live across the road. But anyways, um so he always had problems with animals or stuff like that. So he had a backup uh firearm. So dad grabbed the the it was a Savage 24D 22410 over and under. And back we headed to finish uh our doing our boiling of the sap. We didn't get very much as I recall, but I do remember all of a sudden looking up and being oh surrounded by half a dozen wolves. And they kind of semicircled around us. It was kind of interesting, but it gives you a bit of a worrying. But that was some of the fun things that we had in Crooked Creek. Now, I do about um a uh about 150 taps in total when I'm out full blown. And one of the things this year is kind of interesting is the fact that that uh the the snow load is so high that I'm standing on the snow now, and usually you had some snow before, but it's so high now that if you look where the holes were from previous years, you're probably 10 inches higher tapping now, which is fine. I mean, that's one of the things you do is you look at a tree, and if there's a heavy root coming out there, you can see that's a good spot, or you see a branch sticking out, those are good spots. And I used to tap a lot of back stuff where there wasn't any branches, and the reason you tap those areas first is because that's where the sap starts to run first. So if there's a branch there, you tap out at that branch, a heavy branch up the tree, uh you do directly under it, or if there's a heavy root there, that's where you tap. But a lot of times I would tap on the other side, and I found, to be perfectly honest, the sides that we're facing where the sun comes up has a tendency to run earlier. And the dark side of the tree, depending on the size of the tree, runs later. So sometimes I didn't want uh too much sap because if you get too many pails, it's too much work and you can't process it quick enough, at least the small operation that I have. So I tap a lot of those backside ones in order to be able to get the sap that run later as well. But anyway, so now these holes, and you should always tap about six inches over and up and around. So with the snow load there, I'm tapping quite a bit higher now, and that'll be fine until yeah, it won't be a problem for me. But if I I bring out uh Bernard to help out, uh is younger and a little harder to try and empty the pails into a big bucket. So what we do is we have a sled. I pull the sled along with uh 20 20-liter five-gallon buckets, those uh big white or blue ones that we have. And I put uh six of those in the sled, pull that around, empty the uh the pails hanging on the tree into that, and then haul it back to the vehicle and haul it out that way, and then take it into the into where I have my evaporators. And I've got two, a larger one and a finishing one. And then uh use that to finish the finishing one. So I boil down the the main body and the big one. And because I do a special blend. Um it uh I use propane. I have to control the temperature, where a lot of the wood-fired ones, you can cut and split and use wood like a lot of ones do, or even uh the the big operations use a lot of diesel fuel. Then they run uh diesel uh uh farm diesel, it's the dyed diesel in their uh evaporators. These are big units that burn diesel. So and they're a little bit more uh uh efficient uh compared to well, the propane, you can control the temperature a lot better. But anyway, so we're out tapping. Today should be a good day. This afternoon I'll be out and then I'll get a boil going. Well, we'll see how much I can get if I got uh I got most of my taps that I'm gonna do done this year. I think I got another, I don't know, maybe a dozen pails or so that I'm gonna put out. And then that'll be it for this year and get at it. But it's it's tough because this is this is the time of year that I get ready for the shows as well. Now I checked out a show last weekend, which I don't know, it was uh supposed to be uh a show where you know our target market for a lot of it would be uh for the Chaga would be at. But I went to the show and and most of it was like tourism show, like come to Costa Rica, come to Jamaica, come to Africa, come to Kenya, come to Tanzania, uh Newfoundland, and all these other territories and just aisles and aisles and aisles of show stuff, but and a very small section of the other stuff, but anyway, so um I get ready to do shows and normally what I do is I go look at a show to determine whether next year I want to apply to see if I can get in. And I'm not sure. We'll see whether I join that one or not. But my other shows, so I got the shows coming up, and to get ready for the shows, it takes a lot of work to get the product ready, the Jagger product ready, whether it's the all the various teas that we produce. And um this year we're gonna do uh the the Quinty Sportsman Boat and RV show, which runs March 13th to the 15th at the Quinty Sports and Wellness Center in Belleville. And if you haven't been to the show, it's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday show, Friday, 10 to 8, Saturday, 10 to 8, Sunday, 10 to 6. It is spectacular. The coxes that uh run this show do a great job in promoting it. And I'll tell you, they've got at this Quinti Center, they've got one, two, three, four hockey arenas that are completely filled. All the aisleways leading into the arenas are all full. Plus, they have two auditoriums that are all full. And every place and you can imagine in this place is absolutely full with vendors. And it's a great show. It's uh it's it's a lot of uh fishing stuff at this show. Uh there's a lot of camping and a lot of, you know, go to the cottages and stuff like that. If you're looking for a great show, this Quinty Spokesman Boat and RV show is on uh, as I mentioned, March 13th to 15th. And I'll be there. I'll be doing the Chaga, Chaga Health and Wellness, and I'll be upstairs in the auditorium upstairs at the top of the stairs on the second floor, and that's where I get to. And this year I'll be running a contest. And what we're gonna do is we'll have a contest that anybody, it's not so much a contest, it's it's just a I'm trying to find out some more details. What blends of Chaga teas would people like to see? So we'll have a list of blends, you check it off, you give me your email and your address, and once a day I will draw a name, and those individuals will get a complete Chaga package of one of each of the Chaga products that we have available in all the teas. I'll probably include a Chaga soap that I sell at the shows, as well as the cream, and then one specialty product that I only sell at the uh shows and markets that we do. So for those individuals, you come out and once a day we'll pick up those. I'll let you know, and then we'll mail it out to you. We'll send it to you for free. I just need a proper shipping address. And just tell us what uh what products you think would be good in the future. And guess what? A little drum roll. This year at the shows, we'll have two new blends that weren't there before. Last year we brought out the the apple cinnamon and the morning glory. Actually, I think morning glory was last year, where it was the morning glory is uh roasted chicory root, roasted dandelion root in Chaga. It's kind of a coffee alternative, and no caffeine. And this year, new, we'll have the Chaga mint and Chaga, turmeric, ginger, and black pepper tea, which is, I gotta tell you, it's uh uh everybody that has tried it, including my wife, it's now their favorites, the one, and that's the one they love the most. But we'll have that available there. So, people who are interested, come on out and see us at the show. You can ask any questions you want. And as I mentioned, that's a Quinty Sportsman Boat and RV show, uh, March the 13th to 15th at the Quinty Sports and Wellness Center, Friday, 10 to 8, Saturday, 9 to 8, Sunday, 9 to 6. Now, that's one show that I do. The other show that I do is the Toronto Sportsman Show, which runs March the 19th to the 22nd at the International Center in Mississauga. And the the show has hunting, fishing, boating, uh, uh power sports gears, exhibits, experts, you know, fly fishing, film tour, um free youth uh hunter education, which is new apparently. And it uh is a big show as well. And I've been doing that show right back to the 80s. Now I wasn't wasn't with Chagga Health and Wellness, but I'll be there. And I'm still uh uh haven't got my booth completely confirmed as to where I'll be. But uh I am in the show and I've been coming there ever since we've had the business. I helped bring the uh Ministry of Natural Resources back to the show because they had pulled out at one point, and I went to the premier of the day, and he's the current premier, and I said, Look, this is our people. We need to be there, and he agreed with me, and guess what? MR's back in, and and I've had the premier out at uh the show ever since uh he became the premier. Not only that, but the minister is now coming out. And when I was minister of natural resources, I believe I was the first minister, I could be wrong, to my knowledge, that came out and worked the MR booth at the sportsman show. And quite frankly, they tried to pull out then, and I wouldn't let them pull out of that show because there was always the cutbacks, and when there's reductions in the thought of cutbacks, the first thing they do is say, Oh, we don't need to do this show, so they don't do it. But I had uh the the ministry booth there, and it'll be there on full full force along with a lot of other great booths from the province of Ontario and other provinces. And the Toronto Sportsman Show is a great show. It's a family tradition. I can recall going there with the family uh to the dogs section in the 70s with the family and been going there and my kids, we took them to that show every single year uh from the time they were in strollers right up to when they're around now. And Garrett's well, I'm not sure Garrett will be back, but Josh and Casey, and hopefully uh Garrett's fiancee, Brittany, will be there along with Diane. And yes, even my mother shows up, and mom's in her 91st year, and she loves the show. And the first thing that uh happens when I'm setting up the booth the past three, four years is is Rose coming? Is your mom coming? Because they all look forward to seeing mom, and she's 91 and she loves helping out and being there. And we will be at the the Toronto International Center in Mississauga, or the International Center in Mississauga for the Toronto Sportsman Show, March the 19th to the 22nd, and looking forward to seeing you there. If you have any questions, come on and see us there. Come on and and guess what? I'm doing the contest there as well. You come out, let us know what teas you think. Just tick the box uh that you think uh would be good blends that you'd be interested in because we're constantly, and normally what I do with a blend is I I uh we get it mixed and I work with John Snell, who's been on the show a couple of times and does a great job, and we get it just Right. So you know the the the new one that we'll have there besides the chag and chag and mint uh we work out and like the the turmeric, ginger, chaga, and black pepper is 30 30 30 10. So 30% chaga, thirty percent turmeric, thirty percent ginger, ten percent black pepper. And we work out all those ratios, and these are some of the things that take a while, and uh and then we try to figure out loading it and all the rest of it, etc. etc. So I look for people's input, and normally, like this one, I do up a sample batch, let everybody try it, get their opinions, and then we release it later on. But if people want to give us an idea, hey, you got a chance to tick it off uh the boxes, the which ones you think would be good, and a chance to win an entire pack chag of package that we will send out to you free. So come on out and see us at either one of those shows. We look forward to it. Anyways, just an update on what's happening with the trails and maple syrup and all that happening in our life. And love being out there and doing all that stuff out there under the canopy. See you at the show.

SPEAKER_11 45:30

I'm your host, Steve Nitzwicki, 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_10 45:58

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 job.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that's might be for more fishing than it was punching. You so confidently you said, Hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drunk?

SPEAKER_11 46:20

Find diaries of a lodge owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.