Please join us for the new episode of The Agency Podcast, Tomatoes and Muses. Listen right here or find us at all the good podcast places.
Gardening expert Jennifer Arnott inspires us to plant vegetables and flowers in pots. Eugene and Candy talk about painting with Toronto-based painter Shelley Adler. Plus murder, bad movies, and great tv.
I’m planning a canoe trip this summer with my buddy East Texas Red – assuming the province actually opens up for some travel. In Quetico, cans and bottles are not allowed and weight is an issue for portaging, so I’ve started to dehydrate some food for the trip. The couple who run the Lost Lakes YouTube channel recommend dehydrated pineapple as being particularly delicious, so I cut one up, loaded it in my handy dehydrator, turned it on and waited.
dehydrating pineapple
The result is a chewy treat with an intense and very delicious pineapple taste. I wasn’t sure how big to cut the pieces. I made the thickness about half a cm and tried various widths. In my opinion the larger chunks are better – each piece is more satisfying.
Regular readers may remember I made some jerky a while ago with the same trip in mind. Unfortunately the jerky didn’t last long around here. I don’t think this batch of pineapple will either. No worries, I’ll make more of each.
I’m also going to dehydrate onions, mushrooms and peppers, and ground beef as well. Apparently it’s easy to dehydrate pasta sauce too. That should be interesting. We’ll bring along some summer sausage and kielbasa too, both of which should be fine for a few days in the woods. Cheese will keep fine too. Add pasta and ramen and some flaked mashed potatoes along with fresh caught fish and we’ll eat well.
I drove over to Humber Bay East this morning for a walk. This waterfront park is a great place to see birds, and at the foot of Park Lawn, it’s just a short drive from where we live. I expected to see some Baltimore Orioles there today since I’ve been seeing them around my neighbourhood each morning when I walk the dogs, but I didn’t see any. I did see quite a few birds though, including yellow warblers, yellow-rumped warblers, red-necked grebes, tree swallows, kinglets, cedar waxwings, cormorants, cardinals, grackles, red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, house sparrows, terns, gulls, Canada geese, and more.
I was unable to get good shots of some of the birds I saw, such as the yellow-crowned kinglets and cedar waxwings, but overall, I did get some representative shots of today’s walk. I also enjoyed looking at a variety of interesting plants and even saw a turtle.
I took a walk over to the park on a cool, windy but sunny morning. I thought I might see some warblers in the park today. I didn’t, but there were lots of birds in the park.
female Red-winged BlackbirdRed-necked GrebeRed-necked Grebe on nesting platformmale CardinalRobinBarn SwallowMy Cityon the way to the spitSong SparrowStacksBarn Swallow
The new episode of The Agency Podcast is up. Listen right here or find it at all the good places. We are thrilled to share a conversation and a Tarot card reading by Dr. K. Syinide. Dr K tells us how he was introduced to cartomancy on the Canadian East Coast. We also get a kick-ass recipe during a visit to the Comfort Food Diner with Miami professor, Cormac McCarthy and Godzilla expert, Rick Wallach. Rick shares his method for making Chicago Beef Sandwiches.
You can find Rick musing about any variety of topics on The Cormac McCarthy Society here. You can get your own more extensive Tarot reading by Dr. K through his website or at his Facebook page.
And please consider sending us your recipes, movie recommendations and thoughts. We love your emails.
I’ve driven past the Brueckner Rhododendron Gardens, located just west of Port Credit, countless times without ever stopping. Oh I’ve thought about stopping and made vague plans to visit, but until today I didn’t actually make the effort to do so. This morning, after a particularly trying time attempting to “curbside pick-up” some panels for mosaic projects from the Home Depot, I headed directly over there for a relaxing and peaceful walk.
Joseph B. Brueckner was an avid amateur plant breeder specializing in rhododendrons. In fact 18 of his hybrids were registered with the Royal Horticultural Society. His dream was to donate a large portion of his collection to form a new garden to be open to the public. With the help of a local politician named Harold Kennedy, his dream became the Bruekner Rhododendron Gardens, located at 660 Lakeshore Road.
It’s a lovely property, with a small creek, a variety of gardens, a swampy bit, a field, access to Lake Ontario, and a good variety of trees, many currently in blossom.
One of the highlights at the garden is a Cucumber Tree (Magnolia acuminata). This tree is an endangered species in Ontario and in Canada.
Cucumber Tree
The cucumber tree can grow up to 80 feet in height. The speciman at the Brueckner gardens is not that tall, but still it is stunning.
Cucumber Tree
Right now is the best time to visit the Bruekner Rhododendron Gardens as so much is currently in bloom. It’s a beautiful spot for a quiet, meditative walk, and well worth a visit. I’m really glad I finally stopped by to check it out.
I’ve started a new book of collages. Making collages in old books is something both Sheila and I have been doing during the pandemic. I enjoy the add-and-subtract approach with materials at hand. I can let almost anything happen in these things and there are no rules. As well, the results are portable, which is good, since I’m not planning any exhibitions at this time.
I dig into my box of scraps, magazines, bits of old drawings, brown paper bags and photos and imagine up new worlds any way I like. There is little planning involved with these. I make them up as I go along. Along the way I discovered that subtraction can be really interesting too. I can build up an image, then tear back layers of it and reconstruct parts of it in different ways.
I’ve been telling people I’m fiddling my way through the pandemic and it’s true. After I returned from Viet Nam in February last year, I started really working at learning fiddle. I’ve been doing this with the help of a lot of online resources and some sheet music. It’s been going pretty well in that I can play some tunes on fiddle now and it’s starting to sound better and better. At the same time, my approach has been somewhat haphazard. I’ve been concentrating on learning Appalachian old time music, which I also play on clawhammer banjo.
Recently though, I’ve been listening to more and more Canadian old time music, including some of our great fiddlers from the past, such as Reg Hill, Ward Allen, Al Cherney, Andy Dejarlis and many more. I thought I’d try to find a teacher who was fluent in Canadian old time music, with the goal of learning the Ottawa Valley style in particular and to build a repertoire of Canadian music.
I found a teacher – Cindy Thompson – who lives in the Ottawa Valley and has been playing that music – and step-dancing to it -most of her life. We had a trial lesson yesterday via facetime and I’m confident I’ve found an excellent teacher who can help me out quite a lot learning this music.
27th Street 