HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

Way back in March with snow on the ground I started riding training for my across Canada trip, from that a amazing summer developed with many miles at my back, and after a bit of a hiatus over the fall I am once again itching to ride. So today taking advantage of the unseasonal 9 degrees out there I carried the bike back out of the basement and after about an hour of preparations mainly trying to find all my biking stuff I hit the road for a very pleasant 25 km ride over the hills of King City. I wanted to do more but my legs disagreed letting me know they had not peddled at all for the last two months . Tomorrow 11 degrees predicted , perhaps I'll ride again !!!

December 31st , last ride of the year !!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL, MAY 2011 BE A GREAT YEAR AND BRING HAPPINESS, HEALTH AND WEALTH TOGETHER WITH MANY ENJOYABLE MILES OF BIKING !!!!

Signing off till January

Well not much going on around here, no hiking this weekend or last as Evelyn's and my days off did not coincide, and now with X-mas season in full swing we may not get out that much .
Today I gave in to the fact that winter is here waking to a covering of snow outside, so I put the bikes away in the basement and the long wait till March starts , I'll probably start spin classes again as they helped immensely this spring.
So Merry Christmas to all and my 2011 bring happiness, good health, and nice biking weather !!! to you all.
I'll be back sometime in January

Pups attacked by coyotes !!!

Pups attacked by coyotes !!!

So a sensationalistic headline attracts the attention but is very misleading, it’s the way of our media now a days sadly. In this day and age of one line communication this is all that would be read and believed . The proper headline should be something like:

“Pups and coyotes tussle again”  

Ok so you are by now wondering what happened, well last Friday morning I left home at 7 AM for my short walk to work, the pups as usual noses to the ground were back and forth smelling all the past nights activities, heckles up and barking at nothingness, well to me nothing to them a whole other story !!!

As usual they stay outside busy in there reclaiming of the farm while I go into the barn, hang Biasca’s hay-net up and grab the two weanlings to turn them out, 10 minutes tops go by from walking into the barn, and just as I start towards the door the nuisance barking changes to very serious frantic howling followed quickly by horrible agonizing yelping. I can’t let the weanling go, no time to get them back into there stalls so I ask them to run out with me and they luckily do, and there right outside the barn door under the big pine tree their is commotion, yelping and barking, by then I am yelling at the top of my voice for the pups to come as I think they are in a fight with the neighbors dog. Much to my surprise two big beautiful coyotes pop out from under the tree and walk away from me, my heart sinks, more rustling, yelping and a third coyote pops out and then Brinks finally runs over to me , Montana by now over at the house barking like mad, me not very sure were the coyotes are as the tree is in the way and the weanlings not wanting to go any further, a very frustrating situation to be in !!! It takes a lot of coaxing to get Montana to come but she finally does and we all head to the paddock to turn the weanlings out so that I can get a handle on the situation as I can see blood on Brinx and I have no idea where the coyotes are, all the while the pups growling and barking running around wanting to go after the coyotes !!!! 

The end result is two holes in Brinx one on the shoulder and on between his shoulder blades, scrapes were the teeth did not puncture the skin on his butt and flank and the name tag on his collar almost bent in two obviously from a tooth, he was a very lucky dog !!!, Montana had not marks on her. 

As to how this all came about I can only speculate, it could be that the pups ran down to the river on smelling the coyotes and got chased back, or the coyotes were going by the barn as they often do and it was wrong time wrong place for the pups , who knows ??. I don’t think the coyotes were hunting the pups because being three of them it would have been no contest and they would have left with at least one of the pups. 

 I am not one to shed blame on the coyotes, even though this is the second time there  has been an incident, the last one involving Montana was much more serious with a lot more injuries some life threatening and a $1,500 dollar vet bill. There is nothing premeditated or vicious about there attacks, they aren't even attacks, coyotes are coyotes, they hunt small animals for food, it’s just a survival thing for them and the pups happen to be small animals and that’s all there is to it. 

It would pain me immensely to loose a pup but it would also pain me to see harm come to the coyotes, therefore we exist in this not so wild wilderness each of us hanging on to our way of living for the most part avoiding conflict for the most part going on with our own lives letting the other be. 

Brinx is doing very well, the tooth holes are closed up, antibiotics and aspirin helping the healing and I have to give a special thanks to Jessica for coming up looking after him. 

Saturday we decided to forgo our hiking trip as we didn't know how much Brinx would want to do, instead we went for a drive around looking at houses, we have been thinking it’s time to take the leap and purchase a place of our own so we are starting to educate ourselves with what is out there. The drive was interesting taking us to all kinds of places we have never been within striking distance. I find it amazing that I have lived around here for over twenty years and I am still discovering new places.

After a couple of hours wanting to let the dogs out to do there business I made a short detour to what I call “ The Bradford Forest “ , Dave first took me there mountain biking years ago, lots of fast single track weaving its way through pine trees, lots of fun !!! the only negative is that it is a bit noisy since it’s right beside the 400. They also hold weekly  mountain bike races there during the summer on Wednesday nights. The pups were wanting to go so we headed of for a short hike, right away spotting a bunch of wild turkeys so we quickly leashed the pups and ended up having a nice ( cold ) hike. On leaving I spotted the sign with the forest’s proper name “ Hudson Tract “ of the Simcoe County Forests. Once home I looked up the Simcoe Forests and found a whole bunch of them scattered north west of us to north of Barrie, a lot of hiking and biking opportunities to be had in the future !!!!

Bummed out

I find myself bummed out , I had booked a trip to Cuba with Evelyn , Lisa and Max , a nice family vacation,  and had to cancel because of conflicts at work.

As a young man I had always thought that working hard and sacrificing to get ahead would reap rewards later in life , and while it has in some ways in other it has made me a slave of my work and it disturbs me.  

It was a good week till then , beautiful autumn weather all week and Saturday I finally got the road bike out !!!!, long overdue it was !!. It actually felt kind strange sitting on the 520 which is weird since I spent two and a half months sitting on it this summer . 

I waited for the frost to lift and around 10 I headed out towards the Marsh all bundled up as it was only 7 degrees !!!, I came to the first hill and my suspicions were confirmed , I am out of shape !!!, I was huffing buy the time I got to the top !!!!. Sadly at my age conditioning disappears quickly , my body has forgotten it rode across the country and it’s like I’m starting form scratch again , my own fault for not riding sooner !!!

It did turn out to be a very enjoyable ride , I mainly doodled around the Marsh checking out the work done on the South Canal that now no longer runs beside the road , instead there is a stretch of dirt that eventually will become a berm ( hopefully with grass and trees to replace the beautiful willows that once lined the canal ). 

And I discovered that the unusual building I watched go up this spring is a winery !!!, “ Holland Marsh Wineries “ reads the sign in front of it. Closed and deserted now , can’t wait till they open to go a savor some of there product as I ride by next year !!! , it has the potential to becoming a favorite stop !!!

My ride lasted for just over two hours and I covered 41.7 km , by the time I got home it had warmed to 12 degrees . Now I’m left with the want for more but it’s impossible to get out after work now with the time change as the sun is already setting around 5 PM. Oh well, maybe next Saturday and if not I’ll have to go back to the Gym for spin classes !!!!, at least I’ll be in shape once March rolls around and I can get back on the road. 

Self portrait on my ride 

The top of Pumphouse Rd, the last time I was here was with my fellow TdC riders way back in August. 

 

The Canal moved away from the road with the start of a berm.

The only part of the South Canal left untouched , I loved riding so close to the water !!!

The evolution of the Marsh, a winery , could be very interesting !!!!

 After getting home Evelyn and I continued on our goal of hiking all 17 Tracts of the York Regional Forest , after a stop at Tim Horton’s for a much needed coffee and donut we went to the Bendor & Graves Tract on Kennedy Rd just north of Davis Drive . We found it to be a very pleasant forest , the dogs loved it and except for the fact that I stepped in dog pop as I was leaving ( smelly ride home in the car ) it was a great hike.

Hiking on the Bendor & Graves Tract of the York Regional Forest

Big old pine 

Re comments :

Andy , great to hear from you !!!. It was a long way we rode!!!, and we did it km after km !!!, and like you I find some people that don’t understand it , but thats ok , we understand !!!. 

A case of mass amnesia ???

I follow occasionally the goings on of our neighbors to the south, hard not to as we are bombarded with there media, and since a good portion of our winged wildlife spends some time across the boarder every winter I like staying updated with whats going on down there. 

So last week it came to my attention that the Great Savior of the world had fallen out of favor with his country man and women, amazing what can happen in just two years. 

Now what puzzles me is why, did he do something horrible to insight there wrath ??? after all the rest of the world still hold him in great esteem ( well, not all but a good portion does, us included ) 

The way I see it he came to power at a time his country and the whole world were in crisis, the collapse of economies across the globe was eminent, this all brought on under the eight year stewardship of the Republican party and a trend of deregulating big business. Bail out plans across the world were implemented to save banks and economies from collapsing, and still to this day we are globally feeling the effects of the US mortgage crisis with riots in Greece and now in France. 

So now in the midterm elections held last week the population of the great USofA decided to punish Mr Obama for something created way before he came to power, yes they say he is not doing enough to boost the economy, not creating enough jobs, etc, but realistically how could anyone do more while at the same time not letting things get out of hand again ??? Can one realistically expect an economy to be turn around in a mere two years ???, I don’t think so , but our neighbors do it seems.

A case of mass amnesia, they have forgotten who created the problems they are experiencing  and are blaming the Democrats instead of the Republicans, very interesting !! 

We definitely seem to be living in a world were instant solutions are expected, and blame is assigned by spinning the truth into political gains to obtain power. In a time of fast media ,high speed internet, texting, twitter and social networks we don’t educate ourselves enough with whats going on, everything is abbreviated to hold our flitting attention, we believe the sensational and don't bother to find out the truths, a sad reality of the modern world.  

Now on a much lighter topic we went on another hike this weekend , we were going to go down to Toronto to the R.O.M. to see the “The Warrior Emperor and China’s Terracottas Army” but the sun was shining and we decided to spend the day outdoors and explore another section of the York Regional Forest . This time we picked the Scouts tract on McCowan Rd just south of the Vivian Rd. 

We left here around 10 AM , the temperature somewhere between 0 and +4, it had snowed almost all day the day before but hardly any had stuck to the ground so we drove east through the typical November scenery of browns and golds , but as we neared our destination white started appearing on the ground and then on the trees, by the time we arrived at the forest everything was white making it a very magical walk as the sun shone through the leafless trees making the snow sparkle and started melting the snow from the tops of the trees making it fall as if it was snowing. We got to the lakes and found them half covered in ice, that combined with the crystal clear water and surrounding dormant vegetation made for some great pictures which I’ll share with you now. A very pleasant hike !!! 

Halloween

November 1

Well halloween with it’s witches goblins and all things scary has come and gone for another year. Of course Max being a little bigger this year picked bigger pumpkins to carve , it worries me what may appear next year !!!

The weekend was taken up with Halloween and a visit to Adena Springs to see there new stallions , funny but it was my first visit to the farm in all these years, nice place !!!! and nice stallions , hopefully they do well with them. 

There is a chill in the air with the coming of November , it’s unavoidable , winter is on its way !! oh well just have to grin and bear it , planing a trip to Cuba helps !!!

Pups enjoying the fruits of my labour !!!

I also did some baking which is a rarity for me , we had some over ripe bananas hanging around and I was pretty certain they were destined  for the raccoons, so I commandeered them and started looking for a banana bread recipe online then rummaged through the pantry for ingredient quite foreign to me : nutmeg, vanila extract, walnuts, baking soda, etc.. , put it all together and created a acceptable loaf of banana bread ! 

I keep forgetting to answer some of the comments I get , sorry !!

Bob lets definitely mark down the Cranberry festival for next year !!

Deb, nos encantaria ver fotos de tu viaje en Killarny , espero poder ir a visitar el parque el ano que viene . Saludos !!!

A quiet week

October 26

A quiet week on the physical front, no biking, no hiking, no woodchopping, weather wise we did see our first snow flakes early in the week and now the temperatures are back up close to 20 degrees with tornado watches in Southern Ontario, a prefer this warmer weather but really don’t care for the temperature swings, it makes the cold days seem even colder. 

A pleasant surprise this weekend I meet up with Ed, a fellow TdC rider and partner on the road as we eat and rode our way across the country, we both showed up at the “ Tour du Canada 2010 review meeting “, it was quite interesting how much planing goes into these rides. 

Photo courtesy of Ed as he brought his camera and I didn't 

On friday a letter arrived from the “ Ministry of the Attorney General “, never got one of those before , I thought " this just can't be good news" , what had I done ??? , I decided not to open it so as to not spoil the weekend !! ( it had me a little worried ) Yesterday I opened it and found out that I’ve been put on the Jury list !!!, the letter was a questioner to see if I qualify ( just gave me 5 days to fill and send back ) . I wouldn't mind being a juror but I don’t think it will be possible as I’m the only employee here and I already took the summer off !!, but we shall see how this progresses and I’ll keep you informed.

So for lack of some nice scenery pictures I’ll share my cooking experience from this past weekend, we had Bev and Dave over for dinner on Saturday and I spent a a long time searching for something interesting to cook, finally I found this recipe online it sounded tasty , so as I'm an adventurous cook I gave it a try , here it is:

  

Sausage-Stuffed Rack of Pork with Sage

It called for:

1 (6-pound) bone-in pork loin roast

1 cup plus 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided

4 large sage sprigs

1 pound Italian sausage ( about 6 ) casings discarded

6 scallions ( green onion ) , chopped ( 1 cup )

2 celery ribs, chopped ( 1cup )

20 brine-cured black olives

1 ( 750-ml ) bottle white Orvieto Classico

 kitchen string

Preheat oven to 500°F with rack in middle.

Partially cut roast away from bones to create a "flap" (for stuffing, allowing meat to be returned to bone). Rub pork inside and out with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper, then rub outside with 1 teaspoon oil. Put sage, then sausages and scallions, inside flap and tie roast with string.

Put roast, bone side down, in a large roasting pan with celery and olives, then pour in wine and remaining cup oil. Roast 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 325°F and roast, basting meat every 30 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center of meat (do not touch bone) registers 155°F, about 1&1/2 - 2 hours more. Let stand 15 minutes. Serve with pan juices.

So yes a whole bottle of wine went in !!! , I have never done that before,  well it was almost a whole bottle as I tasted it before poring it in and it was good stuff !!. 

I just couldn't bring myself to use a whole cup of oil so I just use 3/4 instead and probably could have used less, and I used fresh sage laves ( layered on the bone side and put the stuffing on top) instead of sprigs as I thought that might have been to much also. 

I also added portabella mushrooms, garlic and carrots around the roast to ad flavor to the gravy we made.

It turned out excellent !!! and I definitely will make it again, but next time I think I’ll put some of the olives in the stuffing and probably add red peppers, garlic and some of the celery also.

The ingredients, well most of them.

Stuffing the pork 

Stuffed, tied, seasoned and ready to go in the oven

Of course I forgot to take a picture of the roast when it came out of the oven ( it looked beautiful !!!) , what with entertaining the guests and drinking a beer or two picture taking was totally forgotten, so this is a consolation picture taken of a left over chop we had for dinner on Monday and amazingly it tasted even better then on saturday !!!!