Chagarific ice tea!

Slow cooker food warmer used for brewing chaga chunks

Chagarific ice tea!  

First, look up my blog post on brewing chaga in a slow cooker.  Next, let's keep it simple.  50/50 ratio of chaga brew to your choice of apple juice or cider, and stick it in the fridge.  Its the easiest way to drink copious amounts of chaga on a daily basis.  The brew is still darker then coffee if you brewed the chaga long enough, and it stays fine in the fridge for about 2 weeks or so.

Tea Mugs

New additions to the tea mug collection.  Gotta say, I love these 2 new design.  Works great for keeping the tea hot a bit longer. The second design has a triple function with a coaster / top / tea bag holder.  If you're looking for a great source for pottery, gotta have a look at this shop!

Chaga-laga-egg-nog Latte

To start, I admit there are prerequsites to understanding this blog post.  One, buy (or harvest if your brave enough) a fine grind of chaga.  Two, look up my blog post on brewing chaga in a slow cooker.  Lastly, let me suggest my new favorite holiday concoction.  50/50 chaga to egg nog.  While still warm, add a little candy cane for extra flavor.  The egg nog and chaga separate a bit when poured which makes for an interesting visual.  Handle this at a party and you may be considered cool or just plain weird, but thats whats going to happen any time the word chaga is mentioned.  So educate them!  

Vacation - Stone Carving Courses

Random update on life.  As my last blog said, I've made the jump to live in a small trailer for the summer, and still do it comfortably.  Possibly in style.  Without an ultimate fail.  

It's a little more daunting than you think.  Namely, all your stuff that is useful and valuable (necessities) are inside a trailer which has a tarp hanging out the side (fold out bed), and all someone has to do to get in is undo the velcro seams and crawl in when no one is looking.  

My other trailer park is quite safe and has no theft reported except for a golf cart last year.  I couldn't blame them if it was from the lot that overlooks a huge cornfield.  A golfcart and a downhill cornfield.  Yup.   But the trailer park I currently reside in has a creepy name.   Rip's Sleepy Hollow. Weird eh?  The owner has a slight stutter...  hmmm... a reason why perhaps?   Whats even weirder is that street name I live on in Cambridge is called 'Sleepy Hollow'.  

The park is quiet and peaceful though.  Not a lot happening here.  No gravestones either to prove it.  No ghost sighting yet.  

So the reason I'm here though is because I've enrolled in 2 stone carving courses over at the Haliburton School of the Arts.  It's a little break in the monotony of daily living.  I'm doing this vacation purely for myself and my artsy interests.

Many years ago, I took a blacksmithing course at the same school.  Really enjoyed the time out to find my roots.  So it feels a little like replanting those same roots again.  The feeling of driving out to Haliburton was euphoric.  The sights are spectacular for a an affichio of flora.  What really got me almost teary is the pleasing aroma of so many varieties of plants that I could often identify.  Beautiful and unique each one.  

So here I am.  On a plot of richly green grass, where my grass in Cambridge is the colour of aged hay.  Cool temperatures, and a thick blanket of rain chiming on my trailer ceiling.  The trailer is still intact after the move.  Nothing tipped over or broke after careful planning prior to the move.   And tomorrow, I'm off in the morning to a new adventure.  

To top is off, just had a lovely cup of peppermint tea.  :)

Tea at the Trailer

Yes, I officially live in a van down by the river.  But what do you care?  Because I have tea in it, and there is plenty to share.

So I love my baby-boo (yes I do), so I thought it was about time I get down to the area to be all close and snuggly with her in the boom-town of Cambridge.  In fact, I hate the city (city life in general) so I found a comfortable in between.  Twelve minutes from the edge of town, I reside in a trailer I purchased which is quite livable in for the unfrozen months.  Yet to test that.  But it is equipped with all those things that keep you hot and cool, including tea.  :)

Set and setting make a big difference to any situation, including tea.  I'd like to think of tea as being slightly ceremonial, and slightly sacred.  We do what we can to make it so, butI wanted to remind you that I do like in a van down by the river, so I can prove to you that you can still enjoy a little romance in the small things in life.  The other day, me and the lady broke open a fresh award winning tea, turned on a good internet radio station that suit the desired vibe, and lit the trailer with a few LED candles (from the dollar store).  It hit the spot, and all that stressy-bessy stuff soaked away, esp since it was enjoyed with my lady-loo.  

This goes to show that you too can put aside a little time at the end of your day.  With a little prepped set and setting, stress melts away to a warm cup of tea.   Even if it's just you - it's your you time.  

Cheers!

Snowshoeing - Tips tor Trips

G'day y'all!


Okay, drop the Southern drawl, we up here in the North have our own type of hickyness.  It's all in the way ya step out your door when its -35 (celcius) and say, 'ain't it a good to snowshoe, eh?'  Well, I will say that, but not many else.  Last time I took my girlfriend out on a romantic snowshoeing trip (Valentines Day) with a thermos of our stew, and a frozen bottle of wine in -25 (celcius) at night, she burnt a boot practically off her foot at the campfire trying to warm up, and that was the end of that party.

Well, I digress.  My post is about how not to do it right ... I mean how to do it right.  No mean to brag, but I've been doing it for a tad, and experimented with a number of different kinds of snowshoes, poles, hats, mitts, gloves, scarves, coats... etc etc etc.  So you can trust Uncle Wes for a few tips, okay eh?

So this is my current ghetto gettup for +5 (celcius).  Was pretty damn warm, so I later took off the sweater.  I have a backpack full of survival stuffers on my back as well which isn't shown.  I won't hit on too much here, but 2 things.  Laying down some emphasis on how much I love traditional hybrid type snowshoes.  The old deerskin are the best for something that lasts.  I just had a pair of mountainering style that kinda snapped at the side, but the epoxy should fix that.






So there are a lot of traditional designs out there, and all have their benefits.  You'll only find this model in the store these days, but if you look, there are a lot of traditional designs sold at different name like Faber (Quebec).


 So whatever... great design mean optimizing for the type of terrain you want to hit.  But point number 2 to hit;  POLES.  Not the kind you lick in the winter and get stuck to.  Yes, you can use poles for showshoeing.    I admit -- I have little experience with using poles, or dancing on them, but there is a bit of a science as to what wonders they can do for you.  USE THEM!!!   Here is why.  They counterweight the extra weight your feet have on them (and they snow that sometimes sticks on), and force you to carry your posture correct -weight forward to carry each step centimeters to inches further.  Plus they add stability, and when used properly save a lot of energy and strain in the legs.

I was snowshoeing today, and forgot my poles behind for the first kilometer.  I actually turned around because it was just getting too difficult to travel without them.  When getting the poles, it certainly felt like I was moving with less effort and strain, and could cover much more distance then I would have attempted without them.

The sled you see here behind me is helpful for when you want to lighten you load.  Throw the backpack in there, or the kid, or the chaga you harvested.  Or the snow.  I gotta add a rug on the top to keep snow from falling in.  

Well, thats it for now.  To summarize and add; type of snowshoe for terrain pretty important.  Climbing a hill with traditional snowshoes sucks.  2 - Poles are a must.  Saves your ass.  3 - Optimize on gear every trip to find what works for you.  Temperature is difficult to deal with, but you gotta have gear for the worse swing.  Getting stuck out longer than anticipated in freezing temps can be dangerous to say the least.  Might just burn your boots off in a makeshift campfire.
Aight - hope you learned something.  Don't take your girlfriend out on Valentines day snowshoeing.  Unless your me. Actually - it was beautiful.  A sky full of stars above us and a holy boot.   Only on the lakes of Canada -- too bad for you Southerners.  All you can see is an giant orange glow.  Sucks to be you.

Now plan a trip with a bud and get out there!  :)  

Chaga for Scoliosis?

Quick note here: food for thought.  Or Chaga for your food.  

A lady at our church found great pain relief benefits from using chaga.  She was initially recommended it from her husband, as he must have read its anti-inflammatory effects being helpful.  But specifically, her issue is long-term scoliosis.  This is defined as abnormal lateral curvature of the spine.  Her pain was so bad, she has been taking pain meds for a long time. 

She was recommended chaga from one of her fellow nurses in the hospital.  This lady is actually a nurse too.  So she figured the educated testimonial was more valuable than her husband's opinion.  Tisk tisk.  So she went with it, and they bought one of my chaga kits.  I am skeptical of chaga myself sometimes as a cure-all sota panacea thing, but it was effective for this.  She has been off her pain meds as I've been told.  So then she went off chaga for 3 days, and found it wasn't a placebo as the pain returned.

They came back for a 1 lb refill the other week.

So, there you have it guys.  Maybe it's more effective than one thing.

If you're interested in reading on, here is a random link.  

http://www.chagatea.org/chaga-tea-benefits/