Mushrooms, Square Dancing and Airsoft

 

 Hello again, and welcome to another blog with the Findlaters in Canada!

This last few weeks have been eventful as we moved house from a small little studio into a two bedroom condo. 

This activity in and of itself was time consuming as we had to search for furniture and order it in. 

Some furniture arrived the day after we moved in (which is good) and the other will be arriving later this month.

Then there was the field component of the mushroom course that I mentioned in the last blog. 

Kyran got up to some Airsoft tournament that he will tell you all about later. 

Lastly we were invited to go along to an open night at the local seniors hall in this little retirement community we currently call home, in order to try "square dancing" and see if they could get some new younger blood in the group. 

SQUARE DANCING

We arrived to the location that we had been given only to find that we were at a seniors hall, I personally felt a little out of place as a 25 year old walking into a senior hall. But nonetheless we ventured in to see exactly what we had signed ourselves up for. 

There were a few people crowded around the door greeting the new comers and to my relief there were a few other new people and even a younger couple one of which was Australia.  

The men were absolute gentlemen as they took lead and smiled as I stepped on their toes, and the women I could over hear gently teaching Kyran how to hold a ladies hand. 

I felt the whole experience enriching as the elderly glided around the dance floor in their custom made dresses to ensure maximum skirt movement through out the dance. 
I watch the couples with their matching costumes, and clearly the men had no say in the design, but still wore proudly with his partner. 

More rewarding was watching the smiles on the faces of people enjoying every moment they have to dance, to walk, to hobble to a rhythm. Who know one day soon they will be unable to walk, dependent on others for everyday activities - but just now, just for the moment they were enjoying what movement they had left, the moments and the music. 

Because it was such a pleasant experience, we are now learning to square dance and will be attending classes every Wednesday night!

MUSHROOM HUNTING

I guess I will just show a bunch of photos and explain them as we go!

This first one is a Lobster mushroom - It is edible!

The place that we went to search for mushrooms was in a forest that had branches covered in Mosses and lichens, something like this i had never seen before but it was everywhere!

Next up these mushrooms are a type of "coral" mushroom. Some species of these are edible and some not so much. From what I was told the worse side-effect you can have from eating these is a good case of the runs (laxative)!

I know that I have shown a similar growth to the one below in a previous Blog but it actually now just occurred to me what is going in this photo. 

I believe but can not substantiate that the trumpet shape things are actually part of the moss life cycle.  Please tell me if you know otherwise (a quick google didn't show what I was looking for).

Alrighty some more mushroom photos, I'm not sure what these are but they were nice to look at, and they are not edible.

This one above was purple! Amazing!! The one below is poisonous DO NOT EAT it but it was weird!

 
This one below is a false chanterelle fungus, not edible but similar to edible Chanterelle that is worth a bit of money if you can gather and sell enough!

Now for the good photos my handy dandy mushroom carrier Kyran!

The mushrooms above are edible ones called Honey Mushrooms, and we indeed did eat them in the end!!

During our foraging we came along a giant slug!

Isn't it cute?!

We put the honey mushrooms and one or two other random edible ones into a stir fry!




We got a huge amount of Lobster mushrooms, but ended up not eating any as they were mostly old/rotten and stayed in the fridge a bit too long before we got around to doing anything with them. They literally smell like fish/lobster, and was kind of gross. Supposedly they make a good mushroom soup.

Kyran will take it from here:

The wild mushroom identification course that Mercedes did (and dragged me along to) seemed like a lot of fun, and we actually have one more field trip left to get another chance to gather and identify (and eat!!!!!!!!!) some more mushrooms. I think these sorts of small courses held by the local community college (TAFE equivalent) is awesome, and I reckon more people back home in AUS should see if there are any short courses they find interesting. 

New Apartment

The new apartment is coming along nicely, we have furniture and still more to come! The place seems nice so far, no trouble with the neighbours and the internet is nice and fast (which is of course the most important thing next to running water and electricity). 





Kyran Airsoft stuff
For those who are vaguely interested, I'll show some pictures of my recent Airsoft adventures. 

Here is a picture of my friend Clay and I. We both enjoy shooting little white plastic balls at eachother while keeping fit and running around.

 There's me, trying not to get shot while advancing up a road to the objective

 Operation Urban Uprising

On October 3, I went to a big event in the local area held by one of the airsoft supply shops, to support the community and bring the local groups together into one large event. One of the local car wrecker yards was converted into a battlefield, and 56+ local airsoft players (within 2 hours drive in all directions) converged for a big day of games.

Ken (my former colleague, an intern who has returned to finish university now) and I standing around after a battle, waiting to see what happens next. 

 Here I am again, looking fancy with my toy. You can sort of see the little black box on the front part of my gun, on the right side. That is a custom designed 3D printed enclosure for my Sony Action Cam video recorder! I am still working on the video editing, but I think there is enough useful footage to make a little video from. The only downside of only have a camera on the gun is you miss alot of what happens when i'm not actually aiming at anything, so i'm going to make a head strap/mount thing for the camera next.

I have lots of fun, meet lots of new and very nice people. Despite what it looks like (lots of guns and in theory, violent behaviour) the games are well run, everybody shows good sportsmanship, and it's all very innocent. It's literally just a ranged version of "tag" with fancy clothes and equipment, and lots of teamwork involved. 

Mercedes doesn't want to get involved (yet..) because she abhors guns and anything related to them (despite having played paintball at least twice before) and has not given into my requests to join me for a day of fun in the sun. 





Maybe one day!











That's it for us this time, we hope you enjoyed reading our blog and we hope you are all having a good time and being safe, healthy, and growing economically. 

Apple Sauce and Syphon Falls

 Hello out there!

So this one is about a little adventure to Syphon Falls and a little about "Canning" which is something that we Australians don't have to worry about due to the mild winters. 
Canadians on the other hand have Canning down to an art. 

***

SYPHON CREEK FALLS

 
As you can see this is not to far from the centre of town. It is a fairly short walk but it is only a partially developed track, and was a bit of a hike. 

There were a lot of beautiful things along the way so here are some photos of them!

This first one Kyran named King Lichen ("Li-king") as it was atop a stump and very bushy

So this is what we set out to see - the Syphon falls in all it glory!

The photos above were taken from half way up the falls. The pool that you see in the photos was half way up but in order to see the pool I had to climb up the side of the falls with a camera in one hand and a rope in the other. I think Kyran just missed videoing me falling and trying to not to slide the whole way down the bottom. 

The photo below is a photo of Kyran videoing me waiting for the opportune moment. This is followed by a photo of Kyran's disapproval of me climbing the water fall.

A nice looking cliff face!

So any normal person would have gone to the falls and then turned around and went back.
Well I saw a rockslide area and a clearing at the top and decided that we should explore that and see what is at the top... also much to Kyrans disapproval. 

This is the view from halfway up the rock slide!

Not Impressed! Haha.

Well in any case, here are some more pictures

This is a fun side note: The photo above in Kyran's hand is Muscovite and we saw it every where in this rock slide area.

Scrap, flake and ground muscovite are used as fillers and extenders in a variety of paints, surface treatments and manufactured products. The pearlescent luster of muscovite makes it an important ingredient that adds "glitter" to paints, ceramic glazes and cosmetics. 

For more information about this mineral see: 
http://geology.com/minerals/muscovite.shtml

This picture is of what we assume is a birch tree that have a ring of a different type of texture, possibly from damage of some kind (fire??).

[Kyran]
Here is a magnificent view from up on the hill we hiked up - still only halfway up the mountain, but we stopped here and sat in the dirt to take in the views and feel the wind on our faces. In the distance, all the way up the Shuswap lake, there is a bit of precipitation.

On the way down the hill after a little break up there, we came across a cute little snake! Mercedes picked it up and gave it a cuddle while I took photos of it.

Down the pathway home, here's a nice picture of the thin forest area. The trees are turning yellow! It's now Autumn, officially.

There's a troll on the bridge!! :) 

 

That's it for the trip to Syphon Falls, I hope you enjoyed the photography!


Lastly, as promised, the Apple Sauce!


We picked the apples fresh from Jody's (Kyran's boss's wife) trees and cut them up, worms and all! They were very organic!

We started with two large tubs of apples, and then we peeled and chopped them. 


























Then we added them to the pot (this is a smaller batch) with a little bit of water to keep them moist. 






 


Then we added lemon and sugar or honey (we used honey) to sweeten it - the lemon stops it going brown. Once they were soft, it was time for the canning.








Canning consists of bottles with two-part lids. The first part of the lid (as you can see on the left) is a flat top with a seal around the rim. This is soaked in hot/boiling water for a few minutes before using them. I should also mention that the jars themselves have to be sterile because canning has to remain germ-free for a long period of time. The whole process must be sanitary!

The second part of the lid (see left) goes on last. It screws on tight and holds down the top part to keep the seal. Making sure the lids are on tight, the jars are then placed in a large pot and boiled for ten minutes. In this case, the pot seen below is specifically made for this task - it has a rack which allows easy insertion and removal of the jars during the process.


After the ten minutes, the jars are removed but kept on the tray and placed gently to the side to cool down. They are not supposed to be moved for about 12 hours in order for them to cool and the seal to harden. 





At the end of the process, just like your vegemite lids you should be able to see the top bit depressed which indicates a full air-tight seal. It's important to mention that when you take them out of the heat, none of them will be depressed, but as they cool you will hear the lids pop and see the top dented in. If after they have cooled the top is not dented, then you know it did not seal so you should probably eat those first as they will not keep long-term (which is the whole point of canning).

After my canning experience (I'm sure I've seen Tia do this in Spain, but I didn't take notice) I asked around the girls at work for examples of how to can other fruits and veggies - turns out for most veggies you do not cook them before canning, you simply add them raw with salt water (brine) or vinegar and then do the boiling process, which cooks them at the same time. 

While we were waiting for the jars to boil, Jody showed me her cooking book, and the times that the jars should boil vary with what the contents are. If you are planning to can, please google how long to boil them for... Don't use me as an authority!

That my friends, is canning brought to you from Canada! Sadly, also the end of another blog entry. 

The next blog should follow some time in the next couple of weeks, and will cover our adventures in square dancing, Kyran's airsoft shenanigans, wild mushrooms, and moving house!

Stay tuned!