Advice On Dating (for men)

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They're called whistlers by the local hunters because their wings make a whistling noise as they fly past. It's not a lyrical whistle, like you might expect from a septet of working dwarfs. It sounds more like a wheezing kettle on a uniformly bumpy road. Surely you've made tea while driving the backroads of your parish?

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Whistlers are more properly referred to as goldeneyes. Goldeneyes have been around for centuries, pre-dating even Pierce Brosnan (but not Sean Connery). They are an important part of our natural world. So when I type 'goldeneye' into the search engine, the googlebot tells me that goldeneye is:

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1) a movie starring (surprise, surprise) Pierce Brosnan. My previous reference to Pierce was no accident...more in a moment.

2) a video game (related to the movie but not duck hunting, no doubt)

3) a powerful internet spy tool

4) a resort in Jamaica man

5) a wine.

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Hello googlebot.....it's a duck! It's a duck with smooth moves...it's a lady charmer, not unlike Pierce. If I could be frank, or James, for just a brief moment, I've never bought in to Mr.Brosnan as 007. I just couldn't shake the rust off my Remington Steele. Okay, now I'll put 007 to bed (as many have done before me).

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So the goldeneyes have a strange courtship ritual to which I bore witness this morning. There always seems to be more males than females which, as we know from our days as club-goers, can lead to some pretty crazy confrontations. It's not like two ducks are going out in the back alley to duke it out....they settle the score on the dance floor. The males thrust their heads backwards, their mane of feathers blowing in seduction's competitive winds. Their pecs... pumped to the sky. It's very reminiscent of Saturday Night Fever, for those of you unfortunate enough to remember Captain Johnny T.'s dance scene.

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So where's the advice on dating, you ask?

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Do you really think that ducks could teach us anything about dating?

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Get a life (and once you do, take dance lessons).

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Notes on the three male ducks in the picture: the one closest to the female went right up to her and started quacking her up about mindless stuff (the different characteristics of sub-Arctic grasses used in nest building, etc...boring, hello?). The middle male duck just started busting moves all over the lake. The last duck, the wall flower, just hung back and played it cool.

Which duck do you think finally got the female's attention?

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What?! No time to answer my question? Oh, I understand, you're late for dance class.

Maple Syrup, Marshall McLuhan and McCrea Farms

"Just a spoonful of sugar, or maple syrup, makes the medicine go down."
Ian Poppins

There! I've finally worked a Mary Poppins quote into my everyday life. I can die now. Well, I'm not quite ready...I still need to clip a snippet from The Sound Of Music and it'll be a cold day in Salzburg before I cough one up. Besides, the hills are alive with the sound of maple sap, and I've got 'work' to do.

please excuse the seemingly obvious lack of segue from Mary Poppins to Marshall McLuhan, but here goes...

I'd like to indulge myself in a McLuhanian moment. Marshall famously said "the medium is the message." This quote came from the 1960s (a doobie-us time). I was never quite sure that I got what Marshall was saying..until now. In Mary Poppins terms, the sugar is the medicine. In Ian Poppins terms, the maple syrup is the medicine. Maple syrup has replaced the mud in my head with free-flowing amber insight, as though I've tapped into a deeper level of consciousness.

I can easily segue from maple syrup to McCrea Farms because McCrea Farms happens to know a thing or two about using maple syrup to make people happy. They recently hosted two weekends of maple syrup and pancake breakfasts, combined with tours of their sugarbush. Approximately six-hundred people enjoyed the breakfast and tour. At least one person did it twice (I'm telling you, it's an addiction!). Nothing says springtime more than fresh maple taffy poured over hard-packed snow. I'm not sure that you can call yourself Canadian until you've experienced it. Note: to the defence of the treeless Inuit, I've never slept in an igloo or eaten blubber, and I'm fully aware that we all have our own version of what makes one a true Canadian. To the rest of you yellow-bellied, non-sapsuckers....what are you waiting for??

The pancake breakfast was wonderful and very generous. The McCrea family made everyone feel at home and despite the obvious chore of feeding six-hundred people over two weekends, they did it with smiles and good humour. They were happy to showcase their operation and proud of the eight generations that made/make it a reality. It's pure pleasure to watch people who are proud of their past and their present. The maple tours are finished for this year, but they'll be offered again next spring. In the meantime, check out their web site for more information about life on a working farm, including farm-stay vacations.

An Idiot`s Guide To Spring

Spring, for me, conjures up images of happy leprechauns chasing each other across my outrageously verdant lawn. They leap from clover to clover, four-leafing their way around my property, stopping only to taunt me with their naughty limericks. In response to their cheekiness, I rev up my lawn mower and happily chase their cantankerous little mugs back under the rocks where they belong. A warm, spring shower drives me temporarily indoors where I refuel with a bowl of Lucky Charms. Sitting at my dining room table, something outdoors catches my eye. A rainbow! There`s a commotion at the end of the rainbow...

The leprechauns are back! Get the whipper-snipper!!

I`m sure that we all have this vision in common, because I`m just like you.

But wait! It is spring here in Cambridge-Narrows yet the only thing that`s green is the mint in my Sunday morning mojito (you don`t actually think I`d drink a mojito, do you? What a jolly bad waste of good rum). I go back to my window and press my nose against the glass. There are no rainbows, the grass is diaper brown, patches of snow abound. Ack!

Spring is black and white at the moment. I don`t know where I can find any colour unless...

`Wendy, where`s my shovel? I just saw something move under that rock!`

Still Life With Bounding Deer

In a desperate attempt to infuse the landscape with colour, I've placed my polyester lei from Oahu in a wooden bowl. It screams tropics. It also screams factory in China...my apologies. Next thing you know I'll be putting tacky palm trees along the perimeter of my property (wait, that's already been done by my neighbour). The lei does offer a dash of life to an otherwise black and white day, so it shall remain there until the grass is green and the skies are blue.

This image isn't gorgeous. Hell, it isn't even pretty but if you look carefully in the background you'll see two white-tail deer bounding past. Without the deer, it's just a dollar store promo pic, and not a good one at that.

Gratitude Had Wings This Morning

I was reading a friend's blog posting about gratitude when I was interrupted by an eagle looming out of the mist enshrouded lake ice. I grabbed my Nikon, slapped on a 300mm lens and took stealthy steps towards the lake's edge. Three sounds captured my attention on my way there. I could hear the optimistic voices of geese; their calls to head northbound echoing underneath a nearby bridge. On the deck of the bridge, a man's whistle cut through the fog as he took his spirited morning walk. Between the whistles and the honks I heard only the sound of silence.

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How was your morning commute?

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I came back inside my home and finished reading about gratitude, then I started to think about gratitude. I realized that I was awash in it from the moment my head left my pillow. Sometimes I forget that I'm bathing in a vibrant existence and it's something for which I should be grateful (props to my wife). On this Friday morning during the precipitous month of April, I thank Gair Maxwell for reminding me, and many others, to think about the co-mingling of gratitude and success.

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Perhaps the first words out of our collective mouths, every morning when we wake up, should be a resounding, throw your fist in the air "Yes!" Or perhaps a happy whistle is in order (careful though, not everyone loves a whistler).

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Sometimes gratitude has wings. Sometimes gratitude is foggy. Sometimes gratitude is silent. Though we don't always spend our lives running around saying 'thank you' to those who we love and admire, we should give it more thought. A cross cultural hug or two wouldn't hurt either.

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My gratitude was mostly unshared this morning, at least until I pressed the 'Publish Post' button and shared my thoughts will all of my readers (thank you both). It's not completely true that my gratitude was unshared, I think the whistler on the bridge was grateful to live in Cambridge-Narrows too.

The Eagles...Live In Cambridge-Narrows

I saw the eagle on the ice this afternoon. It was under the bridge, near the deer so I grabbed my camera and high-tailed it onto the bridge. Leaning over the railing, I saw no eagle. I looked and looked and looked but the eagle was gone. I then looked back toward my property and the eagle was grinning smuggly from one of my pines.

I did manage to get a few shots of the eagle earlier in the afternoon. This eagle is not the one I've been chasing all week. This one is probably a three year old and he/she hasn't got his/her full white head and tail.

Did you know that the word 'bald' means white in zoological terms? Of course you did.

Carcass Is Such A Nasty Word

With any luck, this will be the last image of a dead deer that I will post. I'd like to move on to something more upbeat like daffodils. I've been watching this deer slowly disappear for about 10 days now and it's been an education. The lake ice is melting and I suspect the carcass will slip into the lake later today. The eagles and crows will be miserable but they've had quite a time of it. The crows will, no doubt, resort to their old feeding habits (attacking my Tuesday morning garbage bag). The eagles are also opportunists and they'll find something...they always do.

There's a primitive aspect to this morning's image...it reminds me of a cave painting or something elemental. Nature is truly the great canvas, we simply amble about her gallery.