It has been another winter month since the last Zekely Report so I better drop the hammer!

This edition, I am cranking up the activity and fun while winter lingers a little too long.

On the Last Episode...

A whole month since your last Zekely feels like a whole season ago when there were still snowbanks. The last edition proves that was the case. Surely, by mid April, the snow is gone and we are smoothly on our way to summer right?



Nope. There was a warm snap of 20 Celsius (almost 70 Freedom Units) that flash thawed all of the snow but we have had a couple weeks of flirting with the freezing mark and a few dustings of snow. I have resigned myself to enjoy the slow oncoming of warm weather because, before I know it, I will be hearing people complain of the heat.

Hockey Finals

I wish there was a good way of sharing the live, small town Canadian hockey game experience. I suppose you could watch Shoresy for a hint and try to imagine what is fact and fiction. Equal parts cheap shitty beer, super-entertaining skatey punch, and heckling of the refs is in order. Our Senior whale shit hockey team punched their ticket to the finals and this is the moment they saluted the crowd for cheering them to victory. Up 2 games to none in the finals as of right now and game 3 is tomorrow night.

Lumberjacking

My domestic duty of maintaining the garden went extreme this spring. This tree had grown to 30 feet, started screwing with the fence & garden, and needed to come down by the request of my neighbour. A couple electric chainsaws and we brought all of this down without destroying a single garden box, fence, shed or home. The extra sun making it through now should make for some great #hivegarden posts.

Business

The number of connections to the community in this small town I have are many. This one is through the downtown business association and the annual general meeting. I would rather be at home drinking a beer and watching hockey than otherwise but I always make time to connect to the business leaders, the mayor sitting right in front of me, and the commerce movement that united the constructive parts of the community.

Music

Being in the middle of said small town, it is easy to connect directly to the music community if you are so inclined. I don't play any live music in my town for whatever reason but I have so many friends who run music venues, support the arts or produce their own music. DJ Edward Bear is one of those and we had the chance to transform the Town Crier Marketing www.towncriermarketing.ca downtown gallery office into an exclusive live music venue. Grass roots live music should be supported by anyone who values the community and it was easy to say yes to this!

University

I am enough decades removed from post secondary education that my kids are about to enter that realm. It was a bit of a journey but I accompanied my littlest one to theatre school open house. Imagining your own completely unprepared children jumping into the big city, given the freedom to do stupid shit we did back then is a bit of a challenge. Touring the facility, dorm and meeting with professors sure takes the edge off that. What and adventure she is about to go on.

Martial Arts!

I am finally back to training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu a few times a week. My 13-year journey has brought me to the level of brown belt and just happy for have never fully quit. Such a great mental and physical workout that seems to help balance the work and responsibility. When the regular class is over, the second hour switches to submission wrestling. The group is a little smaller sometimes but the technique is a little more slick and the sparring is intense.

Pub Time

Being out at so many networking and other events in town, coupled with the fact we brew our own beer, I unexpectedly find myself going out for a pint on the town less frequent. When a new pub opens, I gotta visit. This one is called Work and is run by a family who ran the local inn for decades. They sold the inn to a large hotel company and opened their own independent pub a few blocks away. Good pints, burgers and nightlife!

BEER

Did I mention beer? #beersaturday followers would know that I spend a little time brewing my own beer with a group of other beer hounds. We brew an average of 60 litres of different styles of beer ever week for the collective. Our head brewer is on vacation for 3 weeks in places like Italy and Spain because no sane Canadian is headed to the USA as the preferred travel destination recently. This is the last of the brewing sessions we held to make sure we could make it through 3 weeks of hiatus. You kinda have to drink your own beer when you brew the next batch and this is a stout and an IPA settling to drink while we brew.

Spring?

The snow melted, then the green popped up, then a little more snow, then some warm. The winter/spring battle is a little manic up here but hopefully we are headed to milder and more consistent. I have resigned myself to simply enjoy the slow transition from winter to spring. Otherwise, impatience can sap the joy out of this time of the year every year up this far north.

Until Next Time...

The sun has fallen another 30-some times on a transitional period where the seasons and the world seem somewhere between here and there. We will get thought to the warm summer weather together.

Here's to the oncoming spring!

Happy adventuring. May it be closer to summer than here!