By popular demand, on Saturday, April 23 at 7:30 pm, the Grace Centre in Sydenham will present the return of “Sheesham, Lotus and 'Son: The New Kings of Old Time”, with Sheesham Crow, Lotus Wight and 'Son Sanderson. They are committed to the preservation of music and tradition of the past. The core of the show is a repertoire based on their love of the American fiddle tune, joyously played, not only with fiddle, but also with jaw-harps, banjos, and homemade instruments like the contrabass harmoni-phonium. Ragtime and blues never sounded so good. Their performance last year was sold out and very enthusiastically received. There was lots of toe-tapping and big smiles all round at the astounding musicianship and antics. The concert is a fundraiser for Southern Frontenac Community Services. Tickets are only $12 in advance and $15 at the door. No cost for children 10 and under. Tickets can be purchased at: Gilmour's in Harrowsmith; the SFCSC office at 4419 George Street; the One Stop in Sydenham; Ormsbee's Mercantile in Sunbury

The play, the play, the play! What is the play they are talking about? Well Pinocchio of course. This spring, North Frontenac Little Theatre is offering up a treasure of a classic adaptation of this tale with a modern-day twist.

The cast is choc full of wonderful talents, from newcomers to seasoned actors! Pinocchio himself is being played by the inimitable Mason Moore, who wowed us as the Monkey in Aladdin. Jonathan Wisteard is a fabulously evil Mastrioni and the Grandmothers are delightfully portrayed by Carol Moore and Pamela Giroux. Carol taught drama and stage in her career and now we get the pleasure of finally seeing her perform for real!! Pamela, on the other hand, has been on stage so often it is hard to recount how many wonderful performances she has given with NFLT. Her most recent parts have been in The Miracle Worker and Music Man.

We have a delightful pair of young women teaming up as The Fox and The Cat. They are none other than Sydney Drew and Jillian Hoffman. And so the list goes on; from the youngest to the eldest, all of the cast is working hard at practice.

The fine talents of Geoffrey Murray doing the costuming, Donna LaRoche the set and Jeff Siamon handling the lighting design will add to the drama and polish the look of the play so that you will be transported into the story from the start!

This play truly promises to be a treat. There will only be four performances so be sure to get your tickets early to avoid being disappointed. There will be a special family showing of the Sunday matinee where children 4 and under can be seated right up front on mats with their adults behind them on benches. It should make it more accessible and fun for the youngsters as they will be so close to the action on the stage.

The show opens Thursday April 21, at 7pm and runs until April 24 in the theatre at Granite Ridge Education Centre, on the 2nd floor. Friday and Saturday nights are also at 7pm, with the family matinee at 1pm on Sunday. Tickets are $15 adults, $10 students; and children 4 and under $8, and can be purchased at the Pharmacy, Dollar Store, Parham General Store and at the door if the show is not sold out.

The Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association will be hosting their second annual Maple Weekend on Saturday & Sunday, April 2 & 3 from 10am-4pm. Many members of the Lanark and District Maple Producers will be hosting various activities at their sugar bushes. Mel & Joyce Conboy & Son, whose state of the art maple syrup operation is located at 2379 Bell Line Road, will be taking part for their second year. Last year’s event drew over 200 visitors to their farm. Clayton Conboy will be giving tours of the family sugar bush and doing numerous demonstrations. Joyce, I hear, has been busy baking up a storm and all of her treats will include maple syrup as one of the ingredients.

Visitors to the Conboy farm will be able to taste samples of the various grades of syrup and also learn about a new syrup grading system, which is aimed at standardizing grading for all maple producers across the United States and Canada.

Other producers who will be taking part include Coutts Country Flavours and Oliver's Mapleworks near Perth; Stead's Maple Syrup and Temple's Sugarbush in Lanark; and Wheeler's Pancake House & Sugarcamp in McDonalds Corners. The participants will be offering up a number of activities including pancake meals, horse-drawn wagon rides, and more.

“The main idea behind the event is to give people information about how local maple syrup is produced,” Mel Conboy said.

For more information, visit www.mapleweekend.ca

Maple syrup season is in full swing. From the buckets hanging in the maple bushes as you drive around, there are a lot of back yard syrup makers following this traditional pioneer art. Most new producers will be happy to just make some syrup for their pancakes or breakfast cereal but the more adventurous ones will go the next step and try making other pure maple products, like maple sugar or maple spread.

Here are the recipes for both of these delicious maple products, the way we used to make them in earlier times at Beaver Pond Estates when we operated the sugar bush every spring.

To make your own maple sugar and maple spread:

Maple sugar and maple butter, also called maple spread are made essentially the same way, with only the temperature and finishing method being different. Both start with pure maple syrup, preferably No. 1 Light or Extra light. The lighter the syrup, the better the sugar or spread that it will make. A convenient amount of syrup to process for home use is one-litre batches, done in a 3 to 4 litre stainless steel saucepan with a thick bottom. Use an accurate kitchen thermometer to check the boiling temperature. Work on a sunny day for best results as the change in boiling points from atmospheric pressure will have the least effect.

If you do the boiling on the kitchen stove, you have to watch it constantly. Even walking away for a minute, it will boil over, leaving you with a sticky mess that’s tough to clean. If you can, its much better to work outdoors.

Maple sugar:

Boil the syrup until it reaches 240 deg F, or 28 degrees above the boiling point of water. Remove from heat, cool partially to 180-200 deg F, then stir until it starts to whiten crystallize. Pour into moulds and let harden. For extra creamy consistency, continue stirring until it becomes thick and creamy before packing into moulds.

Maple spread (maple butter):

Maple butter is the more difficult to make as you want the end result to be smooth and creamy with no detectable crystals.

Boil the syrup until it reaches about 235 deg F, or 22-24 deg F above the boiling point of water. Chill the thickened syrup rapidly in ice water until it is cool, around 70 deg F, being careful not to disturb the syrup. Stir with a wooden spoon until it whitens and starts to lose its glossy look. Quickly pour into jars, avoiding leaving any air bubbles. The trick here is to pour at just the right moment, when fine crystallization is complete but before it stiffens too thick to pour. The maple butter should be smooth and easily spreadable with no detectable crystals.

To get the temperature accurate, you can “calibrate” your thermometer by checking the temperature at which water boils. Water boils at 212 deg F at sea level. As atmospheric pressure drops, it will boil at a lower temperature, and it boils at a higher temperature when the barometer is rising. On a cloudy day, with a storm coming, it can boil at 210 or even 209 degrees. Once you know the boiling point of water, just add 28 to it to get the right temperature for sugar.

Don’t be discouraged if your first attempts result in an imperfect product. It takes a lot of practice to get it just right. In any case, you can enjoy whatever lumpy concoction you’ve made because it’s got that same lovely maple syrup flavour. And, of course, next year, it will turn out as smooth as silk!

Be sure to come to the Annual Maberly Maple Festival Pancake Brunch at the Maberly Hall on Saturday April 16, 10am to 1pm to celebrate the end of the maple syrup season. Volunteers from the Maberly Agricultural Society will be serving thick, delicious pancakes topped with the best quality new maple syrup made by local producers. The price is still the same, $10 with baked beans, sausages and coffee included, half price for children under 12. As well, you will be able to buy new maple syrup and fine, creamy maple butter made locally. Gordon Patterson will be on hand to tell you how it’s done!

Paul Pospisil is the owner of Beaver Pond Estates, Maberly

What kid - and for that matter, what adult - doesn't love a kid goat?

That was the motivation for a “Kidding Around” event on March 12 at Food Less Travelled in Verona, when the Perry children of Perry Farm in Harrowsmith, brought the latest four-legged members of their family farm to the grocery store, which is operated by their parents, Kim and Dave Perry.

Grant, Mason and Kaitlyn Perry hosted the event, which attracted kid goat lovers of all ages from near and far. Many who enjoyed meeting the goat and human kids were already doing their regular Saturday shopping at the store, while others were just passing by and noticed the lively commotion.

The four Nubian goats are cared for by the Perry children and the two oldest, Kaitlyn and Grant, are experienced at the task, having both worked at a goat farm in Harrowsmith. The goats, the youngest of which was just four days old, are still being milk fed and are mostly pets for the Perry kids, but requests have recently come in at the store for goat meat, which has the Perry parents wondering if expanding their operation to raising meat goats is an option for their farm.

“The thing with goats and other smaller animals like sheep is that it is hard to get meat on the bone and you really have to work at it to be proficient,” Kim Perry said. “Farmers who specialize in raising goats and sheep know how to do it and while we know how to do it with our beef, pork, turkeys and now chickens, we will likely just wait and see what happens with the goats, which right now are pets.”

Perry also updated me on the many recent changes at the Verona store, which will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary this June. The store has recently expanded and added chicken to its regular inventory of beef, pork and turkeys, which is something new. “This year is the first in the history of Ontario that we are now allowed to sell our own free-range chickens at the store instead of just at the farm gate,” she said.

The kitchen area has also been expanded and Perry has added a number of new pies to their inventory, such as bumbleberry/rhubarb. She and her staff will continue making last year’s popular grape pie. She also makes a wide variety of quiches, all with Perry Farm meats, local cheeses and vegetables.

The indoor dining area, now open all year round, has also been expanded with a new kitchen access, where Perry offers up weekly specials of hot and cold lunches that include entrees like shepherd’s pie, Irish stew, quiches, a wide variety of home-made meat and vegetable soups and salads. Her home- made pies are served with Kawartha Dairy ice cream.

On the store’s shelves is an eclectic selection of fresh and frozen meats, cheeses, veggies and a wide assortment of other Canadian food and cooking products all of which are either grown and/ or locally processed. They include snack foods, dressings, sauces, condiments, sweet treats, grains and flours and much more, with an emphasis on products and groceries that are organic, gluten-free and non-GMO.

“I choose suppliers who either grow locally or process locally, which means they are small manufacturers for the most part that are using as many local ingredients as they can. My aim in doing so is to help ensure diversity in our food supply,” Perry said.

For more information visit foodlesstravelled.ca or local family farms/foodlesstravelled on facebook.

In order to bring the sights, sounds, and tastes of everything Celtic to music lovers in and around Bolingbroke, and to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, Mike Erion organized an afternoon of Scottish and Irish music at the ABC hall on March 12. Erion assists in heading up the regular musical happenings at the ABC Hall.

A lively crowd turned out for the event on Saturday, which offered guests green-tinted punch and shamrock-emblazoned muffins and cakes courtesy of Rob Boyer. It was the first event of its kind at the hall and judging by the turn out, it will not likely be the last.

The afternoon included an impressive line up of local talent that included John and Barb Fife, fiddler Jessica Wedden accompanied by Valerie Wedden and Norm Hearns, and the lively and humorous group known as Celtic Combination.

Guests were also treated to a special performance by the Highland dancers from Shaw's Dance group. Comprised of 13 young ladies aged 6-14 and led by Samantha Shaw, owner and dance teacher at Shaw's Dance in Ferguson's Falls, the group opened with a Scottish sword dance, the well-known battle dance that Scottish soldiers used to perform before and after they went to war.

The dancers also performed the Strasbey Highland Reel, a fun and very lively group dance, and solo performer Brittany danced a very poised version of the Chantreuse. For their final number, which was one of their liveliest, the girls performed the Highland Fling. The dancers often perform at community events as well as at retirement homes.

The Celtic Celebration was a huge success, and left Celtic music lovers in and around Bolingbroke hoping that it will become an annual event.

A trio of young, primarily urban-based artists, are planning to bring some local K&P railroad history to Toronto.

The trio, architect/sculptor Noah Scheinman, and photographer/film makers Adam Biehler and Allan Poon, will be participating in the annual "Grow Op" show, which will be held at Toronto's Gladstone Hotel from April 21 to April 24.

All three have been in the area doing site research and talking to locals about the old K&P railway, which has inspired them and will be the subject of their installation at the show.

Scheinman, who now resides near Perth Road village, has long been visiting his family cottage on Bobs Lake and said that he has always been fascinated with the old K&P railway.

He shared that interest with Poon and Biehler and the trio will be producing artwork based on their findings from the research they have been doing in the area.

This will be the fourth installment of the Grow OP show at the Gladstone Hotel. “The show typically focuses on the responses of the participating artists to different landscapes and spaces in and around the GTA but I wanted to represent a different landscape, one that people may not have experienced before, with the aim of linking them to the history of this old railroad, which many people likely know nothing about,” Scheinman said.

“Personally, I am really interested in the old K&P station names and sites on the map and it has been really interesting traveling to those places, seeing what still is and what is no longer there. For the show I will be primarily working with a construction technique known as rammed earth to construct and locate the aspects of the old K&P station sites in the actual space of the gallery,” he explained.

Rammed earth is an ancient building technique for constructing walls, foundations, and floors using natural raw materials like earth, chalk, lime or gravel. The construction method has seen a revival in recent years as people seek out more sustainable building materials and construction techniques. Biehler and Poon will be using their expertise behind their lenses to create different impressions of the landscape using their preferred digital mediums.

The three, who are all working professionals, managed to get hold of Sally Angle, former chair of the Central Frontenac Railway Heritage Society, who agreed to meet with them at the society's caboose and museum at the Railway Heritage Park in Sharbot Lake.

The three were mostly interested in the old time artifacts and stories as well as the “then and now aspects of the trail, both what is used to be and what it has become,” said Angle.

She said she was not surprised by their interest because, “The K&P fascinates many different kinds of people and it has a certain romance about it, I think, that can especially attract artists. And in fact, some of the people you would never suspect to be, are real railway enthusiasts.”

For more information about the Grow Op show, visit www.gladstone hotel.com

John Stainer's 1870's classical oratorio titled “The Crucifixion” is a very well-traveled piece of music, and it will be performed once again by a choir of over 40 singers at St. Paul's Anglican Church in Sydenham on Good Friday, March 25 at 3:30pm. The piece, which follows very closely to the scriptures, tells the story of Good Friday, with the bass and tenor soloists, Dr. Andy Palmer and Mark Hauser leading the way. The two singers are supported throughout the piece by the talented singers of the community choir, who hail from many local communities - Sydenham, Harrowsmith, Verona, Kingston, Newburg and Napanee.

Brad Barbeau, organist and choir director at St. Paul's in Sydenham, will be conducting, and well-known conductor and organist, Brian Jackson, will be playing the organ accompaniment.

Admission is by donation, with proceeds from the performance supporting Southern Frontenac Community Services. An earlier performance will also take place at the Newburg United Church in Newburg on Wednesday, March 23 at 7:30pm.

The performance is sure to be a moving one and for those who have never experienced it, John Stainer's “The Crucifixion” is well worth the trip to Sydenham.

The year 2017 will mark the 150th year of Canadian confederation. What better excuse for a good party? Major anniversaries like this are a way to recognize the efforts of those who went before us and enjoy the benefits of what they achieved. What might be more important, they give incentive to look forward to the things that might yet be accomplished.

In Oso Hall on March 9, a public meeting was held to launch Central Frontenac’s celebration of Canada 150. More than 30 people were present and they were a wonderful cross-section of our community. They represented service clubs, church groups, heritage societies and recreation committees. Villages Beautiful was represented, as was Branch 425 of the Legion, and the Parham Agricultural Society. Community service organizations such as NFCS and the Adult Learning Centre were there, as well as the seniors’ groups and the Friday Night Ladies. It was great!

The meeting started with a few people sharing their views of Canada, the place of our community in it, and what Canada 150 might be. Well-known citizens Janet Gutowski and Sarah Hale spoke, as did Dave Limber, drummer for the Feral Five, and Councilor Victor Heese. But the show was stolen by 13-year-old Hazuki Ono, who concluded a personal and very touching talk with, “Let’s have maple syrup all year. Eh?”

In the general discussion that followed, lots of people had good suggestions on what we could do to make a great celebration. Heritage elements got a lot of play but there were other ideas as well, ranging from fitness to festivals to forests. A committee was formed to start gathering ideas and information on available support and what’s happening in other places. One of their first tasks will be to find a slogan for the program.

Members of the initial committee are Dave Willis, Linda West, Justin Riddell, Lesley Merrigan, Dave Limber, Victor Heese, Ray Fletcher, Rosemarie Bowick and Bill Bowick. Bill Bowick was appointed chair of this committee of council and Councilor Victor Heese volunteered to be the committee’s council liaison. The committee will no doubt change with time. A couple of people were volunteered after they left the meeting and there will no doubt be others who come forward to serve. However, this is an excellent start and they have already had one meeting.

As per directive, a major agenda item of the committee’s first meeting was getting a slogan. It was decided to run a contest and announce the winning choice at Canada Day 2016.

Details of the contest will be announced soon but in the meantime, you can get your thinking caps on. “Paradise with Bugs” has already been rejected.

North Addington Education Centre has started a junior music group for playing the ukulele and singing. The club meets twice a week at lunch to practice a variety of classic pop and folk songs. Practices will become more frequent as they prepare for performances.

Grade 3/4 teacher and co-founder of the ukulele group, Mr. Reynolds, is happy to revive music in the school environment. “In the past number of years, the arts have been largely ignored and underfunded due to the increased focus on literacy and numeracy. Madam Choma and I wanted to provide an opportunity for students to learn some basic music theory on a new instrument and to perform in our school talent show. Through the generous donation from the North Addington Guild, we’ve been able to purchase a number of ukuleles and guitars to start our stringed instrument club.”

The North Addington Guild makes a yearly donation to Arts education for North Addington students using revenue from their Arts Showcase, which takes place at the school.

Students in the ukulele group are already showing a lot of progress and are really enjoying their experience so far.

“The ukulele sounds really pretty”, said grade 6 student, Amber Verbruggen.

“I like the feeling of it and how you can get into it”, said grade 5 student Julia Cuddy.

Grade 6 student, Jeremy Pelicos, said that he joined the group because he “thought it would be fun”.

When asked what the club has learned so far, Alyssa Borger said, “We learned Am, F and C with our hands”. The ukulele club is planning to combine forces with the secondary choir for their talent show performance.