Healthy Eating Made Easy!!
926 – 1st Ave, McBride
250-569-3003
OPEN Weekdays
email – eat@unclemarks.ca
Please email if you would like to be get an email notification when we post changes!!🙂
The Hub is our outreach, information, thoughts, “editorial” and a bit of news to our community!! – By Darrell Roth
News from Uncle Mark’s!!🙂
Now Offering Rosara’s Own
Kombucha
Made In-House with Organic Ingredients!!
So Healthy – So Tasty – So Quenching
Trading Goods for Jars!!
Do you have a box of canning jars in your way??
Bring in your over-stock of canning jars!!
We’ll take’em and give you goods in return!!
They don’t have to be the same shape or size!!
They don’t have to be clean… We need to sanitize’em anywho!!
Join Uncle Mark’s Bread Club!!
Pick up your card the next time you’re in!! 🙂
Uncle Mark’s is the “M&M Meat Shop With a Kitchen” Model!!
We, at Uncle Mark’s, are busy with our many life obligations so can never plan when our breads, meals and treats are going to be made. So we are becoming “expert” at fresh freezing our products when they are in perfect condition!!
You will be able to buy products hot out of the oven if you happen to be in the shop at the time… but
our guarantee is our frozen and canned products will be great!!
We have a self-serve microwave on site
so your cinnamon bun or meal can be “Hot-to-Go” in minutes!!
Fresh Frozen Organic Bread – By Adam
We grind and sift Organic grains!!
We have a selection of frozen breads that thaw “good as new”!!
Sourdough White
Sourdough Whole Grain Brown
Sourdough Whole Rye
Fluffy 9 Grain
Fluffy White
Bread from Yann!!
Yann makes (at Uncle Mark’s) fantastic organic sourdough bread and baguettes!!
Check Out his website!! https://rootsnthyme.com
Try the Cinnamon Bun Diet!!
Eat a Cinnamon Bun every day for a week!!
You won’t lose weight but it’s easy to stick to!!🙂
We fresh freeze incredible Cinnamon Buns!!
$4.00 each or $3.33 each for 6 or more
We make fresh Bran Muffins most days!! Then they’re frozen!!
Big Muffins for $2.50 each or $2.08 each for 6 or more
A great addition to the Cinnamon Bun Diet!!🙂
Brownies – $1.79 each or $1.49 for 6 or more
Date Cake (Matrimonial) – $2.99 each or $2.49 for 6 or more
Really Tasty!!🙂
And Mr. Roth’s Famous Popcorn
Organic Popcorn, Organic Sunflower Oil & Organic Redmond Salt
(Like you really care!!)🙂
$1.50 each or $1.25 each for 6 or more
Our Super Duper Grain Mill works AWESOME!!🙂
It’s a Cool-Flour Stone Mill!! Cool flour preserves all the nutrients of the grain!!
We sifted out white flour and guess what?… fresh white flour is quite brown!! It becomes whiter as it ages.
Our white bread is very tasty, fluffy… and brown!! Ya gotta try it!!
We’re trying to use as many locally grown ingredients as we can and all our meat is outside raised…
Some is organic, some is not certified, all have lived better lives than industrial animals.
We’re always trying to get the best ingredients we can!!
It is our goal to try and provide good convenient eating solutions for everyone!!
If you need certain meals or food plans we hope to be able to accommodate you!!
Please call or stop in at our shop in McBride to discuss
ready-made, frozen, canned or other food options to help you eat better!!
Please keep checking in!!
This is were we advertise our stuff!!
Daily Specials
Services
Products
We hope this Non-Interactive Un-Social Media Site is helpful and appreciated!!
In the coming days we plan to offer an email notification (likely once a week) with updates!!
Thanks for visiting our website!!
Hope to see you at our place!!
Darrell & Diane, Adam & Mark Roth🙂
email – eat@unclemarks.ca
The Hub
The Robson Valley Hub
Posted Sunday, May 17, 2020
In this posting… What is Victoria Day?, How to Plant Potatoes in Straw for Easy Harvest, How to Test Your Soil for PH Levels at Home and What’s So Important About PH Levels?… a Bit of Simple Science!!, The Population of Earth in Real Time… WOW!!, Covid and the Tower of Babel… Ed’s Sees a Similarity!!
Hello Neighbours!!
Welcome to Spring!! 🙂 Sunshine and long days!! Time to break out the BBQ and start a wiener roast fire… so you can stand in the smoke because of the mosquitoes!!🙄 It’s better than -30 though… ain’t it?? 🙃
What is Victoria Day
Victoria Day is commonly referred to as the “May two-four weekend”* or the “May long weekend” and it marks the unofficial start of the cottage season where cases of beer* are consumed by hard working Canadians. Or maybe it’s called May two-four because May 24, 1819 is Queen Victoria’s birthday? 🙂
Canada has long celebrated Victoria Day, in honour of Queen Victoria of England, but the official holiday hasn’t always been observed on the same day. In 1952, the Canadian government designated the Monday before May 25 as Victoria Day, meaning it falls between May 17 and May 24, depending on the year. In 2020, Victoria Day falls on Monday, May 18.
FYI: Prince Edward (1767–1820) after whom PEI was named was Queen Victoria’s father.
Victoria Day is a non-statutory “general” holiday in the maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI. In Quebec the National Patriots’ Day is commemorated on this day.
*A case of beer containing 24 bottles or cans is called a two-four. (for the “Teetotalers”)🙂
May 18, 1969 – Apollo 10 launches from Kennedy Space Center and later transmits the 1st color pictures of Earth from space.
Just a Note… The first aircraft flight, achieved in the aptly named “Wright Flyer” airplane, was conducted by the Wright Brothers in the year 1903 on the 17th of December, which began the era of landmark air flights in human history. This event took place in the Kill Devil Hills-Kitty Hawk area on the east coast of North Carolina in the United States. From there, it took a gap of only 66 years for another remarkable aeronautical achievements to happen, which means that the first successful airplane flight and first ever moon landing were separated by less than seven decades. The first ever landing on the moon was achieved by three Americans who went into space and walked there on the 20th of July, 1969. Namely, these astronauts were Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins, who made history in the spacecraft Apollo 11.
And a couple famous May 18th Birthdays…
1920 – Pope John Paul II
1952 – George Strait
How to Plant Potatoes in Straw for Easy Harvest
Yup… Straw instead of dirt!! 🙂 I’ve tried planting potatoes in a large pile of straw without much success but I may have done something wrong. I’m going to try a small sample patch like the one in the following video this year. It’s not a fancy video but the guy seems like a “straight shooter”… It just might work!! 🙂
Click Here for an Honest 5 Minute Video – How to Grow Potatoes in Straw
How toTest Your Soil for PH Levels at Home and What’s So Important About PH Levels?… a Bit of Simple Science!!
Click Here to Learn How to Test the PH in Your Garden Soil with Cabbage Juice – 3 minutes
An Interesting Read About How to PH Test Your Soil at Home
Ya have to put up with the internet ads but otherwise it’s very informative and helpful!!🙄
The Population of Earth in Real Time… WOW!!
Check this out… It’s pretty interesting… weird… scary!!
Click Here to See The Population Counter of Earth in Real Time
Covid and the Tower of Babel… Ed’s Sees a Similarity!!
The Tower of Babel – Genesis 11:1-9
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
“So what does this account of the Tower of Babel have to do with Covid?” you might ask. “Well” says Ed., “it’s the part where God says, …“If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.”…” Because of Covid, almost 7.8 billion people (see Population Counter above) are listening and acting as one people. A human experiment of a magnitude beyond understanding is taking place as we live and breath and walk around in relative freedom in the beautiful Robson Valley!! We are all speaking and acting “… as one people speaking the same language…” world-wide!! I (Ed.) wonder what this experience (experiment) will have us as a whole world population do in the coming days? Now that we can hear and respond as a “whole world” in instant time and now that we have learned to obey and keep an eye on our neighbours… What will the future look like? Will the “Powers-that-be” use this ability to manipulate the entire population for the betterment of all mankind?? If human nature recorded in history is any indication of human nature in the future days… maybe it’s time for another “confusing” of our species?? Just another “Happy Thought” from Ed.!! 🙂
So that’s it for The Hub posting this time!! Next one coming again soon!! Send in your ideas or stop by the shop anytime!!
Have a Great Day!!🙂
Darrell Roth – Ed
Ph: (250) 569-3003
Email – eat@unclemarks.ca
Posted Saturday, May 9, 2020
In this posting…
It’s Mother’s Day Tomorrow!!🙂
Lookin’ like Spring… Mud, Ruts and What to do With Dirty Plastic!!🙂
So What’s Special About May 9th??
The Mighty Comma… A Teacher’s Teaching!! – Submitted
From The Homestead… Never Thin Carrots Again!! – Submitted
“Submissions Welcome” says Ed.!!
Hello Neighbours!!
It’s Mother’s Day Tomorrow!! 🙂
Time to spoil Mom… or Wife (If she’s a Mother) or Grandma or Daughter-In-Law (If she’s a Mother)!! In Ed’s case it’s Ed’s Wife who gets spoiled this special day!! I’m planning to say “No” to dish washing on Mother’s Day!! “Just leave them until tomorrow” I’ll tell her in the morning!! “And don’t get up early to make my breakfast… sleep in as long as you like first!!” Then I’ll spring the fancy supper surprise on her… Steak and lobster and special garlic mashed potatoes and a fresh garden salad…. “And you don’t have to set the table… I’ll do it!!” says Ed.!! Yup… It only comes once a year so I say make it special!! 🙂
Lookin’ like Spring… Mud, Ruts and What to do With Dirty Plastic!!🙂
Mud & ruts everywhere on the farm, weeds and quack grass volunteering in the garden, mounds of silage wrap needing to be picked up…☹️ And how about that silage wrap?? With last year’s rain much of the valley hay was wrapped as silage. It was silage or no hay in many cases. What a pile of waste plastic accumulated in the valley… tons of it… I mean tonnes of it!! At least we’re cutting back on single use straws!!🙄 But look at this short 2.5min video… What a great waste plastic idea!!
Dirty Plastic for use in High Quality Cement Blocks and Building Industry
A Fantastic 2.5min Video for the Use of Dirty Plastic
Maybe there’s some local valley entrepreneur who has a good idea of what to do with dirty plastic… maybe chop it up and press it into lifetime fence posts or plastic boards!! If you have ideas please share them with “The Hub” at the email below!!
So What’s Special About May 9th??
Billy Joel turns 71
1994 – U.S.A. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The former First Lady ( President Kennedy’s wife ) Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died today of lymphoma at the age of 64.
2007 – Record Shipwreck Found Off Cornish Coast. United States treasure hunters discovered a shipwreck off the coast of Cornwall in the UK, the ship had a record haul of over $500 million estimated worth of gold and silver. A shipwreck expert guessed that the wreck was that of the Merchant Royal that sank in 1642 off the Islands of Scilly. The wreck was found in the Atlantic Ocean just outside the English Channel.
And… National Days celebrated May 9th…
National Lost Sock Memorial Day
National Butterscotch Brownie Day
National Birth Mother’s Day – Saturday before Mother’s Day
National Babysitter’s Day – Saturday before Mother’s Day
National Dog Mom’s Day – Second Saturday in May
National Train Day – Saturday Closest to May 10
National Archery Day – Second Saturday in May
National Miniature Golf Day – Second Saturday in May
Cornelia De Lange Syndrome Awareness Day – Second Saturday in May
Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive Day – Second Saturday in May
There are over 1,500 national days. (Really…🙄) Don’t miss a single one!!🙂 Celebrate Every Day with National Day Calendar!!
The Mighty Comma… A Teacher’s Teaching!! – Submitted
I have a potential topic for your paper! Why are commas so important?
For example: Let’s eat Grandma! Or Let’s eat, Grandma!
No more tequila! Or No, more tequila!
I enjoy cooking, kids, and horseback riding. Or I enjoy cooking kids and horseback riding. LOL
Before Christmas, I teach my kiddos the importance of a comma and I use some pretty hilarious examples and I get the students to come up with some awful examples. It gave me a possible idea for your paper!
Submitted by – Kalli Wuzza from Holbien, Saskatchewan
Kalli teaches elementary school near Prince Albert, Sk. She is a faithful follower of “The Hub” and has ventured out into contributing to the “news!!”
I, Ed., invite everyone and anyone to send in ideas or suggestions or articles or thoughts to help “The Hub” be interesting to you!! Your names can be attached, disguised or left anonymous… or I, Ed. can take all credit… but I won’t!! Thanks Kalli for your contribution to this week’s Hub!!🙂
From The Homestead… Never Thin Carrots Again!! – Submitted by L. Colour from the Robson Valley
Now here’s a great idea for planting carrots without the need for thinning later!! Thanks to another loyal reader of “The Hub” for suggesting his time-saving idea!!🙂
Click on the following..
I wonder if the “muck” could be thinned out enough to go through a pump-up water sprayer (with the nozzle taken off) for long rows??!! Why not plant every seed possible with this method??!!
“Submissions Welcome” says Ed.!!
Thanks to our “Hub” community for sharing your ideas and helpful experience with each other!! Every thing or thought is welcome!! Please email submissions to “The Hub” at eat@unclemarks.ca
So that’s it for The Hub posting this time!! Next one coming again soon!! Send in your ideas and stop by the shop anytime!!
Have a Great Day!!🙂
Darrell Roth – Ed
Ph: (250) 569-3003
Email – eat@unclemarks.ca
Posted Saturday, May 2, 2020
In this posting… Why Mother’s Day?, Skip Mother’s Day and Justin’s Covid Bailout and The Push for a Commercial Pea Sheller (cont’)…, How About Them Low Gas Prices Eh?, Bicycle Lanes – Ed’s Solution to Pipelines
Hello Neighbours!!
Mother’s Day is coming soon… Next Sunday in fact!!🙂 The 2nd most important day of the year after the MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF THE YEAR…FATHER’S DAY!!🙂🙂 So really, Why is there Mother’s Day at all? It would seem that every day is Mother’s Day anyway!! So why the extra special day every year??? It’s the 28th president of the United States fault!!
Woodrow Wilson proclaims the first Mother’s Day holiday. On this day in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issues a presidential proclamation that officially establishes the first national Mother’s Day holiday to celebrate America’s mothers.
The idea for a “Mother’s Day” is credited by some to Julia Ward Howe (1872) and by others to Anna Jarvis (1907), who both suggested a holiday dedicated to a day of peace. Many individual states celebrated Mother’s Day by 1911, but it was not until Wilson lobbied Congress in 1914 that Mother’s Day was officially set on the second Sunday of every May. In his first Mother’s Day proclamation, Wilson stated that the holiday offered a chance to “[publicly express] our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”
Some Mother’s Day Facts…
• The holiday is celebrated every year on the second Sunday of May. This year it will be on May 10th.
• More calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year.
• Mother’s Day is the third highest selling holiday for flowers and plants.
• Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year for restaurants. Dad’s turn to cook!!
• The history of American Mother’s Day starts with peacemaker Ann Jarvis. During and following the Civil War, Ann Jarvis made a concerted effort to foster friendship and community between the mothers on both sides of the war. She started a committee in 1868 which established the first glimmer of today’s holiday: “Mother’s Friendship Day.”
• Woodrow Wilson signed Mother’s Day into law in 1914.
• Anna Jarvis would later try to stop what Mother’s Day became.The holiday quickly became a commercialized opportunity for producers to sell flowers, candies, and cards. Anna Reeves Jarvis felt this was detracting from the personal and intimate aspects of the holiday and defied this by starting boycotts, walkouts, and even condemned first lady Eleanor Roosevelt for using the day as a means of fundraising. Jarvis would eventually use all her money in this fight, and died at the age of 84 in a sanatorium.
• In 2018, over $23 Billion was spent on Mother’s Day in the United States alone!! WOW!!
Skip Mother’s Day and Justin’s Covid Bailout and The Push for a Commercial Pea Sheller (cont’)…
$23 Billion spent on Mother’s Day…?? At $339.00 for a small commercial garden pea sheller that’s 67,846,607 pea shellers for 331,002,651 people in the states. That’s 1 pea sheller for 4.88 people… Where’s our heads??
If the spending stats are the same in Canada with a population of 37,742,154, and at 1 pea sheller per 4.88 people, Canadians would only have to “shell out” (ha ha) $7,734,047.95 to give a pea sheller to every family of 5 in Canada!! Of course the pea sheller would be plenty to handle a 100 people or more… not just 4.88. So now we’re down to needing only $377,421.54 to give enough pea shellers to easily accommodate all Canadian’s needs with millions left over… simply from skipping Mother’s Day!! We could do it!! So could the government!!🙂
“So Justin,” says Ed. “Instead of handing out thousands and billions to Canadians why don’t you buy us pea sheller? Why not give us all rototillers and shovels and workboots and give us something to do?? How about bandsaws and cement mixers and kitchen blenders and woodworking tools and sheep fence?? A brand new electric scooter can be picked up for $2,000! Give one to everyone!! Give everyone a magnetic generator so we never have electricity bills again!! What do you think of that Justin??!!”
“No comment,” says Justin.
How About Them Low Gas Prices Eh?
Now that we’re told to stay home and avoid non-essential travel the price at the pump goes way down… How does this work? Is this simply supply and demand? I bet the prices go up the day we are released of Covid’s grip!! Does this mean as there are more and more electric vehicles that gas prices will remain low? Or will gas prices go up to compensate gas companies for lower volumes being consumed? I’m pretty sure we can count on prices going up on long weekends no matter what!! I (Ed.) call corruption!! The end!!
Bicycle Lanes – Ed’s Solution to Pipelines
“So how are bicycle lanes and pipelines related?” you might ask! “Glad you asked!!” says Ed.🙂
“Here’s the answer to all future pipeline development… Build all pipelines beside highways and roads next to the shoulder!! Then build a nice smooth cover (maybe of metal) over the pipeline (completely hinged for access) to accommodate bicycle and pedestrian traffic!! As the road is there anyway, there is no extra environmental damage or impact on the environment and no extra impact on wildlife. This same “tunnel” could accommodate transmission lines, fibre optics cables and any “lifeline” our communities need,” replied Ed.
“So that’s how bicycles and pipelines get in the same sentence!! You sure are smart Ed.!” says all the people. “Yup!” says Ed. “And there’s sure going to be a lot of construction and camps everywhere once this idea gets rolling!!”
Ed. continues… “The bicycle/pedestrian road will be a great promotion for tourism and an opportunity for our own residents to feel safer to travel by bike!! Just gotta include the building of the bicycle road in the permit to the oil and services companies. Bicycle roads to everywhere!!” “What a Great Idea!!” says all the people!! 🙂
So that’s it!! The way it shoulda bin done!! Remember… You read it here on “The Hub!!”🙂
So that’s it for The Hub posting this time!! Next one coming again soon!! Send in your ideas and stop by the shop anytime!!
Have a Great Day!!🙂
Darrell Roth – Ed
Ph: (250) 569-3003
Email – eat@unclemarks.ca
Posted Sunday April 26, 2020
In this posting… Historical Events on April 26, Bugs Splat on the Windshield… Life Just Ain’t Normal, The Argument for Local Meat and Veggies at Restaurants (How restauranteurs should change their math!), Responses to The Dragon’s Den…Robson Valley Style from Last Week’s Posting
Hello Neighbours!! 🙂
Lookin’ like Spring!! 🙂 All the “stuff” that I didn’t get done before the snow last fall has reared its ugly head… Looks like a busy time ahead!! Thank goodness for procrastination though!! It’s the one thing I can do right away!! 🙂
Historical Events on April 26
Melania Knauss (now Trump) turns 50 this day.
Profession: US First Lady and Model
Nationality: Slovenian
Why Famous: Originally a fashion model from Slovenia, she married future President of the United States Donald Trump in 2005. Upon her husband’s election to the presidency in 2016, she became the First Lady of the United States. Born: April 26, 1970
Holly Anne Roth turns 1 today!!🙂
Also… Chernobyl was the worst nuclear accident in the history of the world. On April 26, 1986 the number 4 reactor in the nuclear plant blew up, sending radiation spewing across Europe as far north as Sweden.
In the direct path of the immediate fallout was the town of Pripyat. In the hours after the disaster, dozens of people began to fall ill, but the town was not immediately evacuated by Soviet authorities. This happened a day later. Residents were told only to bring essentials and that they would return in three days. Details of the disaster were sketchy at the time; the Soviet Union did not admit an incident until two days later, and even then the announcement was downplayed in state media.
Since 1986 a ‘Zone of Exclusion’ has been set up around the Chernobyl plant. The surrounding area will not be safe for at least another 20,000 years. Thought… It would probably be a good idea to give it a year or 2 beyond 20,000 years just to be on the safe side!!🤪
Bugs Splat on the Windshield… Life Just Ain’t Normal
So I woke up the other morning to find my waterworks quit. There had been some sluffing of silt with the saturation of last summer’s rains and this spring’s melt that told my water pump to dig it out before it would perform again. (I just know how important this news must be to you!!🙄) No shower, No flushing… Just a sad, sad wife!! 🙁 You would have thought the 5 gallon bucket I quickly “installed” in the bathroom or the log I levelled in the bush would have brought a bigger smile…. Not!! How inconvenient life is without our “necessities!!”
Our necessities… really?? I thought about the sausages I pulled out of the freezer and put in the oven. I thought about the trip we needed to take to Prince George after breakfast for equipment repairs… I thought about my aluminum ladder and my front end loader on my tractor I was going to use to fix the well.
Electricity, refrigeration, internal combustion, aluminum ladders and tractors… all things that were not available in history as we know it only a 150 years ago. In fact it’s been less than a 100 years since electricity and internal combustion has been the “norm” for the general population. How about the internet, communication and cell phones, airplanes and rocket ships and nuclear bombs, medicine and surgery… WOW!! Never have we (people) been able to manipulate the world for our convenience like we do now. It just “ain’t normal”… it just seems normal!!
“When we started to splat bugs on our windshields we should have realized we were moving too fast!!”
– a famous quote by Ed.!! 🙂
We in the Robson Valley are fortunate to be somewhat isolated and have enough room for the population to be able to even consider self-sufficiency for our community. We have enough land to grow the food we need and are close enough geographically to be able to walk or take a horse to each other. It would take several days to get from Dome Creek to Albreda… but it wouldn’t be impossible!! Probably not that necessary!!
So in the spirit of “Pioneerism” let’s work towards the day when 3 bridges fail, one between Prince George and Dome Creek, one between Jasper and Tete Jaune and another south of Albreda. About 5,000 neighbours self-sufficient in food, clothing and shelter… and community!! The only real necessities in life!!
The Argument for Local Meat and Veggies at Restaurants (How restauranteurs should change their math!)
Here’s typical restaurant math… Triple your cost of food (and a bit) to reach a price for the meal or product. This means the lowest food supply costs make the best “deal” for entrepreneur and consumer. This makes buying fair-trade, organic local veggies and meat out of reach for a good business plan. The real cost of healthy home-grown fair-trade food requires human care and labour different from the industrial commercial growing models supplying the super markets and world food chain. So a local, fair-trade, organic head of lettuce may cost twice or thrice the price of a highly travelled head of lettuce that was imported from across the globe and shipped with a huge environmental impact. The economy of scale at work.
Ed’s math will use this triple-priced head of fair-trade, organic and local head of lettuce for the “New Math” scenario. The following are made up numbers just for easy figuring…
The cost of an industrial salad = $1.00 (made up for ease)
Using typical math the restaurant will triple the cost and sell it for $3.00
Gross Profit = $2.00
The restaurant is satisfied with $2.00 profit from the salad.
The cost of a Fair-trade, Local, Organic Salad = $2.00 (made up for ease)
Using typical math the restaurant will triple the cost and sell it for $6.00
Gross Profit = $4.00
I (Ed.) really had the following discussion with a restauranteur…
“That’s too much money to charge for a salad! I can’t afford the local stuff! I can’t sell a salad for $6.00!” I (Ed.) replied “You don’t have to triple the price of the salad just because the cost went up a buck! Just charge $1.00 more and forget about the “triple rule.” You will still make $2.00 from the salad and be offering a far superior product. The customer will pay $4.00 instead of $3.00 and you will make the same profit… it will just be a percentage difference! Same thing for the meat and potatoes. The cost will go up by a couple bucks and the entire meal will cost the customer $18.00 instead of $15.00 for a spectacular product that supports the community!”
Will less people buy the more expensive meal? Or will more people buy more meals because it’s such a superior product and it feels good to support the community? I think more people will buy more meals at a slightly higher price because it feels good!! So that’s my philosophy for supporting local “expensive” producers. 🙂
Responses to The Dragon’s Den…Robson Valley Style from Last Week’s Posting
I had some positive feed-back from my “plea for local investment” ideas from previous postings!!🙂 I heard through positive discussion (second hand) there is a lady who might be interested in promoting a local “Dragon’s Den” in the valley!! Also I had a nice email response pointing to a Community Investment Co-op that is likely the right way to go about forming a local investment opportunity!! Following is a quick introduction to the Co-op and a link to follow up. If you have the time, interest and ability, Please, Please look into this program and see if it makes sense for us!! Thank You for those who have been encouraging and Thank You in advance to those who would consider helping get a project like this going!! Ed.🙂
https://www.wkbinvestmentcoop.com/about
Following is a bit of the introduction to a local investment program…
Community Investment Co-ops are a new and innovative support system for rural economic and business development that effectively bridge the gap between local investors and local ventures in need of financing. Investment Co-ops are a cost effective, community owned and controlled impact fund. They enable residents to become partners in locally driven economic development, which leads to stronger and more sustainable economies. Investment Co-ops raise money from their members, pool this in a local Credit Union, and establish a financing pool for local ventures to apply to. The West Kootenay Boundary Community Investment Co-op is a for profit Co-operative Association registered in British Columbia.
Why invest locally?
The demand and necessity to invest for impact, globally and locally, is on the rise. However, current investment options and regulations in Canada significantly restrict Canadians from investing into local opportunities….
West Kootenay Boundary Community Investment Co-op Executive Summary
The demand and necessity to invest for impact, globally and locally, is on the rise. However, current investment options and regulations in Canada significantly restrict Canadians from investing into local opportunities. The result is that nearly all investment capital leaves local communities and is placed into far-off stock markets and corporations. This disconnects investors from the positive or negative impacts of their investments. An unintended consequence is that while our investments create significant jobs and wealth elsewhere, the places we live, work and play are overlooked and underfinanced. At the same time, rural business development studies and economic development organizations have identified that ‘access to capital’ is a top barrier to business start-ups, expansions and successions.
Community Investment Co-ops (CICs) are a new and innovative support system for rural economic and business development that effectively bridge the gap between local investors and local ventures in need of financing. CICs are a cost effective, community owned and controlled impact fund. They enable residents to become partners in locally driven economic development, which leads to stronger and more sustainable economies. In other words, your money won’t be in stocks and mutual funds, but more importantly in local projects and people.
Community Investment Co-ops across Canada have successfully financed ventures that generate significant local impacts including: affordable housing; renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and food production; locally-owned small business development; technology; and community economic development projects. The longer a dollar can circulate within a community, the greater its economic and social impacts….
https://www.wkbinvestmentcoop.com/about
From Ed…. I think/hope we can use a template like this to make a simple, friendly, trusted and local opportunity for the Robson Valley!!🙂
So that’s it for The Hub posting this time!! Next one coming again soon!! Send in your ideas and stop by the shop anytime!!
Have a Great Day!!🙂
Darrell Roth – Ed
Ph: (250) 569-3003
Email – eat@unclemarks.ca
Posted Sunday, April 19th, 2020
In this posting… Why a Pony Express Brief History? – The Dragon’s Den…Robson Valley Style (Ed’s continued push for investment) – Magnetic Generators…Free Electricity… WOW!!
Happy April 19th Neighbours!!🙂
Why a Pony Express Brief History?
Because it’s April!! The Pony Express ran for 19 months from April, 1860 to October 1861.
In the mid-19th century, California-bound mail had to either be taken overland by a 25-day stagecoach or spend months inside a ship during a long sea voyage. The Pony Express, meanwhile, had an average delivery time of just 10 days. To achieve this remarkable speed, company owners William H. Russell, William B. Waddell and Alexander Majors set up a string of nearly 200 relief stations across what is now Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. Lone horsemen would ride between stations at breakneck pace, switching mounts every 10-15 miles and then handing their cargo off to a new courier after 75-100 miles (120-160kms in Canadian Miles🙄). The relay system allowed mail to criss-cross the frontier in record time. The company’s personal best came in March 1861, when riders carried the inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln from Nebraska to California in just seven days, 17 hours.
Riders were required to take a loyalty oath. “I do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while an employee of Russell, Majors and Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me God.” I bet the postal service is way more fun today!!🙂
It was a financial flop though. The company had spent its brief history bridging the gap between the Eastern and Western telegraph lines, but it was finally rendered obsolete on October 24, 1861, when Western Union completed the transcontinental telegraph line at Salt Lake City. The Pony Express ceased service just two days later. Thanks Google!!🙂
The Dragon’s Den…Robson Valley Style (Ed’s continued push for investment)
It’s what we need!! A big ol’ pot o’ cash to spend in the valley!! Let’s forget about government guarantees, handouts and grants and reliance on the “world” when we can be strong on our own… Let’s start up a Robson Valley Investment Fund where the rich and poor can contribute to our future economic security!!
How it works…. (Like I know something…🙂)
We start with a savings account (registered somehow?) where “those-who-can” pile in their dough and get the lump started. Then everyone in the valley (or from abroad) can contribute a lump sum or monthly contribution to the pot. Make it legal and safe of course!! 🙂 Then set up a board of directors to manage the money to invest in partnership with community members to develop ideas and products that will create economic growth and stability in our community. Like a bank only not a bank. Like a credit union only not a credit union. Like a Dragon’s Den… only not a Dragon’s Den… A home-grown “Investment Machine” that will be swift to help and swift to move on good Robson Valley Ideas!! This is the fund that buys the pea sheller and sets it up in partnership with someone who can look after the machine until it’s owned by the operator. This is the fund that buys the saw/planer that puts a family into the cedar birdhouse/craft wood business. The potato planter/picker. The Vegetable washer. The veggie processing factory. The Robson Valley Magnetic Generator Manufacturing Company!!🙂
An investment for everyone… This fund can be an investment opportunity for the poor and regular working folk who are wanting to contribute for their their own future as well. Something local and trustworthy where we don’t have to talk to an “investment person” who makes us learn something about “funds” and “things” and have to make the “right” decision with our money. Wouldn’t it be great if we could take our extra change and give it to our trusted Trustee neighbours? $5, $10, $100 or more whatever and whenever I could, knowing it was helping me and my community prosper??!! $13.16/month (the cost of a bath towel) from 1,231 “community investors” = $16,199.96 every month for economic development. Add a couple million from some rich person and we’re well on our way!!🙂
List of expertise… This is a list of local professionals and experts who can help take your idea and make it happen. Engineers and draftspersons and artists and builders of all kinds. All on call (for hire or for a share of profit) to determine the design and feasibility of your idea.
Inventor’s Security… Have you ever had an invention in your head but were afraid to speak out because you didn’t want someone to “steal” your idea?? Any idea brought to this fund group would be attributed to you and safe-guarded as your invention to be patented (because there’s a patent expert somewhere in our community🙂) and your fantastic invention can then be looked at by our trustees to see if it’s something to invest in. Imagine the ideas our neighbours can come up with!!🙂
I had a conversation with a nice fellow this past week who thinks there is someone he knows who might be interested in promoting and developing such a fund!! So here I (Ed) go… making noise in hopes of building a fire under someone to get our own Dragon’s Den!!🙂
Magnetic Generators…Free Electricity… WOW!!
So one day I was driving the BC Bus North from Prince George to Valemount and had a very interesting visit with a passenger. He claimed he made a Magnetic Generator. “A what? I asked incredulously. “A magnetic generator that makes FREE ELECTRICITY” he replied. “No such thing” I said. “Wasn’t it Newton or Franklin or Einstein or one of those smart dudes from way back who said something about force and equal force in the opposite direction (or something like that?). No such thing as perpetual motion!!” “You’re wrong” he said. Now I (Ed) have never been wrong before… but in the spirit of humility I had to consider there may be a 1st time some day. So I said “Explain!” And he did!!🙂. He built his first small magnetic generator to charge his cell phone and it worked… except it fried his phone because there was no “stop” button and it over-charged. He plans to build a 7 mega watt (or is it kilowatt?) generator to power his entire house.
Special magnets can be bought from Asia somewhere and when put in a wheel they can make huge power. It’s all in the way they’re set in the wheel with North and South poles of the magnets turned one way or the other. Give it a turn to start it and it will never quit. If it turns “jerky” and won’t run then the “timing” is off. Turn a magnet here or there and then it will go properly. The shaft is suspended in magnets (so no bearings to wear out) and the speed is regulated with magnets beside a disc (not touching) so there is no brake pads to wear out or heat generated. Very quiet too!! Imagine having one in the trunk of your electric car. Plug it into the house when you park and you can run your house!! Sell the excess back to the province!! 🙂
I had to check it out!! Here’s a few links to some very well-done YouTube videos. Hope you get excited!! The Robson Valley Magnetic Generator Manufacturing Company is the perfect investment for our Robson Valley Dragon’s Den!! 🙂
Note – Videos 1, 2 & 3 are a series.
Magnetic Generator Video One – 9 minutes
Magnetic Generator Video Two – 9 minutes
Magnetic Generator Video Three – 9 minutes
Simple Homemade Magnetic Generator – 6 minutes – Really Neat!!
So that’s it for The Hub posting this time!! Next one coming again soon!! Send in your ideas and stop by the shop anytime!!
Have a Great Day!!🙂
Darrell Roth – Ed
Ph: (250) 569-3003
Email – eat@unclemarks.ca
Posted Sunday, April 12th, 2020
In this posting… Why is there an Easter Bunny?, And… Why do we have Easter eggs on Easter?
Farmers… Please Grow Wheat, Soup Peas and Lentils for Food Security – Greenhouse Junk… Is there a Kid’s Business Here? – The Push for a Commercial Pea Sheller (cont’)
The Real Reason For the Covid Lockdown – Ed’s Own Conspiracy Theory🙂
Hello Neighbours!!
Why is there an Easter Bunny?
The Easter Bunny. … According to some sources, the Easter bunny first arrived in America in the 1700s with German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania and transported their tradition of an egg-laying hare called “Osterhase” or “Oschter Haws.” Their children made nests in which this creature could lay its colored eggs.
And… Why do we have Easter eggs on Easter?
Eggs are a potent symbol of life, renewal and rebirth dating back millennia. The egg was adopted by early Christians as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter. The hard shell of the egg represents the tomb and the emerging chick represents Jesus, whose resurrection conquered death. So says “Google!!”🙂
Farmers… Please Grow Wheat, Soup Peas and Lentils for Food Security
We ( at Uncle Mark’s) ordered grain, peas and beans from our organic supplier this past week. One supplier said “No” to any orders right now and another limited the quantities we could get. Our biggest supplier of grain is 8 times busier this month than he was this time last year and our shipment is going to get here later than usual. It’s just a bit of a wakeup call that we are not self sufficient with our flour supply. It would be good for the valley and good for local food security if our farmers would plant a few acres of wheat this year!! Any beans or peas would also be a good consideration. Local grain sales can allow the producer to sell at a fair-trade price and benefit everyone!! Let’s all start thinking local supply and markets!!🙂
Greenhouse Junk – Is there a Kid’s Business Here?
Ed’s Rant… I can’t stand all the plastic greenhouse junk in my life!! Piles of little pots, packs, flats and tags… and nothing the same!! Nothing that stacks together nicely!! Nothing but faded green, grey and brown junky eyesore piles of plastic that fall down because they don’t balance well on my storage shelf. When I’m organized enough I put them in a cardboard box or a big bag for next year but after they’re put away I invariably find a few “strays” that get put on the boot shelf or in the corner of the wood shed looking ugly and reminding me that I should get around to putting them away one of these days but by then the snow has fallen and the shed door needs to be shovelled out before I can get to the box or bag of stored junk so I just leave them where they are and ignore them until we need them ’cause it’s only 4 or 5 months before we need them again anyway!! Of course every year I step on a few and make a shattered mess… usually in the garden when I stand up to look around!! And us wanting to be Green and Organic!!??!!🙄
Maybe others feel like this too!! Maybe a “Handy Valley Kid” could help us out!!🙂 How about splitting up some of the throw-away cedar blocks (in abundance at our local cedar mills) into useable pieces and start building pots, flats and wooden tags for sale!! Re-usable, organic, visionary!! The butts of cedar are small to huge and can be split into “carryable” sizes. They are often buried, burned or useless to the mills and could likely be gotten for cheap to free to the right young entrepreneur!! A bit of a jig set up with a planer and a table saw could see you in business supplying our valley gardeners with a wonderful choice of locally-made, long-lasting and Green containers, tags and garden markers!! Stakes as well!! Also… there is a market for cedar birdhouse and crafting boards. Ask a local sawyer for the details for birdhouse and crafting wood!! What a Great plan for a Handy Valley Kid-Who-Can’t-Go-To School-Because-There-Ain’t-None business idea!! 🙂
Note – The birdhouse wood is a business that could possibly bring the adult kids back to the valley to put the whole family to work!!
The Push for a Commercial Pea Sheller (cont’)
I am hoping to get someone in the valley (or a foreign investor) to invest in a pea/bean sheller for the possible fantastic return on investment!! I did a quick Google search and found a few interesting sites to get you all excited about shelling!! Ask yourself if the interest rate on a few thousand dollars in the bank can earn as much as the return on a working pea shelling machine!!
Do you know how a pea/bean sheller works? Here’s a few different styles… all interesting!! There’s a “cool machine” for just about anything you can think of!! Make a batch of popcorn and enjoy the show!!🙂
Click Here for a $319.95 Electric Home Pea Sheller – 1:38 minute video
Click Here for a $10-$15,000 Commercial Pea Sheller 27 second video
Click Here for a TaMaCo Pea Sheller – Pretty Interesting – Bad Acting – 5 minutes
The Real Reason For the Covid Lockdown – Ed’s Own Conspiracy Theory🙂
It’s all about Mars… Really!! When I hear about the super rich trying to colonize Mars I get thinking… or at least imagining!! 🙂 I’m pretty sure they know more than us “regular folks” about the condition of our planet. When these folks want to get off this rock I’m guessing they have the right idea. However… we’re “melting down” faster than they can spend money to get ‘em off this world and onto the next one!! So what do they do?? Lock us down, quit polluting and try to make the world last long enough to get their space craft flying. This is the real truth folks… made up by Ed… but true!! Ya read it here 1st… in The Hub!! 🙂
In the mean time we get to benefit from cleaner air and clearer water!! Maybe these benefits (if continued) will heal our planet?? Maybe they won’t have to fly to Mars?? Maybe our “Powers That Be” will insist on clean energy when this is over!!
Ya just never know!!
Next week in The Hub… Magnetic generators!! What a concept!!🙂
So that’s it for The Hub posting this time!! Next one coming again soon!! Send in your ideas and stop by the shop anytime!!
Have a Great Day!!🙂
Darrell Roth – Ed
Ph: (250) 569-3003
Email – eat@unclemarks.ca
Posted Sunday, March 29, 2020
In this posting… Possible business start-up. Garden manure. Food security for 2020. Custom Growing.
Hello Neighbours!!
Welcome to the 2nd publication of The Hub!! 🙂
(The 1st one is following at the bottom).
First off… Thanks to our neighbours who sent encouraging emails and well-wishes to us!! We “fired up” the shop last Monday… actually it was more of a “warmed up” the shop exercise as we tried to organize ourselves into a smooth and efficient operation!! 🙂
There was response to our invitation for ideas in the last posting!! We’ve started our list (it’s fairly short yet) of goods and services in the valley and will get it organized in the coming days. But here’s some of the neat possibilities that might be in the works already…
We had a lady stop in at the shop who makes her own Kombucha. So I asked, “Hey Lady.. Wanna go into business making Kombucha?” “I don’t know. I’ve only made it for myself” she said. “Well maybe you should think about it” I said!! … So she is thinking about it!!🙂 She brought us a few samples of her “stuff” and it was Fantastic!! Now it’s up to her!! If she wants to start a part-time Kombucha business she will need to buy the barrels and jars and whatever equipment required (‘cause we don’t have the time, money or energy to pursue this idea) and set it up at our commercial kitchen in town. We will write the food safety plan for her and process the batches when they are ready. We will also “babysit” her batch (if there’s babysitting to do) so she doesn’t have to drive in every day. Maybe she only needs to start a batch and not come in again??!! If this is a “Go” we’ll figure out a profit sharing arrangement we’re both happy with!!
What’s your idea?? Let’s get it going!!🙂
Another energetic lady has a band mill she would like to see set up for some community use. The details will be worked out in the coming days!! What a Great Idea!! 🙂
Melanie Gutner in Dunster has manure… I didn’t say “is full o’”… I said “has”!!🙂 She has lots of good cow manure for your garden!!
FOOD SECURITY for you in 2020… More food makes for less guns!!🙂
Plant 365 & 1/4 pounds of root vegetables this year for each member of your household!! Spuds, beets, turnips, carrots, parsnips… Maybe you don’t have the time, or feel you don’t know how, or don’t have the room, or just don’t want to??!! Easy fix.. Get someone to do it for you!! Right now!! This is seed ordering time!!
I’ll start a list of willing growers in the valley so you don’t have to worry about survival if the supply chain gets in trouble. Do you hear that Growers?? Business Opportunity here!! Give me your name as a Valley Custom Grower and I’ll try my best to get everyone to participate!!
How Custom Growing could work (unless you gotta better idea)…
Custom Growers get signed up on a list.
Customers hire a Custom Grower to grow food for them!!
A pound of fresh vegetable a day will keep you alive and healthy (probably healthier than you are now!!) and let you sleep peacefully knowing you’re not going to starve in the coming year. This will make you happy… 🙂When you’re happy you won’t feel scared… When you’re not scared you won’t feel like you should pick up a gun and start shooting someone… or something like that!!
The Math…
Home-grown organic root veggies are worth $1-$3 per pound depending on the veggie. Spuds being low and parsnips being high. So let’s say $1.50/pound for an unwashed supply of mixed roots. Each person requires 365 & 1/4 pounds for food security in the coming year x $1.50 = $547.88/person. For a family of 4 (1,461 pounds) it would cost $2,191.50 for a year of food security!! A Custom Grower would need only 100 people to sign up for a pretty reasonable living!! Not that you wouldn’t work for it!!🙂
The Logistics of storage…
Root Cellars!!🙂 Everyone should have one!! A root cellar can be built Free for the labour or expensive if you don’t care. A trench dug in your back yard with a shovel will do the trick too!! The backyard trench is the most affordable and sensible storage option for a valley trying to look after itself as the veggies will be close and accessible without the need to drive to a large root cellar somewhere else. (Lots of storage ideas on line!!). Also… A large storage facility invites “attack” in the event of an apocalypse !!🙂
How You Pay…
The Custom Grower cannot operate without monthly cash flow. The customer would have to accompany the order with 6 monthly post-dated cheques ($91.31/person/month) that cover the order. As there are 12 months in a year it is actually only $45.66/person/month!! This will allow the Custom Grower to live while your food grows!!
If the 4,000’ish residents in the Robson Valley did this there would be a whopping ($547.88 x 4,000…) $2,191,520.00 put into our local economy in root vegetables alone…WOW!! 🙂 Mix it up with a few chickens, eggs, pigs and cows and there’s our valley putting families on the land again!!
There are “smarter-than-me” business folks out there who can put together an agriculture plan that will work!! Invite your moved-away kids back and get at it!! 🙂
So that’s it for The Hub posting this time!! Next one coming again soon!! Send in your ideas and stop by the shop anytime!!
Have a Great Day!!🙂
Darrell Roth – Ed
Ph: (250) 569-3003
Email – eat@unclemarks.ca
I’m not sure how many Hub Posts can “hang on” at the bottom of this post but I’ll find some way to archive them!!
Posted Saturday, March 21, 2020
Hello Neighbours!!
Welcome to the 1st publication (EVER) of The Hub!!🙂
Who we are… I (Darrell Roth) am the Editor and Chief of The Hub. My wife, Diane (my boss🙂) proofs and argues with me!! We moved to McBride from north of Prince Albert, Sask in 1994 and live on an acreage 7kms west of McBride. Our 3 boys, Adam, Matthew and Mark bought the neighbouring acreage a few years ago making Roth Farms about 200 acres of pasture, bush, cows, pigs and garden… so far!!
Mark has been our community farm to plate butcher for years and needed a place to set up a commercial kitchen… so Uncle Mark’s was “born”!! A few years ago we renovated the old liquor store on 1st Avenue (built in the 60’s) and added a couple walk-in coolers and freezer for the meat shop and the food processing business we planned. Side Note – It’s Uncle Mark’s because his brother Adam and Emi have 5 kids and Matthew and Chelsea have started with their first!!… and that’s why!!🙂
So… Strange times!! With the crazy world right now we have decided to put our long-range plans on “fast mode”. Actually… Instant Mode!! Our long range plans have always been to be part of food security in the valley and to promote a “growing economy”.
With the virus situation and the restrictions changing daily we are starting RIGHT NOW!!
We are starting to process frozen meals and products right now. Sometime in the next week or 2 our high volume cool-flour grain stone mill will be delivered and set up to mill fresh grain for our bakery products and for you to take home for your needs.
ROBSON VALLEY INVENTORY REGISTER
Our long range goals have included accumulating an inventory of goods and services available for cash or trade in our valley, accumulated in an easy-to-access list. We have planned to make such a list for sometime (maybe) in the coming 5 or 10 years. Well… We’re starting the list right now!! We’re asking everyone in the valley to stop in at Uncle Mark’s and register your wares RIGHT NOW!!
Root veggies
Meat on the hoof
Herbs and spices
Who’s growing Lettuce and Salad Right Now??
Vinegar
Clay Ware
Wood turning
Cheese making
Candle making
Soap making
Weaving and Sewing
Garden products of all kinds (manure, extra tools for sale or trade, etc)
Tilling and farming services
De-hulling service
Pea shelling equipment
Honey for sale
Live chickens
Trades and Skills
General Labour
Professional Skills (engineering, brain surgery, etc🙂)
E-logging (well witching)
Toy making
Are there any meat cutters out there who want some work?
More Ideas…
Do you want to raise chickens, pigs, beef? Get your information to The Hub at Uncle Mark’s!!
Do you want to raise veggies for the community this year?
Do you want to start making and selling clothing or boots or furniture?
Do you want to make/sell off-line generation? Please register at The Hub at Uncle Mark’s!!
We’re making it up as we go along but I think you get the idea!! Set your good ideas in motion!!🙂
SELL YOUR PRODUCT at Uncle Mark’s!!
Bring in your wares and let us be your door to the valley!! We have lots of cooler space and freezer space!! We have lots of floor space that is just waiting for your stuff!!🙂. Let’s partner and work together to help our community be a little less dependant on the world!!
USE OUR COMMERCIAL KITCHEN
We have large pressure canners and a combi steam/smoker/convection oven and a couple large stock pot ranges. Bring in your food and get us to process it or process it yourself!! We can help you prepare a safety plan so you can sell your product!!
So here it is… A rushed project with high hopes for a more secure community!! I’ve already said we’re making it up as we go!! We think it’s a great idea and hope our valley neighbours will help us achieve our goals… whatever they become!! Please stop in at Uncle Mark’s and share your ideas and let us work with you for a common success!!
Thanks from Us… at The Hub!!🙂
Next Hub posting is scheduled for another day… Keep checking!!🙂
email – eat@unclemarks.ca