Porpoises

We had a wonderful weekend at the beach. Steve and Mel invited us to Oak Island, near where Mom use to stay, for the weekend (Yaupon Beach). Steve, Doug (Steve's good friend) and I hit the inlet in Steve's brothers 23' boat. We punch in a number and the distance registered 67 miles. We took accepted the risk and pounded our way out for 3 hours in reasonably calm seas. We caught 6 mahi-mahi before the porpoises (porpie?) showed up. I took some great pictures as the water was clear and the sea calm. I made the attempt to touch one, but could not reach that far, but came within a few inches. For about 15-20 min there were 20 or so surrounding the boat, jumping and swerving through our baits, and many more out across the horizon feeding on bait fish. It was one of the best encounters I've had the pleasure to observe.We left at 5 pm and barely made it back before dark; a total distance of 150 or more miles.

Trips to the beach when I was little must have seared the ocean on my brain; I love the marine environment :-)

New Fence

Thanks Dad!

Dad gave me a number of black locust post for a new fence that I'm building around the rest of our back yard. This is the area where I have our garden and chicken coop. I wanted to protect the garden, compost pile, cats and chickens from neighborhood dogs and or other animal threats. Plus there must be some primal thing of marking one's territory that's going on :-) I used Dad's posts, but had to buy cedar cross rails to make the split rail look that I'm after. Here's a couple of pictures of the progress thus far. It's taking a bit longer than I expected, but for the most part all I need to do is put up the welded wire fencing now.



Bees... A friend is into beekeeping and he had extra hives, so gave me one. I picked up a box of bees last Sunday. It was quite exhilarating to say the least dumping a box of swarming bees into a hive. Not one bee stung me though, so they must like the Gilliam's. Evidently Tulip Poplars have a ton of nectar and we have a ton of poplars in our forest, so the bees are coming back to the hive so full of nectar that they can barely fly.

Spring Gardening V1.0.2009

Cilantro is a favorite (bright green stuff middle left). This stuff came up from seed last fall and survived all winter. Diced tomatoes, diced onion, chopped cilantro, little lime juice, salt and pepper is great with chips, eggs, burritos, etc. An easy cheap app.

We're waiting for the white Delewares to start laying any week now.

Atilla the black hen is reliable though! She lays an egg with a deep golden yolk that out sizes the large category grocery eggs.