Wahoo

I went fishing this weekend and caught one of the most sought after game fish in NC. Wahoo make a great run and are one of the top 3-4 best tasting saltwater fish, although lasts night it was at the top of that list in this household. We had blackened wahoo steaks on a bed of spanish rice, black beans, pica de gallo drizzled with chipotle ranch.

Here's what turned out to be a pretty good picture. The fish was 55 inches and 40 lb.




Here's a an old picture of the last wahoo caught about 5 years ago:



For kicks here's a mahi-mahi we caught last year. On the trip this week we caught about 8 mahi-mahi like this out of 15 strikes. Also picked up on blackfin tuna.

Snow and chickens

I'm writing this morning because we have a couple hour work delay because of the March 1, 2009 snowstorm. I'm waiting to here back from the Marion family to see how much accumulated in Marion and Morganton. From the radar it looked like a nice 4-6 inches, maybe?? We ended up with a couple inches last night. If the atmospheric temperatures were a couple of degrees cooler it could have been an epic 12" + snow considering all the cold rain we had, but that's NC snow for you. Here's a few pictures.



In other news... I finished the chicken tractor and bought 4 Rhode Island Red pullets and two other mixed breed hens that were suppose to be laying already. I got the two older hens first and promply made the poor choice of moving the tractor while the hens were in the run and they both got loose. It's been 8 days and have not been able to catch the darn things, and have not even seen them this weekend, so they could be gone for good. Oh well. The other four are still several months from laying. I found a local chicken farm that has a couple hens that are laying and plan to get one this week, so we don't have to wait any longer for our fresh eggs. BTW, 8 week old chickens are so cute. Here's a few pics of the tractor and little chicks.

Update: I meant to post the blog above once I took a few pictures. I just got the pictures, but a few things have occurred since the post above. 1) Our dogs were so excited by the chickens that they found a way to open the gate so they could get a closer look. After a whole day alone they dug out around one side of the chicken coop and the little chicks got out. Our younger dog Cady killed all four, or at least I found the carcasses of three of them. A few days prior I did get another older hen that is laying, so I moved the coop so there is no chance the dogs can get to it again. Since this occurred on Friday our new hen has laid an egg every day, so we're finally have tangible returns on our investment. In the last picture you'll notice I put the coop near our garden. I'm using the hen to till and fertilize the soil, and in a month or so, I'll extend our garden to include this area.

Chicken Tractor

What the heck is a chicken tractor? Well, thanks to Mother Earth News and a few web resources I decided to go with a portable chicken coop often referred to as a chicken tractor. The main advantage of course is the ability to be transient. Moving this every few days gives the chickens fresh ground to forage through and a natural fertilizer treatment. We plan to make several trails through our forest; I think pulling this through the forest slowly will help create trails.

Taking a cue from Dad, the entire tractor was made from reclaimed or scrap wood, minus the roof, chicken wire and hinges that I had to buy from Lowes. I found an scrap pile of wood on a lot down the road and looked online to see who owned the property. It was some investment group out of Louisiana, so decided to just take it. 5 pallets were bought for $5 and used as the base and side paneling of the hen house. I was even able to reuse the nails. I'm off today and will install the chicken wire to form the run.


BASE, 2x10 green treat split in half and a pallet at one end to make the base structure.


Hen house built. You'll notice the wheels at the rear. It looks heavy, but actually rolls nicely on the lawn. The roof has hinges on the front, so it lifts up from the rear. I plan to put the nesting boxes along the back wall, so I can lift up and easily retrieve eggs, or clean.

Projects Complete, Projects Started

We've been rather busy over the last few weeks. Cecilia has been feeling much better over the last month since she's started taking a suite of vitamins. This is the busy season at Progress Energy, so the stress level is a little high at work, but she's handled it well. She's looking two months out when the work level drops, and she'll be able to take a week off for her own personal enjoyment.

Speaking of time off, our group at work accomplished two goals last year. 1) We successfully implemented some physics modules in a new weather model and tested, so we're ready to transition from an older model to this "next generation" weather model for use with our air quality model. 2) We developed what is termed a coupled meteorological-air quality model. Basically, the weather model above was connected "in-line" with our air quality model, so they are both running in synchronicity. The weather model passes atmospheric conditions to the air quality model, then the AQ model uses that to move pollutants around as it steps forward in time, then the AQ model passes pollutant information to the weather model, which impacts the amount of radiation, it steps forward in time and passes the new info to the AQ model. At any rate, this was a big project and although our computer science expert did most of the programming, I helped with various parts around the edges. Back to time off, my boss came to me this week with a piece of paper and told me I got a bonus for last years work. I thought it would be a little money or a day or two of payed vacation. When I read the bonus it said 40 hours of time off. Needless to say, I was estatic to get a whole extra week off this year. I looked at what I have saved up now and have 60 hours already in the bank this year.

On to the projects underway... I should have my fence complete today. After work this week, the prep work on the last section of fence was done. All that needs to be done today is laying out the woven wire, stretching and driving the metal posts. Here is the section of fence I completed last weekend.



A couple other projects done over the last few weeks are my worm bin and seed starter table. Thanks to Mother Earth News and my neighbor who's sister is really into worms, I decided to turn our scrap food into prime fertilizer. We have been composting our scraps for the last few years, but it just seemed you have to wait too long to get the good soil. So, I got a couple of rubbermaid containers. Holes were drilled in the bottom of one container, food scraps, minus any meats is placed in the bottom and covered with a mixture of loose soil and shredded newspapers (I have a lot of newspapers that need to be recycled). 4 dozen red wiggler worms were bought at the local bait shop and placed in the bin. The worms dig down and process the scraps then turn to worm castings. After one week all the food was gone, so I dumped the next load of scraps and covered. Evidently, after a few months the bin will have thousands of worms and a harvest of worm castings I can use for starting my plants. So, with very little effort you can basically nourish new plants that you'll eventually eat with the scraps of the plants you just ate. It's a neat sustainable and efficient system.

The other small project was to make use of a table we bought a while back only for the top. Part of the top (butcher block) was used for the back splash in the bathroom I did a year ago. Last year I tried to use the table to start seed with one small grow light, but it did not work that well. My neighbor told me his Dad always used flourescent lights to start seed. We had a 2 ft flourecent light fixture in our bedroom closet that was replaced. This was the perfect size for the small table. My problem was two fold. 1) A reflecting hood to focus the light downward was needed and 2) The light needed some type of bracket that would allow for easy adjustment as the plants grow. The fun part was trying to figure out how to do this at minimal cost. My answer to the hood was a cheap aluminum vent pipe, and for the bracket, PVC pipe and parts. All of the parts were less than $10, but the bulbs with correct light for plants did add $12. Here is the final product. The light is hooked to a chain that can be adjusted.

Snow Day

What a great extended weekend! We were off work this past Friday and I had Monday off for the MLK Holiday. I woke Monday morning and the computer models indicated the likelihood of a nice snow storm Monday night into Tuesday which verified. Snow fell hard from early Tuesday morning through 1 pm or so. Our storm totals here, just south of Raleigh, ended up being the greatest in the whole state at around 6 inches. It also worked out nicely that we were able to watch the inauguration!

Here are some pics of the house during the storm.





Our dogs had a snow day as well. Since roads were closed for the most part and there was no worry about them running out to the main road, they were allowed to run free in the neighborhood for several hours.





I worked hard all weekend and Monday, and achieved my goal of putting all the posts in the ground for our back lot fence. My neighbor Greg Petersen has the fence left over from his effort a few years ago, so once the cement sets this week, I'll be able to stretch the fence. He's selling me the the fence for $100. I spent $150 on posts and required tools like post hole diggers, spade and fence pliers. That puts the costs of the fence at less the $300.

Here is the fence line along the very back part of the lot as indicated by the red line in the previous blog entry.




Here is the fence line closest to the house. This was my first ever shot at setting fence posts, so you'll notice it's not perfect.



Here are some pretty pictures of the snow in our little patch of forest and the neighbors farm.

New Year!

As the new year arrived, new ideas followed. First of all, we had a great Holiday season. I say Holiday to include both Thanksgiving and Christmas since it's been some time since the last life-update. I traveled without Cecilia to Marion for Thanksgiving and to Ormond Beach for Christmas. It was a blessing to see all of you during those trips. I tell you what, the time I spent with Family really sparked a sense of wellness and purpose; it's really hard to put in words. It was a joy to see all my nieces and nephews. My trip to Florida was excellent. I got to spend three days with Grandma Meader, visit with Aunt Joanne and Uncle Charlie and had a wonderful lunch with Kristen, Caitlyn and her boyfriend and Bryan in 85 degree heat. The following week I had off work, so I decided to start working on some of my new ideas for the new year.



Our main, or maybe I should say my main goal for the new year is to fully utilize our land. When I first moved in with Cecilia, it was quickly realized that the property was much larger than I expected, but most of the area was forested, with a large part of that being a mass of briers, bramble and bamboo. We has a small part of it cleared and fenced in (shown as existing fence in figure) . However, we still have a relatively large area of around 1 acre that is still wooded. For years I've been interested in fully utilizing this area, so once my neighbor fenced in his back yard, it created a great opportunity to fully fence in our unused forest area since his fence, the neighbor next to him and a neighbor on the backside already had fence lines along my property. In the area photo you'll see several red lines along the property which indicate the only property line I need to install fencing to fully enclose our property. That is my goal this winter and using craigslist I've been able to find plenty of fence material for cheap.

Once this is complete I'll be able to start on several other projects. 1) I want to clean our forest area, so that it's easy to walk around without having to dodge briers or scrub brush. There are also a number of dead trees and smaller trees growing underneath some of the larger trees. I bought my first chainsaw to help with this chore. 2) There is a nice area in the center of the reclaimed land that is open. I want to raise a few free range hens for eggs. This open area (where1735 is in the image) seems like a great location. This are is loaded with bugs, so I'm sure the food supply is unlimited. I'd like to have this ready by spring.

These photos are of the back lot. You'll notice the people behind out lot have a nice farm-like setup. They have goats and a small horse that always come when I'm back there working. I'll pick off a few was myrtle greenage to feed them, so we're friends :-)

A third idea is another expansion of the garden. I have several other spots in the back yard, once I cut down a few trees, that will support crops. I'll end up doubling the number of raised beds which will basically be three more 3'x20' beds. I'll probably stick with this through the summer to see if it's enough to support our produce needs, but if not, I still have some more suitable land. Anyhow, these are my "green" goals for the new year.

Cecilia is going through a program that has a cornerstone based on nutrition and not drugs. A comprehensive blood and urine test indicates that she's deficient in several main vitamins and at least part of her problem is a digestive track yeast infection. We're in a great situation because many of the veggies we have now are high in B vitamins and other vitamins and minerals. Over the last few weeks she's been feeling much better, so we're going to continue a strict nutrient dense diet.

Here are some recent pics of the garden.

The fall garden

Fall Garden

I planted a larger fall garden this year. Our favorites are Brussels sprouts; the plants are more numerous and healthier than last year when some developed a disease. As I probably say in another blog, other cold weather crops include broccoli, collards, lettuce, cabbage, Kohlrabi and arugula.

Here are some pics: