Garden Chronicles :: Chapter 7

Garden Plot Numero dos is taking off.

The pumpkin plant has gotten ridiculously huge, it has moved on past taking over the garden and now it taking over the yard. That is just fine with Blanch as she loves to get out of her pen and go to work looking for bugs or worms.

The corn is also going off in the second plot. Looking at this picture I now understand why the straight edgers and skins called me and my surfer/skater buddies 'corn heads' when we were younger.

Horse Trough Hot Tub

It was time to put a soaking tub in the back yard. This way we can enjoy ourselves, the yard and the sun all while soaking in a tub of warm water.

We picked up a 160 gallon horse trough at the feed store last week when we picked up more food for the hens. This size is just big enough to fit two people comfortably, which is perfect since there are no dogs aloud in the tub. Once we got it home we decided that it would go best right outside of our office nook, next to the chicken coop. We then raised it off of the ground a little and added a few extra touches like bamboo fence and a step to make it look nicer. This is just the start, we want to do a little more, we will just wait for pieces to start showing up in the alleys.

To heat the water and make this a hot tub we added a pump that will push the water from the hot tub up to the roof. On the roof we have about a 30 gallon 8" PVC pipe that is 6ft long. It was an extra piece that came with the boat. We painted it black with Rustoleam to help it soak up the sun and heat the water. The pump pushes cold water from the bottom of the tub up to the roof and into one side of the tube, then gravity pulls down hot water from the the other side of the tube. To keep the water clean we use a mixture of 35% Hydrogen Peroxide. This is a h220 combination that releases an extra oxygen molecule once it mixes with he water. This kills any algae that wants to grow in the tub. We have yet to get a thermometer for the tub, but our ghetto solar heating actually makes it quite pleasant, especially after a morning of surfing in the cold California water.

Garden Chronicles: Chapter 6

Casualty, Men Down! I have been watching my two celebrities coming in for two months now. They have even been featured in two posts with their magnificent girth and beauty. Apparently I wasn't the only one keeping an eye on their slow maturity. Four days ago they started to turn orange. No Bugs, No Worms, No cracks. Three days ago they started to get rosy cheeks as the orange began to slowly change to a red. Two days ago they began to turn almost all red, with another day left of maturity. I watered the plot with worm tea, brewed from worm castings, just to give the roots another boost of energy to focus pushing nutrients on to their fruit. Then yesterday we went to pull them and STOP.



What was the mysterious creature? Did it just happen into them at the perfect time? I doubt it. That means that this was premeditated. Which would most likely mean it will come back.

Was it skunk? I didn't smell anything out of the ordinary.
Was it a Possum? Chickens didn't make as sound
Was it a raccoon? Chickens didn't make as sound
Was it gofer? No trace of gofer holes anywhere.
Was it a chupacabra? Hmmmmm

Captains Log :4: Sail Repair

We have been taking the boat out, checking on its performance a couple of times a week until we had our first incident. It actually wasn't to big a problem, but it did remind us that we are operating an old vessel that will have it's own issues. We were sailing as close as we could to the wind, seeing how far the boat would keel before losing speed and all of the sudden we started to hear a ripping sound, then in the matter of seconds the boom came crashing down with the bottom half of the main sail attached to it, and the top half of the sail flapping in the wind. The front halyard sail was still full of wind so we did not lose any speed until we turned out of the wind to access our damage. Sure enough the main sail had ripped on seam, and we were stuck with our first sail repair.



After doing a little research on the internet, we came up with the best approach for repairing the seam. We learned that there are a number of different ways to attack the job, fortunately for us we have a production room with cutting tables and heavy duty sewing machines at our warehouse, so we decided to take the main off of the boom and take into our shop. The next steps were taken as follows:

1. Insure cloth is salt-free and dry. Treat with alcohol to displace moisture, if necessary. Remove old thread pieces.

2. Pin out seam in original shape. Use needle holes, wear pattern, etc. to re-establish the original relationship of cloth edges. If the seam is not split yet, but is in danger of coming apart, FIX IT NOW! To do so, run pencil along seam edge, draw strike-off marks, then pull the seam apart and remove the broken threads.

3. Pin the seam out and put double stick tape on the bottom layer of cloth, pull off paper backer, and lay top cloth in place. When you are sure it is lined up correctly (no ripples in one layer, even tension on both pieces, ends of seams are same lengths as original), press top cloth down firmly smoothing cloth into place.

4. If sewing by hand, sew / / / / /, then back in opposite direction, using original holes, to form a zigzag stitch. This allows the stitch line to stretch with the cloth. If necessary, punch holes through thick areas of cloth with an awl. Use the awl to mark off holes at regular intervals of 1/4" or 3/8" for even stitching. Use appropriately strong thread, doubled if necessary. Pull tension on each stitch as you sew. If sewing by machine, sew seam, using original stitch holes if possible.

5. Cover repairs with adhesive-backed cloth tape if seam is in a high chafe area.

Once we finished the repairs, we brought the sail back to the boat, put it back on the boom and off we were chasing the wind around the bay again.

Garden Chronicles :: Chapter 5

So far all of our garden plots are doing great. The celebrity tomatoes in our first plot are getting huge.

Our second (new) garden plot is taking off as well. It is hard to believe that we planted it only two weeks ago. We have a pumpkin plant that is taking over the entire South West wing of the garden plot.

Because we decided that we wanted to do an organic garden, we have yet to use any insecticides or growth hormones on our plants. Nor have they needed them. We just open up the chicken coop and let the girls do their thing.

They know how to climb in and out of their coop when the door is open to make their way into the garden.

Once they are in the garden the start foraging around for worms and insects.

When they are all done gardening they will make there way back their coop, climb back in and relax.

 

Captains Log :3: First Mate

We have been going into work earlier the past couple of days, so we can get can get off early and go sailing. The waves have been flat, but the wind has been blowing. Today we sailed down wind to Coronado Bridge, and then tacked back to our marina. It was an amazing and beautiful afternoon out on the water.

Word apparently is out that we are looking for a first mate, the competition is looking pretty fierce.

Captains Log :2: First Voyage

Yesterday was the day we moved our boat to its new home. It was still at Driscoll Boat yard and we needed to sail it out of Mission bay, around Point Loma, and into it's slip at Marina Cortez in San Diego Harbor. Everything worked fine, which was quite a relief.

The red line plots the course of our first voyage together as a family. We left the dock in Mission Bay around 9am and got to our new slip around 2pm. The winds were a light SE 10k wind. Which made for smooth sailing. The sky was overcast with a coastal Eddie till around 12pm. The total voyage took around 5 hours. It was just Lyndsey and I and we had a very nice time.

This is a view from the ocean of the beach town we live in, Ocean Beach. That is OB Pier and Point Loma in the back ground. Notice the seals on the buoy. This is pretty common. I like to think of them as the marina guardians, but most probably think of them as the harbor scavengers. If you leave a boat sitting to long by itself in the harbor. They might take it over.

This is a view of the Pinnacle, where Cabrillo National Monument and the Light House are on Point Loma.

And this is where the boats new home is at slip H49 in Marna Cortez.

OB Parrots

So we live by an airport, and planes fly by. You actually get use to it, the loud sound of the planes and all. You just learn to stop your conversations, or turn up the volume on your ipod and wait for it to pass. We have another loud shrieking sound that we hear as well, but this is not from a plane or a man made 747. These screeches come from what the locals call the OB Parrots.

Rumor has it many years ago someone released five parrot's into the wild. Well, years went by and they advanced their kind, now there is well over 100 of them. They, like many other creatures have made Ocean Beach San Diego their home.

They are pretty birds, with distinct green and red feathers, but most people can't stand them. That is when they post up on the telephone wires outside your house at 6:30 AM and like a military regiment call start screeching away at full boar. I personally get a kick out of it because I am already up and running or working, but I get the feeling that most of the laid back neighbors may not.

They always travel in pairs or groups. This guy and his gal were hitting up the sunflowers early.