Blackberries!

Adventure, Food, WV, ,

We have a secret spot where we go to pick blackberries.  Of course, blackberries have thorns so our screams probably make our location a little less secret than it otherwise would have been.  Still, we go blackberry picking every 2-3 days while they are in season.  Last night was our first venture to the patch.

Emily and I are coming up on our 15th wedding anniversary and we’ve known each other almost 20 years.  I have known her parents about the same length of time.  Last night was the first time we have taken them along with us.  It was hard to decide whether I knew them well enough to trust them with my secret location.  Finally I broke down and we all went picking.

Last year we went so much that we were overrun with berries.  Don’t tell Emily but I am hoping for the exact same problem this year.  With the first batch, Emily made a blackberry pie last night.  I have breakfast lined up for the next few days for sure!

I plan to make some blackberry cobbler and some blackberry wine as well.  My dandelion wine is looking great so I am going to try my hand at blackberry too.  It’s funny to be making wine since neither of us drinks, but it’s the adventure that I enjoy!

Anyhow, blackberries are in season in WV and I have the stained and scratched up hands and arms to prove it!  Are you getting berries where you are?

Swarm in Kanawha City

Adventure, Bees, Nature, WV, ,

The kids headed off with Momaw and Granddad last night so Emily and I planned to grab a bite to eat and then go pick blackberries.  Literally, as we were walking out the door, the metro emergency center called and said there was a swarm of bees up in a tree in Kanawha City, a section of Charleston near where I work.  I looked at Emily and she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.  “Fine, go get your bees.”  Obviously, she wasn’t thrilled but she agreed to ride along.  She’s never been on a swarm call with me before so this was sure to be fun!

We drove to Kanawha City and found the home owner out in her yard looking up in a tree.  I knew we had the right spot right away.  We chatted for a bit about how her Dad had bees.  It’s interesting but it seems like almost everyone over the age of 60 once had a family member who had bees.  It’s such a shame that there are so very few beekeepers left and even fewer under the age of 65.  Anyhow, there was indeed a small swarm of bees about 8 feet up in the oak tree in her front yard.

I brought a ladder and I always carry pruners on these calls.  I donned my suit for proper protection (note the crocs on my feet!) and headed up the tree.  Swarms that are close to the ground often can be brushed into a hive box with a gentle hand (or shook into the box with a rough hand).  Swarms in trees are a little different.  When possible, I like to trim the branch on which they hang and bring them down to a manageable height, i.e. the ground.  I clipped the branch with the bees and gently laid the small branch into the hive (I removed 4 frames to make room) once back on the ground.  Sometimes I shake them into the hive so I don’t need to add the branch but this one seemed to fit without shaking.

I just stop up the entry to the hive and put a strap around the hive to travel.  As I mentioned, Emily was with me and not too keen on riding in the van with bees.  I don’t officially recommend this to anyone, but I have found that riding with bees in the car is actually a little easier than riding with kids.  The kids fight and yell and can’t do anything but stare at each other making menacing faces.  Bees, on the other hand, don’t care a lick about me but prefer to hang around the back windows hoping to find an escape.  I have never been stung while carrying bees in the van.  But, don’t try it at home…

The swarm was pretty small and will not likely be worth much alone.  I have a few hives that are very full of bees so I will add a few frames of bees from those hives to the new swarm to make a good, strong colony.  With any luck, they will grow into a stronger colony, ready for the honey flow next spring!

Other swarms

This is criminal

House

I mentioned awhile back that our house is older and has all sorts of issues.  Slowly, I have been working my way through it remodeling as I go.  We’ve had a sag in the floor between our bedroom and the master bathroom.  I was planning to remodel the master bath but decided I needed to address the sag before I did anything else.

As a part of that, I planned to opened the cieling and install a new lintel and window near where I had everything opened.  This weekend was the moment of truth.  Since I was so anxious to get started, I woke up early on Saturday and took the family out to eat.  We messed around and went shoopping (I hate shopping) and did all sorts of other stuff.  Finally, I could put it off no longer.  After lunch, I opened the cieling…and cried.

The master bathroom had been remodeled sometime in the mid-1980s we think (based on the decor).  They added a gawd-awful garden tub and a stand-up shower.  Whatever genius did the work directly caused the sag when they added the new drains during the remodel.  My floor joists are comprised of 2×10 boards that run between load bearing walls.  The genius who installed the drain pipe cut 5 inch notches in at least 7 of those boards to run the drain pipe (there may be more…I have to open more cieling).  So, the original builder figured that the house needed 2×10 boards for support but the remodeling genius decided it was overkill and cut that in half to install the pipe.  The original builder was right.

So I got the lintel and window installed but now I (probably) have to remove the drain pipe and install new 2×10 boards to properly support the house.  I’ll have to jack a large portion of the floor to undo the sag as well.  I’d like to find the guy who originally did the remodel.  I think what he/she did was criminal.  At the very least, I’d like to swat the genius right on the nose with a newspaper…or a 2×10!

Local Art

Family

There is a great artists’ community in Charleston.  A week or two ago, the city celebrated Festivall where “a city becomes a work of art”.  It really is a tremendous display and a ton of fun.

Although we love to see local/original art, we can’t always afford to buy pieces we see.  We found a new source though, that suits my needs and interests perfectly.  We have started framing art by the kids and of the kids.

This father’s day, Emily and the kids had one of Abigail’s pieces framed.  It’s one of my favorite pieces of art in the house.  We hung it in the bedroom so I could see it every day.  I’ll always hang drawings with bees!

While at Festivall this year, we ran across a caricature artist and had him draw the kids.  I am not sure that they exactly look like my kids, but they look like kids I have seen somewhere.  Anyhow, we still like them a lot too.  The most important part of those drawings is that the kids each sat still for 15 minutes while the artist did his work.  I think that time might be in record territory!

Do you hang “local art” in your place?

The beginning of the end

Family

The tooth fairy visited our house.  If you are a kid and still stay up trying to catch her, please do not read beyond this point.  This is your official spoiler alert.

So, Isaac lost his 9th tooth yesterday.  He is 9 and thinks it is just amazing to average one tooth a year.  Anyhow, he was chomping a chocolate muffin when it just popped out.  The cool thing about it is that it is one of his back teeth so he doesn’t have the toothless look.  He’s starting to care about his appearance.  I thought I taught him better. Anyhow, he retrieved the tooth from a mouthful of spit and half chewed Otis Spunkmeyer chololate muffin.  We told him to rinse it off and put it in his tooth fairy pillow (that’s actually a pouch that he hangs on his door knob…we have a smart tooth fairy).  He got a goofy smirk on his face and said, “Dad, I know you put that money in there at night”.  My heart dropped.  I knew the time was coming.  In fact, it might have come a long time ago I suppose but it sort of crushed me a little to hear him admit that he knew I was the tooth fairy.

I still didn’t admit anything to him but I sort of feel obligated to tell him everything so that he doesn’t go to school and talk about Santa, the tooth fairy and other supernatural creatures only to get teased.  Still, it breaks my heart a little to see my son (who is going into the 4th grade) lose a little of the innocence of childhood.  Like I said, I htink he has known for awhile but to make it official is pretty tough for me.

A co-worker of mine says that his kids (who are much older) still receive visits from Santa, et al. as long as they play along.  I think we’ll arrange that deal so that Abigail will still have the magic and my illusion of innocence will be maintained.  At least he doesn’t care where babies come from yet…

The necessities

Adventure

Ok…I am almost done with the beach posts…just a little more. We always rent a house when we go to the beach and we spend most of the time right on the beach. I like to bake in the sun. Well, actually, I like to bake in the heat, but not so much the sun. I spent a lot of time in the sun when I was younger and I am beginning to reap some of that as I get older.

This year, I lathered up with sunscreen the first day but I forgot how hot the sun is at the beach. After swimming in the ocean and baking in the heat, the sunscreen doesn’t last too long. I got a lovely burn on my shoulders and knew right away I had to do something to keep from getting burned again.

We bought one of those cool party tents that people typically use when tailgating. It sets up super quickly. We anchor it in the sand and it provides a great place to escape the sun. I can’t really swim under it though so its protection only goes so far.

I wear a hat that covers my bald head. The kids wear hats to protect their scalps and that protects our delicate noggins but we needed more body protection. Emily had read about Rash Guard shirts before heading to the beach so we went shopping at the end of day 2.

Rash Guard shirts don’t allow sunlight through like a regular shirt does (I got burned through a regular shirt this time too).  It provides spf 50 protection over whatever it covers.  The ones we found at the beach were all skin tight so not everyone might feel comfortable with that but there are many styles to accommodate anyone.

The kids and I got shirts and wore them the rest of the week.  We were well protected and didn’t have to worry about missing spots on our backs or remembering to reapply sunscreen every hour.  We were very well protected between our hats, our shirts and the tent.  We now count those three items as beach necessities…

What are beach (or vacation in general) necessities for your family?

It’s about the time

Family

We got up early as we always do on the day we leave the beach. It’s a long drive home and we always leave early to beat the chaos around the traffic that comes when one leaves later. So it’s a tradition to leave early and that doesn’t bother me. The funny thing that I always hate about leaving the beach, however, is putting my watch back on. I hadn’t worn my watch from the time I entered the house.

The thing about time is that it matters so much of the time. We couldn’t arrive at the house until 3 pm and we had to be out before 11 am. We had to be home in time to get back for work and we had to pay all the bills on time that had stacked up in our absence. But while we are at the beach, time does not matter at all. We eat when we’re hungry, we sleep when we’re tired and we play all of the time. Time doesn’t matter at the beach and that’s why I love it so much. All the rest of my life is scheduled (or so it seems) so the time away renews me.

I always ponder the return to time and it sort of rattles my head. Time flees so fast the rest of the year. I love our stay at the beach each year where time seems to stand still. I get a chance to totally enjoy my kids and wife and we soak it up, indeed. The times without time are the only times that really matter.

A regular hootenanny

Family, Fun,

Emily is the counselor at a year round school in Charleston.  In WV there are only a handful of year round schools so her schedule is pretty unique.  Basically, she is on for 9 weeks, off for 3 weeks, all year round.  That fact pretty well guarantees that we take vacation in the middle of June.

The funny thing is that Emily’s birthday is also always in June.  It never seems to vary.  So, once again, we celebrated Emily’s birthday at the beach.  It’s a little strange to celebrate a special holiday away from home.  All of the best gag gifts have to be hauled in for the event.  We seem to have a tendency to play jokes and horse around a good bit…in case that surprises anyone, we are a bunch of goofballs.

Anyhow, my Mom and brother also have birthdays in June so we decided to have a regular hootenanny at the beach this year.  Mom brought a bunch of luau stuff and we dressed up and then danced (really loudly and obnoxiously) to bluegrass music that my sister-in-law had brought.  It was an absolute blast.  Some had liquid courage to help with dance moves but everyone had a blast.  Folks walking past from the beach certainly gave us funny looks but we put our best West Virginia on and hooped it up at the ho-down!

Somehow the porch on our house survived the dance and we finally settled down when the cops came…just kidding.  We finally settled down when the sugar highs and liquid courage ran out.  We wandered back in and crashed for the night.  I am pretty sure that we honored Emily’s birthday appropriately.  She’s pretty old though so I don’t know if she’ll remember!


(Note the touchless hug)

5 to 10

Food

When we go to the beach, we have a pretty set routine…we get up around 8, grab a quick bite to eat and start applying sunscreen. Once properly lathered and slathered, we grab another bite to eat and head for the beach (with our coolers full of food). Beach tents have evolved and we have moved along with them. We carry our tent down and set it up (and maybe grab a bit of beef jerky or some peanuts) and head for the water. My immediate family body- surfs until noon at which time we grab a bite to eat and then back at it.

I sort of love the beach because we basically have no rules. For breakfast and lunch, Chips-Ahoy cookies are perfectly acceptable as the main course or as a side item. I drink pop by the two liter and am rarely caught without a handful of some sort of food that is ruining my bikini body. But it’s the beach you see so all rules are pretty much out the window.

So after a day full of eating at the house, we always go to some fancy (or at least expensive) seafood place where we eat far too much (and far too rich) fresh seafood. One place that is a ton of fun at Tybee Island is called the Crab Shack. The Crab Shack is certainly not a fancy place but it is expensive. It’s sort of hard to imagine why the prices are so high since all of the dining is either outside under the trees or inside a shack. By shack I don’t mean a quaint little restaurant building…I mean a shack. Cats crawl all over the place grabbing the bits of seafood that people drop and birds occasionally swoop in to snatch a piece of low country boil of a runaway shrimp.

In spite of its humble appearance, the food is really great. They specialize in “low country” food like low country boil, shrimp on grits, shrimp a-la-mode (channeling Bubba from Forest Gump here), etc. Everything is brought on a paper plate and the tables have holes cut in the middle where diners throw everything when finished. We eat everything with our fingers and garner the biggest smiles from the kids you can imagine!

Anyhow, an additional draw of the place is the alligator lagoon where a few dozen alligators reside. For $3, one can purchase 4 soft dogfood-like morsels to hang on the end of a bamboo pole to feed the gators. It is a blast although it appears that the gators eat well as they sometimes don’t want to play along with the “gator fishermen”. I suppose a cat might fall in here and there to satiate them, but generally, I think every patron must be feeding the gators ’til they are full. We were lucky to find a gator that put on a good show for the kids and ate everything we sent his way…must have been the runt of the group I guess.

Anyhow, we eat way too much every year and I generally gain 5-10 pounds in a week. It’s worth every calorie though as fresh seafood is hard to beat!