[tech]

Who thought even just 10 years ago that we'd be able to record movies on our phone, send it to a friend, or post it online for the world to see. At home, I can watch seasons of TV shows or whole movies, without a DVD, or running lines to the road! I'm typing this blog and publishing it without even having so much as a phone or cable TV line to my house. I don't have satellite TV but can watch shows from the Discovery Channel on my TV. How? Because I'm awesome, and cell phone technology is advancing every single day. I can only imagine how the technology will advance in the years ahead, but when I'm 79 I'm sure I will still be just as amazed at what is being done.

[spring is in the air]

The seeds that we've planted for our garden have officially started sprouting! We've got our porch setup as a pseudo greenhouse with a set of shelves designated for seedlings. I think that we may have jumped the gun just a tad, but anything that we don't have room for inside can get put out into the garden under a row cover. Casey has been wanting a rotating composter, but all
Sam's Club has that is within price range is a stationary composter made out of black recycled plastic. I think it looks good for us, but it's only really appropriate for kitchen scraps and the random brown products that we can throw in from the garden. Otherwise I have a whole corner of the garden dedicated to garden garbage. Hopefully this year we can get some better results from our gardening. Last years garden was kind of a flop, we had good lettuce for a few weeks in the spring, then they bolted. So far this year we have garlic (fall planted) in the garden. Planted in pots on the porch we have a whole variety of peppers, herbs, tomatoes, lettuce, and more.

I'm really excited about getting more blueberry bushes this year. Last year we got two locally propagated bushes from a farm close by and even got a hand full of berries from them the first year that we had them planted. This year I'd like to add about four more.

[spring cleaning]

Last Saturday I spent the better part of my day off cleaning out the garage. There is still some work to be done. However, it's way better than before I had started. You could say that I'm still moving into the garage, and moving out of it. There is a lot of random stuff that either needs to be given away, or thrown away, or even just simply used. I tend to collect stuff, my dad taught me well how to be a pack rat. You never know when something will come in handy. I was able to make a lot of progress just by moving stuff around and emptying all those boxes of "stuff". You know what "stuff" is, the things that just kind of accumulate and don't really belong together. Like computer stuff in the same box as gardening stuff and an anatomy and physiology coloring book. I also filled a rather large box with all of the dried drippings on the floor that come from living off a 1/4 mile drive in the winter. In some spots I couldn't sweep the floor with the broom, I had to shovel it!

Tomorrow the Project of the Day Off is going to be installing a new circuit in the garage for our new chest freezer. If time permits I may simply update all the wiring in the garage with grounded lines. More recently we've been shopping at Sam's Club, and we've got to face the fact that we can't always buy what we need because our refrigerator freezer won't hold it all. It will also give us the opportunity to possibly share a pig or cow or something with Casey's parents in the event that they decide to buy an animal on hoof. It will also be nice to know that we have a place to put any leftovers from the garden that we can't eat right away. Fresh homegrown veggies are great, frozen homegrown veggies are also pretty good too.

[exercise]

I think this February has been the best snow month that I can remember. Not counting loss from snow melting, I'd say that cumulatively we've had at least three feet of snow this month. I am still a little disappointed though. I haven't had the time or energy to get out into it enough to satisfy my love of the white fluffy stuff. Even though we've got some more snow on the way this winter, I'd say that it's time to start getting ready for the rest of the year.

Now that I'm working in Ashland this year, it seems a little more likely that I may be able to ride my bike to work. It's pretty much exactly 8 miles. The distance is doable, its just the hills that may kill me at first. So even though I am enjoying looking at the snow, and look forward to playing in it, I am also looking forward to this spring and being able to get outside and ride the bike, hike, and garden.

I'm also thinking about adding more pictures and videos to the blog. Right now there's probably a lot that I could be adding, but it doesn't seem like it to me. Hopefully once the weather clears out a bit I can start adding more elaborate elements to this site.

[vacation]

This vacation is wearing me out! Tuesday we spent the day in Orlando at Universal Studios. It was a pretty good day of seeing the sights and going on the rides. The only real disappointment for me was that the ride "Disaster" was out of commission. Wednesday we went down to Homasossa Springs and visited Caseys Manatees. That was a pretty good day. Then Today we pretty much laid low and visited the sights around where we were staying. We bought a lot of citrus like Grapefruits, specialized oranges. It's amazing how many orange trees are in Florida!

[winter flying]

Wouldn't you know it, it's snowing again. Ohio seems jealous that we are trying to leave and visit Florida. We haven't had any snow of any significance in the last week or so, but now that we are trying to leave we've got to contend with a snow storm. Since noon it has dropped about an inch or two of snow, effectively closing down the runways until they could brine, or salt them. I don't know how long they were closed, but they just announced that they are starting to land and takeoff more planes. It's the wet and clumpy sort of snow that binds together to make large clumpy flakes as the snow is falling, so it's not really that bad, it is just accumulating more than a really dry snow.

I've never flown during the winter before, at least not when the snow is falling and piling up rapidly. I have to say that it makes me nervous. I do have faith in the flight institution though. Weather simply makes things a little less predictable, and I would imagine a little more difficult to manage.

Well, that's all for now.

[jeep cherokee]

This winter I am especially thankful for having a 4x4 vehicle. This morning for example I had to power through a quarter mile of snow drifts before even getting to the street. It's definately worth having Even if it doesn't get more than 20mpg.

[summer work]

Looks like I'll be joining the ranks of the Camp Mowana Staff this summer! I'm pretty excited to "be back at camp" if you will. I mean, I live here and typically am around during the summer and intermittently throughout the year. However, the last couple of years have been pretty interesting because I am here, but not a real part of what is happening.

I've got some plans for things that I'd like to accomplish, but you never know what will come up at camp. For one, I'd like to do some serious work on the trails that are used routinely. Trails that over the last few years especially have been seeing some major erosion. I'd also like to continue working on the progress that has been made with some of the camps buildings to rejuvenate them. Of course theres all that lawnmowing, weedwacking, woodsplitting, and fixing stuff that breaks randomly. At the least I'll hopefully have some good posts to put up here.

[Mowana]

Today was a pretty full day at camp. I woke up bright and early in anticipation of having to dig out from the major storm that went through. I was right, and quite happy with the amount of snow that we got. Why in the world you ask? Well I'll tell you. I GOT TO PLAY IN IT! Yes, I'm a child at heart, with big boy toys. The 4x4 Cherokee that I have was useful, I got to use the Snowshoes I got last Christmas, and i got some excercise shoveling snow. I won't bore you with all the details of the day, but it took quite a bit of energy to dig out, deliver food to the Retreat Center, and do all the things that needed to be done to make sure that our guests had a good stay. There is an issue with the water at the Retreat Center, so I also got the opportunity to keep going into the utility room and push the series of reset buttons that kept the water running to do dishes and flush toilets. I also took a group on a hike out to the barn so that they could see the new building and animals.

It's only 10 pm right now but I'm exhausted. Theres also the potential for another foot of snow tonight from what our radio weather forecaster said. So I may get to do it all over again tomorrow! Doesn't that sound FUN? Did I mention that after a day of being cold outside for a good part of the day I also get to be cold INside at work tomorrow? RadioShack, please, Please, PLEASE be warm tomorrow!

[spectacular snow]

The snow is certainly falling...

Just before noon when I was on my way to work I drove past a ODOT salt truck sitting in a vacant parking lot waiting for the goahead to start salting the rural route 42. I haven't left work since the snow has started, but we've probably got about an inch or two once it started to stick. I'm definately planning on some major snow tomorrow. I definately like snow more than rain. I think it stems from the fact that rain makes mud, and when the dogs go outside they get all muddy. In the winter everything is frozen and the dogs just track in a little bit of ice and snow that melts and evaporates pretty quickly. It's also neat to see how many animals are in the neighborhood.