Purple fingers

It seems like this time of year finds our fingers all sorts of different colors. It really just depends on what we’re picking at the time. Last night was no different really. A co-worker of Emily’s has a bunch of grapes growing at her house. She has picked a ton and canned/preserved them every way she knows how. That’s where we come in. The grapes are still plentiful so she gave us a bunch of them…and there are more to pick so we are hoping to be able to go and harvest a bunch more. It’s hard to beat real concord grapes I think!

this is just a portion!

We cleaned them last night and are making grape jelly with the ones we have now. Do you remember when you were a kid and even the store bought grape jelly had flavor? I have tried some recently and it seems like the grape jelly is completely without flavor. I guess it’s like everything – homemade is really hard to beat. But gee whiz, the store stuff isn’t even fit for slug bait!

Anyhow, does anyone else gather grapes? What do you do with them? I remember my Mom and Grandma canning grape juice but they always left whole grapes in the jars. It freaked me out because I could have sworn they canned eyeballs!  Oh, and don’t get me started on when they canned whole tomatoes…eeek!  Anyone make raisins or juice or wine? I’ve nibbled on wild grapes but does anyone do anything more specific with them?  I’d love to know what options I may have!

8 Comments

warren, August 25th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Canning, Food, Nature, WV

Already?

Summer is officially over…well, unofficially I guess, but you get what I mean.  School starts today and I am not at all ready.  And just who on Earth starts school on a Friday?  Our county, that’s who.  It’s not that I need the kids to enjoy the freedom of summer…they live under a dictatorship anyhow.  No, it’s that the fight to get homework done starts tonight.

But wait, this isn’t about me is it?  OF COURSE IT IS!  This is my blog after all!  Well, ok, I am sad a little too because it means my kids are a bit older which means I am a bit older.  It means life is changing which is cool mostly, but also a little scary <sniff, sniff/>.

(click above to play…if that doesn’t work on your machine, try this link)

(click above to play…if that doesn’t work on your machine, try this link)

Ok, man up.  I asked the kids some questions about starting school, just like last year.  I love this part!

2 Comments

warren, August 20th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Family, WV

To the river gods

Last weekend we went canoeing with the kids and Emily’s aunt and uncle.  The Little Coal river is near where we all live so it is convenient and really, a pretty great river for canoeing.  Like most of the East, we have been hot and dry for quite awhile so I had pretty low expectations about the quality of the water on the trip.  I grew up in NW PA near the beginning of the Allegheny river.  It is pretty shallow and slow there so I have plenty of experience in carrying a canoe through shallow water.  I didn’t really want to carry a canoe full of my offspring over rocks and downed trees.

We threw our canoes in (actually, the kayak started down the river without us) and headed out.  The water was perfect!  My shallow-water-eyes were just flat out wrong.  There were spots that weren’t deep but in every case, there was a ton of room to navigate the river anywhere we wanted!  The last time we went on this river, the water was raging.  We absolutely could not  get out of the boats (and truth be told, probably shouldn’t have even been in the boats) and our trip down the river was speedy.  This time, we got to really enjoy the river!

There were a few “rapids” that we got to ride.  I wasn’t sure whether the kids would enjoy it but they laughed and Isaac yelled, “Caribou!” at the top of his lungs (yeah, it’s a 4th/5th grade boy thing I think).  We stopped at the end of several of the rapids and walked back up to ride down in the rapids sans boat.  Holy mackerel that was fun!  I had to hold on to the kids the first few times because they were wary, but in no time, they were itching to go on their own…we just had to catch them at the bottom!

At one point, we saw a few cassette tapes in the water.  I suspect that someones house or camp was flooded at some point as no one would just dump old Motley Crue cassettes.  Anyhow, the kids saw them and asked what they were…that’s right, my kids had no idea what a cassette tape was or why people would use them instead of cds or dvds.  That was a bit shocking to me but we had a great conversation about how life was when I was a kid (and that wasn’t super long ago…I can’t imagine if they had the conversation with my 96 year old Grandpa!)  I enjoyed telling them about sleeping in the back of the station wagon on trips and how our legs would burn and stick to the plastic seats…how we didn’t have A/C in the house  or cars and no cell phones or video games.  Abigail asked me, “How did you make it through?”  HA!  And our lives were still pretty easy compared to people before us!

Anyhow, it didn’t take long for Diva…I mean Abigail…to get tired.  She propped back in the kayak and toured the rest of the river “princess style”.  We ate lunch on the river and laughed and had a great time not worrying about a thing.  Our only donation to the river gods was one pair of old sunglasses.  They were easily satisfied with our sacrifice.  I think the river was just what we needed…and I can’t wait to go again!

Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4

You may need to download Quicktime viewer if these videos don’t work for you…

13 Comments

warren, July 9th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Adventure, Family, Fun, Nature, Thoughts, WV

Mushrooms too!

I mentioned that we found a new spot for picking blackberries.  The new spot is into the woods a bit so we have to take a little time to walk to the best berries.  Along the way, we found some great mushrooms…these are chanterelles but there were all different sorts.  We’ve harvested them before but these ones looked especially cool to me.  There were tons of this variety and they were in all conditions and sizes.

There really is a lot of good about walking into the woods.  It seems like most people don’t venture in too far so there is a lot of beautiful stuff that just goes unnoticed.  I know that but I think I had forgotten too.  Sometimes I wonder how much other stuff like this I have forgotten.  It’s funny how day-to-day life buzzes right on by as the really cool stuff of life gets forgotten…

5 Comments

warren, July 8th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Awesome, Thoughts, WV

It’s purple…and huge!

So…ahem…the blackberries are in full glory right now and we found a newish place to pick and this year’s berries are as big as I have ever seen (including those pretend ones you can get at the grocery store).  We have picked several “messes” of berries and I have enjoyed 2 blackberry pies that my delightful wife has prepared.  She made some good ones 2 years ago, but this year, the berries are purple and huge and AWESOME!

Of course, we live in West-by-God-Virginia where mountain goat commandos go to train.  Our new location is significantly more hilly than previous years so picking in our new secret spot has been interesting and a little prickly.  I have to wear soccer cleats so I don’t slide down the hill through the briers.  I really wish I was more successful at that.  Anyhow, because of the danger (yes, the hills are steep enough that it is dangerous), the kids are not picking this year.  They mostly run around and look for new spots for me to scale.  I think they have grown up a good bunch though.  They still fight like mountain goat commandos and mountain lions, but not while we are working on berries…and that’s worth a big hee-haw from me!

so much for focus...

Aside from the hills being interesting, our new spot is farther into the woods and we have been assaulted by a few ticks this year.  Ticks suck.  I think I hate ticks and roaches more than about anything…not sure why because bugs in general don’t offend me, but I am personally offended when I see either of my nemeses.  Alas, I shall push on in pursuit of the berry.  The blackberry pie calls to me…I must heed its call!

Time to go picking...

10 Comments

warren, July 7th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Food, Nature, WV

Tap…Tap…Is this thing on?

I have been pretty out of touch lately…but I have an excuse, honestly!  We went to the beach at Topsail Island, NC!  We typically go to a beach somewhere in NC but this was our first year at Topsail (pronounced Top-sul).  Anyhow, I’ll get to the pics of me in a bikini later but first, let me tell you about the trip there.  From Charleston, we have to travel south on the WV turnpike which is a toll-road.  Typically we pay our 6 bucks each way and forget about it, but this year, we discovered something new…E-Z Pass!  I always figured those lanes that nobody used were for decoration only…or maybe WV got extra booths because they were on sale.  My sister-in-law educated us about the E-Z Pass system which is what those always-empty lanes are really for!

Emily went on down to the West Virginia Parkways Authority and bought our transponder.  Basically we just had to load a $20 credit on our device (which required a $5 refundable deposit).  The device hangs on the windshield behind the mirror and is out of sight.  Now get this, it took Emily mere minutes to fill out the paperwork (at a government agency) and walk out of the building with our very own you-can-use-the-empty-lane-on-the-toll-roads transponder.  Instead of the typical $2 per stop, with the E-Z Pass system, the toll is only $1.30…so on our trip, we saved$4.20 which almost covered my recommended daily allowance of Mountain Dew for the trip down.

Do you ever feel that special happy feeling down in your belly when you get to do something cool that puts you in front of other cars, saves you some money and speeds you on to the beach faster than normal?  Yeah, me too.  We took pictures of cars around us and the empty lanes each time we came upon a toll booth…I was like a kid in a toll booth shop!

8 Comments

warren, June 29th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Adventure, Awesome, Technology, WV

The buzz around Charleston

Charleston is such a nice city.  For the most part, it is pretty laid back and a decent place to live.  But just yesterday, there was a something going on down by Women’s and Children’s Hospital at the Martin Marietta gravel yard.  Folks who were in the area said they heard a buzz, and then the sky was darkened by flying creatures that (they later found out) were scouting for a new home.  Eventually, the creatures found their mark…a swarm of bees landed on the stop light for the truck scales at the gravel yard…and that my friends, is why bees will never rule the world.

I am thankful that the yard guys (and gal) called WV DNR who called me.  I was able to run over at lunch yesterday and catch this excellent swarm.  They were pretty gentle and appeared to be healthy and vigorous.  After work (and hours after their capture so they had time to calm down), I was able to find a good looking queen so they should be a good colony.

Anyhow, I showed up to get these bees in my work clothes…you know, dress shoes, nice pants, etc.  I think I mentioned that the swarm was in a gravel yard, right?  It had rained the night before so it was a muddy mess (as was I).  Anyhow, the foreman brought me a ladder and stopped traffic on the scales and I was able to scoop the swarm into a cardboard box using a dust pan (yes, I have learned these tricks the hard way).  When on a ladder, it is best to have something light into which the bees can be placed for the trip down the ladder.  Old paper boxes work perfectly!  Anyhow, I scooped the majority of the bees into the box and carried it down the ladder where I dumped them into the hive I had waiting.  I waited about 10 minutes and the ones I missed smelled the queen in the hive and followed after her.  It’s just how swarm catching is supposed to go!

I love catching swarms.  I think my favorite part is the crowd that invariably gathers to “watch the crazy bee man on a ladder”.  The really cool part is when I (didn’t) load the hive into my van to drive them home.  The guys thought (not really, because I didn’t really do it) I was doubly crazy!  Anyhow, the folks at the gravel yard were really helpful and had lots of questions so this was, in all ways, a great swarm to catch!

More swarms…

8 Comments

warren, June 18th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Adventure, Bees, Fun, WV

Bullseye!

The kids first started archery about a year ago.  Since then, Isaac has participated in “Archery in the Schools” and the state tournament.  Abigail’s school doesn’t have that program yet but she loves to shoot when she can.  Back when we started this deal, I thought it would be a good family-together thing to do.  We didn’t really have the equipment or a range to make all that happen (I figure the city frowns on shooting a compound bow in the back yard).

Fast forward a bit…Isaac and Abigail both received bows as presents from their grandparents.  Last weekend Emily and the kids surprised me with an early father’s day present…my own bow!  And it’s camo!  The day they gave it to me, I decided we needed to make the “family shooting thing” happen (I wonder what sort of weird google searches will bring people to this page now!)

On Sunday we headed to Kanawha State Forest with Emily’s parents to be devoured by the mosquitoes try our luck at target shooting.  We started off a bit rough (and that was before we even started shooting), but once we got into the groove, we had a great time!  Isaac was able to do some “shooting while moving” exercises during which he shot a good bullseye from 15-20 yards.  Abigail did great also.  She is finally strong enough to draw the bow such that every single arrow she shot stuck!

Granddad and I had fun…that’s all I’ll say about that.  We didn’t have to comb the hillside which was covered in poison ivy and some sort of ridiculous scratchy plant which would make a nun cuss, too many times searching for arrows.  We did donate one arrow to the archery gods but we gained someone else’s previous sacrifice so it was a wash, arrow-wise!

Anyhow, it was a great time and we have a date to go back out this weekend to shoot some more!  I think we may have hit the nail on the head for a good family hobby!

7 Comments

warren, June 10th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Adventure, Family, Nature, WV

Box wine and culture

Last Sunday we attended Symphony Sunday, a day of showcasing local orchestras, ensembles, etc culminating in a performance by the WV Symphony.  The University of Charleston opens its beautiful lawn to the crowd of several thousand people to enjoy the performances.

Boats always anchor near the lawn to hear the music

but they have to dodge the gigantic coal barges that pass by...

One of the views from our seats...the WV Capitol

It rained in the morning so we didn’t even think of attending many of the events, but by the early evening, all was clear so we packed up our lawn chairs and headed to Kanawha City (the part of the city where the University is located).  We tend to sit towards the back of the group as our kids need room to fully appreciate the event.  Many people with kids hang out there and it usually works out pretty well.

The Symphony chose a “Wizard of Oz” theme for their performances and played many numbers that were in or referenced the movie.  It was pretty cool aside from the fact that there were quiet parts of several songs which were inaudible from the back.  As my father-in-law says in reference to the violins, “they need to do more sawing and less plucking.”  If they added one more row of speakers, I bet we could hear the plucking too!

The WV Symphony...we were waaay back

The Capitol was beautiful at night though I think they need to check on it...it seems to be leaning a bit

Anyhow, most of the performance was cool except for the pockets of white trash who decided to break out their boxes of wine and drink out of plastic dixie cups.  Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with box wine, but many of the folks put on airs of culture and high living.  As you might guess, they were as tacky and ridiculous as can be.  In my mind, I am thinking, “this ain’t high living…you fools are ignoring the music, drinking wine from a box and sitting on the wet grass in heels.  By the way, nice big wet spot on your butt…bring a chair next year.”    Folks came decked out in their Sunday best and did their very best to go on and on about their lives and generally make it hard to hear the music and even harder to ignore their inanity.

Ok, sorry…that all sounds like I didn’t have fun…I definitely did have fun.  We played some and we ate good ice cream and had a great time all together.  The WV Symphony is awesome and a great thing for the state.  The show always finishes with fireworks and that show was the highlight for most people there (based on the cheers).  It was a pretty cool show…a river barge floats into place on the river adjacent to the University’s lawn and we all get to see the show up close…

(Maybe the fireworks were my favorite part too…)

3 Comments

warren, June 9th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Family, Fun, WV

The climb

Abigail, Emily and I walked around South Charleston the other day and she wanted to climb “the Mound”.  The Mound is an ancient native burial ground that sits as sort of a focal point of downtown S. Chas.  I had never climbed it before so it seemed like a pretty cool thing to do.  Abigail and I walked to the top by climbing stone steps that wrap around the Mound.  It’s not a huge walk but it has a great view of the area.  I sort of wonder what the people who built the mound must have seen and thought when they were hauling dirt and rock up the mound.

I suppose it looked a lot different (duh) but uncertainty was no doubt a part of their lives as well…especially after losing whomever was buried under that mound.  I guess it’s a part of life and all but I am not sure I am exactly delighted with the craziness that seems to be going on now with Jamaica and North Korea and and BP oil and Greece and the economy in general.  I’ll tell you one thing, I am certain that the time we spent climbing the Mound was time well spent.  I guess the uncertainty that the original builders must have felt and which caused them to build such a monument gave me a sense of certainty in the love I have for my family and the simple times we share together.

The story behind the Mound

Fun with tilt shift from atop the Mound!

3 Comments

warren, May 26th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Adventure, Thoughts, WV
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