Ah. . . the greens of early summer. . .

QS - Foggy Morning Calm

Based on a photo from Sea Kayaking Stonington blog.

Thanks

Dads garden . . . .

This song, by David Mallet, always reminds me of my dad. 




Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down

Pulling weeds and pickin' stones
Man is made from dreams and bones
Feel the need to grow my own
'Cause the time is close at hand
Grain for grain, sun and rain
Find my way in nature's chain
To my body and my brain
To the music from the land

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down

Plant your rows straight and long
Thicker than with pray'r and song
Mother Earth will make you strong
If you give her love and care
Old crow watchin' hungrily
From his perch in yonder tree
In my garden I'm as free
As that feathered thief up there

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless the seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down

'Til the rain comes tumbling down

He loved his garden. What started as a small tilled plot, of really hard, bad clay soil, turned into raised beds and beautiful rich black soil.
Mom was always right there beside him, even when she thought he was over doing it by trying something new or adding more beds.

 He didn't just grow vegetables. . . .

 . .  but equally loved his flowers and roses.

 We made him a nice shed. . ..

 . . . got the water real close so he didn't have to drag hoses all across the yard.

Well since his passing, my brothers family and mine have tried to help mom keep it going.

 Now I don't mind doing the hard work; the tilling or digging, but I don't really have the mind set for the little details, . . . like the planting.

Luckily, mom and wife do, and hopefully daughter, with wife's guidance, will have it also.

Last night was a perfect spring evening for working in the garden.

 Wife and daughter hard at it.

 Daughter helping to plant some of the plants she started (see two earlier posts) from seed.

Looking good so far.

Early spinach already going into salads.


Don't ya just love it when kids learn to grow something, then can eat it right out of the garden.













And I'll end with a Guy Clark song. . .Homegrown Tomatoes

Ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin' out in the garden


Get you a ripe one don't get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one


Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes


You can go out to eat & that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat `em with egss, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the site put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle


If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes

found. . .

this blog when visiting another I follow.

Vanishing Eastern Kentucky

Finally, some with me in them.

Finally, some pictures of me (some with me on the water) from this past clinic weekend.
And, of course, the only reason I look good is because John Niebling is one of the best unknown photographers out there.

Trying to look important before we start.

 He made me look smoother than it felt.











Check out all of John's photos and stuff at
Hip Snap Creative

John and Diane were with us in England in 2010, so his pictures of the trip are fantastic.





End of the day, relaxing and having a good time.

My first love, . . . well . . . sorta. . .

 

 I have been knocking about log buildings (not just cabins) since about 1974. I think it was the old Daniel Boone TV show that got me hooked. I learned from an old antique dealer in St. Charles, John Frank, and most of it was hands on learning. He would get me started and made sure I know what to do when the next step came along. My first experience with a log building was helping with construction of a cabin he was building to dedicate to Abe Lincoln. This was in 1974, and I mostly helped with the foundation.
I left to work in Maine in 1977, and when I came back I got involved with helping Mr. Frank again.
My days were pretty open because at the time I worked nights. Mr. Frank asked me if I wanted to take down an old house/cabin on some property he bought, and if I wanted I could build a smaller cabin that we could all use for weekends and hunting and such.

This first picture is the small house/cabin (we have already taken the roof off).as it looked when I started.
Once we removed all the wall covering on the inside we found exactly one hundred, eight foot cedar logs that were used for the walls. Almost western fort like. Well heck, we ( a friend where is was working helped in the early stages) didn't have to settle for any old small cabin, we could build ourselves a real log cabin.

Needless to say, every spare hour I had went into working on the cabin, often times spending the night camping to work on it for the whole weekend. Evenings, when we didn't cook we would go into Washington for dinner and drinks.
This second picture is as the walls are about half way up. The logs were all so short that instead of doing a lot of splicing we just added lots of windows. You can see the stone fireplace from the original house that we kept and built around.

Here is how the chimney looked on the original house.

This next picture is with the walls up and ready for the roof.
This little dog came down with me almost every time I worked on the place. At home we couldn't keep him from running off, here he wouldn't leave my side.

With the roof framed.

And here with the roof on, ready to close in the ends, and add windows and doors.

We improved the interior of the fireplace to make it draw better. ( Count Rumford)


Here I am when I was young enough and flexible enough, and small enough to actually fit inside the fireplace to do the work.






Almost finished!
Closing in the ends and a little chimney work.
It was started in April and finished by November.




And no power tools were used.




This picture is probably one of the first snows of the first winter after we had finished it.
 Notice my cross-country skis against the side.
  The walls always had a lot of character, waving and bending, because of all the short logs we used.
  We eventually added a clay chimney top to the fireplace to make it draw better and not smoke.

At the time I was experimenting with old Polaroid cameras, so got lots of good black and white pictures.

 Dog and I getting firewood.

In the early 80's we did a couple of Thanksgivings down here.

Although I haven't been by it for a few years, I know it still stands and the owners are trying to keep it up.

I sure learned a lot and loved every minute I spent down there.

Mountain man me, way back then.

Future Farmer of America? That would be OK.

As shown last week, daughter and mom planted seeds for Grandma's garden.


And here are the results of their planting and daddy not forgetting to water.

 Proud planter.

 This morning was rain that will help already planted stuff.

Keepin' everyone dry and happy.

Almost home. . . QS for today

MWA clinic this past weekend.

 Sat. morning started out cool, but sunny.

The gang, students and instructors, gathered early to get their groups set.

 All kinds of vehicles are used to get us and our boats and gear to the river.

 My trailer set up for hauling lots of boats around for the weekend.

 Much lighter, more modern ones are so nice.
Did I say much lighter?

 Some newer and more shiny with the latest boat lifting systems.Sort of the IPAD of racks.

The level was very low.
We called it about minus 6 inches.
We would have liked about 12 more inches at least on top of what we had.

 Aaron was a real big help this weekend, climbing out on all the rocks I asked him to, to set up safety.

The gang, minus safety boater Richard.

Style by Cory.

Style by Dan.

By Aaron.

By Pam.











A colorful group going by.