Mystery Melon

When I planted cucumbers, only one came up, so when I found a similar looking volunteer sprouting in the compost I transplanted the little guy in there with what I thought was his big brother. However, the volunteer has now begun bearing fruit and they are most certainly not cucumbers. They look like some kind of melon - almost watermelon-ish. Anyone have any ideas?

Daiquiri

The weather is fine outside, so Kristal picked up this small table at Target so we can sit in the yard for the odd meal or afternoon beverage. I think she had intended for us to mainly use it in the back yard, but there is too much shade, and we are not shy people. So we sit out on the front lawn dining on clams and corn. Or in this case enjoying a frozen strawberry daiquiri! Good times!

Camping at Loft Mountain

The situation was so dire I was threatening to make us camp out in the back yard.


Normally by the time June rolls around Kristal and I have already taken at least one foolhardy camping trip. Just because the sun is shining on Friday afternoon doesn't mean that the water is warm or that the weekend won't be drenched in rain. But we both grew up with camping and its a therapeutic exercise of getting away from the stresses of everyday life. Life is far from everyday for us at the moment with our wedding day racing closer, so we just hadn't found the time to haul the tent out of the shed and take a trip. This weekend looked like it would also be consumed with wedding preparations, but at the last moment we got an invitation from Melissa and Joel to camp in Shenandoah, and we both thought it would be a great idea.


We set out on Saturday morning, stopping for lunch in Waynesboro. The town is tiny and we almost thought we wouldn't find a place to eat when we came upon and book and soup shop. Yes, you read that correctly! Someone had turned this gabled house into a bookshop that also served soups, salads and sandwiches. Kristal got the ham and brie ciabatta and I opted for a bean salad and they were both delicious and reasonable. We decided that we would move to Waynesboro, and soon had everything planned except for what we'd do for money...


Sadly leaving our imaginary future hometown we were soon on Skyline Drive winding our way towards the campsite. On our arrival we miraculously met up with Melissa and Joel without the aid of cell phones. We decided to ease ourselves in gently to the hiking and chose to stroll the Frazier Discovery Trail that gives some impressive views of the Shenandoah Valley to the North-West. The hills were a slight shock to the system but when we returned to the campsite we still had a couple hours until dinner, so we hiked a section of the Appalachian Trail as it sweeps around the campground. We found we had acclimatised quickly, which is to say we had learned to take more frequent rest breaks! While taking a quick breather I discovered that a tick was burrowing into my leg. Ticks are notorious for carried Limes Disease, so it is important to pull them out promptly, ensuring the the whole head comes out too. I admit I was a little scared when I first spotted it but the fear was soon replaced by the thrill of getting my first ever tick.


This time when we got back to camp we had definitely generated an appetite and so gorged on snacks while I got a fire going. We had to wait for the blaze to die down to some hot embers so we broke out the travel scrabble. I'm going to shamelessly brag here for a second, because I spent my childhood being the youngest in my family and thus roundly thrashed by ruthless and uber-literate relatives whenever we played scrabble. I had hoped that my years away from home would have leveled the playing field, but alas I was made fun of for taking too long on my turn and ended up making some hasty word choices that let to an all too familiar downfall. You can imagine my excitement then to actually win a game of scrabble, against worthy opponents, without even having to persuade them that any made-up words were British variations.Thankfully the fire was now ready for cooking so there could be no rematch to knock me off my pedestal (although I did have a few disastrous rounds of Hearts after dinner). We got to cooking meat and marshmallows and ate until we felt we had negated the days exercise. The sun began to set so us boys went off to point our SLRs at the sunset.



I had a fitful night's sleep, desperately wishing I could doze off long enough to dream about my pillowtop mattress back home. At around five in the morning I gave up and went for a dawn stroll around the campsite. Venus shone brightly as the sky began to light up and I tried to pick out birdsongs I recognized in the morning chorus. I ran into several rabbits and three deer hanging out at the dumpsters. I returned to the tent and got in a couple hours of good sleep to prepare for the hard day's hiking ahead. After a light breakfast we hiked down to Doyles River Falls. There had been a lot of rain during the week so an impressive amount of water was coming over them. We climbed around for a while finding good angles to take a photograph from, before tackling the grueling slog back up the hill. We estimated an elevation change of about 700-800 feet which translated to an average grade of about 10%. We then regretted having done our estimation. It turned out to go a lot quicker than we expected, as we'd spent a lot of time on the way down admiring the views, inspecting the insect life and carefully threading our way down slippery section which we traversed with far more confidence on the uphill return. We got back to the car in good time and went in search of a cheeseburger. Then it was time to head back to town. After a couple hours in the car, the toll on the legs became apparent as we groaned in agony trying to get out the door. Still, it was well worth it (especially as it was such a cheap deal) and I hope to make it back to the park for some more challenging hikes. Maybe someone will even get me to do an overnighter one of these days!

Ms McKelvey at the table

Ms McKelvey at the table, originally uploaded by evens.john.

My cousin and her lover are in a band who are just starting to break into the gigging scene. Being the good cousin that I am I try to show up and support them from time to time. One of the main advantages is that we discover new bars and pubs in Richmond that we might otherwise never had heard of. First was Northside Grille which has become something of a regular haunt for us. Then it was Side Pocket, a pool hall not two minutes drive from where I work, but hidden behind a Holiday Inn so you'd never know it was there. Pitchers of Bud were $7 and we played three or four games of pool (at a very slow pace because we're out of practice) for about eleven bucks. You can't really beat that for a cheap night out.
The rules of American 8-ball (so called because there are 15 balls on the table) a similar to those of UK pub pool that I grew up on, except you never get two shots. Like pub pool, there are several situations where no-one is exactly sure what the rule is, and in the interests of having fun it's usually better to do whatever makes the game most exciting/last longer.
It was a Saturday night and we easily got a table at around 8.30, so I'm thinking we might be spending a little time at the Side Pocket in the near future...

Soon I will post about something other than gardening

But not this time. Now, I'm not trying to be competitive, I'm just very proud of how my garden, in both the American and English meanings of the word, are doing. My tomatoes are completely unrecognisable from the midgets I photographed for the previous post. Everything in the square gardens is a little stunted because the boxes aren't very deep. I lined the bottoms of them with that black roll to keep the weeds down and it definitely helped prevent the wiregrass from taking over. But now that I'm sure all the grass underneath the soil is long gone, I think the black stuff is holding back my vegetables. Consequently the plant flower when they are very small. I was picking off the flowers from the tomatoes until they got a bit bigger, and now I think they are a sufficient size to do their thing. We have tons of flowers; lets hope that converts into a good crop of fruit. The peas are producing well right now. I'm slightly embarrassed by my diminutive peas, having seen various people's pea plant in Mathews which reached a good two or three feet. Mine decided that eight inches was tall enough and started flowering. Tha'ts fine by me, since we are getting a decent number of peas. I think we'll have a few with dinner tonight.

Remember than small lonely potato plant peeking up through the leaf litter? Several of his friend decided to make an appearance, including some volunteers from the compost which I transplanted. Fortunes are varied for these guys. A few are doing really well, while others are having the living daylights eaten out of them by some agent unknown. I'm just going to see how it goes. To be honest if I get a single potato out of this endeavor I'll be rather happy.


Another plant that is doing well is my single pickling cucumber vine. As instructed by the seed packet, I planted a 'hill' of five or six seeds, expecting to thin the seedlings to the best two plants. But only one seed plucked up the courage to show itself above ground, so he was selected by default. I also scavenged a volunteer maybe-cucumber (its hard to positively identify from two leaves) and but him in the pot too. Clearly the extra depth for root growth is benefiting the resident cucumber, but the newcomer's life still hang precariously in the balance, and if he doesn't put on a growth spurt soon his bigger brother may well seal his fate.
Moving on to the other type of garden my rose bush, as predicted, exploded into a sea of red. However, these rose bushes are found all over the place in our locality, so they must be a hardy variety. I can take too much credit for its success. Other recent additions from the McKelvey's include a honeysuckle that we wrapped around the banister of our front stoop; several varieties of violet than went in the front bed and window box; a lily that I put in next to a stump at the end of the drive, and broke my gardening fork in the process! This further confirms my theory that someone is introducing cheese into the steel supply. I was levering softly against a stubborn root, and two prongs bent them snapped right off. Pathetic - and the second fork to meet it's demise at my hands at Fruehauf Rd. Maybe I'll add that to my wedding registry!

My other garden is a vineyard

In my dreams I am a rich landowner, living in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and I spend my days tending to my vines and making world famous wines. To feed this fantasy, it is occasionally necessary to visit the vineyards of the real rich snobs and sip their wine imagining it to be my own. Our plans this weekend changed at the last moment and presented an ideal opportunity to visit Shenandoah National Park and fit in a couple wine tours.


We left with a picnic lunch packed an no particular plan in mind. We figured on reaching Skyline Drive and seeing what hiking spots presented themselves. There are so many trails it can be a bit overwhelming, but we picked one that looked like it went somewhere, and did a short loop that took us to a rocky outcrop with a breathtaking view. To the West of the ridge the weather was fine and sunny, but as we carried on up Skyline drive we crossed over to the Eastern side of the mountains and became enveloped in low misty cloud. Another glance at the map revealed an obvious path home along Rt 33, which would fortuitously take us past the Barboursville and Horton Wineries.


Barboursville was bustling with students who had recently completed their semester at UVA, so we stayed long enough only to decide that the recent crop of wines there was nothing special. We did take the opportunity to visit the ruins of a house designed by Thomas Jeffeson for the local governor, which had unfortunately burned down one Christmas Day. Moving down the road to Horton, we arrived just ahead of a Coach-load of wine-tourers, but had time to enjoy our tasting in peace before they burst into the main hall. The wines at Horton were much more to our liking, and we enjoyed the Stonecastle White (a blend of Viognier and Chardonnay) so much that we bought a case for the wedding. They also have a selection of fruit wines that are very sweet but like nothing else you'll ever taste. I tried the cranberry variety, and will remember it for next Thanksgiving.

Latest Garden News

Apparently I've had a request from a very dear reader of JB USA for some pictures of Kristal's and my Garden, so here they are. In the fist plot we have the spinach that I painstakingly nurtured through the late snowfall we had here on the East Coast. It was all worth it as we had a bumper crop and it keeps coming. Its really the first thing that we've successfully harvested from out gardening efforts. Last year we got a cucumber or two, some inedible tomatoes and about three peas. Talking of peas, we have about a dozen or twenty pea plants climbing up the netting. One has started flowering, and I might be to do some manual pollination to ensure we get some peas from them. In between we have some lettuce from Joyce, which finally looks like its all well established so we might be able to pick a few leaves soon. In the other spaces I put in a couple mounds of Crook-neck Squash seeds. Four have come up, but I'll need to do some thinning so we might end up with three plants. I also put in some pickling cucumber seeds but only one showed up, and he's in a big pot all to himself so I'm expecting great things!


In the second plot we have our herbs (or at least those that made it through the winter - the others are DEAD. No, really...they are completely DEAD). I think we have Sage, Thyme, some kind of Garlic and the Chocolate Mint Tea. When we were last in Mathews a guy was selling tomato starters in his front yard, so I put those in and they're doing well. Kristal started some Cilantro in some little pots and it was doing really well until today in the heat. We put in in the ground and watered it a bunch so hopefully it will make a comeback! Finally we have our Potato plot to the side of the house. I was worried that I had planted the potatoes too deep, but I just noticed that three have poked their heads above ground, and maybe more will follow. I don't know much about growing potatoes, but that patch of ground in the riches soil we have as it's always covered in clover, so it'll be interesting to see if it produces any spuds worth eating. Other small successes around the yard include the Rose bush and Hydrangea that I pruned. Too early for flowers yet, but I was just excited that they survived the process. We also have a pair of shrubs in the front bed that looked completely dead, but a few twigs put out leaves. I cut away all the dead wood, and they turned out looking really pretty. I think they are Pink Cloud bushes, Kolkwitzia amabilis.

I'm getting married in three months!

In exactly three months tomorrow I will be uttering very serious words of commitment to my fabulous fiancee. For those of you who like numbers and dates, tomorrow will also mark exactly 13 weeks until our wedding. We mark the anniversary of our first date on October 13th, so this month we celebrated two-and-a-half years together.
There is, of course, a website you can visit, although certain areas are password protected for invited guests only: you can't be too careful on the internet these days. However, if you really must cyber-stalk us, then I suggest you visit the blog which will have a blow-by-blow account of the planning process!

Many Cormorants

Many Cormorants, originally uploaded by evens.john.

I had the day off from work today. It feels like forever since the last time there was a holiday. Luckily the weather was nice so I took my mountain bike out for a ride. Normally I would throw the bike in the back of the truck, but I'm tired of doing that so I set off from home under pedal power. It's been a long time since I was last riding regularly because of all this damn running I've been doing, so now I'm paying the price for trying to do 35 miles on & off road. Still, I had fun for the first 25 miles!
I was cycling along the floodwall at one point and saw that every rock in the river was covered in Cormorants. It was an impressive sight so I pulled up to take a picture and notice a couple of Heron's standing close to the nearside bank. Then I saw another, and another, until one was spooked by my presence on the floodwall above them and no fewer than six Great Blue Herons took flight right in front of me, with another two standing their ground. In the small stretch of rapids there much have been at least a dozen of them.

DUI Guy

OK, the DUI Guy's insurance company has paid for everything, so I think I'm safe to post on the internet the details of his magical mystery tour into our front yard. On March 6th I was sitting on my couch watching some crappy TV when I heard a huge crash outside. I jump up and despite being in bare feet dash outside to see and SUV parked in my front yard and resting against my truck. I rush to the driver's door of the striken vehicle not sure if I'm going to have to administer first aid or corporal punishment. The front wing panel is sufficiently mangled that it takes some effort to pry it open, at which point this guy strumbles out mumbling, "I'm sorry, I messed up. I'm sooo drunk".


Well, I'm dumbfounded. I reach into the smokey cab (I think mostly the result of the air bag deploying). I don't remember if his car was still running, but for some reason I felt the need to take his keys out of the ignition! By this point Kristal has joined me outside and I tell her to call the cops. I'm trying to make sure DUI guy is not injured, but he has wondered across the street to talk to my neighbors. I soon realize why. The reason he arrived in our yard at all is because he first collided squarely with my neighbor's Cadillac which was parked in the street. After spinning the Caddy 100 degrees and shunting it 20 feet down the road, he's swerved towards out house, cleared our drainage ditch, cleaved several limbs from our Crepe Myrtle, mercilessly avoided out mailbox and continued up our driving way to his final resting place on the quarter-panel of my Tacoma.


Soon enough a police cruiser arrives. Then another. Followed by an officer in a SUV. This is standard operating procedure for Henrico cops, and I have always thought is was over kill. But actually, it takes three officers to take care of everything. The first guy on the scene gets the honor of making the arrest. The guy in the SUV is clearly the most senior, so he takes the easy job of directing the tow truck guy to tidy up the crash scene, and the poor junior officer runs around taking statements, exchanging insurance details and filing a report. His name was officer Stonestreet, and I'm sure I recognized him from somewhere, and I'd like to publicly say what a great job I thought he did.


Two or three weeks later the insurance company has finally got it's act together and I take my truck into the shop for minor repairs. They even pay for a rental car, which is nice, although I end up with this honkin' great Nissan!

Unimagined

I'm always interested to read or hear about the experiences of other Brits who have traveled to the USA for more than just a vacation. While browsing the BBC News website on Thursday, I spotted a magazine article entitled "Hello America, I'm a British Muslim". It was the story of a man named Imran Ahmad, who had written a book about his life as a Muslim living in the Western world. His family had moved from Pakistan to England when he was very young, and he'd also traveled extensively in America on business. Having recently been made redundant from his corporate day job, he seized upon the idea to follow up the launch of his book in the USA with a speaking tour, starting in Chicago and proceeding over the course of 50 days in a clockwise road trip, giving his talks at local Unitarian Universalist churches.


Out of curiosity, I followed the link to his website to see the locations and dates of his events, and it turned out that he was coming to Glen Allen on Saturday! It so happens that one of the offices he regularly visited on business is located right in Short Pump, so of course Richmond had to be on the list of stops.


The audience numbered about 25. Other than myself, the only visitors were a couple of Imran's previous colleagues, the rest being members of the local congregation. Still, the Unitarians are an accommodating lot. Imran came on and started talking in a rather despondent tone about the current tension between Muslims and the West. It would have been depressing had it not been for the interesting viewpoint that he offered. Growing up during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, he remembers the Muslims and the Christian West being on the same team, on the side of good, against the evil Godless Communists. It then came as a huge shock when in 2001 all that was forgotten and he found that now the Muslims were being characterized as the 'bad guys' by the West.


While interesting, the historical summary of geopolitics was really just a preamble to set a context for why Imran came to write a book. The main part of his talk centered on how he eventually persuaded himself to sit down and write, as well as the circuitous tale of how he finally got the book published an publicized. While his sense of humour was undoubtedly British in its self-deprecation, he certainly knew his audience in a way that few British entertainers would and had the whole room in fits of laughter at times. I may have been the only person who truly understood his quips regarding Ann Widdecombe, but other than that he cleverly explained critic terms so that we could all enjoy the punchline.


Interestingly the moral of his story of trying to get published was carefully but not obviously suited to the Unitarian Universalist mindset. On the speaking tour website he mentions that the events are not of a religious nature, and this was certainly true. I would say there is room to argue that not UU event is of a religious nature! Nonetheless, he spun a tale of an author initially focused on the potential for money and fame who, through a combination of good luck and sheer bravado, eventually becomes a published author but never achieves the fame and riches. However, he discovers that the real joy is in the creative process of writing, and also in the many friends and frankly unique experiences he has been blessed with as a result of writing the book. The on-a-whim tour of America is simply the latest mad adventure!

10K time

This morning was the Monument Avenue 10K, am I'm pleased to say I achieved my primary objectives of getting out of bed this morning and running from start to finish! Considering the preparation I managed this time around, anything else was going to be a bonus. I put in an unofficial time of just under 50 minutes, which is about a minute slower than my last attempt. The conditions were also more challenging this year. The roads were wet with puddles, and it was cool but humid. This time I found it harder to find a space to run in and so it took me longer to get in a rhythm. For the first time this year they required a qualifying time to be in the front starting waves. I think this put a lot of people further back than they wanted to be, so there was a lot more overtaking and it was a bit hectic. Anyway, enough with the excuses!

James River Scramble 1: Recon

There is now less than a week before the Monument Avenue 10K. For my final phase of training I am sticking to non-running cardio exercise, as I think I have the legs to run a decent time, but my pace will probably be determined by how hard I'm breathing! In that vein, I dusted off my mountain bike and went to survey the James River Scramble course.
The first thing I would like to say is that it feels like a lot further than 10K! Just the thought of running some of those sections is enough to scare a man. The second thing that struck me is that the trails are going to get pretty congested at certain points, what with 1250 runners crowding through there. I hope people are good natured because an over eager competitor could easily push someone off a cliff.


The start is harmless enough, although the first half click probably has more terrain than the entire Monument Ave race. It's smooth sailing over the Mayo Bridge, then the first real pain strikes shortly after in the form of the staircase up onto the flood wall. Thankfully running along the top of the floodwall provides another section a flat terrain. As if to make you pay for how easy you've had it so far, the course then heads straight up the side of an old railway embankment, kicknamed the 'Mayan Ruins'.


At this point there is a slight reprieve as you come out on Riverview Drive for a while, then across the railway, down the spiral staircase and onto another flat section of fireroad. I've just realised I misread the map when i was out on the trail. I had thought the course took in a section of Buttermilk trail, which would have been lethal, but actually it loops back on the footpaths next to the river. This way you come out on the rocks to the South-West of Belle Isle and have to rock-hop to get over to the island. Therein lies probably the worst section of the course, on the interior of Belle Isle. "Gnarly" is the only way to describe it! You'd have thought it would be smooth running back to the Start/Finish line, but I have no doubt the undulating footbridge under Robert E Lee will claim some casualties.

Sheeps!

The lambs have hatched at Meadow Farm, so of course we had to go take a look. They must have had a busy lambing season, as there were probably close to two-dozen lambs altogether. Head on over to my Flickr for the entire set (Kristal was behind the camera and took a multitude of shots).

Asland Coffee & Tea

It seems as though the best times in life occur almost by accident. It has been a long week for both of us and we couldn't wait to unwind on Friday night. Kristal suggested we go up to Ashland for dinner and some drinks. It's a cute town with a lot of character, as the railway line passes right down the high street. Living in Glen Allen, we're really very close to Ashland, but it feels much more like the country.


We decided to dine at the Smokey Pig, a BBQ joint on Route 1 that we have often driven past with curiosity. As one would expect, it was a friendly place serving good, honest food. One item on the menu was slightly unusual, which was the apple puppies. Of course I had to order them! They turned out to resemble hush puppies (fried dough balls) but the batter was sweeter and included finely chopped apple. They were served covered in a lemon sauce than strongly reminded me of lemon meringue pie filling. In any case, they were a bit sweet, in my opinion, to be served as a side to the main course, so I saved them to the end of the meal!


After dinner we headed on in to the center of Ashland with the intention of have a drink or two at Ashland Coffee & Tea. As the name suggests, it is a coffee and tea shop, with sofas and books and the comfortable atmosphere that Starbucks wishes it had. The adjoining room, however, is the famous 'listening room', a distictive music venue where we hoped to catch a decent band. As luck would have it we arrived exactly as the show was about to start. The entertainment for the night was provided by a bluegrass outfit called Some Assembly Required. I thought they did a fine job, especially the banjo player who had mad banjo skills, and the mandolin player who had some funny stories up his sleeve. The beers of choice turned out to be from an German organic brewery called Pinkus. I enjoyed a bottle of their Jubilate Lager, and then their Pilsner. All in all a very relaxing evening, without hardly planning at all.

My Nipples Hurt

Is that an over-share? Hey, at least there are no photographs accompanying this post! I could take one right now if you like? Actually, it is only my right nipple that is slightly sore. The Monument Avenue 10k is in two weeks, so there is no respite from the training, even on a rainy Saturday morning. Nipple chafing was inevitable. I completed my 8.2km circuit in light, steady rain, clocking a time of 41 minutes. I had hoped to be on track to break my personal record of 48 minutes but I never quite got going with the training until the end of February. Really the Monument Avenue is my warm up event to participating in the James River Scramble this year. If I am able to complete that event I will happily retire from my brief running career. It's bad for the knees. After that I will only run to compete in a Triathalon, but that would require me to learn how to swim! I mean, I can stop myself from drowning, but covering 1500m is beyond my body's propensity to sink like a stone. Anyway, hopefully my nipple will recover in time to resume training and put in a good time on race day. I hope to blog my Scramble training, so watch this space.

Birdwatching

We've had a bird feeder in the front yard since we moved in. You might think the birds would be at risk from the large population of neighbourhood cats, but so far I haven't any frisky felines try to grab a snack. Barry, I know, is far too slow to ever sneak up on anything more alert than a dead twig. I'd expect the new kitten from next door to have a go, but he has extra toes so maybe they get in the way when hunting!

I have finally given in to my curiosity to know what all the different nondescript little brown bird are that frequent our feeder. Now, anyone from my family will tell you that I hold a fairly dim view of bird classification. I enjoy spotting birds, but if I can't tell you what it's called, that's fine by me. A bird is a bird, and they are marvelous to watch without naming them. But like I say, after a year my curiosity has gradually grown and now I would at least like to have some idea of how many different types of bird we have in the area.

It starts out easy. The bright red ones, with the black face, orange beak and sharp haircut? That's a (Northern) Cardinal and since it's the State bird, it would be a cardinal sin for me not to know it! Straight away we run into the first pitfall of bird watching, because the brown ones? Also Cardinals, but they're the ladies or the kids! Still, the distinctive tuft is enough to single them out, and the bright beak is another strong clue.

Next up the Blue Jay. Another crested variety, it's showy personality makes it easy to spot. These guys are never shy and tend the throw their weight around. The only other bird about the same size as the first two is the (Northern) Mockingbird. The poor Mockingbird is easy to ignore, dressed in a rather dull gray, but the white flashes as it flies makes it a cinch to ID.

Once we get on to the smaller species I have to say I start to struggle. Sure, from the pictures in the book it looks like it should be a piece of cake to tell them apart, but out there on the feeder, flitting back and forth between the trees, never sitting still, never exposing the perfect left profile for comparison to the plate it's another matter. Before long, I start picking out dark caps, breasts, wing bars and so on. Then it is a case of leafing through the bird book attempting to locate a drawing with all the features present. Unfortunately I have no idea how they ordered the plates. I mean, I've narrowed it down to the garden birds section, and then I would've expected them to go in size order, but apparently this is not how it's done.

Despite this frustrating lack of logic, I reckon I have positively identified a House Sparrow, a White Throated Sparrow, a Dark Eyed (Slate Colored) Junco, a House Finch, and some kind of Chickadee (I think probably the Carolina variety). We also have a Red-bellied Woodpecker in the area. These birds are all, of course, exceedingly common, but in a time when garden birds are said to be have a hard time I'm glad we see so many.

---

Update: Still no Grackles but the Brown-headed Cowbirds have arrived en-masse. The Woodpecker turned out to have a friend, so there's two of them. We saw a Bluebird (very exciting) and we also have a pair of Mourning Doves in residence.

Snow Day

2712, originally uploaded by evens.john.

It started snowing late in the afternoon on Sunday. Really big flakes of the stuff that were settling right away. As far as we can tell it snowed all night and was still going this morning. We woke up to find the world blanketed in a soft layer of white cold. The best thing of all: work was closed due to (as they say around here) 'inclement weather'! I was really happy to get the extra lie-in this weekend.
I can never make up my mind whether I like snow or not. I'll have to admit I acted like a bit of a kid at times today, running and jumping in the snow. I mean, this stuff was piled up so thick but so powdery and soft it was like being in a padded cell or something. I also enjoyed some manly activities like shoveling snow of the driveway, even though I only had a 1' x 3' piece of chipboard for the task.
In the end, though, I was boring and spent some time doing some filing, organising my online identity and generally getting around to that menial, low priority stuff which normally falls of the bottom of my to-do list at the weekend.

FiOS

This post is coming to you from a super-fast Fiber Optic internet connection. It won't make things any quicker at your end, I know, but hopefully me having faster upload times will encourage me to post more frequently, more imaginatively and with more photos. Lets start by recalling the process of having FiOS installed.


The 3Mbps down and 1Mbsp up I was getting with DSL was probably sufficient for my needs, but then Verizon screwed up my account and I got stuck with 768Kbps which really sucked. Then my landline inexplicably packed in and I decided it was time to upgrade to the 21st century. I canceled all my previous Verizon services and signed up for FiOS online. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a technician was available two days later to come set up the service. He arrived right in the middle of his allotted window, at 3pm. I showed him around the house and he seemed to think it would be a simple job getting me hooked up.


The thing with FiOS is that they don't tell you about all the hardware you're going to need until you already confirmed your order. The next thing you know, you get an email that explains what you have to do before the technician arrives. This includes running Verizon's virus and spyware scanner on your PC, and also finding a location in your home for the terminal power source. You see, the Optical Network Terminal (ONT) they install has to plug into a regular three-pronged outlet. This turns out to be a tricky proposition since the obvious place to put the ONT is where your existing telephone terminal is, but since telephone don't need a power supply, the telephone terminals usually aren't conveniently located near an outlet. I get the feeling that how smoothly your installation goes depends on how inventive your technician is. I sussed out the situation a little beforehand, and with my suggestion and his ingenuity, we came to an easy solution that looked like it would work well.


Dude set to work installing the power supply and battery backup in our bedroom closet. He did a really nice job of stapling the power cord to the base board and up to the outlet. That accomplished be went out and installed the ONT on the back wall. I was quite impressed that he took the old AT&T terminal off, since the evidence suggested that all previous technicians had left old, obsolete hardware in place. He used an existing Coaxial run to get from the ONT to the router. I realized too late that the router didn't need to be in the bedroom as well, but dude had seen the coax there and I guess jumped at the chance to make the install job as easy as possible for himself.


Once it was all hooked up, we connected my laptop to the router with an Ethernet cable and begun the software side of the installation. Dude plugged a USB dongle in to run the setup program. I respected the fact that the technician unselected most of the dumb stuff that Verizon tries to install on your computer at this point. It went really smoothly, and the router comes WEP enabled so that reduces the hassle of trying to set up wireless security yourself. Once the internet connection was up and running the job was done and dude went on his merry way. I made sure to ask some ambiguous questions about what would happen if certain items were powered down, just so I could play around with them if I wanted. This morning I moved the router to my office, which involved opening the ONT and swapping over the coax. I had to go under the house to find the right cord, and was shocked to discover that dude had screwed my crawlspace hatch shut. Not only that, but he had snipped off the head of the screw, making it virtually impossible for me to open the hatch. I don't know if this is common practice, but it pissed me off. In the process of trying to open the door, I snapped the handle off, but in the end my tenacity and a variety of levers got me in.


I was very please to find that once I hooked everything back up and powered on the router, my connection was instantly restored. All my other experience with cable company-supplied router is that they are totally unreliable. Verizon supplied the Actiontec MI424, which I've never heard of, and is kinda big and ugly, but as long as it works. I can probably find someone to give my old D-link router to.

New Flag

The year is 2009 CE. Virginia is entirely occupied by the Americans. Well, not entirely...one (very) small village of an indomitable Brit still holds out against the revolutionaries.


Just call me Mykingdomforanos.


The flag that Kris bought me for my one year anniversary in the States was beginning to show it's age. Sun, wind and rain had put a serious dent in the color intensity. Plus I invested in these clever anti-furl flag holders that are meant to rotate all the way around the pole. But the dowel became swollen by moisture and the free rotation was lost. The flag would wrap around the pole, snag on the wing nut on the bracket and start to tear. So, it was time for a new one. The old flag has been retired to our tool cupboard, where it now helps hide the hot water tank.