Monday, September 28, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
School, school, school...work, work, work...cluck, cluck, cluck
My month and a half off from this old blog is primarily due to the start of school. So I am going to apologize for all my tardy posts of recent and those to come!
I am teaching 80% this year, only 4 classes, but with larger class sizes due to budget cuts I only have about 10 fewer kids! I guess this is better than having 25 more kids though!
I am enjoying another season of coaching volleyball (we just took 2nd at a tournament today!). The girls are a lot of fun, but I'll definitely be glad for November to roll around and the season to be done. I'll be getting home by 2pm!!
Mike started his 2nd year as a Post-doc at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. For the month of September he has been working down at the Sandia National Lab in Livermore - so we've been commuting together!! At the end of October he'll be making another trip to Korea to give some talks and renew all of his paperwork for his funding.
Other Mikey news...he is running again! He finally got his hip rehabilitated and he is as active as ever, even searching out triathalons to sign up for.
Finally, the chickens! They are getting big and fat - and will be laying eggs soon...hopefully!! Caleb and Andy, we are trying to get a good video of them using their ladder - the only problem is that they only use it at night to go up to their brooding house, so all our videos are coming out too dark. We'll let you know if we get it though!
I am teaching 80% this year, only 4 classes, but with larger class sizes due to budget cuts I only have about 10 fewer kids! I guess this is better than having 25 more kids though!
I am enjoying another season of coaching volleyball (we just took 2nd at a tournament today!). The girls are a lot of fun, but I'll definitely be glad for November to roll around and the season to be done. I'll be getting home by 2pm!!
Mike started his 2nd year as a Post-doc at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. For the month of September he has been working down at the Sandia National Lab in Livermore - so we've been commuting together!! At the end of October he'll be making another trip to Korea to give some talks and renew all of his paperwork for his funding.
Other Mikey news...he is running again! He finally got his hip rehabilitated and he is as active as ever, even searching out triathalons to sign up for.
Finally, the chickens! They are getting big and fat - and will be laying eggs soon...hopefully!! Caleb and Andy, we are trying to get a good video of them using their ladder - the only problem is that they only use it at night to go up to their brooding house, so all our videos are coming out too dark. We'll let you know if we get it though!
Golfing...my first "real" 9-holes
Recently some of our friends thought it would be fun to all go golfing. Needless to say I am barely the mini-golf type, so the thought seemed somewhat not fun. Mike decided that if I had the opportunity to hit the ball really hard, that I would probably like it - so he took me to the driving range... Now I assume that my natural talent in so many other sports Mike has converted me to, perhaps jaded his perception of the reality of me and golf. I am no good. I couldn't hardly hit any of the balls forward, let alone up and with any distance to get that thrill of smacking it really hard! I think more often than not I completely missed the ball!
Anyway, a few days later we were at a 9-hole Executive course, which was supposed to make me feel better because they were all super short (70-120 yds, I think). I used a Pitching Wedge and my putter the whole day - and once I had the glory of par - but it was primarily luck that I hit the ball on my drive!
Sadly no pictures or, better yet, video clips of the whole ordeal. I'm sure you would have loved to see me whiff all my drives!!
Anyway, a few days later we were at a 9-hole Executive course, which was supposed to make me feel better because they were all super short (70-120 yds, I think). I used a Pitching Wedge and my putter the whole day - and once I had the glory of par - but it was primarily luck that I hit the ball on my drive!
Sadly no pictures or, better yet, video clips of the whole ordeal. I'm sure you would have loved to see me whiff all my drives!!
Alcatraz!
In late-August my sister came down for a day of hanging out. So I decided it would be fun to go to Alcatraz! Despite having grown up 3 hours from San Francisco (and my having lived in Berkeley for the last 5.5 years), neither of us had ever been. The day started out kind of chilly, but the sun peaked out for awhile and we had a great time taking a few of the tours on the island. Here is a slide show of our fun day!
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| Alcatraz Island |
Marble Mountains Hike
After attending a wedding in Shasta we met my dad for a week of hiking and fishing in the Marble Mountains, just north of the Trinity Alps and southeast of Mt. Shasta. It was a pretty hot hike, but absolutely gorgeous! The year before a wild fire had scorched parts of the area so some of the trail hadn't been replaced very well - sometimes it felt like we were headed straight up the side of a hill and then head right off the other side again.
Our first night we slept with some free-range cattle at an old cow camp. The cows were pretty noisy - we were glad to pick up and move! On the second night we missed a turn along the ridge line and ended up quickly losing about 1500 feet of elevation. After re-orienting ourselves two other hikers happened upon us, having made the same mistake (like I said, the trails weren't very well re-established after the fire). So we enjoyed each others company while we hiked cross-country to hook back up the trail. That night we stayed at a small lake with our new friends Ed and Tim, and played cards - and they shared some of their tri-tip roast with us (for two guys they brought 6 steaks...lucky us!!).
The following day we set up a base camp and hiked to a fire lookout hut at the top of English Peak, followed by more cards and chocolate pudding with oreos! On our fourth day Ed and Tim were headed home but decided to leave a blow up raft and some fishing tackle with us to try our luck in a lake that treated them so well the day before. Well....turns out the raft was more weight than help with the fishing. I caught one from shore with a fly and Mike got one while out in the boat with a lure. Not a very successful fishing day...but we sure made a feast out of them! I found some wild onions in a nearby field and we threw the fish into some foil with the onions and some bacon and cooked them up in a fire. So delicious!
The next day was slated to be our last, but during lunch we decided to toss the fly around in a stream and we were landing fish left and right! We decided to camp 2 miles from our car and spend the evening and the following morning fishing. That night we had an amazing feast of fish. We heated up some flat rocks in the fire and cooked them right there with some corn meal and oil. Below are some pictures!!
Our first night we slept with some free-range cattle at an old cow camp. The cows were pretty noisy - we were glad to pick up and move! On the second night we missed a turn along the ridge line and ended up quickly losing about 1500 feet of elevation. After re-orienting ourselves two other hikers happened upon us, having made the same mistake (like I said, the trails weren't very well re-established after the fire). So we enjoyed each others company while we hiked cross-country to hook back up the trail. That night we stayed at a small lake with our new friends Ed and Tim, and played cards - and they shared some of their tri-tip roast with us (for two guys they brought 6 steaks...lucky us!!).
The following day we set up a base camp and hiked to a fire lookout hut at the top of English Peak, followed by more cards and chocolate pudding with oreos! On our fourth day Ed and Tim were headed home but decided to leave a blow up raft and some fishing tackle with us to try our luck in a lake that treated them so well the day before. Well....turns out the raft was more weight than help with the fishing. I caught one from shore with a fly and Mike got one while out in the boat with a lure. Not a very successful fishing day...but we sure made a feast out of them! I found some wild onions in a nearby field and we threw the fish into some foil with the onions and some bacon and cooked them up in a fire. So delicious!
The next day was slated to be our last, but during lunch we decided to toss the fly around in a stream and we were landing fish left and right! We decided to camp 2 miles from our car and spend the evening and the following morning fishing. That night we had an amazing feast of fish. We heated up some flat rocks in the fire and cooked them right there with some corn meal and oil. Below are some pictures!!
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| Marble Mountain Backpacking Selected Photos |
Friday, August 7, 2009
What a good lookin' coop!
Well, here it is! Beautifully purple and hot pink - for the ladies, of course! The chickens took a little while to get oriented with the new abode and its amenities, but they've got the hang of it now. After about a week 3 of them learned how to go up to the brooding house on their own; a few days later 2 others figured it out...and the last chicken...well, she needed a little help. I gave her some private lessons on the ladder and now all 6 of them have mastered the ladder.
Fury is enjoying her lower perch. Mama is nibbling on some tasty carrot greens from the Farmers Market.
Look at Mama's fro!! Coco is the beautiful white one with feathery feet and Sis is in the front. Isa is hiding - she doesn't like her picture being taken :)
Monday, July 20, 2009
A coop for our 6 ladies!
Day 1 -
Mike and I were joined by 8 of our friends to help us build the chicken coop - and thank goodness they all wanted to help!!
Brian - master engineer
Marion - master chicken expert
Doug and Michael - master craftsmen
Becky - artistic expert
Ollie, Derek and Derek's friend - apprentice builders
Zhi and Lei - expert poultry wire staplers
Saturday included framing all the walls, stapling the poultry wire, adding the outer siding for the brooding box with egg gathering hatch and making the door. This took a total of about 12 hours!
Day 2 -
Brian was so excited about the 12 hours on Saturday that he voluntarily came back on Sunday!! Awesome! I don't think Mike and I could have finished on our own. Sunday included making and attaching the gables, framing the brooding box and placing the floor and the roof of the brooding box (the roof is the piece with CHKN cut into it for venting), making the nesting box and perches, putting on the roof of the coop, adding the trim on the brooding box, moving the coop to its final resting place and finally, bringing in the chickens...total of 10 hours (22 hours total)!
Here's a short video of how we moved it...kinda funny...I had the easy job, so I decided to try to look my best!! : )
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