Adventures In Gardening II

Things seem to being going well in the garden at the moment. Spent part of this week weeding and moving some squash seedlings around. Man, we are going to have a ton of squash this year, most of it is yellow crookneck, which works out well because it tastes soooo gooooddddd!!!! I love to dredge it in cornmeal and fry it. (Leave it to a Southerner to take something healthy and fry it!)The beds of lettuce and spinach that we replanted are rocking right along, although we did loose one of the okra transplants. And oddly enough, carrots are tuning up all over the garden. All I can figure is that they traveled on our shoes while doing other stuff around the garden before they germinated, at the moment the carrots we thought weren't going to do anything are coming up like weeds. Tomatoes all seem to be doing good, one of the cherries has started to bloom despite being only a foot tall. I wish the others would get with it, I've been dreaming of fresh BLT's for a month already!

The corn is starting to sprout...Yeah!! Although somewhat sporadically, maybe 1/5 has germinated so far. I'm trying to be patient, because each day I see more come up, but patience is not one of my best virtues. The broccoli's and cabbages are getting pretty big and it looked like a few of them might me getting ready to start heading. Don't really know, since I don't really know what I'm doing. Cat and I discussed that this would be a learning year, and boy has it been! We didn't put in near enough organic matter in the beds this year, so I've been letting the grass grow longer between cuttings and raking up the cuttings for the compost piles. I made 3 4'x4' compost bins out of chicken wire this year in hopes of completely filling all 3 by the end of summer. I'm mixing the cuttings with the endless supply of brown leaves I have around the yard, kitchen waste, and hopefully manure soon. I live down the street from a dairy farm, seems (smells) like they got plenty to spare. Occasionally I'll pick up horse apples out of the field from the neighbors horses and throw em in too. Overall it's doing pretty good.

Beautiful Day Bluelining

AdicusBadicus and me decided to get out and hit some water I hadn't fished before. The morning started off cool and cloudy and I got a slight chill walking through the wet underbrush from last nights rain. The water was up and a little off color, good conditions for turning fishing into the art of catching. Hiked as far as I could and started fishing back to the truck. Had a size 16 Elk Hair Caddis (natural) with a Soft Hackle Pheasant Tail hung as a dropper. Caught a fat 8" bow on the first cast, I had to stop and smile about what was going to be a good day. We continued up the rough and tumble little stream as it dropped off ledges and rocks to form large pools, some of which I was catching 3-4 nice fish out of, and missing more.
Bows were the only type caught today, although in profuse numbers. Surprisingly, a majority of the fish were 8" or larger, and two or three of them had fat bellies! A lot of the larger fish were quite acrobatic, coming out of the water multiple times before being brought to hand. I fished until I couldn't anymore and headed back to the truck. I had only been on the water for two and a half hours and I had caught over 30 fish, with at least 20 of them being over 7", and over half of those were over 8". I can't remember ever catching that many nice sized trout out of a stream this small before. Nothing over 9" caught today, although I think the stream has the potential for larger fish. High and dirty water made some of the larger pools difficult to fish, so I definitely want to come back and and fish this little gem again!

Adicus was watching me close today, he knows he can occasionally get a deep hooked fish or two from me. And man, does he love fish! Quit the connesuer, likes all species of trout and smallmouth bass, won't touch a largemouth. I'm sure he'd eat a bluegill or shellcracker if I'd let him have one, but gave me a dirty look after he licked a carp. The downside is that he watches me like a hawk on the water. If I catch a fish, there he is, hopeing, begging, pleading that it will be gill hooked. On more that one occasion, he has grabbed a released fish on his own out of a shallow run. Adicus got a fish today, and he was very happy about the whole affair. He said, " Is like trout! Is taste gud." You'll have to excuse his poor english.... he is German after all.

Baskins Creek Falls

Hiked to Baskins creek falls with the association for training (getting paid to hike!) on the Tennessee side of the Park. Met up with the group around 9 or so and headed towards the trail head. The trail descended into the woods on soft path of humus and damp leaves. My favorite type of weather for hiking was here; rain threatening, clouds hanging in the sky, smells of the woods hanging heavy in the air. Flame azaleas(Rhododendron calendulaceum) and mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) were blooming. A pleasant surprise was hiding a little off the trail, Pink Lady Slippers(cypripedium acaule) were blooming in a small cluster. The second time I've seen them this year, much to Cat's disgust. We continued to progress through a pine oak forest with laurel beginning to bloom all over.
After taking some photos, we continued down the trail while it unfolded in the rich green of late spring. Taking pause at a trail junction, we started down to the falls, through loose rock and gnarled old roots from trees hanging onto the hillside through sheer tenacity. Coming around a corner of rock, the falls unfolded before along a large cliff of thunderhead sandstone, falling onto stone twisting its way back into to under brush.
A large cliff extended to the left with a tight cascade of water falling through a crag in the wall onto emerald colored moss. Absolutely one of the most beautiful waterfalls I think I've seen in the park. As an added bonus, two small groups of Jack in the Pulpits (Arisaema trphyllum) were blooming on a shady ledge near the falls.
I want to take cat back here sometime soon. It was an absolutely beautiful area and the hike wasn't too bad. A little earlier in the spring, there would probably be alot of early flowers blooming and a little higher flow on the falls. The hike out was pretty uneventful, as was the drive through Gatlinburg and the rest of the way home. Going to places like this is a continual reminder of how diverse and wonderful the mountains I live in are. Despite living here and seeing it day to day, the beauty of it all still takes my breath away. Sometimes I like to think I chose to be here, at others, I think the mountains chose me. Ever since my first trips here as a child, I was mystified by the endless folds of ranges that I saw when my family would drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Later trips as a teenager and with Cat, I always felt like I was leaving something important when we would go back to Georgia. Life is not easy here, sacrifices have been made for us to live here, as well as adjustments to live 10 minutes from the gas station and 25 from the grocery stores and restaurants.

For me, the mountains seem to challenge me on a personal level. Forcing me to examine everything from my belief system to my footprint on the earth. The desire to have a more simplified life is sometimes easier to think about than to put into practice. At this point I am just happy to be able be able to work on these aspects of my life, as opposed to sitting in Atlanta just existing.

Fishin Around Pisgah

Fished B.E.F. on Monday with Adicus. We left the house pretty early so we could get on the water first. Didn't really matter, we only saw 2 people camping on the hike in, other than that, we had the forest to ourselves. The hike in was absolutely beautiful, the musky scent of doghobble blooming with the occasional Vasey's Trillium (Trillium vaseyi) poking through the low spring growth . We hiked for about 40 - 50 minutes before getting into the water. I began catching the fish the moment I got into the water!

Turned out to be a very memorable day on the water. I am always amazed at how beautiful this stream is each time I fish it, and how I always seem to catch fish there. Most fish were caught on a soft hackle pheasant tail dropper (16) and a few took a size 16 yellow stimulator.

native brook trout AKA spec
Was a collection of rainbows for the most part, with the occasional spec thrown in for good measure. Decided we should head home around 3:30 and it took about an hour and a half to hike back out. I reckon I fished between 2-3 miles, and caught between 50-60 fish. Not a bad day.

Adventures in Gardening I

In light of recent economic issues and after finally getting used to living in a house (and not an apartment), the wife and I have jumped with both feet into gardening. Sometime around late February, we decided that we wanted a garden. Seems pretty simple huh? After doing some reading, since neither of us ever had much exposure to it, and then arguing about about shape and size, I tilled out a ridiculously large garden for a first time venture. About 700sq. ft. to be exact, but hey, that's how we roll!

After much tilling and raking, and then some more tilling, it was time to start planting. About this time Cat and I changed our plan and switched to some weird hybrid of square foot and rowed gardening. The tilled are is about 12' x 65', so we divided that into about 9 12'x5'-7' planting beds separated by 2' mulched paths.
You can kind of get an idea from the photo. At this point we started putting in rows, which was not the best decision in hind sight.(Our soil has a tendency to crust, which is not great for sowing seeds.) Our first sowing of seeds was only moderately successful. Out of the lettuce and spinach, only the mesclun mix germinated. Sometimes I tend to miss some obvious things, like the fact that we live at about 2400' ft of elevation and spring takes little longer to get here than in the valleys. We had a freeze around the beginning may that killed alot of seedlings. Somethings we thought didn't germinate did once the soil temp finally became favorable. Other things like cucumbers and okra didn't germinate at all. As a result, we flattened the rows and reseeded lettuce and spinach, along with with putting in some transplants to replace the cucumbers and okra. At this point, about 6 weeks after the initial planting, everything is starting to come together. New sowings of lettuce and spinach germinated in record time, and I have crookneck squash coming out everywhere.

The corn was planted last Saturday and a few of them have started germinating. This is a big deal for me. I've been told by multiple people that corn doesn't crow well in our yard. I find that a little weird seeing as how there's a dairy farm less than a 1/2 mile from me growing about 100+ acres of corn. Needless to say, alot of effort is being put into the corn. All together I'm throwing myself into the whole gardening thing. There's something very satisfying in watching vegetables that I'll hopefully to be able to eat some of grow because of our efforts. Plans are already being made to go to a full square foot system with raised beds as we can afford to build them, along with a drip irrigation system.

My internal conflict is about how much it's worth to spend money on raised beds, irrigation systems, row covers, and on and on and on. I mean geeze, I'm growing vegetables here, not trying to split the atom. Is it really worth buying all that crap to grow more veggies in the same amount of space? My wife seems to think so, I lend towards that decision, but I keep getting hung on the spending money to grow stuff. I mean really, how much should that heirloom tomato cost me to grow? This year we've put about $100 into the garden, which I find to be completely reasonable, but we want to start most of our transplants, so there's about $200-$300 on trays, lights, pots, starter mix, etc. I want a drip irrigation system so we can use mulches more effectively to save water and time. I use these as examples because they're the biggies. Sometimes I wonder if we're making it more complicated than it really needs to be, but damn, I want drip irrigation!

Well, that feels better. I'll post more photos as soon as I have some more recent ones. It's raining, finally- we're suffering from what's labeled as an exceptional drought. A 17" deficit last year and almost 5" so far this year. Needless to say, I'm quite happy to see some rain. Looks like we might actually get over an inch.

Who Am I ?

This is an attempt to introduce myself to the world, when I'm not sure that I can give an accurate description of that. Much discussion has been entertained in my house as of late trying to decide just who I am, but I'm sure we'll get into that aplenty later. I'm doing a blog at my wifes request, for some reason she thinks other people will find me interesting. I wonder if that's a compliment?

I'm a thirty something living in a fairly rural area of Haywood Co. in W. North Carolina by choice. I'm originally a native of Georgia (American by birth, Southern by the grace of god!) that lived in Atlanta until I realized I hated sitting in traffic, and really didn't care to be around that many people all the time. Having no real reason to live in in Atlanta (both our families had moved),I took an opportunity to take a transfer to Asheville,NC. Good decision on our part, seeing as how we already were spending all our vacation time up here anyway.

I've been married for 8 years to my soul mate ( A very bad cat). During our 11 or so years together, we've accumulated 4 cats ( 2 of which are insanely large) and one supersweet German Shepard dog, AdicusBadicus (look for him on myspace, he wants to be your friend!).

AdicusBadicus and I do almost everything together, he hikes and fishes with me, he hangs out while I work in the garden, and occasionally goes to dinner with the missus and me.

Did I mention that I fish?
That is my obsession in life at the moment. My wife would probably call it an addiction. I'll fish for anything that has fins. In my current locale, I fish for trout and smallmouth bass regularly, with regular seasonal outings for largemouth and bluegill. I fish ALOT! Living close to the best wild trout fishing in the eastern U.S. and within a 1/4 mile of a great smallie river, I plan to log over a 100 days on the water this year. That's a little lower than planned because of our exciting adventure into gardening, which seems to intrude on fishing time. That's OK, I'm kinda getting into the whole idea of being a "gentleman farmer".

Right now I work in Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which is like a dream come true for me, although I've found that dream jobs don't always have dream salaries! For the most part, I stand around and answer some of the dumbest questions in the world. An example: " How old does a deer have to be to be an elk?"-are you kidding me? This one isn't even close to the worst. Despite that, I enjoy alot of the people I meet and work with. I have always believed that you meet a better quality individual in the woods. Working in the Park is really nice because it allows me to fish after work along with eating lunch in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Well, that's pretty much my life in a reader digest format. This blog will contain topics ranging from fishing (duh), gardening, wildflowers, and a host of other bizarre subject matters. Some relevant, most not.