Changes

This week last year it was snowing and 8 lb Kora was out playing in it for the first time. Today, it was 70 degrees, and well, Kora definitely isn't 8 lbs anymore. Things change over the course of a year.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Sorry Christmas. It is the most wonderful time of the year. This weekend, Sarah and I took a short hiking trip near Boone, NC. The spot we found was perfect, and the leaves were getting near their peak. Kora spent a long time running in the meadow pictured below, mostly just doing her spastic Border Collie running but sometimes in hot pursuit of a bug or bird. Pretty sure we'll head back to this spot soon. Bet you can't look at these pictures and not think that it really is the most wonderful time of the year!

Mountain to Sea Trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway

Same

Same

Same

Resting off the trail

We stopped to let Kora run free through the meadow

View from off the Parkway

We're back! I know you're excited!

Yes, it's been a while. No real reason other than blogging got pushed far down the list once a new semester of school started for Sarah and work got busy for me. There's really been nothing big to report from the last few months. But, I'll give it a go here and try to make it interesting, so stick with me.

Sarah's working on putting together a viewing of King Corn with filmmaker Ian Cheney at Duke on Monday. If anyone wants to go, send me or Sarah an email. The film is great and available online for free, so check it out if you like things that are funny AND informative. You know you do.

Sarah's also taking a mycology class this semester, so she's collecting lots of pictures like the one below. I was just looking through her camera to get some pictures for this post, and there were dozens of mushrooms. I do have a serious appreciation for mushrooms now actually, or at least Sarah tells me that I should and I believe her.

A couple weekends ago we went for a hike along the Haw River. It wasn't all that adventurous. Nothing much happened except for my sightseeing and Sarah's mushroom hunting. Really Sarah was just doing a more professional version of sightseeing. It's not that different, really.

Haw River

Haw River

Haw River

Finally, Sarah went off to New Orleans a few weeks ago to present some research she worked on over the summer. She was invited and got a grant to go. Yeah, Sarah does lots of stuff. But, I totally keep up. Totally. In fact, I kind of leave Sarah in my dust most of the time. I'm just too humble to talk about it on our blog. Anyway, the next entry will definitely be about the awesome stuff I do. Definitely.

New Orleans

Shenandoah National Park Camping Trip

Sarah, James, and Kora

Jared, Sarah, James, Sarah, and Kora

Sarah on the AT

Sarah and Kora

Picture Update

Sarah in the Honey Patch

Same

Sunflowers in the Honey Patch

Same

Same

Granny Cantrells on the patio

Same

Watermelon in the Honey Patch

RAFI in National Geographic

The organization I work for, The Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI-USA), was referenced in a National Geographic article about preserving crop diversity. RAFI-USA has a great blog post about it here. The graphic below illustrates the findings of the study. Ultimately, the loss of crop bio-diversity is putting crops at greater risk of disease, which puts farmers at greater risk, puts food security at risk, and increases the use of pesticides in conventional agriculture.

Summer In Full Bloom

Sun Gold on the patio

I should begin by saying that we haven't tried the beer yet. We've actually had some calls from friends who want to know about the final product. Anyway, we've heard from very good authority that our beer experience will be much happier if we wait at least two, maybe three, weeks. So, when we do finally open it up, we'll let you-all know how it goes. All you Durham folks, come over next weekend and have a drink with us!

Summer has been in full bloom over the last week. Sarah and I are finding that our tomatoes on the patio have finally started to produce really well. We're also having a great time growing peppers. Next year, I think I'll be planting more peppers and fewer beans. The beans are good, but there just seems to be a lot more you can do with peppers.

Granny Cantrell on the patio

The honey patch garden is coming along in similar fashion. Although there's a lot more variety at the honey patch. Eventually there will be okra and watermelons there. Actually, the best recent development at the honey patch wasn't the result of anything we planted. We have discovered some wild blackberries growing not too far from the garden. On Sunday, we picked all that we could without getting stuck with thorns. We intended to make blackberry cobbler. I even found a recipe for "blackberry cobbler." However, the final product turned out to be something more like blackberry bun things. Nevertheless, the blackberry bun things were taaaaasty.

Sun gold on the patio

Wild blackberry bun things

Nasturtium at the honey patch

Watermelon at the honey patch

Sweet peppers on the patio

Wannabe Brewers?

Old bottles from Germany

On Sunday, Sarah and I finally tried our hand at beer brewing. Last year, Sarah's dad gave us his old supplies and these bottles he brought back from Germany over 25 years ago. It will be a few days before the beer is finished, but we'll let you know how it turns out. Or, you could just come over and have some with us!

If there are any other brewers out there, we'd love to start collecting tips from you. This being our first time, we have lots to learn about the process. Our focus was actually just on getting the sanitation process right. We want to make sure that we don't have any unwanted guests growing in our beer.

Cleaning out the bottles with a bleach solution

Cleaning our tools

The brewing

The fermenting

Just Photos

We've been taking lots of pictures for the last two weeks. I had individual posts in mind for some of them but due to lack of time and the fact that pictures are likely more fun than anything I could right, this post is just a photo dump from the last two weeks. Enjoy!

Lunch on East Campus

Lunch on East Campus.

Mortgage Lifter

Sun Gold

Afternoon at Eno

This is the Honey Patch. Sarah manages it for Duke Gardens.

Kora has started to think she's a water dog. She likes chasing sticks in the water at Eno.

Not Really Beating the Heat

Both of us and the plants are trying to make it through the heat. As I'm sure you're experiencing, it takes all of your energy and leaves you searching for a place to sit down for a while. I blame our lack of posting on the heat.

The heat also seems to have caused our plants production to happen with lightning speed. The beans and tomatoes are really looking like they've seen better days. I guess this is why we're wannabe farmers and not the real thing at this point.