The Storm Passeth

Well after two nights and a day of horizontal snow and howling winds, we crawl back up the docks and assess the carnage.

Hiking to the grocery store.  We fell five times between the two of us.  Nothing broken.

There's something weirdly incongruous about this.  Note, this is only like 30 hours worth of snow.  Wow.

Some of the drifts were four feet deep.  It made moving around an exercise in physical comedy.

 

Luckily, as is often the case, the day after the great blizzard of '16 passed was beautiful, mild, and sunny.  Tomorrow it will warm, and most of the ice and snow will go away.  Tonight, it will be mercifully quiet, wind-wise, and we'll finally get a decent night's sleep.

All in all, not too bad an experience.  Okay, can winter be done for this year?

M

Prepping for the Storm

So, as we go into two days of blizzard (and, no, I don't mean a Skyrim festival) here's some of the things we've done to prep.

As we're likely to be stuck here on board for at least two days:

Laid in additional drinking water, food, wine, more wine, chocolate, sawdust for our composting toilet, and ten full gallons of Kerosene.

Tied down all the coolers on the dock and added an additional spring line to the dock, just in case.

Put us on shore power so that our batteries can be as charged as they're gonna get.  That way if we lose power, I'll have electricity even if the solar panels are covered and we're heavily overcast.

Showered, cleaned, did laundry, did the dishes.  In general tried to do anything that would be a pain in the butt or dangerous to do in a snowstorm.

Charged up the computers, tablets, phones, and the cat.  I really shouldn't have tried that.  It mostly irritated him.

 

Just fill my dish and leave me the hell alone, okay?  Trying to nap, here. . . .

Did I mention wine?

The snow is starting to fall.  We're looking at two feet of the stuff, along with winds that could hit 50mph.

Such is life aboard.  Wish us luck.

More later, stay warm, stay safe.

M

Of Ice and Low Tides

Yeah, it's winter here on the Middle River.  Thought I'd share this with you.  See the grey beam at the top?  That's the UNDERside of the dock.  And, yes, the river is frozen.

...yeah, it's winter.

Compare the above to the "low tide" picture of just a few days ago:  here.  On top of that, there's a major winter storm headed our way.  So after most of the winter being more like spring, we finally get a bit of cold.

Will keep you posted.  MAJOR new things happening here, which I'll be posting for you in the next few days.

Okay, so I'm a tease,

New stuff over at Life, Art, Water.  Check out Morgainne's stuff.

M

Weather Insanity.

Today is Sunday, January 11.  It is 63 degrees outside right now.  We are not in Florida, we're freaking north of Baltimore.

Even the grass is thinking it's spring already.

Not done yet:  this afternoon it is supposed to rain, then the temperature is supposed to plunge 42 degrees (F) to a low of 21 tonight, accompanied by gale force winds, uncharacteristic high tides literally over the docks, then snow on Tuesday, then it gets warm again.

This weather volatility is as stunning as it is unusual, waaaaay too much energy in the system.

. . . .and I'm afraid this is probably the new normal.

Though Magellan is grooving' on the sunshine and warm weather.

More shortly if we don't blow or float away.

M

Yeah, it's winter....

Spent much of the week since New Years--Happy New Years by the way--tidying up our weatherstripping and getting ready for the cold weather, which--after an astonishingly warm winter thus far--finally arrived last night with high winds and temperatures in the teens.

Yeah, that's ice in the cat's bowl.  He was unamused.

Typical with winter's here, the strong NNW winds overnight blew a lot of the water out of the Middle River and down into the bay. That, coupled with the low tide this AM, means we're sitting on about a foot of water, and well below the dock.  I suspect most of the other boats are nestled firmly in the mud at this point.

Yeah, that's about four feet below normal.

On the plus side, I did find the sunglasses I dropped in the water two months ago.

Okay, so they need a little work.

So for the next few cold days, we'll rely on our trusty kero heater to keep us comfortable, then the weather supposedly warms again for some time.  Stay tuned.

M

Pulling the Puddle Duck: An assessment

Well, it's finally getting late enough in the season that it's probably time, despite the ridiculously warm weather we've been having, to put our little Puddle Duck Racer "Dharma Duck" ashore for the season.

Yeah, it's the end of December and it's 70 degrees.

First, the good news:  The construction we used in the little PDRacer has worked.  All the seams seem sound, and the old school seam protection, saturating canvas with TitebondIII and doing a dutch mend on the seam (as an alternative to fiberglass) shows no signs of wear or deterioration, despite months in the water.  The interior, which has been flooded with rainwater periodically likewise shows only a tiny amount of checking on the plywood, and no leaks at all.  All in all I'm happy.

 

Dharma Duck now ashore, all seams tight, and free of fouling.

Despite a major Zebra Mussel invasion this summer and fall, the bottom paint has worked well, with absolutely zero sign of the beasties stuck to the hull or the leeboard.  All in all, we're really pleased.

A few things we DIDN"T anticipate:  Despite the intact paint and seams, the boat (like all wooden boats) will absorb a fair amount of moisture.  So in pulling the 120 lb. boat we shortly discovered we were lifting something more like 200 lbs. out of the water.  No grief, but we wound up sliding the hull along one of the pier boards (happily wet and slippery with rain) to get her ashore.  Even so, the canvas seams and bottom paint took almost no grief.

except. . . .

Except we failed to notice the 1" high protruding nail that had worked it's way up from the dock boards.

Yeah, that's a gouge.

Ow.  So we got a nasty 2 1/2' gouge in the bottom.  I'll patch it when we repaint for spring, but I felt badly for our little duck.  It's okay, we'll give her a nice new coat of bottom and interior paint in spring for the splash and all will be well.

All in all our little PDRacer project has been a great one:  Its been a lot of fun, was easy and entertaining to build, and makes a great tender for "Floating Empire."

Waiting for Warmer Days

More later.  Hope you all survived the Holidays.

M

Puddleduck update

So today we began to prep our beloved Puddleduck Racer "Dharma Duck" to pull for the season, and I thought I'd do a bit of an update on how the construction has held up.

 

 

 

 

Dharma Duck on her very first sail.

We built the boat on a shoestring, including canvas taping on the seams and construction of just regular exterior ply.

Dharma Duck's seams were just canvas, saturated with TitebondIII

Despite having lived in the water at our stern for months and having periodically been filled with rainwater, I'm very pleased to report that the little PDRacer has weathered just fine, thank you.  The seams are intact and tight, most of the paint has held up well, and the bottom paint has kept her clean even through our rather nasty Zebra Mussel invasion.

The Duck at rest

All in all, I'm quite happy.  So our little Duck will sit on shore under the awning for the winter, and then we will re-splash her with a bit more paint and better sails in the spring.

Have I mentioned I love living on the water?

Hey, new stuff over at Life, Art, Water.  Check it out.

more later

M

Foggy mornings on the water

We're having unseasonably warm weather here on the Middle River, with sunny days in the 60's.  Not complaining, mind you, we cooked out last night for the first time in a month, but as John, the mechanic at the Marina says "we'll pay for this later."  Probably, but the mornings are gorgeous.

This morning.  Just thought I'd share.

More later.

M

Last Harvest of the Season II: Sunchokes!!!

So today we dug up the sun choke (also called Jerusalem Artichoke) rhizomes.  These all came from three tiny pieces of root stock given us by the kind folks at Marshy Point Nature Center.

Sunchoke tubers from the nice folks at Marshy Point Nature Center.
Yeah, there's a wild carrot in there, too.

The Jerusalem Artichoke is a misnomer, having nothing to to whatsoever with Jerusalem (it's native American) and not being in any way an Artichoke.  The name is thought to be a mispronunciation of Giraselle, Italian for sunflower, which is what it is.  The root can be treated like a potato in most ways, can be sliced thin and eaten raw, or baked, mashed, or cooked in stews.  It has a wonderful, sweet taste, and does, indeed, have a bit of an artichoke flavor when cooked.

We had heard they were prolific in building tubers.  They weren't kidding.

Right out of the ground.

This is just a part of the harvest from 3, count em, 3 plants.

So we dug up our multitude of tubers and are keeping them chilled.  Some will go back in the ground in spring to make new crops, others will find their way into soups and stews and shepard's pies and the like.

Cool, hunh?

More later.

M

Foraging for Alcohol IV: Here we go again!

So today at the grocery, we note some happy brown gallon jugs of fresh apple juice from Baugher's orchard in Westminster, MD.  No preservatives and pressed this week.

Couldn't pass it up.

here we go again

So two gallons of the wonderful sweet stuff goes into the carefully cleaned bucket, along with a handful of raisins and a handful of brown sugar, and then the yeast again.

So about the time we're running low on our wonderful crabapple hard cider, there will be some new lovely drink in the offing.

Ready, set. . . . .

As always, stay tuned.

M