Wild Ride up the Valentina River with Fred

Fred has an old friend, Hector who runs an Eco Tourist Inn/Lodge about 10 miles up the Valentina River.  To get to it we hired a flat bottom boat and ‘buzzed’ up the river.  What a ride! And guess who was waiting for us - the kids of course!  Fred had pre-arranged for all of us to spend 2 nights in a group lodge - built up on stilts - due to the occasional flooding of the river.  His friend is renovating his boat dock, so the kids will be "hired" out to do odds and ends for him to pay for our stay.  

I am going to help out Hector's wife Betsy in the kitchen, she is canning up the last of the season's vegetables - this will be a new experience for me - since the only canning experience I've had is when Julia and I pickled all those red onions last year.

Heavy rain fell that night but we were all snug and cozy and dry!

The next morning we ventured out for a tour of the area.  The kids found the remains of a stone structure, while Fred and I followed a path that led up to the top of a small hill - what a view!

Later we met up with the kids at the ruins; Fred thought that the ruins were from a mill that had been in the area when he was a kid.  I didn’t want to question his memory but if there had been a mill at this site I thought more remains would be there.  To me the ruins looked much older.  I bet there was an interesting story yet to be told.

Day 1 of Walk About - Slow Start

Fred and I got off to a very slow start, the kids were ready to go so they took off leaving Fred and me to pack the van. 

Then of course we weren’t even out of the town limits and we had a flat tire, Fred just rolled his eyes at me and said ok Honey, let’s fix that flat and get a move on! 

Later that afternoon after we had a picnic lunch that Georgia had packed for us we finally made it to the river and found that we were not the only ones waiting for the ferry! 

A gaggle of geese were on their own walk about with their young ones......

Peagarden - Community Gardeners' Seasonal Tip

Remember 'Earth Hour  2012' Saturday,March 31, 2012

Folks SWITCH off all your lights 

between 8:30 PM - 9:30 PM, local time. 

Composting in the Rain

Yes folks it is that time of year - it can be raining cats and dogs one minute and then turn to bright sunshine!  Take care now to protect your compost pile from all this rain.  Our garden loves the rain, but our compost pile doesn’t!

The compost pile can turn sour and ‘very’ stinky from too much moisture during all these repeated rainstorms.

Extra or too much moisture can drown the air-breathing microbes, the good ones, from doing their job of breaking the material in the pile.

We hope that our post isn’t too late, but if your compost file is already “stinky” - go out right now and turn it to add more air and add more dry brown material, and voila mother nature’s microbes will take it from there! 

Next Breakfast meeting at the Skillet will be Sat. March 31, 2012, 7 AM, bring your plot plans!