 To be fair, it's mostly my favorite skipper who is finding things... because he is looking. I am meanwhile mostly playing with my electronic screen of paper dolls. Or staring moodily into the near distance while thinking about what misery my little paper people are going to endure next. But Jeff? Less moody and more duty. While using a manual post-hole digger last week, himself was contemplatively lifting and thunking the tool when he heard a non-dirt noise. It sounded a bit too musical to be a rock, though we are amply supplied with rocks at the Would-Be Farm. He gingerly applied fingers and Little Jack Hornered a beefy chunk of glass from the clay. When I saw it at first, I thought it might be antique automotive glass, but thank you Google, it turns out to be a honking piece of an orange drink jug from 1927-1937. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1927-35-nesbitts-orange-soda-jug-3880547348 I wonder how long it's been rusticating in this former cow pasture? Nearly 100 years? Did it slide down from the midden pile behind the old farmhouse?  the old farmhouse, slowly bowing to gravity The midden pile. Or, if you like, call it a trash heap, but I like the archeological flavor of "midden." And archeologically/anthropologically speaking, nearly every farm from before the middle of the 20th C usually had its very own spot for trash. Just like the Mesopotamians, chucking used plates and broken furniture over the edge of a rise. Out of sight, out of mind. A few years ago, I uncovered a treasure-trove of unbroken glass bottles that had somehow survived first the pitch out of the old farmhouse back door, second the minefield of granite chunks and previously pitched items, and third the 20, 30, 40 winters between then and now.  But Jeff has found a hand plough, wonderful old oil can/watering cans, stout tin chicken feeders—lovely rusty bits of history that we have festooned about the cabin.  A dabba-do car... My sister even found a grindstone. Which looks an awful lot like one of Fred Flintstone's car's wheels.
Here's a older blog about other archeological finds on the Farm http://www.amysmithlinton.com/blog/would-be-farm-rural-archeology
2 Comments
 Roman Emperor Hadrian ruled from 117-138. One of the things he's remembered for is the wall* that he had the Roman army build across the top of England. *Classic "Build the Wall" strategy: the alleged purpose was to keep the barbarians out (didn't work btw) but in practice, very useful in keeping the Roman army busy and out of Hadrian's hair.  So the wall is around 1800 years old, and stretches 73 miles from the Irish Sea to the North Sea. The Roman fortifications included a steep ditch to the north of the wall, and, every mile, a milecastle where troops were on station, and between each milecastle, two watchtowers. For some of those miles, of course, the structures no longer exist—Imagine having a neat stack of beautifully quarried blocks just SITTING there century after century. Of course the rock was repurposed by the locals.  Why, you might ask, is she telling us this? Because since I was a young reader, I have wanted to visit Hadrian's Wall.  Using a big birthday as an excuse, I packed up my kit and betook myself to Corbridge, a little bitty village in the heart of Northumberland in the north of England.  The bridge over the river Cor. I went solo—a decision for which I was profoundly grateful on Day 2 of my walk, when the unending descents and ascents of slippery rock staircases were certainly NOT on the menu when I'd tried to lure my friends to come along.  John and Allison from York, trail friends, climbing a slippery slope.  There's a lot to unpack for me about the stretch of doing something quite new without companions. It was profoundly rewarding to—like any 2-year-old will say—accomplish this myself.  I hiked around 28 miles across three days.  I lost count of the stiles, the stairways, the sheep, the suspicious cattle. It's a polite walking culture in the UK, and I was not the only solo woman on the trail. I slept soundly in very pleasant accommodations (Thanks Joe "Puma" Froehock for the recommendation of Mac's Adventures!).  Mac's Adventures comes with a neat-o phone ap. Yes, that orange blob is me, side-questing. Conversations were struck up. Vistas were admired. Inspiration for book two was discovered. Complaints and old-man noises were made. I checked my heart-rate kind of a lot. Shelter was taken during the inevitable rain (ask me about my Tyvek rain skirt!).  Sandwiches involving watercress were eaten al fresco with sheep as audience. KT tape became a trusted pal. And it was over all too soon. Knock wood my physical plant and my pocketbook will allow a repeat. Maybe the Cumbria Way walk. Or a bit of the 670-mile-long South West Coast Pathway? Jeepers. Wait, the Pilgrim way to Lindesfarne—ooooh.  This hike was sandwiched between a few days in London and Newcastle. Not enough armchair adventure? Find me @amysmithlinton on Instagram for more about the trip.
 There are too few hours in the day, even as the days grow longer in leaps and bounds. When we arrived at the Would-Be Farm in early April--in time to spare for my sister's birthday and the total eclipse-- the sun was up from 6:30am to 7:34pm. On the day we left, the sun peeped up at 5:40 and lingered until 8:19. At midsummer, according to the 'webs, it'll be 5:30-8:45. At that latitude, twilight and pre-dawn last for ages. Every year is different, of course ("It's a planet, Jim, not a calendar."). This year Spring sprang extra early. The daffodils that I would hope to see the first week of May were blooming their faces off the second week of April.  Early spring meant that only a few plants that I treasured were nibbled into oblivion over the winter. It also, critically, meant an early fishing "bite," as they say.  I was grateful that Jeff and his fishing captain, Dan ("Captain Dan! Captain Dan!") stuck to the inland lakes and the little bitty tin boat, because early thaw or no, that water is co-co-cold.  Each year, I worry about pollinators showing up for the many feral apple trees, and for the handful of sturdy fruit that have survived our custodianship (looking at you, pear trees!). ...and was reassured again by the pastoral hmmmmmmm of a battalion of bees working the trees. It's one of the unexpected sensory pleasures, to stand among fruit trees in early spring, listening to the sound of insects at work, ensuring the annual miracle of fruit growing on trees. The bees are noisy, but there are other, quieter pollinators to observe: butterflies and moths, damselflies and wasps. Hummingbirds, orioles. We run an all-you-can-sip buffet out there.  In the past decade, I've grown accustomed to the sloth pace of the season: first bluebells and rock iris, a few days later, maybe a touch of snow, and then Dutchman's britches and early saxifrage, a few more days for the first hint of wake-robins and daffodils.  Buds will start to swell, and the hint of green will return to the putty-colored fields. Bluebirds and bright goldfinches will look like confetti scattered in the wind. These and less crayon-ish birds will be making a racket earlier and earlier in the morning.  Then maybe spring peepers will start up, along with the excited hooting of barred owls and the good-lord-that's-annoying-after-the-first-three-times sound of the whip-o-will. This spring, everything seemed telescoped into a couple of weeks. By the time we migrated south for our annual pilgrimage to the Florida Keys (fishing! friends! regatta!), new leaves the color of radiator fluid stippled the woods. Like an inverted dance of the seven veils: the naked rock bones and tree trunks covered by swirling layers of buds, blossom, tiny leaves, bigger leaves, a variegated canopy, dressing rather than undressing. Though, naturally, we hope not to begin (or end) with someone's head on a platter.
We are just the caretakers of the Would-Be Farm. Oh, we pay taxes and insure against disaster, but the land is its own, really. As the springtime photos reveal. Even the game cameras have some autonomy. For instance, the crossroads camera chose to take video this winter. Ooh, look, bobcat! A few new players appear on camera this year. Like Pekania pennanti, the second-largest member of the weasel family. Commonly known as a fisher-cat, this somewhat alarming creature goes about three feet long with retractable claws and sharp teeth. We are grateful to know they tend to be shy by nature.  Likely the same fisher on a different camera. The fisher, as I learned fifteen seconds ago, is the rare predator that feasts upon the porcupine. "Nature red in tooth and claw," as Tennyson wrote (I grant you, of the 133 cantos of In Memoriam, this single bit is all I retain). Our largest predator is Ursus americanus. The male Black bear has a range of something like 25-50 square miles, so it's not a surprise to see these big guys popping up on camera from time to time. Wish the camera had chosen to continue rolling film a bit longer. Around the corner, on a still camera, more than one bear showed up in the frame... The stars of the show for me this year are the pair of foxes that are frisking about all over the Farm. I suspect the shortage of coyotes this year (possibly the result of the natural 7-year cycle combined with the neighbors' willingness to speed that cycle along) has encouraged the foxes to be out and about.  I have high hopes for fox kits this spring. Love is in the air for others as well. There's more, but I have wood to cut and chapters to re-write (squee! the new book!).
Until next time... Why yes, I was briefly addicted to Days of Our Lives in the era of broadcast television. My grandmother and my sister used to gossip on the phone about the Hortons and Bradys of fictional soundstage Salem, and frankly, I wanted in. Plus the daytime drama fit perfectly in the timeslot between the noon and 2 pm shuttle runs when I was a cheerful first mate on Captain Alva's shellkeyshuttle.com in Pass-a-Grille.  I barely remember the storylines, engrossing as they seemed to be. One scene lingers, an uncomfortable bit with a stalker and a victim and the screen fading to black over an eerie recitation of Yeats' "When you are old and grey and full of sleep,/And nodding by the fire, take down this book,/ And slowly read..." When I consulted my sister, she remembers several literary moments during that era of the program. I imagine one of the show's writers gleefully setting gems she'd mined from her education into this lowbrow, La-Z-boy throne of American culture. Still, it's the tagline that really sings. I reference it frequently when looking at a calendar. We've already swooped past Midwinter Regatta season. A photo recap for your reading pleasure: Other sailing events have dropped over the horizon: we helped run an ACat regatta, Jeff sailed the Round the Point race, as well as squeezing in an IC37 regatta in Lauderdale and a full-moon race. The sands of time sure do hurry through that hourglass.  Which means, as tumbling grain follows tumbling grain, it's nearly time to check on the Would-Be Farm.
To each season its own joy.  73 hours after pushing off the beach in Fort DeSoto, TwoBeers and Moresailesed arrived safe in Key Largo, completing their 2024 Everglades Challenge. It's been 10 years since that first expedition, when it was the original Frankenscot. These days, with Spawn having been designed FOR this event, I'm less worried about the team arriving alive. But stuff happens, which is why they have 2 hand-held radios, 1 Velocitek electronic compass, 2 smart phones, 1 tablet for navigation, 2 safety harnesses, a packet of paper charts, a personal emergency beacon for each sailor, and 1 personal tracker on the boat.  16 times this year before finishing, they pressed that OK button on their tracker. The Garmin InReach proved itself definitively 4 metric buttloads better than the SPOT personal tracker. SPOT, having but the 1 job, did not track my person. Garmin InReach did, every 10 minutes—without drama, attacks of the vapors, or random skips. Thank you Garmin. I don't think I am going to stop mentioning that for some years.  27 is the number of times the water pump was deployed. This is higher than normal for the trip, and weren't the fellas glad to hear the cheerful little battery-powered pump kick on! Each of the wide wings of Spawn contain a water-tight compartment that ballast the boat. The little pump pushes water into a tank as directed; the tank empties by way of a round port and a vent. It's like having an extra crew hiking on the high side—a big fat crew who doesn't eat, complain, or cut into the supply of beer. It's been handy when the boat is on a long tack, but this year, they found themselves flipping the switch a lot. Even with a quarter-tank of leverage, they maximized power whenever the wind permitted.  13 times in the course of the 300-mile adventure, the wind slicked out. Meaning the Gulf of Mexico or Florida Bay or whatever body of water was like glass, showing absolutely no air movement. Which is not so great for a sailing vessel. Like in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner: "Day after day, day after day/We stuck, nor breath nor motion;/Idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted sea."  2 is the number of oars aboard. Luckily, Spawn was built for glassy conditions as well as sporty ones. My favorite skipper has outfitted the barkey with long sweeps and a sliding rowing seat. They were able to buck the tide at Stump Pass with help of those long oars. It also kept them moving when there was no other power available. Other WaterTribesfolk during this year's challenge converted their sailing vessels into b&b's or Ronco pocket fishing platforms. Unluckily, the team was out of training for rowing.  9 out of 73 is the estimate for the number of hours the Spawnsters rowed or row/sailed during the event. The number of miles is unknown: high math and calculations of tidal flow are beyond us at the mo.  20 is the number of minutes for the rowing watches. That is, first one guy rowed for 20 minutes, then the other guy rowed for 20 minutes. They did this for a perhaps 10 miles off Sanibel, plus many passes, plus just "for a while" off the Everglades. Rowing machines takes on a new meaning. Meanwhile, the kayaking division of the WaterTribe was rubbing hands in anticipation of beating records without having to battle winds and waves. Alas, the tide...  1 is the number of times Spawn took breaking water over the bow this year. While heading toward Everglades City, a Karen on a crab boat decided it was time to teach a sailboat a lesson about using the channel. With headlights on hi-beam, the 35-or-so footer charged at them in the narrow channel, veered across their bow at a prodigious clip, then cut back so that their wake shot green water across Spawn. This while Spawn was hugging the right side of the channel! Like an 18-wheeler swerving into oncoming traffic and then passing on the shoulder. Were our intrepid sailors sporting their drysuits? Were discouraging words bantered about? Did cooler heads later agree that this was yet another reason not to carry rocket-launchers? The crab boat was not sorry, btw.  1 is the number of waterspouts spotted by the team early Monday night. Just as TwoBeers reached for his phone to take a photo (I know, I know, calm down! We are all allowed to evolve and grow, people!), the tornado-shaped whirlysnake slithered back into the cloud bank over Cape Sable, leaving the rowers without even a puff of air to help them along their way...  1,000,000,000 is the number of stars shining over Florida Bay late on Monday night of this year's challenge. A few days of clouds and haze cleared, giving way to an astonishment of spark far from the loom of artificial light. The on-the-water portion of Team Spawn rarely wax poetic, but they reported that the night sky was indeed magnificent.  3 meals of fried chicken were consumed, along with 3 breakfast shakes (2 strawberry-banana and one––so healthy!––Fruit Loop flavored) 3 oranges (but not avocados) and 2 bags of homemade beef jerky 4 or so boxes of Kind and granola bars 2.5 baggies of chocolate bark (pairs well with rowing), and 1 energy-pill jar of mixed jelly beans and Hot Tamales 1 single can of Mountain Dew (on dawn on Tuesday, when the wall was about to be hit) 4 mugs of instant ramen noodles (checkpoints 1 and 3 were the Noodle Kings and Queens) 2.5 jars of trail mix 7 1-liter-bottles of water, frozen and then melted 8 bottles of Gatorade and 1 bottle of sundown beer per day. Leaving, naturally, 2 beers on arrival.  2 is the number of large sharks Moresailesed and TwoBeers spotted in Florida Bay. Large being over 4 feet long. 1 a jumper whose splash may have startled our aquanauts out of a solid, head-nodding, drive-over-the-rumble-strips snooze at the wheel.  35 is the number of people who texted or called in the last 30 hours of the race. Thank you for checking in!  754 is the number of times Bookworm clicked refresh and reload on the most excellent RaceOwl race tracker. And not just for me to watch my guys. There's MadMothist, Sailor King, AndyMan and NateDog, Jarhead, Yarddog, and so many more whose progress I checked. It's the sort of tick that will cling for a few days, when I bolt up from deepest sleep and continue to monitor the progress of the racers.  1 is the place our Spawnsters ended up. Officially, I believe Chief awarded them the title of "Slowest Ever First Boat to Finish." Still, on the dusty white beach at the Pelican Resort in Key Largo, the gang of welcomers included Matt and Jody Koblenzer of Key Largo from the 2.4 Meter Class, Keys Realtor and Flying Scotsman Jim Signor, and a few of the Tribe: the Chief, PaddleDancer, Mrs. Bump and Turn, Skip, Mrs. MadMothist, Possum, plus a nice vacationing couple from Alaska who know the R2AK and are checking out our southern-fried adventuring. I can't actually count the blessings. Thank you for following and cheering the fellas on and for giving me the excuse to tell this particular story.  Until next time, sportsfans...
 The 2024 Everglades Challenge is off. Around 77 boats pushed off Fort DeSoto beach this morning at 7am (or before 8, anyhow—not all boats were chomping at the bit). This is the annual dash from St. Petersburg, FL to Key Largo by human-powered small craft. The 300-mile course traverses the Everglades and has an 8-day time limit. My favorite skipper, AKA TwoBeers, and his crew Jahn "Moresailesed" Tihanksy made a graceful transition from sand to water. After nearly a decade of complaints about the spotty SPOT coverage, we switched to a personal tracker that seems to be tracking more reliably. Garmin InReach. Hurrah! And Team Spawn even got it working the first try! So far (five hours into the event) the WaterTribe site is glitching, so here's another option if you want to track at home... RaceOwl is the site. Click on the photo below to get to the event tracking page.  Fingers crossed for a pleasant event for all the sailors, paddlers, rowers, and those of us on the shore!
 A clarion is a kind of horn. Have I heard it (like outside the dubious reality of a Ye Olde Rounde Table movie or two)? Yes. Yes I have. It has a deceptively bovine undertone, as when the annual beach launch of the Everglades Challenge is started by a blast on a conch shell.  Spawn at the dock in Key Largo. The Everglades Challenge--again? Yes, why not? My favorite skipper and his Spawnster cohort Jahn Tihansky have been hitting that beach off and on for the past ten years. They start at dawn on the first Saturday of March, pointing the bow of the boat across Tampa Bay and hurrying south. Familiarity has bred something that is not contempt, (we rightly fear hubris) but... anxieties have calmed with the years. A 300-mile unsupported adventure race looks daunting until a team completes it successfully more than half a dozen times. And after their BIG year, when they did the 1200-mile Around Florida Challenge--? Well, ten days of rations, sleep deprivation, cold fronts, and soggy clothing DOES put a 2-day adventure into its place.  The Around Florida track from 2022. Someone recently suggested that I should write about TwoBeers and Moresailesed's adventures on Spawn for my next book. Only tell it from my perspective. I don't believe I've ever had a different perspective on the event. In the "READ NOW" instructions for the event, the organizers spell the risks without ambiguity: "You could die." Even more than usual, they mean. When humans take to sea in small ships, it's intrinsically dangerous. The organizers repeat their warning a second time a few paragraphs later, possibly just because my anxiety responds well to a bell tolling.  Stop and enjoy these, do! So from my perspective, this is a more-than-usually worrisome event. Yes of course I could obstruct or attempt to gently dissuade my mate from his passion, but where's the win in that? Knock wood we should have a few adventures, all of us, before the curtain drops.  The thrill of success at the end of the Everglades Challenge. So from my perspective, I can aid and abet, organize the ground transport, and pack a bigger medical kit for them. I'll help them get to the beach, knock wood, watch them launch into the briny deeps, and knock it again, meet them at the finish. For 2024, I am low-key psyched to announce I will NOT be complaining about the SPOT. Instead of that spotty old personal locator, we upgraded to Garmin InReach. Nearly every person we know and many we do not know recommended it. And atmospheric conditions (not to mention nudge-nudge "solar flares") willing, we should be able to track our hero's path... As always, the WaterTribe site has a tracking map. It tends to glitch and lag, and you must select the right event to see what's going on. Here's that link: (Sorry it looks rough, my website host has been balking at letting me make it a nice, bougie-looking link.) https://www.watertribe.com/Events/ChallengeGMapper.aspx  On the beach in 2014...when it all started for TwoBeers and Moresailesed. Here is the Garmin InReach link. It shows only our guys, so it's less useful for checking on the race, but you know, nothing's perfect.
share.garmin.com/N9OY8TwoBeers  Ah, February. The shortest month. Around here, it feels like the real start of the year, as if January was just a trial run. After taking a practice stab at the year, we line things up and set sail. Literal sail, actually. In February, there are no real free weekends. If we are not racing together on the Flying Scot, my favorite skipper is competing with others, and if it's not a regatta, it's prep time for the Everglades Challenge. Because that's the time of year it is.  Mr. Linton went to Lauderdale with the fiercic37class.org/schedule/ic37-winter-series-lauderdale-cup/e IC37 team New Wave (they prevailed! Yay!). https://ic37class.org/schedule/ic37-winter-series-lauderdale-cup/ We made our pilgrimage to Lake Eustis (and the Oyster Troff) to race our mighty Scuppernong at the Flying Scot Midwinters (illness prevailed! Ugh!) theclubspot.com/regatta/NlXOS3p10P/results  The Classic Moth Midwinters, which my favorite skipper and I host, launches Saturday. Hoping for delicious weather for my porch-light pals.  And in between times, whenever the schedule allows, while I've been working on book promo and (oooh!) writing the next one, Mr. Linton fixes up the Spawn of Frankenscot. The Spawn of Frankenscot is a sloop that Jeff built to a design OH Rodgers and he specifically dreamed up for long-distance coastal adventure racing. In 2014, Jeff and his crew Jahn Tihansky first pushed off the beach in St. Pete and hurtled down the coast to Key Largo in the annual Everglades Challenge human-powered race. www.watertribe.com/events/evergladeschallenge/ Our team of doughty Spawnsters has done very well for a decade: they hold various records in the 300-mile long race, and even, in 2022, won the 1200-mile extended version of the race known as the Around Florida Challenge. www.amysmithlinton.com/blog/and-just-like-thatthe-racers-came-home But with the start of the new year (in February, natch) comes refurbishment for Spawn. What needs replacing in a mothballed sailing sloop after a year? Thanks for asking!  This year the biggest piece of new gear: a new storm jib, made by himself with help from Rod "Rappin Rod" Koch using Masthead Enterprises machines. The wires that hold the mast in place (shrouds) got refreshed. All of the velcro that attaches the storage and sleeping quarters (what looks to me like a conestoga wagon tent affair) got replaced. The bearings froze in the sliding rowing seat, the repair of which gobbled up an afternoon seasoned with solvent and elbow grease.  Even with an extra day in February this year, whelp, it's flying.
I'm fond of the Progressive ads in which Dr. Rick attempts to keep young homeowners from turning into their parents. They are subversive and sometimes thrum home like an arrow hitting the bullseye. But really, blue hair!  Porcupine. They eat wood and have zero fear of humans. Bit of background: we traveled to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan last summer, where I hoped to find yooperlite rocks. These are a UP specialty -- rocks that glow under UV light. I bought a flashlight that included a UV (blacklight, baby) setting. We didn't find a yooper, but we did have a neat-o-keen time discovering that spiders' eyes often glow in blacklight. Not to mention the CSI-style investigatory moments.  Young possum ready to hit a rave. This fall, however, I heard that opossums will fluoresce pink. It sounded cool, and since the Would-Be Farm comes very well supplied with possums, it was the work of one evening to track one of the dear creatures down and bother it with light. My experiment says: possums show pink-ISH anyhow. Then, because everything looks like a nail when you're holding a hammer, I went in search of other creatures to flash. Enter the porcupine.  Un-retouched photo of a porcupine under black light. Blue hair. We all see it.
|
About the Blog
A lot of ground gets covered on this blog -- from sailboat racing to book suggestions to plain old piffle. FollowTrying to keep track? Follow me on Facebook or Twitter or if you use an aggregator, click the RSS option below.
Old school? Sign up for the newsletter and I'll shoot you a short e-mail when there's something new.
Archives
August 2024
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
