Otter not.....

Okay, okay, I got another look (with camera this time) and it was a muskrat. I'll see an Otter soon if I have to go to the dern zoo! -S

Otter

I saw an otter tonight - not 50 feet behind our house, just out from the grassy point that Shore Acres park makes into Lake Placid. I had walked out onto the dock at the boat ramp and started casting a little Panther Martin spinner when I hooked a nice sized Chain Pickerel. Since I didn't have any tools, I had to work for a while to get the hook out of the fish's toothy mouth. After releasing him back into the water, I looked up to see the otter watching me from about 25 yards away. It swam around in a circle for about 30 seconds, then disappeared. I hope there are more in the area. I asked my neighbor and he said he'd never seen one. I didn't take this picture, but I'll sure try to get one soon. I also want to try and get pictures of the Ospreys that are nesting nearby. There are two pairs, and probably some young ones in the nest. -S

How Not To Fish.....

I caught fish today. White Perch. About half-a-dozen or so, all about 8 inches. I may never again though if I have to use the same method. I kept thinking about something my friend Curt suggested a while back: "I wonder what would happen if you just threw a redworm out on the bottom." So I thought, what the hell, it's worth a try. The first challenge was to find worms. I know from my backyard landscaping that the ground is very rocky and not good for finding earth worms. So I drove to a nearby bait shop and asked for redworms. "You mean bloodworms?" the clerk asked. Seeing that there were no redworms on the bait list, I thought this must be the closest thing around, so I bought a dozen. "That'll be ten dollars and fifty six cents," the clerk said. Considering I'd just paid three dollars a gallon for gas, and a hundred bucks for a pallet of rocks, I cursed the local cost-of-living, swallowed hard, and coughed up the cash. The guy handed me a plastic bag full of grass and sure enough, something that looked like redworms.

Here's where I should say that I really don't like fishing with live bait. To me fishing should be clean and stress free. So, I wasn't looking forward to baiting the worms anyway. Even worse, these worms looked like they had thousands of tiny little legs. Nevertheless, for the sake of science, I picked one up and started to slide it on the hook. That's when it happened. I've never seen anything like it. That worm transformed it's normal looking redworm-like head into the face of a fanged multi-mouthed monster and latched on to my finger. Fortunately, it bit into a guitar callous so I didn't feel it, but that didn't stop me from screaming like a girl as I shook it off into the Bay. I started to throw them all away, but remembering they cost nearly a buck each, I found some gloves and managed to get one of the bleeding little monsters on my hook. Sure enough, that worm had barely settled on the bottom when, wham, a hard bite. I set the hook into the first White Perch I've ever caught. They look very much like what we call "Stripe" in Tennessee and run about the same size, maybe a little smaller. I used up the rest of my worms, but resolved to figure out how to catch them on artificial bait from now on. Otherwise, they can stay in the Bay! -S

Water Garden

It's a rainy Saturday and I'm bummed because we had plans to go to the Arcadia Bluegrass Festival this weekend. It's not a major festival, but it sounded like a good place to jam and meet other area musicians. It poured all night and is still raining today. I shot a few soggy pictures of the backyard water garden we've been working on. It's still a work in progress because I'm losing water, most likely spilling out somewhere from the waterfall. When it's finished I'll add some water plants and do more with the surrounding landscape. We also want to put a vegetable garden in another section of the yard. We have tentative plans for a housewarming party in May. That's sure to provide some additional motivation to get the place looking nice. -S

Over the bounding main.....

As I was stacking rocks in the backyard Tuesday evening, I heard the sound of many boat horns. I looked up over the fence and saw what appeared to be a parade out on the main channel. Grabbing my binoculars, I walked out on the dock to see a big group of power boats surrounding a sailboat with a very large sail. The Baltimore paper told me the rest of the story. It was the homestretch of Leg 5 in the Volvo around-the-world ocean race. The finish line is Baltimore Light, just above Gibson Island, nearly within site of our dock. After finishing, the boats sail on into Baltimore's Inner Harbor where there are associated festivities. Maybe we'll check them out this weekend if it rains out our bluegrass festival plans.

I guess that since we live a few miles from "the sailing capitol of the world," we should expect to see sail boats. Still, I was a little surprised last evening near sunset to look out and see dozens of boats right off our front dock. Turns out it was the first of Annapolis Yacht Club's weekly Wednesday Night Races. Dianne and I sat out on the deck and watched. The boats would mill about for a while, then three or four would dash off up the river, returning a few minutes later sporting brightly colored spinaker sails. Even though we couldn't really tell much about who was winning, it was very nice watching the race. -S

Stop Rockin' the Boat!

One would imagine buying a boat to be somewhat easier than buying a house. I haven't found that to be true. We spent a good part of last Sunday trying out the boat we've already financed but not yet purchased. With checks in our pockets, we hoped to close the deal and pull it home Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, things didn't quite go as planned. Dianne tells all about it on her Prodigal Daughter Returns blog. Maybe next week?

This week, I'm involved in some after-work landscaping in our backyard. As part of the design, I'm using fieldstone to rock around a small pond and associated flower bed. I broke over and bought a half-pallet of rocks from a local greenhouse at better than a hundred bucks, but I needed some larger ones for a waterfall into the pond. I couldv'e bought some for 20 bucks a piece, but I've never actually bought rocks before, so I figured I'd just pick some up somewhere. Once while driving around looking at bicycles, I had spotted a creek with easy road access near an upity Northern Virginia neighborhood. We went there Sunday after the unsucessful boat trial and started picking up a few rocks when a lady came shouting down the road. Paraphrased a bit, the conversation went something like this:

"What are you doing?"
"Getting rocks for landscaping."
"But we want to keep these rocks in the creek."
"Oh, why do you need them?"
"Because if too many people take rocks our house might fall in."
"Oh."

I didn't want to argue or make a fuss, even though I knew we were not on her property, or even close to her house for that matter. We just found another creek. I'll post pictures of the pond and waterfall when it's finished. -S

About the music.....

I'm getting excited about music again. We arrived in Knoxville last Friday evening in time to see Daniel playing in the Preservation Pub songwriter's contest with Brendon James Wright. Now that Scott Miller and R.B. Morris are sort of on a downswing, Brendon has emerged as the best active singer/songwriter in Knoxville. I'm a big fan. There were five or six other artists/acts in the contest - all actively gigging musicians - but Brendon and Daniel were head and shoulders above the rest. It was no surprise to me that they won easily.

I also can't help but brag a little about Daniel. In the Americana genre, he's been the best bassist in the region for some time now. Still, I hadn't heard him in a while and I was pleasantly surprised at how he has progressed over the past couple of months. He'd blush at me stating it, but he'll be in the same league with Edgar Meyer in a few years, and I'm not the first one to say that. Cory and Jacob are both taking big steps in their music careers too. I'm very fortunate to have such talented kids!


Last night, I had a very good jam session with some guys I'm playing with in Baltimore. I like them and the music is coming easier now that we're starting to move away from mechanics toward artistic interpretation. Afterwards we went up on Andy's roof deck and talked about band names and performance scheduling for the Fall. As I kicked back and looked out over the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, and the Baltimore skyline, I couldn't help but miss the downtown Knoxville music scene. I had no sooner sat down at the Preservation Pub bar last weekend when someone I didn't know came up to me and asked about my music. As the night wore on, several others inquired about where I was playing, etc. It was nice to be respected for my art. I wonder if I'll get to that point here? It's certainly a bigger pond. I guess time will tell. -S

A New Generation!

My big news this week is that I'm a grandfather! Ella May Kimbro was born last Monday evening in Knoxville. We went down to see her this weekend. Daniel and Tiffany are obviously very proud. I'm excited. I've had time to mentally prepare myself for being a grandfather. My friend Curtis has been one for a while, and I've quizzed him on occasion about how it feels. What I wasn't prepared for was seeing my son as a father. Watching Daniel with Ella reminded me of seeing my father with my younger brothers when they were babies. I was a teenager when Creig and Michael were born, so I had great training at raising boys before Daniel, Cory, and Jacob came along. But, with three brothers and three sons, I don't know too much about raising girls. How interesting that I'll be learning about it from my son! I have no doubt that Tiffany and Daniel will be amazing parents.

Dianne also very excited about Ella. While many of her DC friends are just now taking breaks from their careers to start families, she's made frequent remarks about the irony of being a grandparent at barely 40. We don't know what Ella will call her yet. I'll be Grandad. Even though we are a long way from Tennessee, we're committed to being fun and available grandparents. We've done well so far seeing the boys. We haven't gone more than three weeks yet without seeing at least one of them. Hopefully Daniel and Tiffany will get to spend some time with us this spring and summer. Shore Acres is certain to be a wonderful summertime place. The spring weather is bringing out the sailboats and jetskis, and bringing in Ospreys and bait fish. I haven't had time to do much fishing, but that will change after this weekend. We've found a boat and closed on the financing. If it passes our sea-trial, we'll be bringing it home this weekend. I talked to my next-door neighbor today. He told me they baited up at night and fished off their dock for big rockfish in the summer. He also said they caught baskets full of white perch in the summer. He has a 26 ft Boston Whaler center console which he promised to take me out on in a few weeks. I may also rent a guide for a day to show me around on the Bay. -S

Cherry Blossom Festival

I've been traveling back and forth to Washington DC off and on for the past three years. During that time, you'd think I would have seen the cherry trees in bloom, but somehow I've missed them - that is until this past weekend. We got up early and loaded our bikes into the back of the truck heading out to Dulles Airport to pick up Jacob. His 7:30AM flight was on time, so we decided to have breakfast on Capitol Hill, then visit Eastern Market. Eastern Market is Dianne's favorite place to spend a weekend morning. She loves the crafts and jewelry tables, and the farmer's market is always stocked with the freshest fruits and vegetables. Many of the Market's permanent vendors know her by name as she buys as frequently as possible from the butcher shops, cheese stands, and seafood stores. It's become more than a shopping trip but also a social event. I've never been with her when she hasn't ran into friends at the market. Saturday was no exception as we had just crossed the street when we bumped into some of our favorite people. After our shopping trip we jumped on the bikes and peddled past the Capitol and down to the National Mall. The festival brings in lots of visitors, so all the monuments were very crowded. I decided that bicycle riding is by far the best way to avoid traffic and get around on the Mall. We narrowly avoided collisions with oblivious tourists as we made our way past the Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Jefferson Memorials, then beneath the blossoms and around the tidal basin. Jacob wanted to visit "The Awakening" so we biked out along the Potomac River to Hains Point. Coming back, we stopped by the bustling Fish Market before peddling back up Capitol Hill to our starting point behind the Supreme Court. I guess our trek was 10 miles or so and we were pretty tired by the time it ended. The cherry trees certainly lived up to their reputation and I think we all had great fun. -S