Blog Defibrillation

 Alright, so let's see...It has been a while since my last post, and some may have thought this blog to have entered the realm of "things Chris does with zeal but then stops doing forever," but alas, this is not the case. I have been meaning to restart this blog for months, but for some reason or another I haven't. A combination of doing a lot and relaxing a lot.

On the surfboard front, I have not been making boards as much as I have in the past, but I did finish this one, which is technically 012 but officially 011. If memory serves correctly, it is a combination of the templates of 008 and 010. I have surfed it a bunch, and really like it. I was surprised to find that it wasn't as difficult backside as I thought it may be, as sometimes quads are little tricky backside. It's definitely not my best board, either form or function, but it's a fun board that surfs well. It's also the first board I have made for myself out of the block of EPS I bought a long, long time ago.

I have also been riding my bicycle a lot. Above is a picture of my second annual semi-official Blueberry Run. This year I loaded 36 pints of blueberries on the ol' Nishiki and hauled them home. Well, it actually turned into 35. And a little further down the road, 34 pints. I find New Jersey blueberries irresistible. (On a related side note, someone please fund my idea for a sappy romantic comedy set on a NJ blueberry farm called "Jersey Blues." General premise: daughter of blueberry farmer falls in love with worker, all the while farm is failing and they need to find a way to save it. Happy endings for all, except for the huge meth ring bust and the father dying. I would like this movie to have been filmed in the late '90s and star someone like Drew Barrymore, Sandra Bullock, or maybe J. Lo as the daughter. She will have to have all of her fingertips stained blue (from sorting millions of blueberries, of course) for the duration of the film.)

 Cool dudes.

A bunch of friends and I also rode the "1st Annual Longest Day Dogfish Head Brew Pub Bicycle Tour," in which we rode down to Cape May, took the ferry to Delaware, camped and terrorized Rehoboth Beach on our bicycles. It ended up being about 180 mile total over a couple days, and that includes the amazing ~4 mile trail that lead from our campsite to Rehoboth Beach proper, and, at the end of the rainbow, Dogfish Brewpub, which had great food and, obviously, amazing beers. Also: white chocolate cherry bread pudding, which still blows my mind just thinking about it. Great trip, can't wait to do it again. 

 So here's to the revival of the Strange Flora blog, and all that is contained herein!

Not surprisingly, with all the time that has passed since my last post, Henry has stayed cute, so here's the obligatory picture of him.

Sometimes I feel like if this album were the only album I was allowed to listen to for the rest of my life, that would be alright.

The Invincible Eagle! (Fourth of July Made in USA Bonanza and Victory Garden Update)

     As Henry sullenly reflects on all the sacrifices that have been made to make this great nation of ours what it is today, I've decided to take a more lighthearted approach to commemorating this Fourth of July. I realize, on the morning of the Mighty Fourth, that I have not made quite as many "Made in the USA" posts as I intended to, so like any good American, I'm going to clump a bunch of them together to get it over with, so I don't have to do more work.
     Don and I went backpacking a couple weeks ago, and as a result I got to try out some of the made in the USA things I bought before I cut my finger, with the intention of doing a good amount of bike camping and regular camping this spring, but didn't get to until now (at least not in the Great Outdoors). So here:

Therm-A-Rest NeoAir Sleeping Pad (Made in Seattle, WA) - This amazing little sleeping pad weighs just 13 oz., rolls up to the size of a 32 oz. (which are also made in the USA), and is a very comfortable (and warm) 2.5 inches thick when inflated. Sure, the self-inflating pads are a little more convenient when it comes to inflating, but the 1-2 minutes it takes to inflate this one is fine with me. Also, you can roll this up inside your sleeping bag stuff sack, inflate it, and it will make a great camp stool.

Wickers Wool Blend T-Shirt and boxer briefs- Wool shirts are generally expensive, and wool shirts made in the USA doubly so, but these Wickers wool blend shirts, which are 50/50 wool/Viscose rayon, and available through Sierra Trading Post, are extremely affordable. STP has different sales all the time, and I think I got mine for about $16. When we were backpacking, we went from flat ground to fairly steep, long climbs in the 85 degree sunshine, and once those climbs began, we were soaked in sweat after about 2 minutes, and when I say soaked I mean soaked. But the wool/rayon blend wicked the sweat away from me, kept me cool, and after the climbs were over, dried very quickly. The shirt also stayed very comfortable for the duration. They also make boxers out of the same material. Wickers wool things are a great deal for doing outdoors things.

Wiggy's Sleeping Bags - Like most made in the USA things, Wiggy's sleeping bags are more expensive than their Chinese counterparts. But Wiggy's has been around forever, they are rugged and durable no-frills bags. They are filled with Lamilite, which supposedly retains its loft forever and will keep you warm even when soaking wet (there are videos of people outside, in the soaking rain, with temps in the mid-30s, who still claim they are warm). I have the Ultra-Light, which is good down to 20 degrees (probably lower), and weighs 3 1/4 pounds. I could never really justify the price of this, which is generally around $140, for the amount or type of camping I do, but I found it very lightly used on ebay for less than half that. The backpacking trip was the first time I used this outside, and I realized, after lugging it for miles, that it was completely unnecessary for the temperature, but it was comfortable to lie upon.

I think that's it for the backpacking and camping stuff, at least that's all I can think of for now.

 One pint in my stomach, 23 pints in the bags, and 26 miles back home to go. It's blueberry season again, and Sunday morning I decided to ride out to Hammonton to pick up two flats of blueberries, which, of course, are made in the USA, and once you get hooked on Jersey blueberries, it's hard, if not impossible, to go back to imported blueberries in the off-season. The price is $15 dollars a flat, which is a little more than last year, but still pretty good. I devoured a pint immediately. More made in USA tie-ins:

Lone Peak H-100 Handlebar bag - (not my bike above, but it's a better picture than I have. Also, the H-100 is the bag in the middle of the bottom) This bag is a great bag. It's got really heavy duty construction, a convenient quick release bracket, tons of room, and has a really classic design. This bag is really all you'd need for most commutes, but when I combine this with the basket on the back of my bike (Wald, also made in USA), I can carry tons of stuff. The one downside is the price has gone up about $10 since I bought mine, but you can find them pretty reasonably priced on ebay lightly used. I also have a H-75 that I may be selling, if any of the two people reading this want to buy it. It's slightly smaller, but not that much and a great bag in its own right. Lone Peak also makes some other great bike bags, all of similarly tough construction.

Jandd Mountaineering Mini Mountain Panniers - Like the penny-pinching, but still economically-domestic minded self that I am, I got these on ebay for the price you'd pay for Chinese panniers of a similar size. They were (and still are) in great shape. I like these because they are smaller than full-size, but still have plenty of room for a lot of applications, plus are expandable to hold even more but retain a smaller size when you don't need it. Plus, they perfectly hold about 10 pints of blueberries each, and more room for other things in the external pouches.

That's all I want to do for this Made in USA section, because I want to get to the beach, go in the made on Earth ocean, lounge in my Chinese beach chair, and catch some made in Outer Space rays.

Now, for the Victory Garden update (it's really just my normal garden, but isn't every garden a Victory Garden today?)

 The square foot gardening method I have adopted keeps things well organized, and allows you to grow a lot in a little space. The tomatoes are growing non-stop this year, some have outgrown the 7-foot-tall trellis already!

 I love growing squash and zucchinis because not only are they delicious, and usually produce a plentiful bounty, but the leaves often grow to near-mutant sizes!

Some cherry tomatoes, which are just about to start ripening, and once ripe, will probably never make it in the house.

Mr. Waltham Butternut in his infancy.

Although this is a Chinese variety of eggplant, I can rest easily knowing that by growing it in the USA in my Victory Garden I have helped to defeat the Red devils on the other side of the world. JUST KIDDING!

 Fifth delicious zucchini almost ready for picking.

I planted two varieties of carrots, one called Danver's, which are traditionally shaped, and one called Paris Market, which are round. Unfortunately, I think these were the former. They still tasted good though.

Chioggia beets. None of my beets got too big, but the nice thing about beets is that even if they completely fail, the greens are still usually plentiful and very delicious when sauteed or steamed, so you still get something out of it.

That's it! Happy Fourth of July! Hooray for American! Down with the Hun! Long live Freedom and Victory forever! May England forever wallow in the filth of defeat and a faded empire! Hoorah!

If these don't make you love our country, then get out (I don't know why someone chose in the first three to have an awesome space photo, other than to imply that the USA is the King of the Universe, and Sousa is its soundtrack!)

Signs of the Times

     Spring is just around the corner, and even though it has felt like Spring for much of the Winter, there are a few things that come the changing of the seasons other than warm weather and sunshine. One of them is ice cream, and the fact that Jeffreeze is opening this Friday makes me so happy I get brainfreeze just thinking about it.

     And I'll be riding my bike there more, to partially (barely) offset the caloric consumption of a gargantuan Jeffreeze small soft serve. Since this winter has been so warm, and we haven't had many waves (up until the last two weeks anyway), I started road-biking a lot. I didn't really decide to, I just kind of suddenly felt like getting into it, and bikes have always been a part of my life, be it BMX or British 3-speeds, or what-have-you, and road riding was the next logical step. I bought the above Nishiki Sebring as a single speed, rode it like that for a bit, discovered the magic of gears (I still really like single-speed riding, and am in the process of setting up another bike for that), and added more stuff along the way. I have been commuting when I can, and nothing makes a work day better, in absence of a good morning swell, than getting an hour's bike ride in beforehand. Also, figured pretty conservatively, I save about 2.30 on gas each way, probably more now that gas has gone up a bit, and that makes it that much better. Of course, we won't talk about the cost of bike parts to a restless tinkerer...

    And despite the lack of surfboard construction recently, I have been surfing some, and here's proof! Every time someone captures me surfing, I'm just going straight on a crumby wave. Someday I'll see what I look like turning or something. Maybe an air...

     I have also been doing lots of prep for gardening this year, whether it be reading about it, working on the garden, or starting seeds. I found a book at the thrift store in the fall, Square Foot Gardening,which has a different method of gardening much better suited to small spaces, as opposed to traditional row-type gardening. I definitely recommend it, and I can't wait to see the results this growing season.

AHHHH! OK HENRY I'LL STOP WRITING NOW!!!!

Bicycling

    I recently got my bike back in perfect working order, which included new cotter pins for the cottered cranks on my Raleigh 3-Speed and two new quality gum-wall tires, but to talk about my bike is not the purpose of this post. It's to share this video, which I found on the blog QUALITY PEOPLES, which I recommend you follow. This video interested me because of my BMX days, but it really should appeal to anyone who does anything whatsoever. Also, cool song.