Stress free in Northern Virginia (5/27/2014)

This week I am in northern Virginia or what they call NOVA.  The trip up north was interesting as always.  The roads were crowded, and of course there was an accident on I-95.  So here I was sitting in a backup thinking about the radio show I heard this morning.  In an interview with Dr. Amit Sood about living without stress he spoke about being in a traffic jam and thinking of people you are thankful of, for being in your life.  I really think that would help a lot; why even bother yourself with people who are potentially toxic to you?  At work you already have to deal with people you cannot choose, so in your private life, concentrate on those people who contribute to your well being; be thankful for them and concentrate on what it is about them that makes you happy.  Quit obsessing about those people that bother you.  Life is too short! 

Well, in the traffic jam I was able to take this (horrible) picture by sticking my phone out of the window and shoot this image of the traffic jam, so symbolic of all the crap and toxicity that can jam up a person's mind.  To me this was particularly important, after a weekend of murders, such as the guy in Santa Barbara, California who had his mind poisoned by his inability to attract women.  As a father of a daughter and a husband I am very disturbed about the increased violence against women, but also of any other hate crime.

 

Snapping Turtle (5/25/2014)

On the way to the marina on Sunday, I all see a big turtle struggling to get across the road.  The county was building a new sewer pumping station in the area, and I am sure that dislocated some animals.  Knowing that this general area is not very environmentally friendly (I’ve seen trucks going back and forth over a black rat snake, which is non-poisonous and a great way to keep rodents down in your yard), I stopped the car, put on my hazard lights and was going to move the turtle.

I immediately identified the turtle as a snapping turtle.  Snapping turtles are famous for biting and painfully so.  From the point of its tail to the tip of the nose this one was 1.5 feet big.  Realizing it was a snapper, I had to do something.  I knew the next car was going to kill it; if not for its prized meat in turtle soup.

This guy was nasty, just touching his shell made him snap at me and knowing its reputation I decided to not go any further.  So I went to the car and got a teak board that I had in the car (I was going to the boat remember) and when I approached him with the board he struck it violently and hit it with a big bang.  He did this one more time and seeing I could not encourage him to get off the road, I rolled him over twice with the board till he was at the side of the road.  The board was slimy when he had hit it.  So here he was sitting looking at me angrily.  I took a photo and went on to the boat.  Coming back two hours later there was no squished turtle on or near the spot, so my relocation project was successful.  A good Sunday.

Virginia Wines (5/23/2014)

As some of the readers of this blog know by now, I am a lover of wine, and have written about it in this blog at times.  Being a lover of wine and having visited numerous wineries in Virginia, I can only say that they have come a long way.

I think the first Virginia wine I tasted was some Governor’s White from the Williamsburg Winery in 2000, and found it mediocre.  I toured the winery in 2012 and noted a great improvement in quality of some of their wines.  I remember taking my daughter on a college tour in 2006 (or was it 2007?), and since I had a designated driver, we stopped at as many as we could cramp in.  My impression at that time was that Virginia was getting better with their white wines, but that reds were poor.  There was one noted exception, which were the reds from Fincastle that I really liked.

Fast forward to the more recent years, and Virginia now makes some dynamite reds.  It is really fun to be able to see this progression.  In the following few blogs I will try to give you a list of the wineries that I have visited over the past years.  I will be dividing it into a three arbitrary regions (lowlands, Piedmont and mountains) and publish it in three postings.  This is different than the Virginia Wine website, but so be it.  I’ll rate them from 1 to 5 (with 5 being the highest/best ... and sorry, but I could not get these numbers to line up); however, note the year of my visit, that should give you a good idea if my rating is still current or not.  For example, I will rate Fincastle very high for my 2006 visit.  I tried to revisit them in 2012, and waited for 10 minutes in their tasting room and there was no one to serve me, even after I called out.  I left the place without tasting and/or buying more wine; it was very disappointing, to say the least.

Well here is my list of the low country wineries that I visited:
 

Winery

Bloxom Winery                    Eastern shore       2010     3 stars       Great location, great lunch (artesian pizzas), wines are fun, enjoyed the Red Kiss (none-dated blend).

Chatham Vineyards              Eastern shore       2010     4 stars       Great romantic location, nice wines, bring lunch or a snack and sit outside with a bottle of wine.

Williamsburg Winery           Tidewater            2012     2 stars       Expensive, commercial, nice whites, average reds.

New Kent Winery                 Richmond            2013    2 stars       Young winery which shows in its wines.

Dog and Oyster Vineyards   Northern Neck     2007    2 stars        May have had a different name (White Fences) when I visited. Enjoyed their Rose. Was in its infancy.

The Hague Winery               Northern Neck     2006    5 stars

                                                                           2010    5 stars       This is a winery I really enjoy visiting because of its quality wine and unpretentious.

Ingleside Vineyards         Northern Neck          2010    5 stars       Very mature winery with great wines. It is a little commercial.

The photo below is one from the archives.  I took it when we visited the The Hague Winery in 2010.  The line up of female behinds was just too much to ignore.

VIMS (5/22/2014)

Had another day of successful training at the Virginia Institute for Marine Science (VIMS).  This one was on shoreline erosion put on by their Center for Coastal Resource Management group (CCRM).  I learned a lot and it was great to see old friends and acquaintances.  We had a boxed lunch as set outside on the steps.  When I came outside you could just see the Alliance sail by.
The Alliance give tours of the York River three times a day (weather permitting) and it is fun to sail that part of the York.  Great to see it, all in all a great day.

Fort Monroe (5/18/2014)

We visited Fort Monroe this weekend for another concert by the Hampton Roads Philharmonic.  We had a nice time and the music was excellent like last time.  After the concert we took a walk through the fort, which is now a National Monument.  This was our first walk through the area and you could feel the history of the place.  The thick walls, the moat, and the old buildings are amazing.  Much different to what is outside the fort, which is nice as well.  Particularly impressive were the old live oaks; I expect some of them might have been there since the civil war. 

One issue I found was that at least one building appears to be boarded up, because of what I expect is the dismal structural shape it is in.  I hope there will be money to rehab this building and actually rehab the facility.  We could see some decay all over the place; and this is such a gorgeous historic place.  It is such a shame that we even have to play politics over a place like this.  It is my understanding that some members of congress got bend out of shape because President Obama declared “too many National Monuments.”  I find this sad, at least when it comes to Ft. Monroe, the place reeks of history and needs to be preserved and maintained.  It would be great if there was a visitor’s center and some more information for the visitors (if there is one, it is difficult to find).

During our walk on Sunday we climbed the walls and I took this picture of the lighthouse just outside the fort.  In the background you can see Fort Wool, another interesting feature of the Hampton Roads.  In all, it was a great late afternoon stroll through an historic place.

An update (5/23/2014) in today's newspaper it was reported that the state has allocated 14 million per year for the next three years for some rehabilitation work at the fort.  Naturally first on the list is the Fort Monroe Authority's own office building.

Rainy day in Yorktown (5/16/2014)

It has been a rainy morning today.  A great day to telework and fade to the background.  Today I am working on the inspector classes for erosion and sediment control, which is very appropriate seeing the amount of rain we had this morning.  As a side project I am doing a little literature research on one of my hobbies: trying to understand why some people are so anti science.  Naturally, things that come up are the anti vaccine people, people who do not believe in (human) evolution and the climate change deniers.  As an educator I find this fascinating, and I am really struggling with how we can convince these types of people. I guess all the science we bring forward is flawed in their eyes and they simply glaze over and shut themselves down.  This feeling was even  amplified after watching some of the debate for the Idaho governor's race.  However, I do think this research is even relevant to me in the job I do now.  As one of the quotes I read says: "the biggest threat to humanity is our stupidity."

Oh well, stepped out into the back yard after the rains stopped.  This picture is of our heron statue in the back yard.  As you can see there is a lot of standing water in the ephemeral ponds behind our home.  It's a source of mosquitoes, wonderful frog and salamander calls, and a great place to recharge and experience the power of nature.  

VIMS (5/13/2014)

I spent two days at the Virginia Institute for Marine Science (VIMS) this week teaching stormwater and erosion and sediment control.  VIMS is a great campus out on a point into the York River.  From it you have a nice view of Yorktown.  It was great to see old friends and make new ones.  On the forefront you see a peer and some shoreline erosion structures, something VIMS is famous for.

Broad-headed skink (5/11/2014)

Last year we replaced to platforms for our rain barrels with concrete blocks.  This weekend we saw that these block pedestals are being used by the wildlife in our back yard.  This is a photo of a broad-headed skink (Plestiodon laticeps) that was sunbathing on the block.  This guy was surprisingly docile and allowed me to come pretty close for this picture.  Skinks are a group of lizards; we have at least two different types in our back yard.

 We really try to be wildlife sensitive in our yard.  I can’t remember the last time we fertilized our lawn; and it shows.  I think we have more weeds and diversity in our lawn than most people have in their entire garden.  You should have seen the buttercups this spring.  We also collect all the sticks in our yard and created a large stick pile.  This winter there were literally dozens of birds flying in and out of the pile; this spring it has a family of rabbits living in it.  It creates great cover from predators such as hawks (and yes we have hawks feeding on birds … guess that is nature).  From our back deck we've seen the occasional raccoon, possum, fox and even a coyote.  We try to grow mostly native plants in the back yard; plants that provide, food and shelter to wildlife.

As I mentioned above, we have rain barrels.  They are great in providing water for my plants that is chlorine and chemical free.  It really beats water our plants with drinking water, which is what a lot of people do when they water their plants and lawns with tap water.  It is such a waste of money in my pocket; but also to society, knowing we are running out of reliable water sources.  We have four barrels, three of which are operational.  The fourth one is on our wood shed and will be operational soon.

Beached whales? Yorktown (5/2/2014)

The first thing a lot of people at the marina said when they saw this was "they look like beached whales; next thing is that they are going to explode."  I actually remember that there was something in the news during that period about exploding whales.  A quick search on line shows a plethora of webpages and videos. 

Actually these are dewatering bags from the dredging operation we had at our marina.  Silt sacks or dewatering bags are commonly used in erosion and sediment control, and I should know that.  I teach erosion and sediment control for a living.  People involved with erosion and sediment control in Virginia need to be certified and during the past 5 years, almost all new certificate holders in Virginia have been to classes taught by me somewhere in this great state.  I used to manage the program, but they moved our program from one department to another, and their training group already had a manager, which resulted in me having to scale back my responsibilities.  This is probably very much like what some people experience in a merger.  It is not necessarily negative, but you have to get used to it.  I could write books about it, but it was interesting to see how people were jockeying, lobbying and politicking to weasel themselves ahead of others; while others just decided to leave and go work somewhere else.

During the past two weeks our marina was dredged by an hydraulic dredge.  These machines look like a giant vacuum cleaner that stir up the sediment and then suck it up.  The mud was pumped to these bags, which are now left to drain and dry out.  Initially water was poring out, and it has already slowed down to a trickle.  At first the water that comes out is fairly clean, but later on it gets dirtier.  This is expected since these bags need to drain and some of the clay particles are so small that they readily pass through the pores in the bags.  After 6 to 9 months these bags will have dried enough to cut open, spread and be seeded.  Naturally right now they do not look that nice, but eventually we'll have a small higher area in the field, which I expect will subside somewhat. 

It was an interesting project to help permit and to watch.  I learned a lot by watching the progression of this project in the past two years.  But at least my slip now has a depth of 5 feet, compared to 3 feet and 10 inches before.  Hopefully I can go out now when the tide is extremely low.

Front Royal (4/28/2014)

This is the last picture from our Shenandoah trip.  As you can see the river was running nicely.  On Saturday there was a competition (an adventure race and it had a biking, running and kayaking leg in nature), and it included a leg of kayaking on the river.  As you can see, the river was swollen from the rain we had that Friday; not that the leg these guys had to do was very dangerous.  It was a long race, and even at 10 pm when looking out of our cabin window you were able to see headlights (the ones you strap to your head) dancing up and down through the woods.  That day we had a shot walk, followed by a great burger at Spelunkers in Front Royal before we went home.  Our dogs had to wait in the car under the cherry blossoms; hoping we would bring them a burger.

 

 

Front Royal (4/27/2014)

I am running a little behind in my postings, which is partially due to work related issues and computer problems.  We bought a new laptop with Windows 8.1.  Having used a smart phone for quite some time now, it is not as alien as some predicted; moreover, it does has a regular window’s screen if you want to use that instead.  My problem was that my Norton 360 started having a conflict with some of the programs and there went my email, my store and my internet explorer access.  Somehow it did not affect my Chrome and my other programs, but it was difficult to figure out what the culprit was.  Now hopefully there will be a solution soon, so I can reinstall my Norton, which I've used for more than 10 years.

Back to our trip to Shenandoah State Park; we stayed there from Friday evening through Monday morning.  On Sunday we did another two great hikes and we visited our very quickly becoming favorite winery.  I am posting three photographs of my favorite spring blooms here.  The bluebell trail made good on its name.  Virginia bluebells were in bloom everywhere.  We also saw a lot of pawpaws in bloom on that trail (no photo from those blooms).  Along another trail the redbuds and dogwoods were in full glory as well.

Now about the winery; we visited Chester Gap Cellars, just outside Front Royal.  This is a nice winery tucked out of the way on a steep slope.  I am sure the slope helps with the quality of the wine.  Some of the other wineries are on flat country, and honestly they probably get too much moisture here in Virginia.  Grapes from flat areas most likely produce a lot of sugars; and wines from those grapes loose character by just producing loads of alcohol and very little tannin and other flavorful compounds.  We liked almost every wine at Chester Gap, and may be because of the ambiance of the place, but I am sure, also the way the grapes are grown.  Last year we bought a 2006 merlot, which was absolutely wonderful.  The 2007 merlot we bought this year is a bit thinner, but still very good.

Shenandoah State Park (4/26/2014)

Here is another picture from the park.  Kind of that post card picture.  It was taken at the lookout point, overlooking the river.  Spring was late this year, thanks to that cold winter we have been experiencing.  But unlike last year when we were there the same weekend, the dogwoods and redbuds were blooming everywhere.  The bluebell trail was amazing, but that will be the subject of the pictures I'll put up for the 27th.  In addition to hiking in the morning, we drove up north to Harpers Ferry.  Of course on the way north we had to stop by a winery, and so we stopped at Breaux Vineyards.
Breaux was somewhat of a let-down.  This is an industrialized winery and it was absolutely insane.  The tasting staff was impersonal and they went either just through the motions or openly complained to you about what was going on around them.  For example, the first thing we were told by the tasting staff was how the owner had made his millions in real estate on the Outer Banks, like we really cared.  We were there for the wine.  Moreover there was no interest in us, like where we were from etc.  It was loud and noisy.  Moreover, the wine was not great, not bad, but very overpriced.  We left there with a bad taste in our mouths (literally and figuratively).
On the other hand, Harpers Ferry was great as ever.  It is nice to walk in such an historic place, where so many things happened.  I decided to add a picture of the family buying ice-cream at the and of our visit to this place.
Driving back to the park we ended the day with dinner at a great little restaurant in Front Royal.  Element is a cute small restaurant with good food and wonderful wine.  I will definitely add my review of this restaurant on yelp one of these days.

Shenandoah State Park (4/25/2014)

We had a wonderful weekend at Shenandoah State Park the last weekend of April.  In my books this comes close to being the best park in the Virginia State Park System.  It is a great place for some hiking, biking, kayaking and even some wine tasting at the nearby wineries (which are really good and in a future post, I may write a review of the ones we have visited in this area).  Friday started out a rainy, but after the rains were over we had a great walk on a nearby trail.