Spring Fever

Last week I had a case of spring fever and took the dinghy out on a fishing trip at a small nearby lake. This lake is maybe 40 acres and has no boat ramp for launching, making it perfect for my little rowing dinghy. I originally built this to be used with our O'day 277, but it is still in the boat yard being repaired and refitted. When it is ready I sure would like to take a long cruise along the coast living on the hook for a couple of weeks.Michele and I have both been getting to ride our bicycles a lot on the weekends and we have enjoyed that. A lot of times we do separate rides due to our differing speeds but these recent rides together have been nice.

Spring time is here and we have seen our first bluebonnets of the season, and it is raining as I write this. Our garden is growing and we have had 3 salads from it so far, all organic and watered with captured rain water.
If the weather permits we are going camping this weekend and that means mountain bike rides and nice long hikes.

Keeping my fingers crossed
Dennis

The Smokestack

I haven't posted in a while, it seems like work and the like momentarily got in the way of my Life. Over this weekend we went to the farm and had a family work day, we had a great time and met at The Smokestack Restaurant for a late lunch, early dinner.The actual Smokestack is in the Town of Thurber Texas and is just a town of one family, the pictures are of the old stack and then myself (left) and my brother , sister, parents and wife Michele.

After getting in 120 miles on the bicycle in 4 days with one day off to rest, I have not been able to ride much at all. Tonight we are going to ride from about 6 to 7:30 around the local golf course neighborhood.

After getting 5.5 inches of rain Tuesday I spent Wednesday afternoon at the boat letting it air out and drying the inside. It had stayed fairly dry for being closed up for a rainy month. While there I sanded on the hull for a while and am getting close to applying the barrier coat with the West Systems Epoxy.

Looking into solar hot water

Dennis

Somerville State Park

This weekend we went to Somerville State Park located just East of Austin to camp, hike and ride the 13 mile trail through the wildlife management area. The weather was perfect and on my first ride I got a flat tire , I repaired this flat ire and then got another one and had used my only spare tube so I called Michele and she brought the sag wagon to get me.We then went on a nice 4 or 5 mile hike on one of the hiking trails with Sprocket who now thinks he is a deer hound and gets all worked up when he see's a deer and over the entire weekend we saw about 100 deer.

After Michele had done some riding I took the tires off of her bicycle and put them on mine and set off down the 13 mile trail and about 7 miles out I noticed the front tire getting low so I limped back to camp on a flat again, arghhhh!!.

Well, after 3 flats we just relaxed and built a nice campfire to cook baked potato's and Steaks. In this next picture we made my favorite campfire desert of banana's stuffed with dark chocolate and cooked over the coals until the chocolate melts. We had a nice time and just as we left the rain came and followed us home and filled the new rain barrel all the way to the top.

Tuesday on a night time bicycle I got to see the Fire Dept. rescue a man from White Rock Creek, this simple rescue took 20 emergency vehicles, over 40 men and a helicopter. I think I could have gotten the man out with one or two guy's helping but instead this rescue probably cost the city a million dollars.

Crying over all the waste I see

Dennis Starkey