Monday, August 29, 2016

Tropical Storm Earl Visits

 
I spent the first two weeks of August at my house in the Knockpatrick part of Mandeville, Jamaica to do some clearing of my property and spend some time with my wife, Denise, who has been living there since we bought the house last September. While there we had an uninvited visitor show up, Tropical Storm Earl. While Earl didn’t stay long, only about six or eight hours, he did dump a lot of water on us and blew over some of my banana plant…what a jerk. The problem with bananas is that they have really small root balls for such a large, heavy plant and they only root in about 6-12 inches deep. That’s fine when its dry out but when it rains hard and the ground softens up they become very susceptible to falling over due to being top heavy. Its like kicking the Cool-Aid man in the leg...he's going to fall over and break. The good thing is you can usually prop them back up and they’ll continue growing. Earl knocked three of mine over but I was able to save them all so Denise will still be able to enjoy them soon when they ripen.  


 (Normal view across the road)
(Tropical Storm Earl's rain making the hill across the road disappear)
(Damage to the bananas)
(Propping up the bananas)

Besides the fact that Denise was born in Jamaica, the main reason we chose Jamaica as our retirement destination is due to the year-round growing season for fruits and vegetables. I love the fact we can grow our own food all year and not have to rely on a grocery store. Here are some pictures of our food growing on our property. 
 (Young lime tree)
 (Tangerine)
 (Coconut)
 (Plum)
(Pimento)
(Okra) 
 (Peppermint bush for tea)
 (Blackberry)
 (Bird peppers, tiny but very hot!)
(Cherry)
 (Mandarin)
 (Sugar cane)
 (Grapefruit)
(Scallion, Dashine, Coco, orange...)
I also like the fact that our home is off the water grid. We use a full-roof rain collection system which feeds into a huge holding tank in our back yard. It then runs through a filter in our garage on its way into the ready tank inside our roof. Even though the island has suffered its worst drought in years, it rains almost every day up on our mountain so our water system is always full. The best part about it is i's free!
(Our holding tank is about 5 feet underground as well)
 
We also plan to get off the electric grid in the future by installing a hybrid wind/solar combination system called Solarmill from Windstream Technologies. Since we have an almost constant breeze on the mountain, we should be able to generate power both day and night with this type of system. More information can be found on their company page: https://www.windstream-inc.com/ 




Friday, August 12, 2016

July: The Month of the Hashrun (aka 9 hashes in one month)

July was an amazingly fun month for me. Even though I had to work I was able to fit in 9 hashruns before heading to my house in Jamaica on the 29th. I started the month off full speed ahead hitting 3 hashes over the Independence weekend, missing only Sunday the 3rd. The weekend started out Friday the 1st with a very humid nighttime hash in Mays Landing, NJ hosted by the Bimbos of Jersey Hash House Harriers (BJH3). It was hared by What What and included about 7 miles of road, bike paths and trail. There were 2 beer stops, one in the woods and the second at the Tuckahoe Brewing Company. We finished off the evening with dinner and a very competitive game of Heads Up.
(Tuckahoe Brewing Company)
The next morning What What made us a great breakfast and then the 9 of us packed up for an approximately 25+ mile Bike/Kayak/Bike Hash, known as the KYBash once again hared by What What. She laid a relatively easy trail with only a few false trails. The intent wasn’t to confuse the pack too much but rather to lead us to our true destination, Winding River Campground. There we rented kayaks and were shuttled about 6 miles upstream to a launch point. From there we leisurely paddled down the Winding River, drinking beer, singing songs, telling ridiculous stories of past hashes and playing kayak-soccer with a beach ball we had brought along. Our first stop was a rope swing some locals had installed at a deep hole. I won’t put anyone on blast; but, I will say some were better than others. Alright, I’ll admit I should have stopped after my first near-perfect swing because it went downhill fast from there. Our next stop was to have a picnic lunch at the ruins of historic Weymouth Furnace. We had all packed food and beverage in our kayaks so we had a large assortment of choices. Nobody tried my peanut butter and onion sandwiches so I had them all to myself. They just don’t know what they were missing. After lunch we finished our paddling and returned to our bikes for another 9 miles back to What What’s house. Once again she supplied us with a much appreciated feast. There are rumors of an alleged kayak hit-and-run but they have not been confirmed as of yet. Well that’s two days down, two hashes done, and on Sunday He rested.
(Getting ready for the KYBash)
 
(Kayak soccer on the Winding River)
 (Swingers!)
 (Lunch at Weymouth Furnace)
(Weymouth Furnace ruins)
Next up was Monday the 4th when I made my first of 5 trips to north Jersey to hash with the Summit H3 and NOSE H3. NOSE stands for the area North Of Seventy Eight, as in Interstate 78. These northern excursions took me places like Millburn, Florham Park, Raritan and Boonton, NJ the night before flying to Jamaica. I really enjoyed these as the hashers were great people and the trails included some hilly trails which the area around my home lacks. Brag-a-deer General, Just Asia and I also travelled to the Jersey shore to hash with NOSE H3 on Long Beach Island. That course was mainly on road, which I hate; but, since the beer stop and last mile were both on the beach it ended much more enjoyable for me than it had started. In case I didn’t say it already, “I really hate running on pavement”. I also hared our McGuire Dix Lakehurst H3 (MDL H3) hash #4 once again in Country Lakes, NJ. This was a going away party hash for one of our 4 founders, BCD (I can’t write her hash name here and still keep this G-rated). Due to temperatures cresting 100 degree, I shortened the trail to about 5 miles and added a number of additional water crossings to my original plan. The only injury on course was when I got stung by a hornet on the forehead as I live-hared the second section. Luckily we were able to use BCD’s back yard for the final time because we were forced into her garage for the on-after party when a late afternoon severe thunderstorm rolled into Browns Mills pounding us with heavy wind, rain and hail for about a half hour. There were other great runs and lots of yoga but this July will forever be remembered by me as my Month of the Hash!
(Traildog Sparta helping me scout hash trails for MDL H3 hash #4)
(A quick refreshment break while setting trail for MDL H3 Hash #4)
 (Water crossing? No, water trail!)
 (The now famous Camp Run-a-Mok)
 (NOSE H3 hash #120, Long Beach Island, NJ)
(NOSE H3 hash #121, Florham Park, NJ)
 (NOSE H3 hash#122, Boonton, NJ)
 (Summit H3 hash #1738, Florham Park, NJ...crossing the Passaic River)
 (Summit H3 hash #1738, Florham Park, NJ...crossing the Passaic River again)
 (Overachiever-first on site for the Summit H3 hash #1742, Raritan, NJ)
 
 



Friday, August 5, 2016

June: Ewok Zipline, soccer and blueberries


June was a fun month. I ran a couple more hash runs, went to a Blueberry festival and attended a couple professional soccer games. Traildog Sparta and I spent quite a few evenings in my old training area, the Country Lakes section of Browns Mills, NJ. We were scouting the trails for a hash run I was haring. I used to live there and loved it because there are miles and miles of great trails. I continue to find interesting things out in those woods. Besides the Browns Mills Marina which I found last month in the woods (see last month’s posting “The Hash Continues”), this month I found a homemade zipline someone had attached to a tree stand. I nicknamed it the Ewok Village Zipline. Both attractions were well received by the hashers that came out to run in our McGuire Dix Lakehurst Hash House Harriers (MDLH3) Hash #3 on June 18th (pictures below). Brag-a-deer General and I also traveled to Toms River, NJ on June 26th for a Going Down Hash House Harriers (GDH3) Hash. It was hosted and hared by Not-in-my-Hair. The trail started at Christopher’s Pub on Hooper Ave. and had one beer stop at Artisan’s Restaurant & Brewery. With items like black truffle raviolis and creme brule on their menu, we were a bit under dressed in our sweaty running cloths but they served us anyways.  After some liquid refreshments we continued on back to Christopher’s Pub for the on-after and lunch.
 
 
 
 

 

Since Traildog Sparta and I run so much at Whitesbog Village we were asked to represent traildogs at the 33rd annual Blueberry Festival on June 25th. It was a great day full of family activities, local artisan’s showing and selling their creations, live Folk, Blues, Classic Rock, Bluegrass, Oldies, and Celtic music and hundreds of wonderful visitors.
 
 
 

Non-running related but memorable just the same, I attended a couple of professional soccer games in June. I took my family to a first round soccer game of the Copa America in Philadelphia where USA beat Paraguay 1-0 moving USA up to the Quarter-finals. USA went on to take 4th place over all matching their best showing. My daughter Asia and I also attended a Philadelphia Union soccer game on June 22nd. The Union beat the Chicago Fire 4-3.