Cappadocia - flying high

We have come to Cappadocia, land of "fairy rocks" and underground cities. This morning we arose at 4:20 for a hot air balloon ride. Wow! A perfect day, sunny, warm, and with a light breeze. It was very special. Pictures include rocks, balloons, and canyons.

Touring Istanbul

Today we saw the fish market, spice market, Grand Bazaar, an ancient cistern, an Art Museum, and had a ride up the Bosphorus almost to the Black Sea. This is a very diverse city, both old and new. A very cool place.

Oozing history in Istanbul

Today we visited four "biggies" from Istanbul's history: the Hippodrome from the Romans in A.D. 200; the Hagia Sofia built by Justinian in 537 (later turned into a mosque); Topkapi Palace, built by Mehmet II in 1460 ... and holding the 86 carat Topkapi diamond and the Topkapi dagger, with four giant emeralds on the sheath of a gold dagger ... ; and the Mosque of Ahmet I, aka the Blue Mosque, built in the early 1600's. The blue tiles are really impressive, but our little "point and shoot" cameras could not capture the beauty. We also show a shot of both Europe and Asia in the same frame.

Scenes from Istanbul

Rather than lots of words, here are scenes from our first night and day in Istanbul, a very clean and upscale city.

A new adventure - Turkey

We are about to embark on a new adventure - to Turkey. We'll be in Istanbul, Cappadoccia, Ephesus, and the south-west coast of Turkey. We are looking forward to the country that brought us Saul of Tarsus, aka Paul the letter writer; Constantinople, aka Istanbul; the center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Suleiman, the Blue Mosque, whirling dervishes, Gallipoli, Ataturk, and so much more.

At the start of our Antarctica adventure, we showed a picture of our back porch covered in three feet of snow. Now May, it is much greener and warmer. Here are two pics from our back porch to the pond, and in reverse, from the pond to the house.

2011 Garden - Starting out

It's almost the end of April, and we've been very busy in the garden. We Expanded the fenced-in area by 60%, built 6 raised beds, and had a soil test and amelioration of the soil (more sulfur, boron, and notrogen). In the expanded area we planted raspberries, strawberries, and potatoes. We also added snap peas this year. Tow new beds are experimental - lasagna beds (esentially a pile of compost covered with some dirt, and hopefully, veggie heaven).

Aaron moved away and will be missed, but Ashley has stepped in with advice and plants and hopefully, the soil test will yield results. The "hooped" area is broccoli, which we had trouble with last year, and Ashley has advised the hooping to protect against a nasty caterpillar.

Next week, a second planting of lettuce and spinach, then wait for plants to grow!

More to come in late May.

Wintering over

The garden is slowly closing down, so it is time for an evaluation of 2010's efforts. Overall, the garden was a great success compared to 2009, broken down as follows:
- Tomatoes: delicious, abundant, and producing for many months A+
- Beans, lettuce, and spinach: tasty and abundant A
- Beets and carrots: good, but small and not prolific C
- Broccoli, squash, cucumbers, and peppers: not good at all F (the broccoli was eaten by a "critter," I messed up planting the peppers, and the squash and cucumbers were in the worst row in terms of preparation - the one I did not "double dig").
THe garden picture shows a bit of asparagus on the right (we hope to harvest asparagus in 2011), and in the back, the remnants of beets and carots that have not yet been pulled. The rows ahve been mulched using this year's compost pile (see the second picture), while we have two more piles working, one for 2011, and another for 2012 - the 2012 pile is the close one in the picture. In addition, I dug two raised beds 4' x 16' and planted raspberries in one. We are saving the second for cherry and blueberry bushes for the spring of 2011.
Madison continues to love the garden, so we dug her a 3' x 3' garden at her house. When I asked her what she will plant next year, she immediately said, "Cookies."
So here's to tomatoes and other fresh produce, and to "cookies."

Second Wind

It has been awhile since the last blog. We travelled to the Rockies (New Mexico, Colorado, and Alberta), and this weekend I just had a short trip to Tuscaloosa, Alabama with fellow retirees to see PennState take on the #1 Crimson Tide. Statistically, the game was not too bad, except for the score. THe relatively inexperienced Lions had three costly turnovers inside the red zone. The Tide's tailgaters were incredibly friendly, however, to us fans decked out in blue and whitte, and we ahd a terrific time (including a serenade from the full tuba sectionh - eighteen strong - of the Alabama band prior to the game).

We've planted a second, fall crop of lettuce, spinich and beets. In addition, we've added compost to the replantede rows and to the beets from the spring (to give them a shot in the arm). In the meantime, we are getting a abundent levels of tomatoes, string beans, and celery (see the basket, just from this afternoon). I also double dug a raspberry pit 4' by 16' and will plant raspberries later this fall. Finally, we are getting a good stand of asparagus, which, hopefully, will be sufficient to harvest next year.

The second picture is the icing on the cake of the garden produce. Our granddaughter Madison,after picking tomatoes and beans the other day, said, "Pop Pop, I want to dig." So she has her own little shovel and rake, and is becoming not just a reaper, but she will also have her own row next year to dig, plant and see how to make things grow. Yeah!

Produce is arriving!

Yeah! We now have lettuce, spinich, and celery for our fresh salads. The Romaine is particularly tasty, but the Bibb and Green Lollo lettuce, as well as the Spargo spinich are all welcome contributions to the table.

The pictures tell the story - the plants are growing, and much better than last year, thanks to Aaron's suggestion to "double-dig" the soil to get better drainage. Our neighbors kindly allowed us to take down a tree, brush and vine area just south of the garden, which was providing us too much shade. So it will be interesting to see the effect of full sun in the next few weeks.

Since the last news, we've added quite a few food varieties: celery and string beans as planned, and also broccoli, asparagus, parsley and basil. The tomato rows have been interspersed with carrots (suggested by the book Carrots Love Tomatoes).

The "old" compost bin is not progressing so well as the "new one. The new one gets an addition of frresh grass clippings and a wheelbarrow and a half of horse manure each week. It is steaming! That's the good news. Bad news - DeDe's nose can pick up the action after each load of fresh grass clippings. We may need to work out a cover for the stew.

We were thinking of adding a bed of sweet potatoes, but we found out they are actually a vine in the morning glory family, so our space does not seem ideal for that, Maybe we can add them in afew years, if we continue to expand. We may examine regular potatoes instead.

The garden is lots of work and exercise - but that was the whole idea. And the results are much better thatn running up a stair-master - we have delicious food as a result.

Finally, thanks to Max, Nicholas, Tessa, and Madison, all who have helped water the garden plants.

Mother's Day in the Garden

Out of a possible 17 rows (where each row is one fence line, or 10’ long) we now have planted 12 rows, as follows:
• Four types of lettuce – Bibb, Butterhead, Green Lollo, and Romaine. The Green Lollo is growing the fastest.
• Four types of tomato – 7 Early Girl, one Yellow Brandywine, and two types of “cherry” tomatoes (four cherry plants, total). These were all planted in the last two days. Half of the tomatoes are from the Rushton farm, half from a local Nursery. It will be a treat to see if we can tell the difference in plant and fruit and taste.
• Two types of zucchini and spinach
• Carrot and beet (one row each)
• Two pepper plants (we may add to this group)
Still to come: climbing string beans and celery. Maybe we should put in a few corn plants, also, but these are last priority.
Aaron’s lessons this week were mainly about thinning the lettuce and carrots and staking the tomatoes. In addition, he showed how to prune the tomato plants and how to plant them deep for better root generation. He’s pleased with the soil construction and the raised beds. Yeah!
The pictures don’t show much, but it’s only Mother’s Day, so we need to have patience.
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers reading of our grden.

Garden blog

Well, we are starting a second series for our blog. Pop Pop is starting an organic garden, and this blog will follow what is going on, and what we are getting in terms of vegetables later this summer.
First of all, Pop Pop has lots to learn. The second best teacher so far has been two books by Eliot Coleman, The New Organic Grower, and Four –Season Harvest. They are very detailed with lots of “how-to” information. However, the best source of learning has been Aaron Delong; he is a real farmer who works at the Rushton Farm in Willistown, PA. Rushton Farm is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program sponsored by the Willistown Conservation Trust. Aaron has provided advice on how to get started and make the soil fertile.
Aaron suggested that our ground is way too wet. We have wetlands in the back of our property, and a little stream runs right by the garden, so no surprise there. The French and Chinese developed an intensive farming technique called “double digging.” Good news – high, fluffy, well-drained raised beds for planting. Bad news – really hard work! But once done, you never need to double dig again. In the photo, the left row is double dug – the right two were not. The left row is reserved for our tomato plants.
The other picture is our compost heaps – the left from last year will be used next year, while the right is in the process of building and will be used in two year’s time. This year, we “simulated” compost by a mix of peat moss, potting soil, and sand. Hopefully, the mix will help combat the soil’s wetness.
We’ll try to blog as something changes – so not every day, but hopefully, often enough to be interesting.

Recap

As a recap, here is a list of DeDe and Pop Pop’s highlights from the trip:

1. The people we met – there were so many people with multiple talents: a classical concert pianist, a classical concert singer, the man who first climbed and mapped Antarctica’s highest two mountain peaks – both all ice and rock over 16,000 ft., a young couple on a world tour – he a trader and she a product manager for Skittles, the National Geographic and Lindblad photography teams, the naturalists and scientists studying marine and wildlife on Antarctica, the Antarctic dive team, and people from all over the world: Australia, Bonaire, Britain, Canada,Switzerland, and all over the U.S.
2. The vastness and sparseness of Antarctica – ice, rocks, and lots of space. One time we thought an iceberg was two miles away. The captain hit it with a GPS – it was 12 miles away, and very big!
3. The king penguin colony in South Georgia – standing with 300,000 to 500,000 penguins is amazing – especially watching the personal interaction of the individual birds.
4. The rest of the area’s wildlife – birds, seals, and whales - and the geology, and the interaction of the two dynamics.
5. Albatross in both South Georgia and the Falklands – these birds are so awkward on land and so graceful soaring in the air – it is no wonder they can stay aloft for months at a time.
6. The Lindblad response to the earthquakes in Chile – they threw resources at a problem, and were there for all their travelers. We appreciate their commitment, expertise, teamwork, and diligence.
7. The links to the Shackelton rescue both in Antarctica and South Georgia – we got a minute taste of the Shackelton men’s experience by being there in the summer, and hiking 4 miles over a ridge 1,000 ft high (it was very steep, both up and down). That was certainly small potatoes compared to an 800 mile ride in a tiny boat in the dead of winter, almost without navigation, and a hike over 9,000 ft and 20 miles after near exhaustion. And the men who stayed on Antarctica over the winter under two wooden life boats had no picnic, either.
8. The photography lessons, the critiques, and the individual attention - having six photography experts, each with their own style and point of view, was a learning experience. We were at the bottom end of the photo food chain, with our little point and shoot cameras. But we learned that with good positioning and composition, and pretty good editing tools at our disposal, we were able to improve our picture taking significantly.
9. The concert in the “Bistro Bar” and the personal story and presentation of climbing Antarctica’s Mountain peaks –these were unexpected treats, from our fellow travelers.
10. And finally, but not trivially, learning to blog over time and space – DeDe and Pop Pop loved doing it, getting better as we went along, and knowing that others were able to share our experience in part.

Thank you to all who traveled with us and followed us on our blog.

Coming home

We were stranded in Ushuaia for two days, due to the Chilean earthquake and apparent Argentine intransigence. Special thanks to Bud and Kendra, trip leaders, and the entire Lindblad team for all their attention and efforts to get us home with minimal disruption - including flying a special charter from Miami to get us all back to the states. The earthquake had left all South American travel in shambles. For example, in Santiago there was a cruise ship where over 2,000 passengers were not allowed to
have anyone disembark, nor shore passengers to board, because there were no hotel rooms certified safe!

We, however, arrived home safe, sound and exhausted. We had as good a trip as could be expected considering a five hour leg, an hour layover on the plane, a two hour leg, a two hour layover off the plane, and finally a five hour leg to Miami (all with three bodies in three seats in steerage). But it was better than it sounds. Mike Nolan, one of the Lindblad photographers, sat with us, and he used to be a deejay, so we had a group sing-along with Mike, Jake (from Bonaire), and Juan (from Canberra) leading the way. The sing-alongs and the layovers really helped break up the tight space for the rest of the trip.

From there it got much better. We hustled in Miami, and our expected layover of ten hours was not only cut to an hour and a half, but we were upgraded to Philly, and arrived back in Philly by 11 am, and home before noon. After showers, Donna called friends and crashed around 790, while I went to our club, where the National American Paddle Tennis Association (APTA) finals were being held. It was unreal - "A game of which I am unfamiliar," as someone once said.

The Philly clan arrived and we had a great time with a Chinese dinner and watching the Oscar prelims, the Red Carpet. Pop Pop fell asleep twice prior to heading upstairs before the actual show started, and never heard a thing until workers arrived yesterday am, installing new wiring in our basement and finishing the work on our family room.

Just prior to our trip, and while we were gone, we had over fifty inches of snow - in PA, not Antarctica! We have pine boughs down everywhere, and mold (yuck)in our basement. We have things to do and miles to go before we sleep.

P.S., The pictures are our last day in the Falklands, a scene in Ushuaia, and a scene from our sing-along.

One more time ...

One of the best lines of the trip came, unfortunately, this am. Bud, our Expedition Leader, started, “I hope you are sitting down.” Fast forward, it is now 4pm, and the plane from Lima, Peru, has just left Lima for a six or seven hour flight to Ushuaia so, at best, we leave tomorrow. On the return trip, we will need to land in both Lima and La Paz, Bolivia, so there is a chance for continued unexpected events. It’s now getting old. Even after that flight, we need to get from Miami to Philly, and finally, to 790. Yoicks!

P.S.: Here's what a baby albatross looks like.

Ushuaia - fin du monde

We’ve returned from a long am walk in Ushuaia. Ushuaia bills itself as Fin du Monde, or End of the World, because it is the most southern city in the world. The city sits in a bowl of mountains surrounding it, except for an exit to the sea. It’s a pretty town (larger than we thought – 60,000 people) that is oriented to hiking, climbing, and outdoors in Patagonia. It is quite pleasant, sunny, and close to 70 degrees F today.
We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a flight early tomorrow am.

Ushuaia - again

Well, it is a beautiful day in Ushuaia – good news! We are still here – bad news. At this time, we expect to fly to Miami tomorrow am, but the plane is in Lima, Peru, awaiting Argentine paperwork. We don’t know if that means security or bribes that is gumming up the works.

We can’t wait to get home to hug everyone. Hopefully, we won’t be updating this message tomorrow am.

Albartoss and Rock Hoppers

Rock hoppers and albatross – we had a beautiful pm. There was a pleasant walk (about 20 min.) to cliffs overlooking the opposite shore of New Island. Our pictures don’t do justice to the heights, so here are close-ups of two birds.
BTW, we have had no adverse effects from the earthquake. But we also do not know if we can fly in or out of Santiago. Hopefully, we will hear more on that tomorrow.

Carcass Island

Can you imagine living 35 years on an island named Carcass running a sheep farm? We met the McGills (H&W) who have done just that. It was a pretty island, and hiking up the hills was peaceful and calm – but 35 years?! This pm we’ll see New Island, a home of nesting Black Browed Albatross and rock-hopper penguins.

Hydroponic gardening

Today we are in Stanley, the main town in the Falkland Islands. They are partly noted for their colorful roofs. Yesterday, both DeDe and Pop Pop had a massage. We were so relaxed we missed blogging (also, in part, because we were still at sea, and did not have much to report). This pm, we are going to a hydroponic (?) garden. We’ll be learning what that is.

Wow! We just got back from the Stanley Garden Centre. They have acres of support fields, and lots of smaller Quonset huts for starting seedlings. But the main growing area is a large series of Quonset huts covering 1/3 of an acre. In this structure they grow everything in fertilized water in a self-contained, recycled system, with no soil. There they grow peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, cukes, beans, etc. At the height of the summer, they harvest ½ ton of peppers, and over one ton of tomatoes per week. It is amazing how efficient agriculture can be.

At sea

Today and tomorrow we are at sea. The wind is howling outside, and we need to hold the ropes and handrails inside. We’ve had lectures/discussions today on the Falklands, whaling, videography, and later on another photography critique of our best shots, weather permitting. DeDe has been lying low today, fortunately reading a good book, not worse.

Albatross Alley

Today we visited our last stop on South Georgia, a bay called Elsehul. We’ve affectionately nick-named it Albatross Alley. As we blog, we’ve set sail for the Falkland Islands. At Elsehul, we saw, as you might expect, penguins, seals, and mostly, albatross. Some of these birds have a wing-span of 12 ft. These huge and graceful birds are especially spectacular when flying together in formation, looking like an air force squadron.