Pine Bark Fines

I'm preparing for next year's container gardening soil.  Part of the mixture is referred to as pine bark fines which is basically ground pine bark.  I've read a bunch about it on the internet and it's benefits, but I'm not going into that today.  Instead, I'm showing you how I procured some in an attempt to lower costs.  Yesterday, Donovan, who was in town on Christmas holiday from college, and I went driving around.  I literally looked for downed pine trees.  Well, found some and loaded up as much as I could find.  The pic below shows the amount gathered and the end result after I ran it through the shredder--3, 18 gallon totes.  So, my efforts garnered 54 gallons of crumbled pine bark.  A good thing.  Next, I'll go to Home Depot and get a couple bags and compare to see if I actually saved some $$ or not.  Any way it goes, it was worth the effort to me.

Composting Leaves

I picked up leaves several weeks ago from the city of Jacksonville.  Since, I've shredded them a little at a time finishing up today with a big push of 40 or so bags.  Total bags shredded were about 80.  For anyone reading this, leaves are a great amendment to a garden adding nutrients, organic matter, and increases soil tilth.  If leaves are left whole, they take a couple years to compost down.  However, shredded, they break down much faster.  Leaves can be cold or hot composted.  Cold composted leaves are mostly carbon (dried) with little nitrogen added.  From my research, I understand that fungi go to work on cold compost piles and the finished product is often referred to as "Leaf Mold."  If you add a nitrogen source to the dried leaves and it's mixed in, bacteria get fired up and the leaf pile will heat up and you get a hot compost pile which breaks down much faster than the cold compost option.  Benefits and opinions vary widely on the internet which is better.  For me, I want it broken down as quickly as possible so I can use next spring in the garden so I'm adding coffee grounds and other nitrogen sources.  Below is a quick video on the pile I built.  I'll do a follow up on it in the future.

Four More Fruit Trees Planted

So, as part of increasing my Orchard fruit and providing good cross-pollination, I planted 4 more trees today.  All were bare-root trees ordered from Willis Orchards out of Georgia.  I wanted the Elberta variety peach in my orchard so I got a 2' whip.  I'm in no hurry for it to mature because I already have 5 producing peaches.  Early spring, I had bought several pear and one plumcot from Willis Orchard and all leafed out.  Figured it was safe to give them another shot and I needed a pollinator for my Plumcot hybrid.  Since I love plums, I settled on two more varieties vs an apricot as pollinators and to give me some great fruit--the Santa Rosa and the Elephant Heart, both being 5' branched bare-roots. I also love Cherries and thought I'd give one a try even though it might not produce here in Arkansas.  It is a self-pollinating compact variety, Stella.  I took a snapshot and labeled there location below.  I put cages around the newest trees hoping to keep the deer and/or rabbits from chewing on them.   

Madison's Sweet 16 Birthday

My youngest and only daughter, Madison, turned 16 today.  The party was friends and Harry Potter movies all night!  She was supposed to get a vehicle for her birthday as well, but she worked with her mom and got that early over the summer.  Her best friends were here to support her and I tried to stay out of the way as much as I could.  Happy Birthday, my sweet daughter!

Trees Planted

Need to record the types of trees planted so I'll remember later.  In the front yard, I planted 3 Stewart pecan trees from Gina's Uncle Don.  Won't forget what they are because they're the only ones with the Cleveland Flowering Pears.  In the back, I planted 3 cuttings of the willow tree.  Hopefully, they'll take.  In the Orchard from Left to right, front to back:  Row 1 - Harvest Gold Crabapple (apple pollinator) and an apple tree of unkknown origin from Gina's Uncle Don.  He planted them from seed so who knows what'll show up; Row 2 - Perdue Pear, Hood Pear, Moonglow Pear, and Comice Pear; Row 3 - McIntosh Apple, another Apple from Uncle Don, and Pink Lady Apple; and Row 4 - Plumcot Hybrid, another Uncle Don Apple, and 5 peach trees that I planted and forgot the names.  I do know 2 are white peach and 3 are yellow peach.  Photo below helps show location of trees.

Prince Edward Island, 11 - 17 July

Ok, I'm behind some on my blogging.  No excuses.  After the Cabot Trail, we caught a ferry over to PEI.  It was ultra cool.  Voyager on the water headed toward an island.

Caught the ferry below at Caribou, Nova Scotia and rode it to Wood Island, PEI.  Took a little over an hour to get there.  Ferry had a cafe, souvenirs (of course), an information area, and sitting areas.  We were not allowed to ride in the fifth wheel.

Most of our time here was spent at the oceanside KOA with friends Gary and Marti.  We cooked out several times.  Good folks.

This is on our coastal drive.  Sort of like the Cabot Trail in miniature.

PEI was probably our best time.  Weather and temps were awesome.  Water everywhere.  Rolling hills.  The departure left us going over the Confederation Bridge and those that know me know I have a little fear of heights.  This 14-mile two lane, really high bridge, THAT HAD CONSTRUCTION HALF WAY OVER IT CAUSING US TO STOP IN OUR TRACKS, gave me a pucker factor 7 of 10.  But, I did it.  Between the Cody, WY drive and this, maybe I can start to resolve this height issue.

The Cabot Trail - Cape Breton Island

I might take some flak on this, but I'm going to post honestly on my interpretation of the Cabot Trail. Overall, the Cabot Trail was a great drive, but not as great as most of the research I've read and from what others have posted on it. Simply put, it's "left-sided." Everything of spectacular value is on the left side going clockwise. There are tons of outlooks displaying beautiful vistas, twisting roads following steep grades and switchbacks on the mountains, crystal blue water everywhere you look, quaint shops and restaurants, and much more. The pics below will show that. Once you reach the top, past the Cheticamp area (Cape North), you find yourself looking for those same amazing views. They don't come again. The largest part of the drive is wooded on both sides and the woods aren't even as unique as other forests we've seen in Maine, NB, and NS. The city of Ingonish and Baddeck are ok if those are your destinations, but the views are not even close to the "other side." To be fair, we did not get off of the trail for the little off-shoot coastal drives because the drive is a good full day. To sum up, left side spectacular, right side...eh. We ended the trail by taking a ferry at Englishtown, a lift of emotion from the not-so-great second half of the trail.

My research shows that most take the Cabot Trail clockwise.  As a matter of fact, there is a sign going this direction, but none the counter-clockwise direction...that I saw anyway.  As I'm nervous around heights and steep dropoffs, I decided clockwise.  I learned on the trip that I could have gone counter-clockwise almost as easily.  It's not as bad as the east Yellowstone to Cody drive I took twice.

We stopped at the Rusty Anchor for lunch and sat outside and enjoyed the awesome view and cool breeze. Temps must have been around 70.  We each had a lobster rolls.  Mmmmm, mmmmm, good.

$5 for the cross to Hwy 105.

Here's some video I threw together for the Cabot Trail.

Alma Fishing Village

On our way to "the Rocks", we passed through Alma, a quaint little town and thought we needed to go back and see that in more detail, so we did.  We took a coastal drive stopping at cool sites along the way doing some shopping.  It is Gina's birthday (2 days ago) and we had a really good time.  Happy birthday Gina!

The Alma Lobster shop was pretty cool.  The city is known as a fishing village and Fundy Lobster is the main-stay.  Check out the size of the big sucker I'm holding below.  Yes, it is alive.  I didn't know they could get that big.

On the drive, we stopped at some local shops.  This one had home-made pottery and wood work.  The pottery is made in-house.  We didn't buy anything here, but had an interesting convo on the differences between Canada and the USA.

I thought this cemetery was a staged site.  Guess why.  It is truly a cemetery full of, well...

Stopped at the Waterside Farms winery on our coastal drive to Alma.  The winery is a fruit winery that developed their wild blueberry fields enough to produce wine.  They also use cranberry and Rhubarb wines right there on the Bay of Fundy.

Just down the road from the Winery is Cape Enrage, another beautiful spot on the bay...only this one has sand for people to swim.

Hopewell Cape & The Flowerpot Rocks

Coming from Saint John, NB to the Flower Pot Rocks, you have to travel Hwy 114 and it is HORRIBLE.  There are so many repairs to the road and the uneven patches beat the crap out of us.  Also, the first part coming off of Hwy 1 had tons of steep grades and curves.  It also gave us the impression:  "Did we take a wrong turn somewhere?"  You know what I mean?  Backwoods...rural...no traffic.  The road is definitely worth consideration to see the rocks.

We arrived at Ponderosa Pines CG early afternoon which happened to be low tide and a great time to see the Rocks so off we went.

At low tide, the beach surface is mud, mud, mud, thick mud, and gravel.

Hopewell Cape is a park.  The path down to the rocks was a beautiful walk on a wide gravel path surrounded by birch, spruce, and fern cover.

From atop a lookout, your first impression of the Rocks.

A stairwell takes you down to the beach where you can walk amid the very cool rocks.

The Reversing Falls

We just had to see the Reversing Falls.  It was kind of cool.  What I mean by that is that the experience was worth the visit, but the hype before getting there took it down a peg or two.  We enjoyed Saint John quite a bit, but tomorrow, we're off.

Before I get into the pics, let's talk Lobster for a moment.  Yep, we sought our first Canada lobster and stumbled onto a joint known for it's lobster and other seafood--Steamers Lobster Co.

Really cool atmosphere.

This was our first experience with these types of clams.  Oh, man, are they freakin' good.  Note to all looking:  Take the cord off and rinse the clam before buttering and wolfing down.  They offer a little water cup for just that purpose and the waitress taught us how to eat 'em.

The meal started with fish chowder for us, then a bucket of clams and a tray of shrimp, followed by the Maine (no, this time it's "main") attraction, Lobster.  Again, a hardshell and a LOT of meat in there.  We finished the meal with carrot cake for Gina and blueberry cobbler a la mode for yours truly.  We wobbled out.  Wow, we were stuffed.  And for the frugal, all I can say is don't come to Canada without saving first.  With beer, the tab was well over $100 bones.

For the Reversing Falls, created this little video: