NOC 2010 Photos

Photos from our NOC 2010 trip. You can find more here.

Painted Turtles

We started digging a new flowerbed yesterday but progress was quickly halted when we discovered a Painted Turtle nest in the work zone. The eggs had already hatched and there were 8 little guys (and gals) ready to begin their adventures. After a quick bath we relocated them to a more amicable place a short distance away. A short video of the encounter is above and you can see it full screen here.

NOC 2010

You may remember that last year Erin and I spent a week Whitewater Kayaking at the Nanthahala Outdoor Center (NOC) in North Carolina. Well, we enjoyed last year's trip so much that this year we returned for some more white water action. The week went like this:

Day 1 - we spent the morning of the first day on the lake getting used to our boats and remembering what it's like to roll them over in the water. It came back to us quickly - Erin even managed to roll her boat back up on her first attempt! In the afternoon we went to a section of the Tuckasegee River in Bryson City to refresh our skills on moving water. I experienced my first"Combat" roll when I was able to right the boat after unexpectedly flipping it upside down in the river.

Day 2 - on Tuesday we moved on to a class II section of the Tuckasegee River, known as the "Tuck Gorge". We continued to work on our river skills throughout the day including catching eddies, ferrying across the river, S-turns and even some surfing. We ate lunch at the side of the river.

Day 3 - on Wednesday we returned to the lake in the morning to practice our rolls some more. After lunch at Slow Joe's, we moved on to the Nantahala River. The river was cold as usual and a cool fog hung in the air over the water. This made for an interesting paddle as you couldn't always see what was coming. Erin wowed the group again with her first Combat roll in rapids. After running the Nantahala Falls, Erin joined the group for dinner, while Dan went on a 7 mile mountain bike ride near Fontana Lake.

Day 4 - on Thursday we crossed the border into Tennessee and were lucky enough to paddle a section of the Pigeon River. This was the most challenging and exciting day of the trip as we were able to paddle several long section of solid class III whitewater.

Day 5 - on Friday we returned to the Nantahala River and ran the full 8 mile stretch from Patton's Run to Nantahala Falls. We covered the distance quickly and the action saw several spectacular flips and rolls through rapids, before lunch was served at Slow Joe's.

Once again, we had a fantastic week at NOC and can't wait for out next whitewater adventure. More photos and video coming soon...

35 lbs

35 lbs of what you might ask......... 35 lbs of potatoes!

As it turns out (despite the dreaded blight that attacked our potato plants this summer), we still ended up with a sizable crop of potatoes - 35 lbs of potatoes to be exact. Once all of the potato plants were killed off, we decided that we should dig the potatoes up so that they did not slowly bake under the hot sun.

Here are the first potatoes that we dug up:

More potatoes:

A short video of Dan providing a demonstration of how to dig up potatoes:

And finally, 35 lbs of potatoes - talk about tasty taters!