Down Time
It has been a while since my last post. This is mostly due to "active" retirement, that is, I have too many interests that take up time and writing is not always top of the list.
Last Summer I spent quite a lot of time messing with our koi pond. For a little pond it takes quite a lot of maintenance if you want the water clear and healthy for the fish. I puttered around testing and putting additives into the water nearly every day--a necessity when the pond is plagued with "green water". Part of the regimen is cleaning the filters about every other day. I got that down to a science but still, it took some time.
Last Fall I ran a half-marathon. In time, that was not a big event. But training to run takes up a good deal of time each week. The training paid off I guess. I came in 1st Place in my 70-74 age group. Or, as I like to say, my strategy is working--I'm trying to outlive the competition.
Summer and Fall I continued to fish at every opportunity. I especially like fly fishing with dry flies: to me, it's the ultimate fishing experience. Trout are persnickety about their environs so one of the side benefits for a fly fisher is naturally beautiful surroundings. They also like cold water which is scarce around here in Summer so travel to pretty places is also key. But we have a local trout club with a pretty spring-fed lake that stays cold and that's a good substitute for the travel. And when there is no opportunity for trout fishing there is bass fishing in local ponds (large mouth) or the Maumee River (small mouth). The small mouth, in particular, fight like the trout. Sometimes in the evening you can get bass to take surface lures which rivals dry fly fishing fairly well.
Fall and Winter (2015-16) we spent a lot of time in our new Winnebago "Touring Coach," a small RV built on a Mercedes Sprinter van chassis. We took our first cross-country trip in it spending 2.5 months on the road from before Thanksgiving to early February. Now that is a big chunk of time that I was driving instead of writing. (The experiences from that trip are for other blogs). Suffice it to say we visited more National Parks, visited our children and families in California, visited some friends and added to our state count so that we have only seven more to visit. Most of the remaining states will have to be summer visits to the Northwest and Northeast. I'm not sure how many National Parks we've visited so far but it is a goal to see as many as we can.
For the moment I have more time at home. I putter in my wood shop, do what maintenance is needed, take care of annoying details like taxes, and write some. I should get some additional posts completed here and some work on memoirs and a novel I've started. Let's hope there's time.
Last Summer I spent quite a lot of time messing with our koi pond. For a little pond it takes quite a lot of maintenance if you want the water clear and healthy for the fish. I puttered around testing and putting additives into the water nearly every day--a necessity when the pond is plagued with "green water". Part of the regimen is cleaning the filters about every other day. I got that down to a science but still, it took some time.
Last Fall I ran a half-marathon. In time, that was not a big event. But training to run takes up a good deal of time each week. The training paid off I guess. I came in 1st Place in my 70-74 age group. Or, as I like to say, my strategy is working--I'm trying to outlive the competition.
Summer and Fall I continued to fish at every opportunity. I especially like fly fishing with dry flies: to me, it's the ultimate fishing experience. Trout are persnickety about their environs so one of the side benefits for a fly fisher is naturally beautiful surroundings. They also like cold water which is scarce around here in Summer so travel to pretty places is also key. But we have a local trout club with a pretty spring-fed lake that stays cold and that's a good substitute for the travel. And when there is no opportunity for trout fishing there is bass fishing in local ponds (large mouth) or the Maumee River (small mouth). The small mouth, in particular, fight like the trout. Sometimes in the evening you can get bass to take surface lures which rivals dry fly fishing fairly well.
Fall and Winter (2015-16) we spent a lot of time in our new Winnebago "Touring Coach," a small RV built on a Mercedes Sprinter van chassis. We took our first cross-country trip in it spending 2.5 months on the road from before Thanksgiving to early February. Now that is a big chunk of time that I was driving instead of writing. (The experiences from that trip are for other blogs). Suffice it to say we visited more National Parks, visited our children and families in California, visited some friends and added to our state count so that we have only seven more to visit. Most of the remaining states will have to be summer visits to the Northwest and Northeast. I'm not sure how many National Parks we've visited so far but it is a goal to see as many as we can.
For the moment I have more time at home. I putter in my wood shop, do what maintenance is needed, take care of annoying details like taxes, and write some. I should get some additional posts completed here and some work on memoirs and a novel I've started. Let's hope there's time.
posted by Phil Govert at 3:01 PM
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