We have had an uneventful January--Ashley has been working, I have been working, and Bode is pretty self sufficient with school and swim practice now that he drives. Ashley has begun work as a volunteer track coach for Fort Walton Beach High School. She goes three days a week and seems to enjoy it; it really puts a strain on her ability to get home and cook dinner, but I tell her that if dinner is a few minutes late, so be it :-)
I did some "spring" planting. This year, I finally planted before March--you'd think that after six years in Florida, I would have changed my habits, but it takes time to unlearn things. I spent today raking and tilling my plots. I then positioned my wire to give something for the peas to cling to, and then I planted a whole packet of peas.
I also planted a number of onion buds and placed some mesh wire over the area where I planted to keep the birds away from them. In the second plot, I planted beans, half green, half black. I've never had bird issues with the beans in the past, so here is hoping for a similar result.
Finally, in the third plot, I cleared out a bunch of leaves and trimmed the dead off the black berry vines. I then planted two raspberry plants and two additional black berry plants. I was going to prune the blueberry plants, but I will wait until they start to bud up so I can see which parts are dead--I'd hate to cut away a fruit-bearing limb :-)
Ashley and I have been watching the True Detective series on HBO. A new episode airs tonight at eight; sadly, we'll probably record it and watch it tomorrow, as history has shown us we have a hard time staying up past 8:30...yes, we are old :-) Pleasant week to all.
It is hard to believe it is already January 21st, 2024. Where has the time gone? Bode and Ashley spent last weekend up in Auburn. Bode had a swim meet that started Friday evening and went through Sunday evening, so they spent Thursday through Sunday up there while I slaved away at home cleaning the house and ensuring the yard was free of sticks and debris.
Bode swam all sorts of events at the meet--the 50, 100, and 200 butterfly, the 50, 200, and 500 free, and the 200 individual medley. The Coast team went to this meet knowing they were in mid-training; this means they didn't taper, and Coach Brad has really been working them hard. Thus, they weren't expecting PRs, which is fine, and Bode swam well and was pleased with his efforts, although I do think he thought his 50-free time was a bit slow.
This first video shows the venue--the pool is awesome, and you can tell there was an enormous amount of swimmers at this meet.
Next we have Bode doing the 200-free. He swam in 1:53, which is a great time for Bode. He is four lanes from the bommom.Here is one more video of Bode doing the 200-butterfly. This is a brutally hard event. He is in lane two. I think this video was the preliminary swim--he made the finals for this event, but I don't have that video. Ashley also took some good pictures. First, here is Bode and one of his teammates goofing around after the warmup.
Next, here is a funny one of Coach Brad (in the gray Coast t-shirt) encouraging Bode to kick more during the 500.
On Sunday night, a lot of the senior swimmers went out for pizza.
As luck would have it, Auburn was playing LSU on Saturday night. Ashley scored herself a ticket (Bode wanted to stay in and rest), so she went to the game solo. She had a pretty good seat and took some good pictures of the team during warmups.
She also had to get one of Coach Pearl.
Auburn played great and ended up blowing out LSU.
Ashley stuck around and was in the stands for some post-game interviews that aired on television. I recorded SEC Now, and you can see Ashley in the red seating section just above the right-shoulder of the guy being interviewed.
It has been bitterly cold here--we actually had ice on our patio! Fortunately, it is supposed to be back up to 70 by the end of the week, so winter is over :-) Happy week to everyone.
