Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[B&B Happy goats]

I keep enough generator fuel on hand to be able to keep everything in the freezer frozen until I have time to process everything in it. I've said before that having spent the majority of my life in hurricane country keeps me from having to do panic buying.

I pulled the last of our onions a couple of days ago and chopped them up to get them ready to freeze. We have been eating them fresh for a couple of months but I still wound up with a little over 46 pounds. We still have around 5 pounds left over from last year that I will dehydrate and turn into minced onion flakes and some will become onion powder.

I couldn't live in this state without a generator as much as the storms leave us without power....yepper, hurricane central, you best be prepared ...

 

[Bruce]

And we've JUST gotten back to where you can reliably find flour on the shelves. I wonder how long that will last.

 

[Baymule]

And we've JUST gotten back to where you can reliably find flour on the shelves. I wonder how long that will last.

Probably not very long-better stock up!

 

[Mike CHS]

It's in the mid 90's today so other than hang a screen door on our shop entrance, we stayed inside and processed garden items. I didn't think about pictures until we were finishing up but the picture is a sample of what we worked on today,

 

[Mike CHS]

Another item I meant to post earlier but forgot what I logged in to post about. I have said many times that it's the small things that please me the most. About half of our garden every year is dedicated to several varieties of squash, mostly winter squash but also the never ending summer squash. I planted a couple of hills of Delicata Squash this year and we had our first taste this afternoon. It will never be a main squash for us since it doesn't keep as well as the harder shelled squash but it has a permanent spot in all future gardens.

The slightly chewy peel is a great contrast to the sweet, velvety flesh, which tastes like a cross between butternut squash and sweet potato to me.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I love that stuff! It's absolutely delish.

 

[Baymule]

Try this variety.

Honey Boat Delicata Squash

(C. pepo) 105 days. One of the sweetest squash varieties in existence. Oblong, Delicata-shaped squash has tan skin with green stripes. Excellent quality and produces early. Developed by Dr. James Baggett, Oregon State University. So delicious and flavorful!

www.rareseeds.com

 

[Mike CHS]

I'm really pleased with our garden beds this year. We did more inter planting and maybe it's a coincidence but we have had less insect problems this year than in the past. We are getting enough green beans to process that we won't need to plant a second planting this year. We are getting about the same amount as the picture every other day now. We will probably do a couple more pickings and then let one bed go for seed next year. A really early frost last year messed with my seed saving plans but we still had plenty from the year before. This year I marked the first okra pod so it is my seed base for next year.

The only thing we have had to spray was one bed of tomatoes since it had a mite infestation that was doing a lot of leaf damage.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Mr. @Mike CHS,

I've just now caught back up on your journal. Regarding the picture of the USS Forrestal, do you appear in the picture? And would you at some point describe your service time? I enjoy reading about your current life and how you and Miss Teresa are enjoying retirement. But I would also enjoy reading about your time in the military, at least the unclassified and non-FOUO history you can share.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[Mike CHS]

This for STA

I'm working Approach Control in that picture and I'm the 5th from the right. The two guys on the right are working Final Approach Control. Approach gets the handoff from what is called Marshal anywhere from 24-50 miles out and brings them down out of their holding pattern altitude and vectors them to the ship. In a nutshell, the two Approach controllers receive every other aircraft so each controller is working anywhere from 6-12 aircraft into the approach pattern. Approach hands off to Final normally about 8 miles out who works the aircraft to 3/4 at which point the Landing Signal Officer takes over and keeps the aircraft informed about his profile coming in (too high/low or right or left of the centerline. There is what is called a Fresnel Lens system that moves according to the aircrafts movement so they can work on their lineup.

ATC on a carrier isn't for the faint of heart. At shore stations, we used FAA separation standards which is a minimum of 1000' altitude and 3 miles distance from other aircraft. On the ship everyone is brought down to 1200' (which is the pattern altitude and 1 1/2 miles lateral separation. On shore aircraft are slowed to approach and landing speed fairly early but on a ship, the aircraft stay at 250 knots until told to drop their landing gear. The reason for the close interval is the ships survivability. The ship needs a minimum of 30 kts of wind across the bow to safely land aircraft and it needs to stay on the same course as much as possible so the aircraft don't have to chase the deck. The idea is to stay 'in the wind' for as little time as possible so there is an aircraft over the deck every 60 seconds.

I joined the Navy in 1969 and retired in 1991. I was in ATC the whole time and when I retired I was the Leading Chief at our group of schools that was on the base at Millington, TN. I went to work as a contractor for a company that was doing upgrades on our radar simulators that had never worked as paid for. That was supposed to be for a year but stretched into 3 years when we finally got the simulators up and running. This trainer was built using voice recognition technology that at the time only existed in that simulator. That job was as much engineering as operations but to make a long already story short, I was then offered a job at the Navy Systems Center in Charleston where we managed, built and maintained Navy and Marine Corps ATC equipment all around the world. I worked there doing fleet installations until 2004 when I was moved to another Department at the same base where we managed ATC for Air Force units in Afghanistan and ran ATC for the National Science Foundation site in Antarctica. At first they worked all ATC from on-site but later switched all of the enroute work to a remote system also located in Charleston. I can't say much more about most of that but it was interesting to say the least. I worked that until I retired again for real and came here.