Granddad's Garden

Mother's Day Gardening

Granddad has always declared Mother's Day as the official start of gardening season since it's rare to get a frost after early May in Baltimore. The gang headed to his house for weeding, tilling, raking, fencing, and planting.

Family hard at work

Everybody had a job and stayed focused ... shocker.

Julia helps Granddad plant seeds

Julia and Doug weeding

RJ preps a row for planting

At lunch, we ate most of food in the house ... so the labor wasn't free!

Planting squash

RJ Free Solo

At the top of the double black hills, we found a good rock face (15-20 ft) that RJ enjoyed scaling.

On the way down we decided to hike down "Bold Decision" ... turns out this was a "Dumb Decision" as Sara slipped and fell.

Skateboarding

Spring Break 2020

Spring break for the kids was a bit odd since school has been out for 3 weeks and will not restart until possibly next fall. But, RJ took advantage of a day off from his 2 hours/day of assignments to do some skateboarding.
On spring break, you do not need to get dressed or put on shoes ... but you do need to wear a helmet.

We built a ramp so skateboarding could overcome Covid-19 as the #1 health threat in the Johnson house.

Carpet Cleaning at Ski House

Sara and the Carpet

After acquiring a free carpet cleaner, Sara decided to put it to use cleaning 10 years of ski boot grime off the berber carpet in the living room.

RJ was very interested in helping ... and did so for about 15 minutes. Then he decided that a 5k hike and 5k running around trying to fly a kite was more interesting. On the hike we got to see the last spot of snow on the mountain.

Carpet cleaning started around 10am and finished around 4pm.

Results

Before

After

Whitetail Hike

We socially distanced ourselves by going on a 4 hour hike around Whitetail. Our route map is below.

Although a 4-hour hike seems long (well it was because my ankle has a slight sprain), we took 4 snack stops and did a lot of other shenanigans so the mileage was minimal.

• Rest stop 1 involved some water and pretzels. We utilized the random bench that we saw everytime we rode the EZ Rider Quad
• The Hole. We were hiking along and Julia went ahead. She got all excited and started talking about a hole in the snow. Yawn. Finally we caught up to her. Turns out it wasn't such a yawn ... see pics below.
• The wrench. Julia also gets credit for finding a 2 foot super heavy wrench. I guess this was used by the mountain crew to connect water lines to the snow machines. We picked it up so we could return it. We also found some ski poles and some bullet shells. Later Julia and RJ found over a dollar worth of change. We need to get a metal detector for next week.
• Rest stop 2 was brief after some we performed many 'challenges' by hiking off ski trail. There was the rock challenge, the water challenge, the green algae challenge, the log challenge, the pricker bush challenge, and the badger jump challenge (RJ make this up for jumping rocks).
• Rest stop 3 involved pretzels, a banana, and a long discussion about which rock made a better bed and couch.
• Rest stop 4 was our reward at the top. We looked over the other side of the mountain, ate Girl Scout cookies, and scaled a rock wall (see pics below).
• The trip down was relatively quick. We found a good stream (RJ almost got wet) and walked back and forth like skiers in order to slow ourselves down on the black diamond trail.

The Hole

  

The rock wall

Last Ski Day at Whitetail

We prepared for one last ski session. The night before, it was doubtful whether the slopes would actually open.

Somehow the grooming crew was able to scrape up enough snow for a final ski day. Temps dipped below freezing overnight, so the melt stopped for one last morning/day.

Sara, Julia, and Sadona ride the lift for an early morning ski. Then pause for a top of hill photo op.
  
Julia and Sadona were supposed to ski right past me ... but didn't get very close.

Towards the end of the day, things were more of a mud puddle.

RJ did the mud ski, but didn't hit the water with enough speed.

Health Summary

I took some random pictures of things around the house.

 

Based on these pictures, do you think:
a) We are having a healthy winter season?
b) We are running a hospital in our house?
c) We are looking forward to the Corona virus because that will seem like a break from misery?

March 6 update

After a week off school, RJ is back to normal. He is walking around, pestering Sara, and trying to get under Julia's skin. Sara also seems to be doing better. Although after a month of various maladies, we aren't sure Sara will recognize how it feels to be healthy.

March 7 update

Flu claims victim #3.

Frustration and name-calling sets in.

March 11 update

Flu claims victim #4.