Virtual Ship's Log from Captain Hammer

'Cause I don't have enough to do already

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Submarine For Sale (Austin Texas)




Date: 2011-03-30, 7:54AM CDT Reply to: sale-za47v-2294809614@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

Two man wet submarine for sale with trailer, serious offers only. Austin Texas Call to schedule appointment to see this craft. 512-XXX-XXXX
  • Location: Austin Texas
  • it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

That's a craigslist post I saw today. I love this town! One question: by "wet submarine" do they mean inside and out? Isn't the point of a submarine so you can go underwater and not get wet? Ok, two questions. How much does one of these go for?

Monday, March 28, 2011

More on Hops...

Well, not much to report sailing-wise. Another J-24 race yesterday, and a beautiful day it was too, but no recent canoe work. I have to get on that!
So, in the meantime here's a rickety time lapse video of a few hours of hops growth. You can see the taller vine on the left really going at it, completing two full twists around the twine. The larger part of the rhizome I dug up and planted at my friend's is over almost 3 meters tall now (yeah, I'm trying to go metric. It's my new thing).

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Hops in Texas


In everything I've read about growing hops they say you need to start in April or May. There should be a Texas amendment to that rule. Most suppliers don't even start shipping them until then. My vine started sprouting in mid-February. Now, I was partly lucky because a near freeze would have sabotaged it were it not for the fact that Austin is always a few degrees warmer than the surrounding areas. But in general we start a lot earlier than the rest of the country, and need this extra time to establish before the heat withers everything.
This year our condo is redoing faulty cantilever balconies, and this means at any time they might have us remove everything that's on them. This would include my hops. So, soon after this picture was taken, I regretfully uprooted the thing to plant at a friend's house. The bits that were left behind continued to grow, so I put them in a smaller, more transportable pot to see what they'll do. So far, so good.