A Life of Icy Roads
The first time that I can remember facing an icy road, it was probaby 1961. I was a twelve-year old passenger in car headed back from Camp Raven Knob, a Boy Scout camp west of Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Adults had come to rescue us from another frozen, icy night in the three-sided Adirondack lean-tos.…
Where the roads end
Americans are famous for their Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) that never leave the paved roads. Unfortunately, some people get behind the wheel of a SUV with the belief that it makes you invincible. There are a few things I have said in life that seem to have some staying power. One of them is that…
The Worthwhile Journey North
My seventy-seventh birthday is coming up in a few weeks. The thought of being that old has prompted a lot of introspection. Someimes we know why we do something but there are some forks in the road where our motivations might not be so clear. There are also things you remember which make you wonder…
Years on the farm, calving season
Many years ago in the seventies my wife and I were running a cattle farm located about twenty miles north of Fredericton, New Brunswick. This is the first in a series about our life on the farm We eventually had about two hundred head of cattle with around 65 calves being born each year. The…
The Lost Art of Calling Home
I took a course in college my senior year. It was decades ago. The class focused on communications. Computers were not on the desktop, cameras were film based, and telephones were analog with rotary dials. There was no Internet much less text messaging or cell phones. People still wrote letters on paper by hand. I…
Doing it the hard way
In the sixties or early seventies, the back to land movement was well known. The 1968 Whole Earth Catalog was the instruction manual dedicated to it. Helen and Scott Nearing were its inspirational grandparents. Many in my generation’s back to the land movement were vegetarians like the Nearings. Some were vegetarian by choice and others…
Barely Clinging To The Grid
The dearth of good programming this holiday season has sent me to YouTube where I have enjoyed watching this generation’s homesteaders who would have been part of my generation’s back to the land movement in the late sixties and early seventies.I was on the fringes of that movement back in 1971 when I bought an…
The Homeplace
Over a career of traveling for business, I have eaten in a lot of restaurants and we have enjoyed many restaurant meals with friends and family. We lived in the Roanoke, Virginia area for twenty-one years. That gave us a lot of time to sample the area’s restaurants. One of our first eating adventures was…
The First Frost
When we living on the North Carolina coast, we always considered the first cold day to be the one when we had to give up wearing shorts. Only the first two weeks of February were reliably cold. The picture of the frozen body of water (Raymond’s Gut) was taken during a Febraury cold snap in…
Paths Not Taken
In every life there are decisions which determine what direction your life will take. I have been fortunate to be in positions where I had enough flexibiity to guide our life in certain directions. Even now fifty years after some of those decisions, it is hard to say that what we did was the right…
The Evolution of a Fisherman
The society of fishermen (and women who fish) is far more open minded thanyour average members of the population. In politics, the mobility between conservative and liberal groups is almost non-existent. It would be fair to say that without some extraordinary circumstance once you are born a conservative, the chances of becoming a liberal are…
Food, Post Pandemic
It has been years since I spent significant time in the big cities so I cannot vouch for the state of restaurants outside the rural world of North Carolina’s Piedmont. We have some good restaurants here, but with few exceptions, most can be faulted on something, service, price, or even the quality of the food.…
Reminders of the past
When you live a rich life full of challenges and adventures, it is inevitable that as age catches up with you, a different light falls on the surrounding world. I remember my mother in her later years saying that the worst thing about getting old was seeing things that you have done all your life…
Then There Were Three
On Monday, July 21, 2025, Maverick, one of the most unique felines to ever be a member of our family passed over the rainbow bridge. It has been a little over five years and three months since she joined our family with her three siblings. Maverick came into our world hissing and spitting. She was…
From Farm to Apple
I have been asked serveral times how I got from shoveling manure on a farm to selling shiny Macs for Apple?There are several pieces to the puzzle. The first factor was the sky high interest rate we had to pay on our $100,000 operating loan in the early eighties. Once interest got over 20% and…
The Wonder Of It All
One of the reasons that I love our big tabby cat, Goose, is that he always has a look of wonder. We could learn a few things from Goose. A few times over the years I have forgotten to be pleasantly surprised at whatever has happened, but not often. After I went away to military…
Running Into One Of Life’s Walls
Goose and I have been quiet but it has been for a good reason. Last Friday after my annual physical at 10 AM, I was pretty happy. My blood sugar was at its best level since we moved here from the coast in February 2021. My blood pressure was 112/68 and I had lost a…
Swiss Army Knife Life
I once posted a picture of this Swiss Army knife and someone made some disparaging remarks about Swiss Army knives in general. I responded back that if you have never needed a Swiss Army knife, your life was likely confined to more civilized areas than I have frequented. Even a cursory examination will reveal that…
Growing Not Controlling People
Love can make a difference My mother who grew up as Susie Blanche Styers was part of family that had lived in and around the hills north and west of Winston-Salem since the Revolutionary War. Our first ancestor in the area is recorded on the 1790 census and is buried with his wife forty-five minutes…
Goose Speaks Launches
Goose has enjoyed some popularity on social media sites, including Facebook but also on Bluesky where one of his pictures got over 5,000 likes. Goose’s no nonsense attitude kept him from being quiet during the summer. His most famous quote has driven some of his popularity. I have little tolerance for fools. Goose follows a…
Memories to hold close
I wrote this back in the fall of 2016. It was one of the nicest falls that we enjoyed in our fifteen years on the North Carolina coast. I wrote more than one post arguing that fall was even nicer on the coast than in the mountains. Here is a brief description of the memorable…
Life Sneaks Up On You
Just after I graduated college in the summer of 1971, instead of going to Law School, I headed off to Nova Scotia. I was part of the generation that felt strongly about getting back to the land and understanding a lot of things that modern society was hiding from us. A decision like that is…
Old Age Is Not For Sissies
Long ago I remember hearing my mother say, “Old age is not for sissies.” She was 84 and I was 45. When you are forty-five, you think you handle just about anything. In the twenty-four years after college, I moved to Canada where we farmed for ten years, and we moved back to the US.…
Someone Lives Here
I was gone most of the summer of 1970, it seemed like the most logical thing to do after all the college protests. A roommate and I drove to Alaska and we returned barely ahead of the snow and just before school started. When we came back I was determined to find some land away…
Our Quirky Family Food
Years ago people ate what the cook, usually the mother of the family, put in front of them. When I was at boarding school, you ate what was on the table or went for the jar of peanut butter. It is interesting look back at not only what we ate but how our tastes have…
Being Part of the World
Back in the not so good world of the fifties when we feared polio and practiced hiding under desks to keep us safe from nuclear war, connecting with the world wasn’t optional. There is a good chance you walked to school. It was likely played dodge ball or kick ball on the playground in the…
Living on the Water
Living near the tidal waters around Swansboro, North Carolina, was one of the true pleasures of my life. Pictured above are the marshes between Swansboro and Bear Island. Those marshes had some of the most spectacular scenery along the coast and some prettiest waters that I have seen anywhere. They were less than a fifteen…
Neighbors Not Evil Red Hats
Eleven years ago I wrote what I fondly call my snippets of life book, The Road to My Country. It is far from a complete autobiography but it has a lot of background information on my life. I wanted to get it out because I suspected North Carolina’s image was going to take a hit when…
Your Bubble Shouldn’t Define You
We all grow up in something of a bubble of our parents’ opinions and the ideas that surround us. I am grateful that I had Chet Huntley and David Brinkley instead of FOX News. I am also pleased that my mother would often take the opposite side or opposing candidate just so we could debate.…
From VCRs to Streaming- Apple TV – Fire TV
This history on viewing video was a result of being asked to review a Google Fire device and compare it to the Apple TV device. As you might guess from the picture I will get to a review of the Fire Cube and Apple TV but it is at the end of the article. If…
The Absence of Snow
While I was growing up, it would have been a dream come true to find a snowy scene as beautiful as the one above taken near our old farm in Tay Creek, New Brunswick. Tay Creek had more snow than even I bargained for when I set off to raise cattle. My youth was not…
The Last of Those Who Know How?
We all go through life differently. That much I know from being around this long. I have known people who could hardly use a screwdriver. I have also known some who could do almost anything with nothing. Human society is trending towards those who might not even recognize a screwdriver unless their smartphone can show…
Competition and the Internet
I like white button mushrooms. They are a favorite in omelets, salads and all sorts of things. Six years ago we were living on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast which is roughly defined as the area from the White Oak River in Swansboro to Town of Beaufort. It is a very unique area because most of the year…
All Through The House
Not a creature was stirring not even one of the tabby cats. They were all snuggled in their beds dreaming of Santa Cat and his sled full of cat treats. What a feast there would be if the sled just turned over. Even Goose might get his fill for once. Merry Christmas from Goose, Merlin,…
The McCallie Years
Chapter Three, McCallie, “Honor, Truth, and Duty” It was the fall of 1963, and I was headed for Chattanooga, Tennessee. I was being sent to McCallie School so I could have more male influence in my life. In retrospect that almost seems funny since my mother was far tougher than most men. She might not…
The Lewisville Years
My mother wanted to be independent so as soon as she could she bought a lot in Lewisville and built a house with an attached beauty shop. She bought the lot from Uncle Joe Styers. We were a Styers family living on Styers Street no far from Styers Ferry Road which was named after the…
The Early Years
Sometimes I think my life is a little like a Rubik’s Cube puzzle which I have been trying to solve for as long as I can remember. There are times when the puzzle pieces have been close to alignment. Other times, especially in the early day, the puzzle has almost felt like it was broken. …
Still Using Macs
Years ago the kind of computer you used could stir some serious passions. The world was in two camps DOS/Windows and Macintosh. There were people who were afraid of the Macintosh and the ease of use that it represented. Computers were supposed to be difficult. Taking away the hard work meant that anyone could do…
Mini-Monopolies Are Not Your Friend
I have made my living in the broadband world for over twelve years. I spend the time at my day job analyzing broadband in counties across the United States. While there are publications that would disagree, I can confidently say that most of you might at best have a choice between two providers. Sometimes it…
All in on Cattle
My first cattle were purchased in the summer of 1973, when we were living in the two-hundred year old post and beam house along the Bay of Fundy in the village of St. Croix Cove. I laugh when I tell the story that our cattle got mixed up with a dairy farmer’s herd and I…
The Heat of Summer
Some of you who aren’t used to heat will likely get a taste of it this summer. From 2006, until 2021, we lived on the North Carolina coast where heat is part of the life. Our house and large yard are pictured. Except for the last three years, I did all the mowing and trimming.…
Customer Delight
Last fall we had a wall built. I was amazed at how well the company did their job. They had the right tools, everyone knew what to do and they were done in the three days and left no mess. I asked the owner if he ever did any advertising. He told me that he…
Haying Stays In Your Blood
Of the over fifty years that I have worked since I graduated college, only a little over a decade was spent farming. I did grow up in North Carolina in the fifties and sixties when everyone we knew had gardens, some had chickens, and even a few had a milk cow. It was not unusual…
Love Where You Are Planted
I got sent off to boarding school at the ripe old age of fourteen. It was six hours from home and was a military school. I was pretty miserable for a few months. Then it dawned on me that there will be times in your life that you will have little control of where you…
We Find Our Farm
While we were still working on our old farm house the winter of 1973-74, we were also trying to find a place to move where we could have more success farming. When I look back on it, I am amazed that we found a place which was forgiving enough for us to take what little…
We Should Have Stayed Angry About Computers
I bought a new Mac Studio just before Christmas and just wrote an article about getting my wife a new Mac Book Air. There was a time not too long ago that people were passionate about technology. Just after I left Apple, an article on my Applepeels blog could generate twenty thousand or more hits…
Local Adjacent Hippies
Our daughter recently chose North Carolina’s Piedmont for her wedding. I was tasked with writing up some interesting nearby places. Our families have a long history in the area. My mother’s family, the Styers show up on the 1790 census. Glenda’s family, Snodys and the Haymores, have been in the area so long, my family…
Room to Dream
Except for boarding school and college, I have always lived with enough space for my imagination to roam. I grew up in Lewisville, NC, with a wonderful back yard with woods that stretched farther than I could roam. I have written of finally finding a real backyard for my somewhat rural life. I have had…
Keeping Updated Just Enough to Stifle Giggles
When your children grow up and leave the house, you can forget about the times when you are just a momentary embarrassment to them and move to living on the edge of potentially being a permanent embarrassment. It can be how you dress or drive, what foods you like or what television shows you watch.…
Apple No Longer Just Works
Actually, I am a patient person when it comes to technology. It took me two years before I labelled my 2010 iMac, my first iLemon. Even then I gave Apple’s executive relations team a chance to make it better. When they failed, my son, who passed his Apple service certification before he graduated from college, helped…
The Internet Is Not Done Changing Our Lives
Recently, our home in rural Davie County got a 2 Gig fiber circuit. It was not a special order, just a $99.95 midrange consumer offering of Zirrus, our local telephone cooperative. I know people in California who would give their left arm for connectivity like what I now have across the road from acres of…
The Urge to Work the Soil
Growing up in the rolling hills of North Carolina’s Piedmont in the 1950s meant that you were not far from the land. Most people had a connection with the land in those days. I can remember hog killings Two quotes from my book, “The Road To My County Country,” seem appropriate, “The land was what…
Next Came The Old House And Barn
The glowing ember of that Nova Scotia trip did not die. Maybe it was fanned a little by another trip that my college roommate and I took to Alaska in the summer of 1970 in my PowerWagon. We were gone most of the summer. When we came back I was even more determined to find…
Connections for the Future
Things have changed a lot since the original iMac® introduced “simple” Internet connections. Most of us in 1998 ending up using the modem to get to the Internet and not the Ethernet port. Connecting to the Internet was often not as easy or simple as the marketing brochures promised. Fortunately, technology changes and those changes…
The PowerWagon Changed Me
This is part of a series on life and careers that that started with this post, An Unconventional Journey – Life, Learning and Work. It had been a rough semester at Harvard. Getting away from the city seemed like a really good idea. It was a short trip from Cambridge to Newton’s Silver Lake Dodge in…
It Started With Nova Scotia
Thanksgiving during my junior year in college, three college friends and I decided to take an extra long break and go camping on Cape Breton Island. This was long before the days of the Internet and Google maps. We had little idea of what was ahead of us when we choose to drive up Route…
An Unconventional Journey – Life, Learning and Work
I recently started reading Disrupted, My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons. Dan and I have crossed paths a few times. The first time was when he was in full Fake Steve persona. He offered me sanctuary when it appeared Apple might be coming after my Applepeels blog. In Dan’s book which starts…
A Life On The Edge
The small town about twenty-five minutes from where we live today was in my young mind on the edge of a wilderness. The area was very different over six decades ago. When I was a small boy, the land there was very rural and not just a bedroom community for Winston-Salem. The books I read…
Mowing Your Way Through Life
How did people manage in the first half of the twentieth century before there were yards to connect them to the soil around their homes? I suspect that they were working in their gardens and fields. By the time I was growing up in the fifties in Lewisville, North Carolina, yards had become important. The…
No Frozen Millponds Today in NC
January 2022 with its snow and cold temperatures was a shock to Yadkin Valley residents. All the snow had most of us in the area looking for snow shovels or mittens. Depending on where you live it has been two, or three years since your last significant snow. In this throwback year, some have seen four snows…
How To Be A Sensible Streamer
Streaming your choice of video channels is what the future holds. I spend a good chunk of my day job looking at the prices of Internet services across the county. I studied cable, DSL, and fiber services in dozens of counties and communities last year. That along with my personal experience with prices and as an…
Adding Fiber to Your Life
Fiber connectivity can make a huge difference in your life. When we started planning our move, my first requirement was that we find a home with fiber connectivity. It was not a snap decision. My work career in technology will hit four decades in 2022, and all of those years have revolved around a home office.…
The Company of Cats
I have invited Jessie, one our four marsh cats to be the guest writer for post number fifteen hundred. I think she has a talent for writing. She certainly campaigned hard for the opportunity during the last seven days. Each morning I have awakened to Jessie curled up on my chest and looking down on me. …
The Trails of Our Lives
By the time I found the first trail that really meant something to my life, I had graduated from college and was living in an old farm house on the shore of the Bay of Fundy. Behind the house was a large field which sloped upwards to a spruce forest. At the top of the field…
Once There Was Only One Cat Beneath The Tree
When I was around three years old, my single mother and I moved to Lewisville, North Carolina from just across the Yadkin River in Yadkin County. It was where my mother had been born on a mill pond. Sometime before I was very old, a black and white stray cat found its way to the porch that…
Not Enough Wilderness To Save Us
Towns are magnets and they suck people from the countryside, especially the young and talented. We noticed this happening when we returned to New Brunswick in 2012.We farmed there in the seventies and early eighties. Since our trip, what remained of the three churches in our old town disappeared. The community store closed. Yet the provincial…
Empty Promises
I don’t want to be the old guy complaining about other people trying to earn a living. I would like to provide some constructive criticism that might make all of our lives easier. I spent nearly twenty years at Apple and anyone who knows me will quickly tell you that I am no Steve Jobs fan.…
The Five Shirt Day
An overlooked challenge of the pandemic is that it has been very hard on clothing, specifically shirts. I have never been easy on clothing. I have a long history of getting dirty. When we lived on the farm, my wife, Glenda, was known to sometimes hose me down and make me take my dirty clothes off…
The Shade Trees Are Still There, We Aren’t
I remember well the Sunday afternoons under the shade trees enjoying watermelon or homemade peach ice cream. As children, we played like there was no tomorrow. It was a simpler time when people could actually talk politics without getting angry. There was nothing like an old fashioned chicken stew to bring families together in North Carolina’s…
The Ghost I Knew
You cannot have a ghost story without a spooky, somewhat mysterious house and where I grew up in rural Forsyth County was nothing like that but things change. A little mystery also helps with ghosts and there was plenty of mystery in my life in the fifties. The house also had a lot of history, some of…
Partners in Cooking and Life
When I was chasing cows around our farm in Canada, I would have laughed if someone told me that I would replace my wife as the bread baker. I still remember the days that she would bake four or five loaves of oatmeal bread and the kitchen smelled heavenly every time I entered during the day. I…
Empowering Technology
Technology that empowers you is more than just the technology. To be really successful technolog has to be packaged in an affordable way and be easy to use to accomplish tasks that are important. I was working for Apple Canada and living in Halifax, Nova Scotia in January 1985 when Apple introduced the LaserWriter, the first…
A Cathedral of Leaves
Apparently none of the storybook scary tales of danger in the forest ever stuck with me. In rural North Carolina in the fifties, no one worried about evil happening in the forests that surrounded us. We did not understand it at the time, but the cathedral of leaves where we played immensely enriched our lives. As…
We Were Barn Builders Once
We moved to our farm in Tay Creek, New Brunswick in the fall of 1975. We bought a few cows and they were housed in the old style barn that came with the farm. That spring I went to Manitoba and Saskatchewan and bought a trailer truck load of cows. I had no intention of wintering…
Turkey Tussles
The first turkey that I remember being prepared in our house was cooked after we moved to the Mount Airy house with my dad. The first Thanksgiving at college, I did not come home but I got invited out by a college friend, Jack. We had a wonderful dinner and I got my one and only opportunity…
Dirt On My Hands
Our first off-the-farm garden in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Spring 1986 I farmed for over ten years, but I did not grow up on a farm. I graduated from college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as those of us who went to Harvard in sixties and seventies are fond of saying. The closest I got to farming there was…
The Mill Pond
My mother spent her childhood up to her teenage years on a mill pond. In my mind’s eye I can see the mill pond, the mill and the house. I have certainly heard enough stories. My mother grew up there. As a very young child she got lost in the woods one night. She had tagged…
If Silver Could Talk
Silver is not very popular these days. Some silver things can hardly be given away. My generation has one foot in the world where silver items were well used and certainly respected and today’s world where silver pieces cannot find a home where they even see the light of day and a little polish. At least…
Finally a Backyard
It seems since my childhood that I have spent much of my life searching for a backyard. I have had hayfields and marshes as backyard but until this last move none were close to the one where I played ball with friends when I was in elementary school. I could plow up part of it for…
Not the Last Farmer’s Market
We actually started going to farmer’s markets as a couple when we were living north of Fredericton, New Brunswick. We went to see people and to pick up a few things that we did not grow on our own farm. Even more so than most farmer’s markets, there were homemade items interspersed with farm produce. There…
The First Snow
I have seen a lot of first snows. I have also gone through a lot of years when there was never a first snow. Snow is an unusual thing. How it impacts your life depends a lot on where you live. We have lived in lots of places so our snow memories span everything from flurries…
Infinite Parental Wisdom
My mother pictured above with our good friend, Mr. Cruz, never knew a lot about fishing, but she was smart enough to trust the experts. Apparently, today’s parents have grown so smart that children no longer need schooling by teachers. Perhaps that is an exaggeration and not completely correct. The most vocal parents are okay with…
Breaking Your Inkjet Cartridge Addiction
I have used a lot of different printers over the years. Printing needs change over time and old printers eventually stop working or no longer work so well with new computers. Eighteen months ago, I donated my fourteen-year-old HP inkjet AIO printer to a local charity. It was still working but a challenge to use with…
Summer ’21 Update for the Crystal Coast
While we have moved from North Carolina’s Crystal Coast, that area of Carteret County that stretches from Swansboro to Beaufort, I continue to pay attention to the area. We lived there for sixteen years and would still be there if we had not wanted to be closer to our grandchildren. My biggest worry is that the…
Writing Our Own History
When I started writing for the web almost seventeen years ago, I had no idea how much I would appreciate my own writing. It turns out that few of us have memories as good as we think they are. Time after time, I will start writing about a subject and remember to look and see what…
Our Pandemic Move – Life Lessons – Part 1
Moving is never easy, but moving during a pandemic is a real challenge. However, we did and learned a lot – even some minor things like it makes sense to take paper towels and paper plates with you when you are huddled in the safe zone of your hotel room. Most of all, this move reaffirmed…
The First Thanksgiving on Our Own
It was long ago in 1971, when we gathered for American Thanksgiving on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in a farm house that had been standing for over two hundred years. Most of the people in the picture are no longer in my life but those that are still connected are treasures. Read more…
A Fall Update from the Crystal Coast
Every few months I send out my newsletter update for the Crystal Coast. Mostly I talk about living here and visiting our area. My updates are rarely without an update on the recent weather. You can read the newsletter at this link.
A Safe Warm Spot for a Challenging Fall
We have spent fourteen years here along Raymond’s Gut just off the White Oak River north of Swansboro. I managed to learn enough about the White Oak River from my kayaking and boating to know Ed was right. Many times, I fished a cove just off the river when the main River had whitecaps on it.…
From Cambridge to Cattle
Many people have asked me how I ended up farming in New Brunswick. It is a fair question. I did not grow up on a farm. I went to a military school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and got my undergraduate degree from Harvard where I studied mostly Colonial American History. I am sure it drove my mother…
Not Missing My Boat Yet
In 2006, we bought a home on Raymond’s Gut just off the White Oak River just ten minutes from the beaches of Emerald Isle. In June of 2007, we added a boat and a boat lift to our collection of things to make life more complete here along the water. There were challenges to learning…
HOAs Rarely Provide a Smooth Ride
Many of us live in HOAs. At the best of times HOAs stay out of our lives, provide a little safety, protect our property values and usually offer us some recreational opportunities that we might not have if we built our homes in the middle of a field. Unfortunately, many HOAs are started by developers,…
Connecting Electronically Not Always So Easy
Electronic communications were not always as easy as tapping an app on your Smartphone. For years most electronic communications were stove-piped with almost all communication limited to internal emails to people who worked for the same company. Even once the Internet made it possible to communicate between companies and organizations, getting hooked up and communicating…
Life is changing
The COVID-19 crisis has undermined my optimism, broken some of my connections with others, and altered my view of our country. All that has happened and the crisis is far from over. In spite of the advice to stay home, the last couple of weekends we have seen the first significant wave of beach people…
Saved by the Marsh Kittens
Our time living on the North Carolina coast will hit fourteen years this fall. It has been a wonderful adventure. We live on Raymond’s Gut off the impressively wide White Oak River near the beaches of Emerald Isle. I was not a boater when I came to the area, but we bought a 20 feet…
A Loss of Innocence
It seems that I have finally lost even those places that I could retreat to in my imagination. The COVID19 crisis and the mass shooting in Nova Scotia have stripped away those places that have anchored my psyche for most of my adult life. Now there is no place to run. Read more here.
There is more to working from home than your laptop
I recently wrote a post, Success from Working at Home. As I have seen people struggling with their first efforts at working from home, it occurred to me that people might need more suggestions, particularly with the things that I take for granted and the habits that I have developed over my thirty-five plus years…
Crystal Coast COVID-19 Update
This is definitely not the spring that we hoped for here on the Southern Outer Banks. Just after my birthday in early March the world seemed to enter a new more dangerous era. In spite of our location where the sand meets the sea, we are not immune. There have already been five cases identified…
On the Edge of the Continent
We are all in the same boat with COVID-19, but we can hope that living on the edge of the continent might buy us a little more time to learn from others’ mistakes. Carteret County also has some unique characteristics which might help us a little. Some of those things are what attracted us to…
Working at Home Isn’t a Dead End
I have had decades of experience working from home. It has worked well for me and I have never considered it an impediment to my career or to working with clients. To read what has worked for me, click this link.
Critical Thinking
Our society depends on the ability of its citizens to analyze information and to make informed decisions. We have so many citizens who have chosen to let others think for them that we are in danger of losing our group ability to know right from wrong. In college we spent endless hours debating different sides.…
Finding a home by the water
Our journey to a home by the water involved a lot of learning and more than a few surprises Finding your spot on the water is not as simple as it might first appear but it is not really difficult. You just need to understand that are a lot of different kinds of water. Read…
A Coastal Adventure
Over fifteen years ago we started considering a move to the coast after years of living on a mountainside in Virginia. We have started our fourteenth year at the coast and are getting ready for our next adventure. Here is how the move worked for us.
Beach Season Is Far From Over
Many people start to panic when they have yet to sneak away for a beach vacation as the end of July approaches. The truth is that you are better off if you missed that July baking in the sun. The best time to visit North Carolina’s Crystal Coast is later in the season. Read more…
The Real Spirit of July 4th
I posted this yesterday to my friends. The message resonated well with many people so it has now made it to my soapbox for all. I love my country of birth, but having lived in two countries, I also feel great pride when I hear “Oh Canada.” Having visited many countries, I feel great respect…
New Beaches for the Fourth
Hurricane Florence reshaped and changed many beaches on the Crystal Coast. Even the sand is different in places. Read more.
THE REAL DANGER TO OUR SOCIETY
We hear lots of talk about inequality in incomes, but there is an underlying problem that continues to get worse. It infects government, corporations, and even neighborhoods. It is not new but it is getting worse. Read more
TOLERANCE LEADS TO ACCEPTANCE
Each of us is an interesting mixture of what we were born with, who raised us, where we have lived and the people whose lives have intersected our paths. How we have reacted to all those situations ends up defining us and our world view. Some of my best friends are living just miles from…
Keeping Our Brains Wired
Our minds are amazing but like most things, they perform better if they are used regularly. Could it be that reading complex books primes our brains to keep track of more information than if we only read short articles? Read More
Too Much Communication, Too Little Listening
Clearly, things are changing in the world of communication. Our telephones ring so much with unwanted calls that many of us, myself included, like to make the few telephone calls that we take meaningful. Read More
Pinch me when it is over
The fall of 2018 has not been a fall to cherish. Fall is usually a wonderful time on the Crystal Coast but unfortunately, the slow movement of Hurricane Florence over the North Carolina coast set the tone for the fall. Along with Florence, we have had more than our share of rainy and windy weather. …
Time to Take a Breath
On September 11, 2018, we heeded the county’s mandatory evacuation orders and headed west from our home along Raymond’s Gut which flows into the White Oak River just three miles upriver from Swansboro, North Carolina. The garage of our house is just twenty-five feet from the water but we have never suffered water damage from…
Fourteen years of posts
On the Friday after Thanksgiving 2018, the View from the Mountain blog will have its fourteenth anniversary. It was not my first adventure on the web but it certainly has been my most persistent presence. There are close to fifteen hundred posts at View from the Mountain. Read more
Florence Stayed Too Long
It did not take us long to make the decision to evacuate for Hurricane Florence. The potential for damage was just too great to stay. Read more
Summer 2018 Update
There is nothing like finishing the evening fishing in the surf. A good summer on the Crystal Coast and the weather looks like it is headed in the right direction. Read more at this link.
Elusive Good Weather
Coastal weather is complex and ever chaning. Sometimes uncooperative weather can make it hard to enjoy our beautiful, sandy shores. Take heart, this 2018 streak of showery weather is not nearly as bad as some we have seen over the years. In spite of forecast of 60% chance of wet weather, we have had three…
Peace in the Inlet
Kayaking is one of the things that makes living on the Crystal Coast so special. The challenge is that we live on big water and you have to pick the days when you venture out into the river. Sometimes the inlet is a good choice. For more click here.
Escaping the Heat
The heat has found us on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast. It is part of life here. This time of year, taking three showers a day is not unusual and those of us who manage to get really hot, do not even bother to turn on the hot water in the shower. For more thoughts click…
What Makes Me Proud?
When we look back over life, a few important things stand out. It is an exercise well worth doing. Read more…
Overcoming Technology
As is often the case, technology is wonderful when it works and not so much when it does not. My problem started when I tried to use the automatic backup software from my hosting provider. It failed in mid-backup and left lots of strange files and destroyed a few files. I got the site back…
Better Internet Is Not Easy
We set out to lower our cable bill but it ended up being a complicated process because of how everything is tied together. The biggest challenge is that we have no real choice in Internet service providers so even if we cut the cord, we would still be stuck with Spectrum. Read more about out…
Shown the Door Too Soon
It is rare that people last ten or twenty years in a job today. Often it is not the employee’s fault. Do you have a similar story?
A Blast of Winter
An unusual taste of winter for the Crystal Coast. You will find more about our strange weather by the clicking the link or the picture.
Not Our Normal Winter
Leave it to the weather to make you humble. We are used to warm weather so this January 2018 snowstorm that is sticking around is an unusal event for us. Read more at this link.
Not the Last Warm Day
While there is cold weather finally in the forecast, we know from experience this is not the last nice day here on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast. Read more….
OUR QUINQUENNIAL TECHNOLOGY REFRESH
We have settled into a routine of upgrading some of our technology every five years. Computers can have years of useful life if you pay attention up front. Read more….
Fading Light of Fall
With the change in the seasons, come change in the light that we photographers enjoy. Read more…
Respect
A little respect might come with the job, but real respect has to be earned. Read more….
Summer 2017 Wraps Up
We have enjoyed a great summer here on the Crystal Coast. The weather has been great for enjoying the water. While we had some hot spells and some rain, we dodged the bullet of big storms and days of rain. Even the fishing has been good since the first of August. Read all about the…
Changing Sands
When you live near the beach, you never want to get attached to the way the sand looks at a particular beach. Wind, waves, and storms make our shorelines ephemeral at times. Some places like the Point change faster than Google can map it. Read more here..
A July Beach Evening
I stumbled into a perfect beach evening. There was no shortage of warmth but I was not hot. The air was moving and it smelled of the beach. The humidity was not overpowering and I could imagine being on the beach….(read more)
A Moment Of Clarity
Truly in the end it does not matter how life’s little battles play out. Some will be won and more than a few lost. We should all be sustained by something greater than winning. Read more
Our Modern Dark Age
If our country continues on this anti-knowledge, anti-reason path, the consequences will be dire. I do not plan to go quietly into the night as the country that science, reason, and technology built is torn apart to appease those who want to live in the past. I have grandchildren and I want them to grow…
When The Adventure Began
My wonderful wife and I have an interesting life to say the least. This is the story of how it all began.
Holiday Warmth
The holiday season is a time for renewing connections with family and friends but it does not comes without challenges. Read more.
A Place to Watch the Seasons
The marshes along Raymond’s Gut are filled with life and it is easiest to understand the diversity of life we see here by thinking of the gut as a watery game trail leading to the White Oak River. Read more
Fall Slipping Away
It has been a stellar fall here on the Crystal Coast. I have to go back a number of years to remember one with such great weather and excellent fishing.
Nearly Perfect Weather
We are enjoying some magnificent weather along North Carolina’s Crystal Coast. Great weather and another wonderful fall fishing season are two good reasons to read more about our coastal paradise.
Matthew’s Winds and Water
The Crystal Coast got off easy with Mathew. However, other areas were not so fortunate. No one on the coast takes a big storm like Hurricane Mathew lightly. We prepare, cross our fingers, and wait. Read more…..
For the Greater Good
There are parts of your life and people that have a huge impact on the person that you become. I like to think that my life has turned out well because of I what I learned from my mother, Boys Scouts, military school, college and during the years that I raised cattle in Canada. Read…
Another Coastal Fall, More Gardening
September does not bring an end to gardening on the Crystal Coast. We are lucky to have a long growing season but the challenges are much different here. Read more….
Fall Waters
The colors and the light have changed as we have moved into the fall season. While it is a subtle change, it is still very noticeable to those looking for signs of fall and to anyone who takes pictures. Read more….
Not Everything Hides Well in the Inlet
The Inlet is a good place to hide from winter or storm, but trying to hide mismanagement of our HOA will likely be unsuccessful.
Watching the water
Hermine did not slip by unnoticed, but we only got 4.5 inches of rain and some 10-20 MPH winds. Now we can watch the waters calm back down. Read more…..
The Warm Embrace of Late Summer 2016
Late summer means we are working our way through the heat and towards the best beach time of the year, Fall.
Relentless Criticism
It is easy to jump on the bandwagon with a bunch of critics. It is harder to find out the truth and make an intelligent judgment call and stand up for someone. Relentless criticism can be devastating.
Looking for Shade
It is hot and trees are saviors this time of year on the Crystal Coast.
Did You Do This To Yourself?
Somehow I manage to get sweaty and dirty more than most. Fortunately I have a patient wife. It is part of life in the heat.
A Few Cows
Four decades ago, a few cows seemed like a good idea.
No one at the pool
It is summer, the beginning of the second week of July 2016, and the area around the pool is empty. The answer is simple.
Life’s No Wake Zones
Life’s no-wake zones have disappeared
Morehead City-Crystal Coast Magic
Morehead City is one of the secrets of the Crystal Coast. It allows us to live a rural life and still have access to almost everything we could want. Read more…..
The beach is still special
Maybe a little of the magic and most of the fish are gone, but the Crystal Coast beaches are still special.
Last Parking Spot at Third Street
We have some great beaches here on the Crystal Coast and most of them never get crowded. Some of them like Third Street are not nearly as well known as some of the easier to find beaches. Read about Third Street in this blog post and have a look at some of the waves from…
Need a perfect beach vacation?
You will find the answers here…. also in paperback with color pictures for $19.99 or b&w for $7.95
Time to warm up the tomatoes
We received some much needed moisture the last couple of weeks. Now we need sunshine and heat.
I Love Living in the South
Those that know me realize that I have lived in a lot of different places. My wife and I have always managed to find something good about each place. However, I truly do love living in the South.
Whatever happened to graciousness?
Has spitefulness become the rule of the day? I will admit to not remembering much from long ago Sunday school lessons, but I do remember that being gracious to strangers was an important part of life. It was also important in my upbringing. My mother used to tell me stories about getting stuck on the…
Summer is on our doorstep
We are almost to summer and things are falling into place.
Searching for a perfect time on the river
Eventually the wind will quiet down and the clouds will part and I will have my perfect time on the river.
Bewitching Memories of Spring
Spring has been a tease this year, but we will get there. Read more….
Tomatoes on the Crystal Coast
A few of my tips will lead to greater success when growing tomatoes along the North Carolina coast area know as the Crystal Coast.
Signatures of Spring
Just a few things define spring on the Crystal Coast, one of them is low water. Read more here.
Successful ethical living
Many people believe that it is impossible to be ethical and successful. I disagree. Read more here.
The Chance To Be Great
We each achieve greatness in our own way but what do perfect rolls have to do with it? This article has some thoughts on approaching greatness but great rolls are not the answer unless rolls are your mission in life.
Our Disappearing Photographic History
Is your iPhone eating your photos? How hard is it for you to find a photo you took ten years ago? Read more.
No Guilt for Your Snow
The Blizzard of 2016 might have its birthplace near us, but we are innocent bystanders. Many of us moved here to escape snow.
The Hesitation Between Seasons
Winter is usually pretty nice to us but we do have to work our way through a month or so of it. Of course a winter day to us is one when the temperature does not get above 50F. Read more here.
Winter in our Cove?
The air temperature made it to 67F today. Can we actually call that winter? We might as well since we know that winter cannot be far away.
Winter fun on the water
Some good weather and warm water draw us to the river.
Save energy, eat more biscuits
The Southern biscuit might have been one of the first early convenience foods. It is easily prepared at home with simple ingredients. What you bake at home is much better than what you can buy in a drive-thru. Read more at The Energy Saving Southern Biscuit.
Apple’s Core Has Changed
What drives Apple’s success has changed radically. Read more in this post.
Peace along the Crystal Coast
It is that time of year when the peace you find here is hard to find elsewhere.
A November to Remember
Interesting times on the Crystal Coast.
Still Lots of Beach Weather to Love
It was summer-like on the Crystal Coast this past weekend. Great weather might be here again next weekend.
Crystal Coast Weather- It Cannot Be Beat
It was wet at the beginning of October but the weather has turned around in stunning fashion here on the Crystal Coast.
Serious Wet Weather, Then Back to Blue Skies
Plenty of rain found us in the summer of 2015 but it was still a great summer. The first few days of October 2015 made us wonder if our streak of great falls would end. However after sloshing around for four days, a week of great drying weather has rescued us and we are back on track…
The Crystal Coast’s Good Luck Weather Streak Hits a Bump
We have seen a lot of rain this summer, but it was still a great summer. The last week of September and the first few days have turned out to not so nice especially for our visitors. Fortunately the sun is shining on Saturday, October 3,. Starting around Tuesday of next week, the weather should be on…
Fall Fishing, A Crystal Coast Tradition
For decades fishermen have been coming to the waters of the Crystal Coast to enjoy great fall fishing.
Cue the Great Weather
It the time of year when we expect the best weather of the year on the Crystal Coast. Come visit.
Our technological infirmity 