Visit to Mark and Chris's Property

Loading the Muzzle

Ramming Down the Apple

Arming the Breech

Fire at Will!

I visited Mark and Chris Jochem for dinner on Tuesday evening.  As in my previous visit, I met him at his business at the Port Townsend Boat Haven and followed him to his property a few miles south of Port Hadlock.  A review of my blog entry of 30 Dec 2011 (http://pachucaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/search?q=dinner+at+mark%27s) in which I described the interesting house, sauna, and gardens would be worth the effort. 

After greeting Chris and son Seth, Mark took me on a tour of the property.  I wouldn't be able to enumerate the amazing variety of fruit and vegetables that they are growin: from potatoes and carrots in the ground to a wide variety of berries, peppers, tomatoes, etc on the ground, to trees laden with apples, figs, and citrus.  I got to sample some produce along the way.  There was a small tomato that seemed to have the flavor of a big tomato concentrated in its smaller volume, and blackberries so big and juicy that rather than chew them I would squeeze them with my tongue to get their burst of flavor.  Yum.  Mark told me that they sell a few eggs but everything else is consumed by the family.

Chicken Coop in Background

Mark

Mark has begun work on a project to put up a large green house 30 ft long and over 20 ft wide.  It will have a system of circulating relatively warm air from the top of the green house to the soil below via slotted plastic pipes set in small rocks.  Unfortunately trees had to be cut down and their stumps removed. and he showed me a resulting serious stack of logs, mostly Douglas Fir.

I recently commented that I am a better engineer than a grower in the garden. Here there seemed to be a happy partnership where Mark covers the engineering side and Chris covers the growing side.

Mark asked me if I knew what a potato gun is.  Remembering how we used to ram potatoes up car exhaust pipes as naughty pre teenagers I asked if it was something that you blew through.  Not quite.  It was more of a cannon that was firing apples on this day.  It was remarkably similar to artillery of yore: ram the shot (apple) down the barrel, squirt gas from an aerosol can into the breech, close the breech, aim the cannon, and flick a lever that causes a spark.  We were sending apples a full 100 yards up to the top of the tall trees in the hill above us.  Amazing.  ... Good thing I didn't know about this in my early years.  They are not illegal but could do some serious damage.

We then sat down for a very pleasant and relaxed dinner where I got to know Chris a bit better and met attractive daughter Hanna for the first time.  Hanna is about to begin studies at college but is thinking of visiting Mexico and was interested in my experiences there. 

It was a good visit and I hope to see everyone again when I return to Port Townsend.