Week of April 7, 2025

At the beginning of this week, I helped with another trout release and macroinvertebrate sampling, which I wrote about here:

Trout Releases & Macroinvertebrate Sampling

I also finished an oak bowl on the lathe, which I wrote about here:

Oak Fruit Bowl

Puttered around in the backyard and the workshop in the rain with Charlie. He checked on the radishes, organized his workbench, and drew a picture for me.

One of the things I love about Charlie is how inquisitive he is and how much he notices. While putting some air in our tires, he noticed the shocks and asked why there is a spring connected to our tires. We talked about it, then he checked behind the other tires, too.

We spent the rest of the week in northern Georgia visiting family. My cousin finished his Master’s degree and my grandfather turned 90, so my aunt threw a dual grad/birthday party for them and a lot of family came to town to celebrate.

Charlie did great on the plane again.

Amanda and I lived in Atlanta for a summer before we got married, and traveled back a few times for work after that. So the first spot we stopped for dinner after getting our rental car was Fox Bros BBQ. We needed some chicken fried ribs with white sauce (tip: you can get them as an entree!) and brisket. This is the second time Charlie has chowed down on brisket, so I think we’ll need to hit more BBQ places in the near future.

The party was nice and it was great to get some family time. Charlie had a blast running around with his cousins. Last August when we visited they mostly played independently, but now they played together a lot more, had their own conversations, and got up to shenanigans.

Charlie’s grandparent time is wonderful to watch. The three of them are so sweet together.

It is also great to see Charlie becoming more comfortable with and opening up around the rest of the family.

Charlie on the porch with Pawpaw.

We stayed with my parents at a place in the mountains.

North GA is about a month ahead of NY. The dogwoods are blooming, violets and wisteria are everywhere, and the trees are leafing out.

I showed Charlie some fiddlehead ferns while out on a walk. He said, “I call them lizard tails.” And you know what? They look as much like chameleon tails as they do fiddle heads. So now we call them lizard tails, too.

My uncle and cousin took me out fishing one afternoon. We had a couple hours free, so we drove to a stream in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest.

Uncle Kevin caught one rainbow, I hooked one but it jumped off the barbless hook before I landed it, and Wyatt got a bite. My uncle and I both used a futsu-style kebari with our tenkara rods, Wyatt used a bead head nymph with his rod and reel.

It was my first time using the DragonTail TinyTalon 245, which just arrived on Tuesday. I’m still getting used to it, but the short length was great for this mountain stream with a tight canopy. Easy to pack, too.

Uncle Kevin is the one who got my started on tenkara, so it was nice to chat with him for a while about how we each rig our rods, what flies we use, the various mods and gear we’ve made. And nice to get out on the stream together, even if we only had about 90 minutes of fishing time.

Kevin and Wyatt made some nice leather net holders for their belts, and passed along a tip: Get a cheap bag of leather remnants, which are perfect for small projects like this.