Retro Kansas

This is Fred!

When we were teenagers my brother and I got an urge to raise "Wisconsin Jumbo" Bobwhite quail and become rich, so we did!   We bought an incubator for the eggs, built cages and bought a few quail as breeders.  After a few years we got bored with it when we didn't get wealthy, and Fred is one of the last quail that was hatched.  He lived in our house in a cage in the bathroom, though we let him out all the time.  We'd even take him outside, and he'd run around and do all the things quail usually do. For some odd reason he was scared of other birds, even sparrows, and if another bird caught his attention he'd duck down in an attempt to blend in with the ground.   If we went back into the house he'd run like mad for the door because he was afraid of being alone outside.

As I got older, he became a pain because he'd start screeching when he heard the key in the lock when I got home later than I was allowed.  My folks would hear him, and I'd be busted.  He lived for 8 years, and remained friendly his entire life (unlike Farrah!)  

And no, I have no idea why we named him Fred.  Because we were kids?   Most likely!

Iced Coffee

Hate to dump a string of recipes out there, but it's too hot to go out and do anything outdoorsy so I'll do it anyway.  This is very simple to make, and though coffee has always wired me to the gills if I have more than a few cups, I'll take that risk with this delicious beverage.

Ingredients:

Coffee
Water

Simple, eh?

Any coffee will do, though I hear a darker, coarse ground roast makes a tastier beverage.   Of course, you can make coffee per usual and then chill it, but this receipt has a lower acidity and a different flavor than brewed coffee.  Simply take two cups of water and add 1/2 cup of ground coffee, cover and let it sit on the counter at room temperature for 12-18 hours. Strain it through a coffee filter or cheesecloth and mix it with half water or milk, or even cream if you desire a thicker, richer drink.  Pour it over crushed ice and you're done!   If you'd like a stronger drink you can freeze the coffee in an ice tray and skip adding  the ice.

Enjoy!

Breakfast Burritos

I've been making these for camping trips for years now, as they're easy enough  to make and can be kept in the freezer until you need them.  Throw 'em in the cooler before you leave, and 24 hours later they'll be thawed and can be thrown on the grill for a delicious and nutritious breakfast. (Or lunch. Or dinner. Or a snack!)

I use various ingredients depending on what I have available, but always include at least  beans, eggs, cheese, and spices.

Other possible ingredients include:

Sausage
Chorizo
Onions
Peppers
Rice
Avocado
Salsa
Sour Cream

Heck, you can add whatever you like, but it's best to keep it fairly simple.  I almost always use home cooked beans as the canned ones have no taste in my opinion. Refried beans are always an option, but whole beans are easier.   I never measure ingredients, it's best to throw everything together in amounts that look ok and they always turn out great.  You can cook everything separately and add to the tortilla, or simply cook everything in a skillet, (meat first!) and then add the eggs to bind it together.  I'd recommend adding the cheese, avocados and sour cream after the egg mixture.  Roll 'em up, throw 'em in a baggie, freeze 'em and you're good to go!

Another thing I might mention:  I've been buying tortillas for years, but recently they've become ridiculously expensive, the large ones costing around 4 dollars for 8 tortillas. Being a cheapskate, I've been making my own recently.  The flavor is vastly superior, and they're not difficult to make.  I'll add a post about it sometime, or if you can't wait, simply google homemade tortilla.

Retro Kansas: Solar Eclipse

  It was May 10th, 1994, and I was outside with my camera hoping to get decent pictures of the solar eclipse.  Surprised, I looked down and the sun's light had reflected through the leaves and created hundreds of miniature reflections of the eclipse on the ground.  I snapped 10 or 12 pictures in amazement!

New Shoes

I've been looking for a new pair of yakking shoes for some time, as I was sick of the crappy tennis shoes or plastic POS's I've been wearing for years. I wanted something that would drain water as well as dry fairly quickly, and definitely be tough enough to last for more than one season. I'd considered a pair of Adidas Outdoor Boat Shoes (vs indoor boat shoes?  Gahhhh...), as they had received mostly favorable reviews on Amazon. Trouble was, all of the not-butt-ugly colors were sold out in my size. I finally decided on a pair that were neon green, figuring after a few trips they'd be broken in and would lose some of that blinding new-car shine. This is what they look like after a couple of trips and a little drunken kicking logs back into the fire:


 

As can be seen in the second photo, there are holes in the bottom made to allow water to drain, and if you look closely there is a fine screen covering the holes. Surprisingly, no sand was able to make it through the screen, making them more comfortable in that respect than any of the shoes I'd been wearing. They are lightweight, comfortable, the water drains fairly quickly, and they dry fast too.  One strange aspect of these shoes:  They smell like fruit.  I thought it would go away after they got wet once, but oddly, it's still there.

It was only a few days after purchasing these when I saw that Adidas has a newer model called the Jawpaw Water Shoe. Once again, they have high ratings and look pretty darn cool. I'm not sold on the watersock look of the top, but the soles look beefier than the boat shoes I'd just purchased. No regrets buying the boat shoes, but if I were to do it over I might give the Jawpaws a try.

Morel Cherry Poppin'

"I found my first morel!" Derek said excitedly, grinning from ear to ear as he bent over to retrieve his camera from his kayak. "I'm going to take a picture before I pick it."

D's first Morel

We'd put in at Hughes Crossing on Fall River an hour or so before, and had been talking morels much of the time... well, I had anyway. After months of learning about morels from reading everything possible on the nets it's safe to say I was obssessed, and after last year's morel busting drought we'd both been determined to find some. Though I'd already managed to find a few in Oklahoma near the Kansas border the week before and some in Kansas, I wanted to find enough to stuff ourselves to the gills that night. We'd had plenty of rain, the temps were around record levels for late March, and it was an absolutely beautiful day.

I paddled over to where Derek had stopped, and ran with Trout up the bank where Derek was bending over taking a picture of a perfectly ripe morel growing from the side of the bank. I peered into the area above the morel and spotted several more growing mere feet away. "Holy shit!" I exclaimed, "Did you see those?!" Derek looked up and after staring into the grass for a few seconds affirmed that indeed he did! I climbed up into the weeds and saw even more, and we both got even more excited and began picking. We covered the area for 15 or 20 minutes and ended up with maybe a pound or so of lovely morels. "We'll be eating good tonight!" I said, and discovered I'd been infected with Derek's permagrin.

Were we happy? Damned straight we were!

Our morels

As I mentioned, I'd looked in Oklahoma the week before but had come up nearly empty. I had pulled up to a likely looking area where a woman and 6 or 7 kids were loading full plastic grocery bags into the back of her truck. I waved at them as they drove away, and realized with some dismay they'd probably cleaned them out. I decided to have a look anyway, and within minutes began seeing dozens of morel stumps where they had been cut off at the ground. After 30 minutes of walking I saw a dead elm tree and walked towards it, expecting only to find more stumps, when I saw my first ever morel hiding under a blanket of leaves. It was 8 or 9 inches tall and hunched over from the weight of the leaves on top of it, and as I cleared the area around it and snapped a few pics I saw another smaller one growing several feet away. They'd missed them because they were growing between two trees and were hard to see.

My first morel

Morel stumps

I went again the next day and found a few more several miles from that spot amidst scores of beer bottles and literally tons of trash. (WTF is wrong with people!) A few days later I discovered a spot very near my house that yielded nearly a pound of grays and blonds, and several more big blond ones a few days later.

The season for morels is almost over now, but I'm not quite finished yet. I'll be heading out today to try my luck in a few different spots, and probably to revisit a few of the "old" spots.


Wish me luck!

It's Alive!!!

Get Your "Art" Geek Shoes on for: Albany Slip Clay

When I first took a ceramics class many years ago, there was a plastic one gallon jug sitting on the shelf with an ancient tattered paper label titled: ALBANY SLIP. Curious, I asked the instructor what it was, and he informed me it was a rare slip clay from a pit that no longer produced it. (In other words: No, You Can't Use It.) Through my time at a different school students would sometimes speak of the magical Albany Slip as if it were made from the dust gently shaken from faerie wings, and many dreamed of a day when they'd actually find some and create the World's Greatest Art Piece, or some such nonsense.

It was actually very commonly used for 250 years, and in the days when clay was king it was used as a glaze for practically every utilitarian piece ever made of clay. It fires to medium to dark chocolate brown at cone 9-10 and creates a nice glassy glaze.

Albany Slip Glaze

Last night curiosity got the better of me and I decided to look on Google Earth to see if I could locate where it was mined. I'd heard houses had been built over the pit so it was unavailable, and I assumed I'd see rows of ticky tacky instead of a clay mine. After reading a little about it on the internets I'd discovered it was mined just a few blocks from the State Capitol in Albany New York, so I fired up Google Earth and within seconds was hovering over the city. After scrutinizing the area immediately surrounding the Capitol, I thought maybe the people were right; the place was lousy with buildings and no sign of disturbance. I slowly looked around the area and then something caught my eye: Across the Hudson River I could see what looked like excavation activity near what appears to be a high school. A closer look confirmed it was indeed a recent excavation, and looking even closer, I could clearly see a large backhoe filling the back of a truck! According to the information available the clay was originally dug from the west side of the river in the area known as Tivoli park, and I see no reason why the deposit couldn't be slightly to the east of the river also. After spending some time looking at Google Earth, it appears there are many small pits dug over the entire area, so who knows?

Albany Slip Pit?

Mining Albany Slip?

As some might imagine, this was somewhat a shock. Does this mean Albany Slip will be available for sale again? I spent more time than I'll admit searching for the answer to that question, and eventually discovered this page from 2007: Ceramic Industry Pottery Production Practices

After reading the entire piece (which was fascinating to a clay geek like me), I came upon this gem at the bottom of the page:

A 10-ton stockpile of original raw Albany slip clay is available and can be purchased in small or large quantities from The Great American Wheel Works, N.Y. The clay comes with an instruction sheet on how to screen the small pebbles that constitute approximately 1% of the total clay content.

(contact information at the link.)

I found a few more references to the Albany Slip Clay on a few other pages, and they inform me the raw clay sells for a whopping $5 a pound. It used to sell for less than that for a 50 lb bag! I'm considering buying a few pounds, though due to the fact I do only primitive, non-glazed pieces these days it'd likely never be used.

So all you people looking for Albany Slip, there you are. And if you clay turds out there do create the greatest work of art ever made using it, remember: You owe me.

Retro? Nah...

These are pictures from 6 or 7 years ago.

I was getting a spot ready for planting garlic in September when I dug these little critters straight up out of the ground.

Great Plains Narrow Mouthed Frog (Gastrophryne olivacea)

This is a young narrow mouthed frog, and I say "young" because it was maybe 1/2 an inch in length. I've seen a few that were bigger, but these guys are usually on the small side. It amazed me that it came out of the dry, dusty soil looking like it had swam out of the water! They're not uncommon in Kansas, yet few people see them, mainly because of their nocturnal habits. Oddly, most of the sites on the internets call this animal a toad, but I'll stick by my trusty Audubon Society Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians.

Ringneck Snake (Diadophis punctatus)

This little guy was a hatchling, being only 4-5 inches in length. This one is a result of implantation of a few adults into my back yard many years ago.

Lovely plumage!

Drill here, drill NOW!

Did you feel the earthquake last night?

I didn't, but Derek did. He hit me on messenger shortly after it happened asking if I'd felt it. I said no, and then proceeded to look online to see if there was any updated information.

Here's what I found. (PDF)

Though no definite conclusions were reached, the USGS clearly believes that fracking is responsible. With the addition of several, even more powerful earthquakes in the same area in recent days, it is clear to me that hydraulic fracking in the area is what caused them.

The quake last night was a 5.6, the largest ever recorded in Oklahoma.

Damned Kansas Liberals!

Louis Vieux Elm Vandalized (For the Last Time)

It was once the largest American Elm in the world, and now thanks to vandals the remains of this giant are no more.

Jeremy told me about this magnificent tree he'd discovered while attending KSU in the early 00's. It was more than 300 years old and stood 100 feet tall with a canopy that spread nearly that far. Some years ago it was damaged by lightning, then in 1998 a couple of morons blew it up with a pipe bomb which eventually caused its death. Thankfully they were caught, and sadly their "punishment" was a few hours of community service. Tuesday it was discovered that over the weekend (most likely) someone had torched the stump, leaving only a pile of ashes beneath the arbor which was recently built to protect it.



I've heard someone at KSU had saved some of the branches of the tree after it was bombed, which were then cloned, ensuring this gargantuan tree would live on in a much smaller version(s). What would be fantastic is if someone at the University would plant one or more of the clones in this vicinity.

Does anyone out there have a good picture of the actual tree? I found a few on the internets but they are tiny as well as blurry. If you do, and could send them to us at stevelafrench at gmail dot com it would be greatly appreciated!

Mammoth discovery in Scott County

Read about it here

I almost puked on myself when the bimbo on the local news said this mammoth was killed by the "Oldest human beings known to exist", which is exactly the kind of moronic drivel most of us can expect from idiotic newsreaders. This huge beast died around 10,000 - 12,000 years ago, probably killed by Clovis people.

Many mammoth remains have been discovered in Kansas, most of them in the form of petrified molars or tusks discovered in rivers. Potential kill sites such as this one are much more rare.

When growing up, the grandfather of the fundamentalist family next door found a molar while excavating gravel on the Walnut river outside of Ark City. They believed it was a remnant of the "monsters" wiped out by Noah's flood. I'm sure the newsreader would agree!

Ackerman Island

Ackerman Island, early 1900's

A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away...

Well, actually it all started in the 1870's in Wichita Kansas.

Floodwaters from Colorado formed this island in the Arkansas river in downtown Wichita, which ran from 2nd street to Douglas Avenue. Over the next few years, due in part to increased use of water in Colorado which reduced the normally robust streamflow to a mere trickle, the island became a semi-permanent part of the river. In 1890 Joseph Ackerman purchased and named the island. He built a business which provided sand, and in 1905 he sold the entire island. Shortly after, an amusement park named Wonderland was built there, which was home to the famous figure 8 "Great Thriller" roller coaster, at the time the longest in the country. Shortly after a baseball stadium was built, followed by 3 theatres, a bandstand and a dancehall.

There are uncomfirmed rumors that a tunnel was built connecting the Broadview hotel with the island in order to provide an escape route for imbibers during prohibition.

The "Great Thriller" at Wonderland Park, early 1900's

In the 1930's, due partly as an effort to relieve flooding downtown, the island was removed. Yes, removed! The PWP hired men for a few dollars a day to move the island by hand with shovels and wheelbarrows. The soil and sand was moved to the west bank, incorporating it with the western part of the island, which is part of Wichita's West Bank today.

Can you imagine if the island were still there? Downtown Wichita would be a much more interesting place, and if I had my way, the "Old Town" area would now be located on Ackerman Island.

Lynx in Kansas?

Seems to be true!

When I was growing up I used to dream of seeing Wolves or Mountain Lions in Kansas, even though I knew they'd been exterminated many years ago. Even animals like deer and turkey were rare until I was well into my 20's. Some years ago I worked with a woman in Augusta who told me the last bear in Kansas was killed on her property east of Augusta in 1959, which also happens to have been the year I was born. Though there still aren't bears around, there are plenty of deer and turkey, and several reliable people have told me they've seen Mountain Lions here... now I've never actually seen one, though I've seen tracks and actually heard one screaming one night very near to me when I was fishing on the Walnut river. Talk about being petrified! I was so scared walking home as I knew I'd be a big cat's dinner before I made it to the house!

I'm still hoping Wolves are reintroduced to the state someday, though with all the ranchers around that's probably a pipe dream.

Holy Drought

So I thought we were going to catch sum biggun's this summer while camping along Kansas' many scenic rivers and lakes?!?! Nope. Well to be fair, I have gone out some but not half as much as last summer. This drought/ heat wave totally sucks. I've only caught about 20 fish this year (thankfully I went to a secret spot last week and caught 6 of those then)! Also, for once, I can honestly say I don't want to camp because it's too hot! I normally never "wimp out".

I thought I would look up just how bad the drought is around here. Right now Sedgwick County's western half is rated "Severe" and the eastern half is rated "Extreme". The only rating higher than that is "Exceptional". This is followed by DEATH haha!

Kansas Drought Monitor

US Drought Monitor

Hopefully it will cool down soon. The only thing that seems to be loving this heat is my sunflowers. The tallest one is about 13'6"!!!

Son, that's a big fish! (part 2)

My brother sent me this info a few days ago and I thought I'd share it with all you fishermen and women out there:

80 lb Flathead at El Dorado Lake

I would think the biologists would have had more sense than to pull a flattie that size out of the water and pose for multiple pictures with it, as it had to have been extremely stressful for such a huge fish.

It's a big flattie and I've seen my share of them, though maybe not quite that big! One morning at Chase county Jer and I saw a huge flathead lazily swimming in a few feet of water in the small creek that feeds into the lake. I had my pole in my hands, (my fishing pole, heh) and looked at the fish, looked at my rod and the 8 pound test on the crappy plastic WalMart Diawa reel and quickly decided it would be futile to even attempt to cast out to it.

An interesting tale about the world record flathead mentioned in the article. A relative who knows the guy who was fishing with the man who supposedly caught it at Elk City lake told him the true story was different than the one told to the public. He claims the flathead had grabbed a 10 or 12 pound carp that had became lodged in the fish's mouth which prevented it from breathing. In other words... the big fish was dying. The man saw the fish, dropped his rod, grabbed the fish and dragged it up into the rocks where he then stuck the crappie jig in its mouth and contacted a warden. This makes more sense to me than the tall tale told to the world, that he was crappie fishing with a Zebco 33 reel with 12 lb test, hooked this behemoth and fought it for 15 minutes before finally getting it on the bank. Pfffttt. Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

So anyway, how did I get so off topic?

Bottom line, big flats are everywhere in the eastern half of the state, not just at El Dorado lake. They are eating machines and grow quickly into huge fish, gaining as much as 10 lbs in a season. If it'd ever cool off and rain we might even catch a few!

Elk City Lake

I've always heard about the awesome trails at Elk City Lake in SE Kansas. The Kansas Wildlife and Parks website lists 8 trails plus the Corps of Engineers manages land featuring camping and trails so we had to decide where to go. We settled on the Elk River Trail in the Corps area. In addition to being very scenic you can backpack on this trail. We wanted to camp along the shore of the lake in a secluded area. We set out around 3 pm and began hiking. Right away this trail becomes very strenuous. It was around 100 degrees so I was glad we brought a lot of water but feared we didn't bring enough. There are cave like rock formations, crevasses and steep bluffs overlooking the lake. After about 3 miles we stopped and found an awesome spot to camp under a willow tree next to the lake. It was very cool! Growing next to the willow was the largest Button Bush I've ever seen COVERED with various species of butterflies. I can't wait to go back there but would like it to cool down a little first. Taking the kayaks would also be a great way to reach these remote spots where privacy is at it's best!!

Here is a map showing some of the various trail heads.

Here are some photos I took along the way:


The sunrise was amazing


A Kansas jungle


The trail is rugged and interesting

No Morels (this year)

I spent countless hours traipsing through brush and woods looking for morels this April with no luck whatsoever. It's been incredibly dry here since last July so I'm sure that had something to do with it. We were working in Rose Hill the first week of May when I happened to look down at the ground and discovered a half-free morel growing out of a neatly trimmed lawn. At first I thought it was a ceramic doo-dad, that is until I reached down and picked it. It was small, it was half rotten, but it was a morel.

The very next day my brother called and said he'd discovered one growing in his lawn, and in a very similar condition to the one I'd discovered. A few days after that I found a picture on Google earth of morels growing near Cheney lake.

I'll be looking again next year, and hopefully we'll have a little rain so the picking will be better. Jer's uncle told us he'd picked bags full near his house in years past, so that gives me some hope. :)

Update

Well, I figured I should write and let our readers know what's been happening lately...

Water levels have been LOW! But... I don't feel like complaining right now, so onto the good news...

We have begun redesigning Konza Life to hopefully improve it quite drastically. I don't fancy myself a web designer, so these things take a lot of time for me to get up to my standards. As long as we've had this site running via Blogspot, there have been things I'd like to improve on, but limited to the tools Google provides.

I have decided to start building a custom theme using Wordpress, which will allow for a far greater range of design possibilities. My first attempts have lead to roadblocks(of course), but haven't discouraged me from continuing my quest to provide an A+ Kansas outdoors blog for interested readers.

Some of the things I am working on are...

-Dropdown menus for things such as Streamflow Conditions, Rivers, Lakes and other places

-Individual pages for places we visit (which will include things such as maps, photos and info)

-A separate blog area for us to rant and rave

-Better organization for finding the info you want to read (won't be as much sifting through posts)

-Ad free and non-profit (the way a Kansas outdoor blog should be)

If all goes as planned, I think everyone will appreciate the new design a lot. Part of our mission for creating a site such as this, is making a site we would like to visit ourselves for information.

I like the idea of being able to come to this site and have everything I want to see visible and not-intimidating. Wonder what that Fall river access looks like? Just click Rivers/Fall River and you will be sent to a page with directions, map, photos and info.

That's what I have in mind... Now I just need to finish another website I have been working on, so I can crank this one out!

Please be patient and check this site often, we do have a couple authors besides me(nudge), so sometimes things just seem to pop up!

I'd like to thank everyone that enjoys the Kansas outdoors and takes care of our wonderful state.

Stay tuned! Cheers