My Home Town

I was born at Rio Hondo Memorial Hospital in Pico Rivera California. If you were to look closely at my birth certificates you would see that one of them lists my birth city as Downey. So I decided to do a Google Search for the address listed on my second birth certificate. It does show that address as being in Downey. The picture below shows the hospital being between Pico Rivera and Downey. When asked where I was born I have always stated I was born in Pico Rivera so I will continue to do so.

The home that holds the most memories for me was located in West Covina, CA. It was a modest 1500 square foot home in a sea of homes in the Southern California area. My earliest memory of living at this house was on my fifth birthday. My birth dad Joe Sattler came by the house to give me a birthday gift. We stood at the front door of the house and he handed me a box that contained a brand new transistorized radio. That was the last time I ever saw him. 

I lived in this house till I left for the U.S.A.F basic training at the age of 22. My parents sold the house in 1990. 

There were so many homes in this area it was not too hard to make friends since there were a lot of kids my age on my street. My friends lived across the street and in the house next door to ours. Now that I think back my early childhood was a very small world compared to how many people that lived around us.

I did have other friends that did not live on my street but did not really get involved with them until I started Jr. High. 

The summers in Southern California were hot and very smoggy. As a kid we would go swimming at my friend Bob Hillenburg's house. Bob lived right across the street from us. After swimming our lungs and eyes would be burning from all the smog. The mountain range to east was only about 10 miles away yet was normally shrouded by the air pollution. When the Santa Anna winds would blow and after a winter rain storm the smog would clear and the mountain range would become vibrant and really stand out.

My Birth Name

The church that I belong to encourages up to keep a journal for our descendants to know a little something about us. They have made it easy for us to do this by giving us a list of 52 questions to answer on the Church web site.

I will attempt to answer one question  a week for the next year so that my future posterity can know who I was and what my life was like. So here goes with the week one question.

What is your full name? Why did your parents give you that name?

I have two birth certificates that  shows that I was given the name of Douglas Phillip Sattler on one and Douglas Phillip Shaw on the other:

As you can see I was born with last name of Sattler. I can only assume that my middle name comes from my birth father Joseph Phillip. My mom had another birth certificate made in 1967 that shows my last name to be Shaw. Joseph was my birth father but Bobby was my real father. 

When asked my Mom stated she liked the name Douglas and and so I was named Douglas Phillip. 

Update

Been a long time since I posted to this blog. So much has happened in the last 4 years. We moved again and live in Arlington TN. We like the place loads of privacy and wildlife, just last night we saw 4 deer.

My job as an aircraft instructor for FedEx has taken me all over the country this year and two times to Paris.

Paris Crew

I am scheduled to go to Manila in December. I don't mind the travel and even get to take Teri with me from time to time. We are going back to the Gulf Coast in a few weeks.

 Ryan and Ashley had another child, a sweet granddaughter. Got to see Laura and her girls twice so far this year and had a wonderful vacation with them this summer. I am so blessed to have such wonderful children and grandchildren. Wish we were closer.

Abby and Lily

Ryan's Tribe

Earlier this year I learned about another brother and sister of mine. Teri and I were able to visit them last month and get to know them and their families. My only regret is not getting to know them much sooner than this but am grateful to have them in my life now.

One very sad event happened this year. My buddy Argos got out and made it to the road and was hit by a car.

He was a great friend and helped me through a very dark period in my life.I miss him dearly.

New Garden Plans

Finally have an idea for the garden out front. Will be based on the picture above. Will have a double fence surrounding it. This will be the chicken moat (run). Will place a chicken coop in the back corner and place the bees in another corner. This design should keep out the deer and coons. Might use an electrified net for the inner fence this will ensure that the chickens and coons will stay out of the interior of the garden.

Plan right now is to have 8 to 10 4 by 8 ft boxes. Will repeat grape trellis on the west side of the garden much like we had in Greensboro.

Feeding Bees 7-4-11

Last weekend I was able to harvest about six gallons of honey from two medium supers. I put up 18 quarts and have started to give the rest back to the bees. This top feeder seems to work the best as the bees will line up like cattle at a feed trough.

Greensboro Garden April 2011

Going to miss this place! Have learned some great lessons and we are ready to take it to the next level. Will do more square foot gardening and less fruit trees, too labor intensive for the return you get. Have a rotation plan in mind for chickens and goats. Eric and I are going to start a meat goat operation in Tennessee. Will start small and see how it goes. Wanted to log these pictures as a reminder of what we had here.

Grape crop should be excellent again. Might not be able to enjoy them this year.

Apple tree loaded with fruit.

Strawberries that my friend Bill gave me last year. Bumper crop.

 Argos kept the rabbits and deer out of them.

Second Inspection Late Winter 2011

Great day to take a look at the home hives. Noon time temps were in the mid 60s today. Honey from from the dead-out hive is almost all gone the bees have been very good at taking it. Looks like the strategy worked.  Removed one frame from the middle of the bottom brood box of hive 1 and it was full of capped brood on both sides of the frame. Laying pattern of the queen in this hive is excellent. Top super still has plenty of capped and new uncapped honey stored. Population of this hive is great with lots of bees in both boxes. Added a empty medium super so the bees will have room when the brood hatches out. Will add a few jars of 1:1 sugar water when the weather warms back up in the next day or two. This should stimulate the bees to draw out the comb in the top super. High hopes for this hive. I will need to watch for signs of swarming and make sure they have plenty of room to expand. This hive might be a split candidate.

I had reversered the brood and super boxes on hive two a couple of weeks age. Still not much action taking place in the brood box. Still a lot of small hive beetles (SHB) in this hive. Pulled one frame from the bottom box and there was a good pattern of capped brood on the frame. Pulled another frame and tapped off the bees due to the high number of SHB. Tapped all of the SHBs out of the cells as well. Installed a beetle blaster trap in the top outside edges of both boxes. Moving this hive into the sun should help but need to control the beetles before they ruin the comb.

Hive three looks just as good as hive one. Took the half  full honey super from hive four and placed it on this hive. Did this because they looked like they needed the room. Bees all through this hive so I decided not to pull any frames. Just pulled the top super and had a look at the brood box it too was chocked full of bees. Hope that they will move into the top super as they need more room. Will monitor this hive for signs of swarming and split it if I can.

Hive four is still very weak with very few bees in the upper two supers. Removed the newspaper from between the brood box and full honey super. Only three frames had bees on them in the brood box. Saw capped drone cells and a few supersedure queen cells being constructed. My guess is the queen is weak and she is being replaced. Going to let this hive and and nature run its course. This was the hive that was re-queened last fall. Like Bill Hansen's hive at the Brown yard it looks like the queens we got last fall  may not have been very viable and or well bred.