Review: 2021 Subaru Ascent Premium

During a fishing trip to the coast last week, I ran into Chad Foster. Some of my fellow fly anglers will recognize that name as the host of the popular "Fly Fishing America" which ran for eight seasons on national television.  A native of Lafayette, Chad was a highly successful businessman while in his early 20s, and by age 33 took a step back to get involved with Special Olympics and later as an author and youth skills motivator.

Chad had been fishing with a mutual friend, John Williams of Pack and Paddle.  He noticed I was driving a Subaru Ascent and stated he was interested in an Ascent. He then had the distinction of being the 100th person to ask me about my vehicle. For that, he wins a Big Mac Meal from McDonalds. But maybe I'll send him a box of Plantation Pride pecans instead.

Yes, everyone - I mean everyone - has asked me about my Ascent. So to avoid having to write up a detailed report every time someone asks, I'm simply going to post this and refer to this blog post.

Subarus are popular. Especially with the outdoors crowd - and dog owners. We qualify as both. Two years ago, our daughter bought a Forester in the Base model. After driving and riding in it, my wife - in need of a new SUV - last summer bought a Forester in the Touring Edition.

A couple of months later, I was looking to replace my Highlander which had 240,000 miles. My older son and his wife were looking to replace their minivan. I had just sold a property and with the cash, was able to buy both him and I each a late model used vehicle (I stopped buying new vehicles years ago). We were both looking at 3rd row seat SUVs, so I got a chance to test out several models.

In the end, they chose a Ford Explorer. My choices were down to a Ford Explorer, Subaru Ascent, Toyota Highlander, and Honda Pilot. There was also a highly-rated Hyundai model, but I didn't care for the odd design. While I liked the Pilot, the cost of maintenance and some reliability issues bothered me. My current and previous vehicles where Highlanders, and I knew they had rock solid reliability. The Explorer and Ascent were longer than the Highlander, and had quite a bit more cargo room with the 3rd seat down than the Toyota.

It was close call between the Explorer and Ascent, but the "fun" of driving, the gas mileage, and the safety features sold me on the Ascent.

After having driven this vehicle for a little over a year, and across several parts of the country, I feel I can give a very good assessment.

PROS:
- This is just a fun vehicle to drive. It feels more like the Forester than a "full size" SUV.
- Gas mileage.  I get 24 mpg around town, 30-32 mpg on the highway.
- Cargo room. More spacious than my Highlanders were, I can hold a LOT of hiking and fishing gear.
- Safety features. This is Subaru's big selling pitch, and yes, it comes in handy at times.
- Full time four wheel drive standard. It's come in handy a few times already!

CONS:
- The turbocharged 4-cylinder really has lots of pep, but sometimes it's a bit sluggish for the first 5 minutes if the engine is cold.
- The leg room in the back seat isn't as roomy as my Highlander was, even though the 3rd seat has more than the Highlander did.
- Some of the interior feels a bit "cheap". Turns out the "Premium" is just above the "Base" and below the "Limited" and "Touring". My wife's Forester Touring is much nicer inside.

Eyesight. This is Subaru's top safety feature. The Ascent has the usual "modern" safety features like flashing when a car approaches on either side, or gets too close behind, or rear camera when backing up. Eyesight reads the road ahead. It gives alerts when the driver leaves the lane, or changes lanes without using the blinker, or when the vehicle in front starts moving. When using cruise control, the Ascent will slow down to a safe distance behind a slower vehicle.

But there's a kicker... there's also a "driver assist" feature to Eyesight. During the first couple of weeks, I noticed anytime I came into a curve that the vehicle would want to make the turn. I even tried it once, on a good country road with wide shoulders, and the vehicle turned by itself!  It does get a bit annoying after a while, so I turned it off. But it might come in handy for those who don't pay attention to the road, lol.

Safety features aside, I need an SUV to do the following: carry my kayak for long trips (instead of using my kayak trailer), have good cargo room, get good gas mileage, accomodate those times when I'm driving the grandkids (3rd row seat), have good reliability, and be a good purchase value (yes, I'm frugal).

The Ascent hit all those requirements. It's what SUVs were intended to be... an outdoors vehicle. Not some luxury vehicle, or a fashionable transport for soccer moms. If there's one thing I could change, it would be to bring back the step bumper that SUVs once had.

To see more detail on the photos above, click on the photo. 

2023 Spring Garden - May 6 update

It's been a long time since my last post here. There have been several highs and several lows.

Highs: my daughter got married, my younger son got married, a couple of my nephews got married, more grandchildren came into our lives, and LSU won a national championship in football with Joe Burrow winning the Heisman. I also won three kayak bass fishing tournaments including my 2nd consecutive"Bass on the Fly" world championship, as well as placed in five other kayak bass tournaments.

Lows: I came down with Covid-induced pneumonia in August 2021 and spent 6 weeks in the hospital. My sister and I also lost our mother (not Covid related) who was as close to being a saint as anyone I've ever known. She was a pillar of the Cecilia community and St. Joseph Catholic Church. Our family truly appreciated the outpouring of love from so many folks who knew her.

Since it's May, it's time for a garden update. This year here in the west Cenla area we had a late freeze so the plants didn't get into the ground until late March. But the plots have really become productive the last couple of years and growth has been nothing short of amazing. The secret?  It's actually a few things:

• I've gone from adding "topsoil" to strictly adding cow manure - 2 bags per plot. 
• Adding ag lime a month before planting. The lime unlocks the nutrients locked in the low pH soil.
• Stocking earthworms into the garden.  I learned at TOFGA that they can really transform a garden!
• Eliminating plastic barrier.  While it was breathable, it seemed to repel some water as my plants would wilt a bit after only a few days without water.  Since eliminating the barrier, I don't have to water quite as often.

In the photo, the plants up front on the first plot are Celebrity tomatos, the back plants on the first plot are Cherry 100 tomatos. The other side of the plots have bell peppers. The plants on the back end of the 2nd plot are Sweet Slice cucumbers and eggplant. The Celebrity tomatos would be taller - so would the bell peppers - but I learned a trick that trimming the top causes earlier maturation of fruit. On the bell peppers, it also causes multiple limbs to sprout which pays big production numbers in the Fall.

As for the citrus and blueberries, the late freeze hurt both. The only variety with any berries are the Premieres. One of the Washington navels has a few oranges. Everything else - barren!  The freeze also knocked out any fruit for the dozens of wild elderberries we have on our property. Oh well, maybe next year!

2019 Spring Garden - May 6 update

It's time for my annual Cinco de Mayo spring garden update. Here's how it goes: I have two square food gardening plots measuring 4x16 feet. Each year at this time, I take a photo of the TPC plot (tomato-pepper-cucumber) which alternates each year between the two plots. I then compare the current photo to past photos to determine the progress of the garden.

If you look back at the post from May, 2018, you'll see that this year's crops lag behind those of last year. Last year we had record cold and much below normal temperatures that delayed the planting until late March. This year, we had a much milder winter, but it was a sustained cold. We had two nights of frost the first week of April.

But it's rainfall, not temperatures that are the main culprit for this year's underperforming veggies.  We've had 144 percent of normal preciptation so far in 2019. Great for ducks, crawfish and mosquitos. Not so great for gardens.

According to multiple sources, too much rain and overcast skies can slow a plant's growth as well as leach nutrients from the soil. For that reason, I've taken to adding Jobe's Organic Fertilizer to the TPC plot in the last week. As poor as my plants look now compared to past years, they REALLY looked poor prior to adding the Jobes. It's made a big difference.

Then last night, I added earthworms to the garden. While there's already a few in the beds, my experience is that adding worms greatly boosts plant and fruit production.

Sadly, the weather prognosticators are predicing heavy rainfall over the next several days. Seems like we can't get a break here in Louisiana.

Easter Sunday 2019 - Beer Can Chicken

We had a big family gathering at the homestead for Easter Sunday. Two of our kids, all of my wife's siblings and their husbands and kids, her father, my sister and her husband, and my mother.

My wife picked up a pork roast to cook in the oven, but she knew that wouldn't be enough meat for everyone. So she asked if I'd do a chicken on the grill. Well I decided to do two chickens. Better safe than sorry. Besides, when done right, there are never complaints about having beer can chicken (BCC) for leftovers.

I've done BCC many times, so I thought it would be nice to share my method.  Preparation begins with fresh-picked rosemary from our herb garden, mixed with Balsamic Vignerette salad dressing. The bird is saturated with this mix, then placed in a zip lock bag in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

On early Sunday morning, I took the bird out and lightly washed off the rosemary, then rubbed the bird down with salt, cayenne pepper and a light dash of olive oil.

I don't use beer cans, but rather a product called the "Chicken Tipper" made by a sheet metal shop in my hometown of Cecilia. The aluminum is much thicker and heavier than a beer can and can support a large chicken. I place the Tipper in a pan - with a little water in the pan - to help catch the drippings for gravy. The water insures that the drippings won't dry up.

Inside the Tipper I add grape juice. Most recipes call for wine or beer, but I find that juice adds more flavor while not drying out the meat. There are many, many opinions on this, but that's my observation.

I preheat the Akorn grill to 325 degrees, and set the temperature probe into the thickest part of the bird, with the alarm set for 165 degrees. Once the internal temperature is reached, I wait a few minutes to take off the grill. Then I place the bird in an aluminum pan and cover with aluminum foil.  This was a technique I read about in one of the grilling forums. Seems to extend the "internal cooking" of the bird but without drying out the meat.

The marinating and seasoning of the bird helps in the flavor. But anything you cook on an Akorn, Big Green Egg, Kamado or other domed charcoal grill will have that great smoky flavor that brings folks back for seconds.

2018 Spring Garden - May 6 update

2018 May 6 TPC plot

2015 May 5 TPC plot

We've had an unusually cold and wet winter and early spring here in central Louisiana. In fact, the average daily temperature up until April 15th was 9 degrees below normal. Let's put it this way... during the Little Ice Age - which peaked in the 17th century - the average annual temperatures were only 2-3 degrees cooler than the 20th century!

Before you start looking at igloos for your next home, realize that this was just an abnormality. Temperatures in late April moderated to near normal and the forecast for May looks to be slightly above normal. But just to give readers something to think about, check out these articles on why another ice age could be a possibility: sun growing colder and demise of the Gulf Stream.

How has this cold winter affected my spring garden? I looked back and found only one other photo for this time in May and that was from 3 years ago. Even so, it's quite telling. I knew my cucumber plants were extremely sluggish this Spring. They're in the 2018 photo.  Behind the bell pepper plants on the left.  So short they can't even be seen.  Compare to those in the 2015 photo.  

Conversely, the tomatoes may be my best crop ever for this time of year. Plants are thick and full of small fruit.  That's because I supplemented my garden bed with a bag of Azomite which I picked up at the Texas Organic Farmers and Growers Association (TOFGA) Conference. Azomite is a natural rock dust that contains over 70 minerals and trace elements. Research has shown that it benefits many plants, but especially tomatoes. Leaves are greener and fruit production higher. If this warm weather pattern continues, we should be eating tomatoes by Memorial Day... if not sooner!

Cucumbers are a tropical vegetable. Even though we had no freezes or hard frost after I planted in mid-March, we had MANY nights were the  temperature dipped into the upper 30s or low 40s. And many days where the high temperature never got above 70 degrees. According to guidelines, cucumbers shouldn't even be put into the ground until soil temperatures are at least 70 degrees.

However, I believe that putting the cucumbers in early as I did has helped the plants establish a good root system. That's the thing about cukes - they can have a tough start, but if the root system is set, then the plants will grow rapidly and fruit heavily once conditions are right.

Kurt Loup's world-famous gumbo

With another blast of frigid arctic air moving in for a full week I thought now would be a good time to share a gumbo recipe from my old friend, Kurt Loup.  Over the last couple decades, it's made quite an impression on a whole lot of folks.  Kurt used to make this gumbo for the first few years of the Bayou Coast Kayak Fishing Club's  Paddlepalooza tournament.  I also prepared it one year at the Little Mo Fly Fishing Fest and another year at the Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) Southeastern Council expo.  At the Southeastern event, I had folks taking french bread and scooping up the residues on the bottom of the pot!

Here is Kurt's recipe for chicken and sausage.  For a seafood version, see below. The base recipe is the same for either version. Makes about 1 1/2 gallons.

2 cups onion
1 cup green bell peppers
1/2 cup celery
3 cups okra
1 pod of garlic
2 tablespoons oil
1 1/2 cups dark roux (1 cup flour, 1/2 cup oil) or
approximately 3-4 large tablespoons Savoie's roux
1 bunch green onions
2 tablespoons parsley
8 bay leaves
black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons file'
6 cups water or chicken stock
3 Knorr chicken bouillon cubes (if not using chicken stock)
Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning to taste
1/2 pound andouille sausage
1/2 smoked pork sausage
2 pounds boneless and skinless chicken
(3-4 pounds if with bones)

OR for the seafood version, substitute the last 3 ingredients above with...
6-12 cracked and cleaned crabs depending on size
2 lbs. peeled shrimp

Sauté first six ingredients until soft. Add roux, stirring until blended. Add stock and bring to a boil.When boiling, add remaining ingredients. Simmer for at least 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Ca c'est bon!