Poppy turned seven years old yesterday. She had a fun day playing with Kate (I was at work). For dinner she got an extra treat — cornbread. This morning I took both dogs out for a long walk. Most of the time we just walk around the park across the street but the dogs love going up to the trail. We walked about two miles along the trail. The dogs preferred to be off in the grass to actually walking the trail. Neither one spotted the rabbits. Each time the rabbits noticed the dogs and took off before the dogs were even aware that there was something interesting ahead. It’s just as well because they probably would have pulled my arms off trying to catch the fast bunnies.
[thumb:561:l] [thumb:560:l]
Long Ride
I’ve been riding my bike to work but today the clouds went away and I took my first long ride. Okay, not that long, but long for me at this point. 6.88 miles, 50:36 minutes with an average speed of 8.1 mph.
[thumb:559:l] Kate and I rode out together for the first leg of the the ride. Along the way, between the trail and road near our place there are poppies growing. We went out to College Street and then headed back home. Once back then I turned around and went for the long ride.
[newline]
[thumb:554:l] The trail is one of the rails to trails project. Along the way there are some streets to cross. Unfortunately the trail running near our apartment doesn’t quite connect yet to the Chehalis-Western Trail. It comes close but there is an unpaved section. Still there are other routes to cover the last short distance. I went down Pacific and then cut through the parking lot to find the trail.
[newline]
[thumb:555:l] A short distance up the trail is a railroad bridge that was retained and updated when they paved the trail. It crosses the street below and leads to the Chambers Lake Trail head.
[newline]
[thumb:556:l] The Chambers Lake Trail head has a parking lot, restrooms and a non-functional drinking fountain. It’s a popular place for many people to get access to the trail. This afternoon it was pretty quiet at on the trail but there were still cars and people at the trail head. I noticed a new sign right at the start of the trail.
[newline]
[thumb:557:l] The sign lists distances down the trail to local cities. Eventually I’d like to be able to ride all the way out to each of these cities but I’m not up to that much riding yet.
[newline]
[thumb:558:l] It was tempting to go up the trail but I didn’t want to push too much today. Or end up with a sunburn. I turned around and went back home. On the way I found a better route down a side street to take and connect with the trail until they pave that last section.
More boxes
The potatoes are growing fast. We’ve added a second tier to the Red Norland potatoes and the first to the Irish Cobbler.
[thumb:552:l] [thumb:553:l]
Car-Free Challenge
WizWheelz is sponsoring the Bentrider Online Car-Free Challenge. Join us in the challenge to do without your car for one month! The rules of the Car-Free Challenge are fairly simple. You go without your car as much as humanly possible from May 15th to June 15th. Once the month is up, you write up your experiences in essay form and e-mail them to bryan@bentrideronline.com. They will judge the essays and pick a winner on July 1st. That lucky winner gets a brand new 2007 WizWheelz Cruiser! We’ll also throw in a flag and a seat bag along with free assembly and shipping (a $1547 value!). So step up to the challenge, leave your car in the garage, and live a healthier life. You can do this!
It’s strange to think that two years have passed since we bought our first (only) car. Before buying the car we walked most places. Every day I walked to work. We walked to the grocery store. We were even training to walk a marathon. But then my feet started hurting. Both feet became very sore. A few years earlier I had a cheap bike but it broke and ended up being discarded in favor of walking. I didn’t really think about it much, but I missed riding a bike.
Since buying the car things have changed, and not all of it good. In the plus column my feet feel much better than they did two years ago. We don’t drive the car much at all and have put less than 5,000 miles on the car since we bought it. On the other hand I’ve gotten in worse shape since buying the car. I’ve put on weight. I haven’t been sleeping as well. Lack of fitness is sneaky. I didn’t use the time saved by driving the car to do other exercise. Although I’ve done a little yoga it has been too infrequent to be much use. With my feet sore I didn’t feel up to walking or running. I didn’t like the idea of joining a gym.
But now I have the new bike. My Citizen folding bike is a convenient bike right now. It doesn’t take up much room in the apartment or in my office at work. Getting on the bike for that first ride was interesting — I hurt afterward. Part of that came from having the seat too high but most of it was just that I’m out of shape. Since the first ride I’ve ridden the bike to work several times. Already there is improvement. I’ve been able to ride up the little hill that had me off the bike and walking the first time. It feels good.
Over the past several years I’ve read about the WizWheelz recumbent trikes. I didn’t think about getting a bike much, but when I did I wished I could afford one of these recumbents. I read touring journals at crazyguyonabike.com that featured recumbent trikes. The other day I just happened to pull up their site again and noticed the car-free challenge. What a great opportunity! I don’t know what chance I’d have to actually win but I’d be very happy to end up with the trike. I figure I’ll just have to give it a shot. Most days it shouldn’t be a problem to ride instead of using the car. There might be a day or two when I have to drive for work because I have to go to other buildings and we’ll probably still drive to get groceries — maybe. I’ll post about some of the rides here and then write the essay, cross my fingers, and hopefully end up with the trike!
Boxed Potatoes
[thumb:549:l] It’s a bit of an overcast day today. It looks like the Sun wants to come out but just can’t quite manage it. The plants are all doing well at the moment. Everything is taking off.
[newline]
[thumb:548:l] Our experiment with growing potatoes in cages filled with straw is progressing well, it seems. We tried a couple different methods of wrapping the cage with row covers but that didn’t work. The covers kept coming loose. It also seemed like the covers would let through too much light. We don’t want to end up with green potatoes. Instead we’ve switched to using cardboard. The Red Norland potatoes were first up and have grown quite a lot in the box. We’ll have to add another tier soon. The Chiefton potatoes next to them came up last so there’s quite a contrast between them at the moment.
[newline]
[thumb:547:l] The next container over has our peanuts. Actually it has peanuts that I just planted today and peanut fingerling potatoes. I don’t know if the peanuts will do well or not. They need a long growing season and I’m not sure how well they’ll work in a container. I like peanuts, though, so we’ll see. In this case we just picked up a few raw peanuts at the store. They may not even come up if they’ve been treated with something. The beans I grew from store beans worked okay.
[newline]
[thumb:546:l] Our garlic looks good. In a couple weeks maybe we’ll stop watering it and hopefully it will be ready to harvest about the time our squash need to be transplanted. I have some more cages that I’m going to try using to keep the squash a little more contained this year. Our porch garden is certainly going vertical this year!
[newline]
[thumb:550:l] Back in the corner the plants are all doing well. I cut back the kale yesterday and had some fresh kale on my sandwich today. The Irish Cobbler potatoes will be the next potatoes to go into a box. Probably in the next few days I’ll get the box set up and start adding straw.
[newline]
[thumb:551:l] On the back side of the porch we have the smaller containers. In the wagon we have two long containers with alpine strawberries growing and a smaller container. The bigger round containers have marigolds. Beside the wagon there are nasturtiums and (not up yet) basil and oregano.
McCoy Turns 6
McCoy is six years old now!
[thumb:544:l][newline]
He had a nice birthday on Wednesday. I’d meant to post about it before now but hadn’t found the time. He went outside for his birthday picture but doesn’t really understand holding still.
[thumb:542:l][newline]
