I've Had Better Rides But........

I went to the farmer's market this morning, while Bike man was busy with a lake association meeting.....his last meeting. Yippee! I had a lot of fun taking pictures of all the different varieties of flowers. Also stopped by Aunt Krissy's soap table and ended up doing some people watching with her. I even spotted an old friend that use to be a favorite library customer of mine. We spent at least 30 minutes catching up on our lives, jobs and everyday life. I sure miss Jean. I hope to connect with her one of these days for a bicycle ride on the RC trail.


Took off this afternoon and drove north to the Chippewa Forest. This is actually the area where Bike man did his BioBlitz stuff earlier in the week. We had plans of riding around all the different trail sections in the woods, however, as soon as we started riding, the mosquitoes swarmed us. As you can see in the photo, it was a fairly dense area of woods. Some small steep hills and lots of humidity.....I was dying. Off-road biking is so different than road riding and I surely felt it today. My breathing was heavy from the exertion of the terrain and it almost felt like I had asthma. Bike man kept riding on the trails and I headed out to the road, only to be followed by thousands of mosquitoes. I was so glad to get back to the car, but had to quickly stripped off my bike clothes and change back into my regular clothes. That's pretty hard to do when those pesty blood suckers are going for your tender areas!!!!!!

Took a quick photo of those pesty bugs before escaping into the car.

Look what I found. I'm wondering what type of young bird would have spots on their feathers. The feather was soooooo small. Don't ask how many miles I biked this afternoon. I think I was only out there in the woods for like 40 minutes. Let's just say I had a bad ride. Tomorrow's another day.

PS. Thanks to my mom for the phone call about what happened to your Turtle Recipes on my blog menu. For some reason my "edit pages" is stuck in draft and I can't get it to undraft. It looks like I've lost some recipes that I posted last week too. Hopefully I can figure out this problem soon. Darn Blogger!

I Let Him Have the Camera

Tonight I decided to show off a cool photo that Bike man took earlier in the week. During one of his BioBlitz outings, he found many varieties of fungi. This particular one reminds me of coral. It's amazing what you will find when you are out wandering in the woods. Good job BM! Maybe I should let you have the camera more often......well, maybe!

We had visitors tonight. A local man that we know has decided to run for State Assemblyman. He and his wife came over so Bike man could educate him about our local problem with lake algae. Since Bike man has worked with our lake association for over ten years, plus all his lake and stream monitoring, he has a good handle on what is being done to help this pesty algae problem, along with all the legislative stuff that goes along with clean waters. Geez, Bike man sounded like a politician himself, especially since he can recite legislative laws and who voted for or against the issue.

Who would ever think my Applied Math graduate would now become a biologist working out in the field. It just goes to show you are never to old to start something new in your life....even after retirement (5 1/2 yrs now). You know, life is too short, so don't spend year after year never enjoying your daily life. Find something to do that you really enjoy. For me its cooking, photography and of course......bicycling and bicycle trips. I can't wait to tell you about our end of August bicycle trip. I will save that for a future post.

Hot Beauties

Hey look, tainterturles has legs and feet!!!! I took this photo last night after getting home from work. Last night was dedicated to pulling those tall weeds in our vegetable garden. Seems the turtles have been lacking in the weeding department! Can you see my hot peppers below?

I actually picked one nice hot pepper last night. Was it hot? Yes.....very hot. I ended up cutting up zucchini, onions, jalapenos and red peppers....plus my little hot beauty. Put everything in a fry pan with some olive oil and garlic and sauteed my veggies. Of course I had to add some cooked bacon. I love bacon. Top it off with freshly grated Parmesan and enjoy a little bit of heaven. That was last night.

Late this afternoon Bike man and I wrote 29 miles on the RC trail. We got a late start so we decided not to ride down to the Chippewa River. Still got home in enough time tonight to make a nice dinner of cut-up red potatoes (Joan's garden potatoes), sliced green beans, diced jalapenos and banana peppers, onions, garlic and southwest seasoning. I fried everything in a pan with olive oil. Trying to decide tonight what to call that veggie mix? Any ideas? I'll post my recipe in a few days under the Turtle Recipe tab.

I absolutely love this time of year when all the fresh vegetables ripen in your garden. It's heaven......really.

Before the Storm Hit

Got home later than I anticipated again tonight. Once again Bike man was trying to help me solve computer problems at work. Anyway, with storm conditions looming, I stopped over at Joan's house since she wanted to share her veggies with me. Who can resist fresh vegetables. Joan is such a good friend.

Had to stop by her chicken coop to see the chickens before they get butchered tomorrow. My gosh there were some big birds that could hardly walk. Joan will be busy tomorrow taking care of her BIG chickens.

This is what I came home with tonight....wow! That white plastic bag is filled with lots of green beans. It's nice to have friends that share.

Storms hit around 9 pm tonight. Lots of wind and rain. The storm approached us right when my sweet corn was cooking on the campstove outdoors. Luckily we rescued the sweet corn before the storm hit. Had a nice healthy dinner of corn and more corn!

Long Day

Flowers From Our Garden

A late afternoon meeting at work, that lasted 2 hours, goofed up my plans for hopping on the bike to ride with Bike man. Sometimes work just dictates my daily schedule. You'd think after ten years I'd be use to that, but actually I see it as an invasion into trying to strive for a healthy life style.

No more meetings for the rest of the week, so I'm feeling kind of happy about that. I hope to be able to come home every night this week to normal hours, and hopefully some bicycle rides. As for Bike man, it's back to monitoring streams, lakes and now his newest adventure.....BioBlitz! BioBlitz is where you take a certain size plot in the woods and do a field study for bugs, worms, plants and even bird songs. Kind of like what we did in my dad's advance biology class. Yup, Bike man's turned into a biologist. His new second life. Hey, he's suppose to be retired!!!!!!

By the way, it's a beautiful warm and dry Monday night. Just how I like it.

Took Me Off-Guard

Started my day with church and then eventually got home early in the afternoon. Bike man returned home by mid afternoon when completing his stream monitoring. The afternoon was perfect for riding. Slight southern breeze and a high around 80 degrees. Who could ask for anything better.

Bike man and I ended up doing our Tainter Lake loop. Everything was fine until coming down a bumpy hill two miles from home. I'm out of the saddle to reduce the bumping and jarring in my female area....if you know what I mean. One minute later I'm cranking to keep up the speed and then wham, my left foot totally releases away from my bike. Holy crap......my pedal has totally come off my crank arm.....my foot and shoe dangling with the pedal still clipped on. What the heck!


Bike man said he has never seen that happen before, ever! Luckily only one thread was stripped in the crank arm....it could have been a lot worse. I noticed coming down that hill, my bike seemed wobbly, but I didn't think anything of it. Now that I really think about it, if my pedal would have completely come off going down hill, and me out of my saddle, I could have done the famous Lance Armstrong crotch slam!!!

The only thing I can think of is that my pedal has been loose for a long time and I just didn't know it. Why it was loose is beyond me. I haven't touched my pedals or replaced them for a long time. I have switched my pedals on the mountain bike, but normally don't touch Ruby's pedals. Kind of weird isn't it? 20 miles