That didn't take as long as expected — there is no place to stop and waste time between Warsaw and Atwood. It being Tuesday, there weren't even any garage sales.
100 N is a pretty good road — almost flat, and the pavement isn't bad. The exposed aggregate made the bike vibrate all the time, and there were patches that rattled the ice in the cooler, but all the dangerously-rough places have been patched, and not very long ago.
North-south stretches of road had lots of small hills, but I wouldn't have encountered any serious climbs if I hadn't missed the turn onto 700 W, realized my mistake at 850 W, and come back on 200 W. The last hill on 200 W didn't look like much, but it went on and on and on and I had to switchback to get up it. Luckily, I had it entirely to myself and could use both sides of the road. I wonder whether that could be the famous Atwood Hill.
I came back by Crystal Lake Road. It undulates near Crystal Lake, but the amplitude is less and the wavelength is longer than the small hills on the north-south roads. But I rode two miles of north-south road to get to it.
Atwood, however, has no attractions except for a real hardware store in an old grain elevator. (Mem: they've got brass bolts.) There's a Marathon station on SR 30 fairly close to Atwood, but all it had in the way of real food was orange juice and apple juice. There were some cracker sandwiches I could have eaten if I hadn't brought an ample supply of emergency bars.
Dave has been mowing around the sparse areas of grass, hoping that letting it get tall will make it fill in.
So now we've got a groundhog.
When he spotted it, Dave said it looked like a giant squirrel. When he looked in Wikipedia to verify that we were looking at a woodchuck, it said that a giant squirrel is exactly what it is.
The neighbors want us to get rid of it before it tunnels; since it's illegal to discharge a shotgun within city limits, I'm not at all sure *how*.
The groundhog must know that. This is the first one that ever let me see it.
I had the whole day to sew, but didn't accomplish much. Did freshen some of my Web pages.
I worked on my new jersey today, and spent a lot of time taking and editing pictures to illustrate my progress. I'm all ready to thread up the sewing machine now, but probably won't do so tomorrow, as I need some endurance exercise.
I also want to see the farmers' markets and check out three books at the library. Don't know what sort of trip I can take that starts off in that direction; I've done Atwood, and I've done ride around Winona Lake.
Perhaps after the library, I can cross Detroit and ride up Park Avenue/Sunset Street to Walmart Plaza for lunch at Steak'nShake, then come back the long way.
When sorting ads into the trash this week, I held up one that said "Greek Pizza" and said "We haven't been to Greek's Pizza in ages and First Friday is coming up". Dave pointed out that it was a Papa John ad. It was very effective, though not in the way that Papa John hoped! We did go to Greek's Pizza, and it was lovely — we each ate three slices instead of our usual two.
Then we walked around First Friday for a while. It was mobbed, but I saw little of interest. The "art-wrapped street sweeper" just looked like a street sweeper to me — perhaps it was wrapped later.
Having taken a table on the upper floor, we saw a lot of the synchronized calisthenics while we were eating our pizza.
I never thought to check to see whether there was a Greek pizza on the menu. We got the "special" — pepperoni, italian sausage, peppers, onions, and fresh mushrooms.
It makes sense that a shower would make me feel better when I'm hot or dirty, but why does it make me feel better when I'm tired?
Lovely Saturday. I doubt that I got my quarter century in, but I was gone all day and that must count for something.
I started off through the art fair, and met Martha for a moment.
To my surprise, there was no sign the fairgrounds market had ever been there, even though it was only 11:20 when I passed. The Center Street Market was still in full swing and I bought some disappointing oatmeal-raisin-chocolate-chip cookies. I ate one at intervals through the day, and the remainder disappeared soon after Dave saw them.
Straight to the library from there, where I spoke to Linda.
Then I thought to buy a foot-long sub to go, eat half in the restaurant, eat the other half in the picnic shelter by the Chinworth Bridge, follow 350 W up to 300 N, and go through Walmart Plaza to 250 N. But when I left the Detroit Street Subway, I followed Park, Sunset, and Anchorage to the Goodwill store, intending to get to Walmart by way of Bell Drive. But from the exit at Goodwill, I could see the end of Meijer's private road, so I bore right and wandered around there. I bought a tube of Shoo Goo, a single-serve bottle of mango-orange drink, four wedges of floured-and-fried potato, and a breaded chicken wing. The potato could have used some salt. (I should keep a few packets of things in my bicycle's cooler.) I had a cookie for dessert.
Had a conversation with a woman waiting for a ride to Winona lake near the bike rack while I was getting ready to leave.
The one-way road into Meijer had acquired a deserted sidewalk since my previous visit; I said to myself, "Nobody is using the sidewalk; it would be all right to go back that way instead of going around Robin Hood's barn to get back to Anchorage." Then I reflected that I would, having said that, meet an entire track team. Didn't do that, but I caught up with two adults and a child. They were quite pleasant about my invasion of their territory, and even stepped aside to let me through.
Anchorage to 175 E to Sprawlmart. I went to Aldi, bought chocolate and one of every flavor of food bar (two of the double chocolate), and came back by Wooster Road. I detoured to walk through the art festival again; there were several food booths; I think I'll plan on having "ramyun" soup for lunch tomorrow. [There was shrimp in the ramyun noodle, so I had a taco salad.]
Dave had the rest of the sub for supper; I had Friday's left-over pizza. It's still good cold.
Even though I was gone seven hours, I brought home more than half the ice I started with.
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What a disappointment! It was only thirteen miles.
I clipped all ten fingernails this morning! And all but one were too long. (Well, another was too long on only one side.)
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Never brag. While I was out, I had to trim two nails for splitting.
I worried about wearing pants suited to the morning chill, but didn't think that my linen scarf would get suffocating in the afternoon. I threw it into the wash, and will get out a thinner one. (Now is a fine time to remember that I stashed my white linen do rag in my tool kit when I took it off a while back, and never put it back into the drawer.)
Good route, except for a mile of 15, and a half mile or so of gravel on 400 W. Neither was too bad, but I should have hung a left onto 525 S to avoid the gravel.
But I'm not going to go to Claypool again. There's not so much as a gas station to look at. The town did have a place to buy food — labeled "nobody under 21". It said "carry out", so I planned to buy a grinder or some-such and take it to the cemetery my map says is on the south edge of town. A cemetery is a good place to rest without attracting ambulances.
But first, I went down Section Street to Route 15, just to see whether there were any businesses at the intersection, and the next thing I knew I was on 600 S eating a double-chocolate protein bar in a wheat field.
I picked a place to pull off where it was obvious that heavy vehicles had been doing the same. After a while, I noticed that the cattle in the adjacent pasture were ambling in my direction. They lined up along the fence; after a bit they realized that I was ignoring them, and started to moo — sounding for all the world like Al when he thinks his treat is overdue. I felt rather bad about fooling them, but they quickly gave up and went back to grazing.
Turned north on 450 W and was pretty soon seeing things I'd seen before, including two enigmatic flights of steps standing alone beside the road. I presume that they are portable. I came back into Warsaw by way of Crystal Lake Road.
Under heavy persuasion, Google Maps says that I traveled more than 27.5 miles. *That's* more like it! I arrived in Claypool about two hours after I left, and was gone nearly five hours.
Did two loads of wash yesterday, and made some progress on my new jersey. Also got an e-mail from Rick Swaim approving my embroidery gig on July 18.
Today I realized that though I have room to leave my ironing board set up, I don't have room to leave it folded. All of every wall is occupied; there is nothing to lean it against.
Well, if I were quite certain that I wouldn't want to open the closet before I wanted to set up the ironing board, I could put in here folded.
It's a wife's duty to embarrass her husband: after days of trouble-shooting one of his computers, Dave has discovered that the CPU fan isn't working.
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For extra embarrassment, it wasn't plugged in.
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The Wynns held a dress rehearsal for tomorrow's wedding in the Wildmans' back yard this evening. During the event, Dave and I held a dress rehearsal of the emergency generator.
The lights came back on soon after our romantic candlelight dinner of hot dogs in chili sauce. We never plugged anything but the freezer and the garage refrigerator into the generator — I opened the indoor fridge to quickly snatch a bottle of milk, and put everything into the garage fridge when I cleaned up after supper. (By good luck I'd laid out the condiments ahead of time.)
I hope I fetched everything back into the house.
The lights decorating the wedding tent never went out. I don't think the fault was *that* local; I didn't see any yellow trucks until after the lights came back on.
It snowed a little bit every day all winter. I'm beginning to think it's going to rain a little bit every day all summer.
It's predicted to be quite warm tomorrow, and the probability of rain isn't above fifty-fifty until after sunset. I *might* go for a long ride tomorrow, or at least take in the farmers' markets.
I haven't been walking or climbing stairs as I should.
I decided that it was warm enough that getting rained on wouldn't hurt me, so I went to Mentone. I didn't figure that the rain would arrive on a cold wind! Luckily, I was close to home when it started, and on the Heritage Trail before it opened up in earnest, so I got home while cold still felt good. Wet didn't, and I prepared for a shower so hastily that I didn't remember to scrub off the chain grease. Or to take off my moleskins. (And I just now remembered to open up my toolkit to let it air.)
I bought a bottle of "tea" at the convenience store in Mentone. Turned out to be caramel color and artificial flavor, but it was in a bottle I can't drink from while riding, so I was motivated to get it all down before getting back on the bike, and in that heat, water does more than caffeine to restore your energy. (I had drunk the yerba mate I had brewed on Friday on the way out.)
Mentone has a good library, rather large for the size of the town. I also visited a book store and a couple of antique/second-hand stores. With all the dining places in town, I ate lunch at Subway. After such a long ride in such heat, I wanted quick, plain, carby, and familiar. I bought a foot-long sub and put half on ice, planning to have supper on the road, but hurried home instead. Dave ate it and I killed the pizza.
Also bought some no-preservative jerky at the downtown farmers' market. The vendor was quite emphatic about keeping it cold — though he did say it would keep a week on the counter. Doubt that it would keep that long in a pannier in hot weather.
Three loads of wash today.
I'll tempt fate again and brag that I clipped nine fingernails this morning, and the one I cut to the quick for splitting after my previous brag has almost grown back.
This is the only non-stormy day for over a week, so I'm going to the library to pay a fine, and plan to inspect the construction on Market Street on my way back.
I was looking at my library account for some reason, and found that I've been owing them a quarter for *years*; you'd think the software would mention it when I check a book out.
The clerk said it does mention it, but by a teeny icon up in the corner. I checked out three books to review, but haven't even taken them out of the pannier yet. The sunscreen and lipstick I bought are still on the bike as well.
It's lucky that I decided to stock up on lipstick while I was at Walgreen's. When I was leaving for the Fellowship meeting yesterday, I started to apply lipstick, and the stick fell out of the case when I opened it. I picked it up, wiped it off, and put it back, but it fell because there is only a quarter inch left.
Pig under a blanket for lunch. I put one of Aldi's pre-cooked frozen sausage patties into a small skillet over low heat, then made herb-bread batter and spread it over the sausage. I think it would have been tastier if I'd cut the sausage to bits and mixed it into the batter.
The winter onion bulbils in the herb bread were yummy. This is the first year that my winter onions have been sufficiently established that I could eat the bulbils instead of planting them. That's because I finally gave up and let them into the garden, despite my prejudice against having to hoe around perennials. I've been surprised at how easy they are to use: I remember them as being hard to peel, but they are naked when picked. Perhaps the outer layer gets too tough to eat later in the season.
And they taste very, very good and have a wonderful texture. Pity it's too hot to bake a chicken and stuff it with whole onions. All my stove-top recipes call for chopping the onion.
I also put garlic spathes in the herb bread. Not much garlic flavor; I guess the spathes are weaker than the bulbs.
A few days ago, I ate some multiplier-onion flower buds. Nothing special. The bulb that I left out all winter was the first to bud, and I let it go, thinking I'd try raising multipliers from seed even though I've never gotten anywhere planting onion seed. The buds are breaking into blossoms now.
I still haven't planted my rue. Since it's a perennial, and is reputed to repel deer, I've decided to put it into the northwest corner of the Joe Rickets strawberry bed.
On the other hand, it grows, according to Wikipedia, two feet tall, and it needs to be mulched to make it through the winter — next to the wall in a raised bed might not be a good spot for it. I could put it where the lemon grass failed to make it through the winter. Best dig out all the lemon-grass roots and fill the hole with potting soil.
On the third hand, rue likes to be well drained.
It's getting hard to tell the geese from the goslings.
Dave mowed our front-yard nature preserve yesterday. We still have a groundhog, but he's in the back yard.
I planted the rue between the dead lemon grass and the raised bed. About as protected a spot as one can get for the winter. I can't get a clear opinion as to whether or not one can season food with rue, but I don't think I would like its taste anyway.
My consumption of Organic No Salt dropped sharply after the herb garden started producing.
Tomorrow is a rare day that's suited to a long ride, and I'm out of places to go. I'd love to ask the KVC for suggestions, but they don't have a Web forum or a mailing list or any other way to communicate, other than attending the monthly meetings in Mad Anthony's back room. There was a time when I'd go out after dark to meet a bunch of strangers in a restaurant, but that time is twenty years and a couple of no-appointment ophthalmologist visits past.
Next time I'm in the Trail House, I should check to see whether they have a bulletin board. I often see rides starting from there.
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I scored ten at Hexavirus tonight. I think that's a record.
Daylilies were in full bloom everywhere I went today. Consider the lilies of the ditch, how they grow: Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed as one of these.
Once when I stopped to read a map, I saw a dime in the road and touched it, but didn't pick it up. That's because it wasn't *on* the road, it was *in* it; it had been run over enough times to set it flush with the asphalt.
I came back by way of Sprawlmart, and got some bagels and sandwich buns at Aunt Millie's. I shouldn't have stopped at Taco Bell for a taco salad; even though I didn't go far and rode slowly, it was too much to eat before exercising.
And I had a bag of apples that I had picked up at the fruit market in Sidney. An apple would have been quite enough to get home on, and Dave was, at the time, making sloppy joe. (He called to find out where I was right after I finished the salad.)
I was wiser at lunch time, and ate only half of the ham sandwich I bought, and a bit more than half of the single-serve bag of potato chips. (I finished the chips on the way to Sprawlmart.)
On 600S I saw a place that for an instant I took for the place on 600S where I ate lunch on the way home from Claypool. Aside from being on the other side of SR 15, it was a corn field instead of a wheat field, the pasture was smaller, and there were horses instead of cows. I refrained from pulling off to see whether the horses would think I'd come to feed them.
It's Roomba day in the sewing room. I took one box out of the room and vowed not to take it back in. I'm an inch from the bottom now, in a stratum that consists mostly of old Christmas cards and other stuff that I can put into the recycling bin. Opening a thank-you card from Back to the Days, probably from the time I posed as a schoolmarm in the log house, I found a check for forty dollars. I've no idea why I didn't cash it at the time, but it's dated 2006 and the organization no longer exists, so I put it into the burn barrel.
I pushed the cultivator around the garden yesterday. The soil was too wet to cultivate, but probably as dry as it's going to get. I didn't discourage the weeds much.
After today's rain, I plowed a furrow, set out a row of winter-onion bulbils, and covered them with dirt from under the stump-grinding mulch. I broke some bulbils off the clumps even though I seemed to be breaking off the part of the bulbil that could make roots; I separated one clump with a knife; most clumps I just planted whole. I'm planning to eat all of them as green onions next spring; they would take over the garden otherwise. I'm hoping to get some green onions this fall.
I pulled up a clump of three multipliers while weeding yesterday. The multipliers are flourishing well enough that this was only a minor annoyance. I served them as green onions.
Even the raised beds are thick with weeds.
I made tooth powder today. I suppose I should mark it on the calendar so I can see how long a jar lasts.
I put in rather a lot of dried peppermint this time, but it disappeared into the salt as quickly as a single leaf — but instead of becoming a faint green tinge, it colored the salt dark green. I fancy that I can see a green tinge to the finished product. I hope the scent isn't overwhelming.
The recipe: 1/2 cup baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, seasoning to taste.
Grind salt and seasoning in a mortar until the seasoning vanishes and the salt is a fine powder. Sift soda and salt together several times, discarding any fibers that get caught in the meshes of the tea strainer. Place in screw-top glass jar. Dispense the powder into a pill box for use.
I sift onto a square of wax paper, then lift the paper by the edges, which makes it a chute for pouring it back into the mortar, then dump it out of the mortar into a large tea strainer. The paper also makes it easy to pour it into the storage jar.
No matter how often I look, the ten-day forecast says there will be a good chance of rain at ten o'clock Saturday night.
I chickened out of going to the farmers' markets today, and it turned out to be a pretty nice day. If the rain is still holding off when i get up from my nap, I'll ride to Owen's and buy some corn oil.
Didn't see any of the triathlon except for a van picking up flags or something. He didn't take the orange "be careful on Saturday" signs.
My last look at the ten-day forecast was a little more promising. The probability of rain drops from sixteen percent to six percent an hour before the scheduled start of the fireworks.
I'm planning to buy chips tomorrow afternoon.
I started to ride to Owen's after my nap yesterday, but the more raindrops I collected on my spectacles, the less faith I had that the hole in the radar would last until I got there and back, so I took a loop through the village, came home, and sewed.
And, of course, the rain held off until the sun came out, and it remained clear until late today. I forgot that I'd planned, when I turned back, to go by car after supper. At eight o'clock, I remembered, decided that there was enough daylight left (just exactly; it was nearly nine when I left the store, sunset was at nine-twenty, and the ride takes fifteen minutes.) and suited up again.
I bought a pound of sour cream. The last time we ran out of mayonnaise, Dave said he wanted to try Miracle Whip, so I bought a pint (that being the smallest package it came in) and it turns out that he likes it better than mayo. I hardly ever eat mayo; if I buy a jar for the potato salad, what will I do with the leftovers? I'm not about to put Miracle Whip in my potato salad.
But we both eat sour cream. I've frequently thought about using sour cream as potato-salad dressing, now we'll find out how it works.
I walked up and down an extra staircase before leaving the church. I really, really should walk to church in the middle of every week and climb all the staircases.
I'm cleaning off the last of the three benches that got used as shelves while they were stacked in the garage. Among the debris was an oddly-assorted stack of paper. Two maps were on top; I trotted them into the sewing room, intending to put them on top of the box of maps on my top shelf, but I appear to have disposed of it.
About halfway down, I found notes from my radio-license classes and the Em-Com courses I took by Web. I no longer know what they mean ("sit and listen to nothing"?), so they went into the recycling bin, together with some outdated SAR papers Dave picked up somewhere.
The quoted note describes what I do when I meditate while the blood-pressure cuff is doing its thing every night, but I don't think that that is what I meant when I wrote it. That cuff hadn't even been invented at the time!
I'd better get back to sorting. The first load of wash will finish Real Soon Now.
One thing I missed after moving was the September Century. (That's after moving, not because I moved: L.A.B., which now stands for "League Against Bike-riding", stopped sanctioning events that might attract actual cyclists, and when I go to the Web site of my old club, I find no evidence that they continued to put on that rather strenuous event without League support.)
When I was reading Friday's paper last Saturday, I learned that an annual metric Century ride has been taking place in Syracuse for six years. How did it escape my notice when the hundred-kilometer ride runs right past my front door?
Cool, says I to me, I can do a quarter century easily — hold, it's *metric*; a metric century is about sixty miles, I can do the half!
Then I discovered that the deadline is near enough that my mailed check might not get there in time, and there was an error on the website: the printable form you can download is for 2013, and though my muscles have worked up to do the ride, I haven't got enough time to work up enthusiasm for driving somewhere to ride around a circle.
The ride is still marked on my calendar — I plan to walk to the aid station marked on the route map to see what's going on.
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The winter-onion bulbs did develop tough coats, and now taste *very* oniony. Counterbalance, I guess: now you have to peel the tiny things, but they are seasoning instead of vegetable.
Dave is listening to the world's most-boring radio program with great interest. He wants to see what WWV does with the leap-second scheduled for midnight Co-ordinated Universal Time, which is eight p.m. here.