Ridin', Racin' and Plantin'

Ridin'

The weather around here has been perfect for riding. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. The wildflowers are in bloom and everyone is planting their gardens.

Jansen's hand was extremely swollen from a hornet sting and it looks like it was going to pop. He took two days off of school and the doctor put him on some meds. Then we passed around a sore throat/head cold/chest congestion. So, our schedule has been a bit off lately, but it's always good to have some forced down time.

Here is a pic of when his hand just started to swell. Then it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. Pretty cool.

Not a lot of ridin' over Mother's Day weekend. Just a ton of yard work....and chocolate.

Racin'

The SERC Ducktown xc race was this past weekend. We had planned to spend the weekend there, but there was a good chance of rain and the extra work to dry out the camping gear was not very enticing. So, the guys headed up at 5am the morning of and I bailed and stayed in bed. Shey and Jansen went off at 9:30am and the rain hit hard on their third lap. Both had good strong races and Everett was there for support. I can't wait to head up there to camp and ride for a long weekend. The trails are pretty amazing!

After I rolled out of bed and took care of a couple hours worth of chores (more about the newly added chores around here later) I decided to head to Snellville to check out a new nursery that just opened. They are supposed to have a great selection of permaculture related plants. (blueberries, tea, veggies, figs, etc) I hooked the trailer to the bike and estimated it would be about 40+miles each way.

Okay, as I headed down the road I decided the Bob trailer was a bit heavy and it was getting pretty hot and muggy, so I would take a short cut to get to Loganville, that would cut out 5+ miles each way.

I got used to the weight of the trailer pretty quickly and the additional speed I picked up on the descents, kept my mph average about the same as it would be without the trailer. Cool. I got to Loganville in under two hours and headed down Hwy 78 to Snellville. I had about 3 more miles to go and as I looked down the hwy the traffic was really heavy and really fast. I started to feel really uncomfortable with the speed and closeness the cars were passing me, so I pulled into a parking lot to decide what to do.

"When in doubt go for ice cream" is my main moto! I had seen a Sonic, so even though I only had a 3 mile ride to get to the nursery, I didn't feel safe on that road and didn't have a backroads alternative, so I headed over to Sonic and purchased the sweetest root beer float. It is a little known fact that a root beer float will indeed give you that little boost that is needed to pull a small steel trailer from Loganville to the other side of Covington, GA!

I called and found out how the guys did at their race and they were already on their way home, so I knew we would get there at about the same time. I hit the road quickly in hopes of beating them to the shower.... Well, damn those head winds, I got them all the way home. How is that possible? I don't know. A small storm was blowing in and it rained just a bit, but the wind was not so much fun and it slowed my average speed by 2 mph on the way back. I got hungry and grumpy because going slow is never that much fun. But, my legs felt good and I was thankful for that. I made it home before the guys and got all the hot water I wanted...after a cold soak for my legs. Then I promptly ordered chinese take-out! It was a good day!

Plantin'

I have pulled up all the spinach and most of the snow peas. Those crops have been replaced with tomatos, cucumbers, peppers, squash, onions, tomatillos, corn, artichokes and more tomatos and more tomatos and more...........

The seeds were really moldy, so I didn't think any of them would germinate. Well, I was wrong and I should not have planted so many in each pot....ooops.

We got our first green tomatos a couple weeks ago.

Asian Pears.

To add to my list of chores, I just got in some more chicks.

I spent an afternoon making a new outdoor cage for the pre-teen chicks, so the day old guys could stay in the basement for awhile. The pre-teens are outside in the coop, now.

Everett is our chicken whisperer. He handles the chickens daily and talks to them, so they will be super friendly when they grow up.