Jake's Peaches

Last April I told the world the story of Jake's peach tree - the saga of a Harry & David peach pit, planted a few years ago by my sister and her husband and son Jake. In its fourth spring the tree burst into beautiful pink bloom and Red and her family hoped there would be peaches.

Next came a photo of the developing green fruit and then in July the photo above showed them beginning to color.

A week ago my sister Red sent this photo of the ripening fruit with the guy who planted the tree and had faith that it would grow and bloom.


And she also sent a photo of some peaches in a bowl. They weren't huge, but they were beautiful peaches!


When a recycled Harry & David box arrived this afternoon - I had to share the joy!





Dear Family,
There's a light fruity fragrance already - maybe Philo and I can sample one of these very special peaches tomorrow. Thank you all - I can't believe you did this!


And Red - sure hope you and sister Josie will have a chance to get to Mamma Mia soon if you haven't already been to the theater together.
I wrote about seeing it this week with my friend MSS over here at Annie's Addendum and don't think there are any real "spoilers' in my post.


I bought the CD yesterday - guess what - the booklet has all the words, so by the time the DVD comes out - I'll be ready.


Now I just hope you are as thrilled with the movie as we are with the peaches!

This and That

You can get with this

or you can get with that

Sometimes I wear a helmet



sometimes I wear a hat



Sometimes I work from home

with my lovely assistants



Sometimes I go on rides

in the cold wearing mittens



Sometimes I ride with others

sometimes I ride alone



Taking wacky pictures

with my camera phone



meeting nice people



eating hot soup



climbing hills along the

Concord-Lexington loop



Now let's all get cozy

with a warm cup of java



Or how about a crazy

wool balaclava?



Enjoy your weekend

and the beauty outside



No matter what you're into

it's time for a ride!

The Batura 2.0 GTX?

This is just a teaser as the newest version of the Baturajust showed up on FED EX and I wanted to share!



Of course I think La Sportiva has some amazing designers. The newest version and the "Super Gater" clearly show cases that. We were addingVelcro and zippers on our Super Gaters back in the mid '70s. And most importantly none of us everhad a failure. Labor intensive so it adds to the price but a"good step" in the right directionI think.



More to come with a side by side comparison of the current BaturaEvo and this ne 2.0 version that will be available in the Spring of . But first impression? I had admittedly scoffed at the title "Batura 2.0." Adding Goretex to a old boot design doesn't make it a "new" boot. But it seems this is a total rebuild not just a glossy new paint job. It may look like a Batura but my impression is we have a new player here not just a few fancy cosmetic improvements. The under 900g weight per boot should be a head turner for those that keep count! And it would seem an even more rigid midsole than the previous boots. Hopefully I'll have some details from both Gore and La Sportiva to fill in the cracksI miss on the newest boot.



I've been duped by early prodction prototypes before. Hopefully this boot will prove that theory wrong.



Till then enjoy the pictures and think..... ICE :)







GORETEX

Batura II, Batura Evo, Phantom Ultra

Getting my ducks in a row

The Keweenaw Peninsula :: Breakfast Nook

Monday, August 8th - - As nice as the weather was, I decided to leave the Keweenaw Peninsula and move on to other places. The campground was great – in full shade for the most part, which would have been really nice in warmer temperatures. But as it was, with temps in the mid-70s and lots of shade, it was a little cool. (Yeah, I know, some people are never satisfied!)



I left the campground early without eating breakfast, hoping to find a nice warm spot in the sunshine.





A beautiful spot for breakfast!



A few geese were the only things around.



How do these things manage to find a foothold, and survive?



It was a most enjoyable interlude.

Reading and Riding

When I started cycling I never dreamed of getting into bicycle-themed literature. In fact, I intentionally avoided it. I guess I wanted to think of myself as "normal," didn't want to get obsessed, you know?.. Just a person who rides bikes, and nota person who is so defined by them that even her reading list is bike-themed.Fast forward several years, and my coffee table is littered with books and magazines about... you guessed it, cycling. My laptop has browser windows open to cycling-themed reading material. I'm a goner for sure. And you know what's worse? For some reason, most of the stuff I like is roadie themed. Let me explain: There is some truly excellent writing in this genre. Not just writing that seems good because I am into bikes. But writing that is so genuinely compelling in its own right, that it has gotten me interested in topics I had otherwise been indifferent to. Here is a sampling of my favourites, by category:



Book: The Rider by Tim Krabbé. I posted a sort-of review of it last winter and it remains my favourite. It is ultimately a novel about human introspection. That just happens to also be about bicycle racing. By the end, you may not be able to separate the two.



Writer: Limiting myself to just one, I would have to sayGraeme Fife. "I'm not greatly interested in results, frankly but the metaphysics and aesthetics of cycle racing excite me enormously," this man once said in an interview.



Magazine: I started readingRouleurbecause it was available at the Ride Studio Cafe libraryand I was looking for something to leaf through with my coffee. After a couple of issues I was hooked. The articles have an unexpectedly brooding, almost dark tone to them that lured me right in. I had no idea what I was reading about half the time, but it was gorgeous, so I kept reading until it gradully began to make more sense. That's how they got me.



Blog: Red Kite Prayer. This is a roadie blog that I really have no business reading. But the entries are so thoughtful and well written that I keep checking in and finding common threads, sometimes even patches of common ground.



Blog Entry: Favourite cycling blog post of all time is a masterpiece by a girl named Beth Newell. Now, this is a girl who went from riding her first roadbike to turning track national champion in just a few years, all the while documenting it hilariously. But my favourite post of hers has little to do with cycling, and focuses instead on a student exchange trip to Hungary. So, if you're having a dull night, do yourself a favour: Pour a nice glass of wine, click here, then search for the phrase "perhaps the most traumatic story about my calves dates back age twenty" and start reading from there. You will not regret it.

Mouses, Mouses

Drats, we have mice in the hay shed, and storage shed. Again.