A Give-Away for Valentine's Day

Roses are redand so is this bike

- which could soonbe yours if you like!

For on this comingValentine's day

it shall be promptlygiven away.



"What is this bike?"you might inquire,

"with its bright red frameand old-fashioned tire?"

In reply I guide you to

this Bobbin Bicycles Birdie review.



The lovely loop frameand the lugs

will surely elicit passionate hugs.

And as the cupid'sarrow nears

you've got the Sturmey Archer gears.

For yourself or for your darling

a shiny red bike is oh so charming!



From England it traveled by land and by sea

to Boston's Harris Cyclery,

and from thence it shall be sent

to that person for whom it is meant.



For a chance this bike to recieve

a velo-Valentine you must conceive,

in the US you must reside,

and by the guidelines below abide:



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Guidelines for the Bobbin Birdie Give-Away:



Submission Procedure: Create and submit a bicycle-themed Valentine. Your Valentine can be intended for a real person, for a fictional or hypothetical person, for your bicycle, for any other bicycle, or for anyone or anything really (except for me) - as long as it is in some way bicycle themed. The Valentine may consist of text and/or image (no video, no audio). If your Valentine is text only, please submit it directly in the comments here. If your Valentine is an image, upload it and post the link in the comments (if you have nowhere to upload it to, email it to "filigreevelo[at]yahoo[dot]com" with the subject "Velo-Valentine"). Be sure to include your email address in the comment when submitting your Valentine. One submission per person please.



Submission deadline is Thursday, February 9th , 11:59pm Pacific time. Recipient will be announced on Valentine's Day (February 14th, ).



Eligibility: Entrants must reside in the continental USA. Entrants may be of any gender, and may be getting the bicycle for themselves or for a loved one. Entrants should be readily reachable via email. This bicycle is best suited for persons 5'3" - 5'8", please use your judgment.



Selection criteria: Selection will be made on the basis of the Valentine, assuming that eligibility criteria are met. Any Valentine submitted may be publicly viewable and there will be reader input in the selection process.



This give-away is made possible viaForth Floor Distribution - the North American distributor of Bobbin Bicycles. Many thanks to them for donating this beautiful bike, and to everyone for taking part!

The First Beach House

Northern Hawk Owl

For the past couple of weeks a Northern Hawk Owl has been hanging around near the Grand Portage Trading Post. I have seen him several times, but until today he was always perched on the power lines (not the best for photos!). Today I spotted him in the trees and promptly reached for my 100-400mm lens. I watched him (or her? I'm not sure how to tell the difference in owls) for close to half an hour. During that time the owl flew to 4 or 5 different trees, and from each tree was listening for sounds of mice down under the snow. Every now and then he would swoop down towards the ground, but he never did catch anything while I was there. He sure gave me some nice opportunities for photos today though!

Northern Lights Moonrise over Wauswaugoning Bay

Well, the aurora made a pretty good showing last night! It sounds like most everyone had cloudy skies but lucky for me the clouds didn't move in up here until after the aurora faded. The lights put on a pretty good show from about 11:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. Here are my favorite images from last night!

Watermelons

It wasn't that we didn't plant watermelons early. We did. It's just that they were part of the straw-bale gardening experiment that went horribly wrong. And we didn't re-plant until the first of August. A race was on between the vines and the first hard frost.



This was our first attempt at growing watermelons.

My planting method went like this: "Oh, that was a good watermelon that we got from the farmer's market. I'll just toss some of these seeds onto the unplanted garden area and see what happens."

My husband's planting method was more sophisticated: "I'll plant some of these seeds that Aunt Polly gave us a few years ago. I'm even going to weed the area first, and plant in mounds. But I'm not going to use any fertilizer, because this dirt is so good. It's all a matter of mind control, anyway."



You might be surprised to learn that we did actually manage to grow a few excellent watermelons.

They were very tasty! We had a two or three week window between the first ripe melon and the first hard frost (around the first of November).



Did you know that melons can suffer from blossom end rot? It's a common problem with tomatoes, but for melons I get the impression that you really have to be trying. Oops. I blamed it on not fertilizing this end of the garden at all. Hubby blamed it on not watering enough (and improper mind control). It was probably the result of both. (I don't subscribe to the mind control theory of gardening.)

Gourds

My gourd crop is small this year but they look to be nice ones. Have about six at this time.

Several Different Horses

I tried to get little horses in a verity of different colors, poses, breeds.