First Long Ride of the Year

There've been a couple of Thursday night Bombay Bicycle Club rides after work, about 25 miles or so, with the main point of the excursion socializing after touring the rural roads. I was tired at the end of those rides. But the one we took yesterday was what I consider the first long (50 miles) one of the season.

Terry and I had fun deciding on a route leaving directly from the house. We chose a published bike map that was round trip to Columbus, and decided to find a shortcut to keep it around 40 miles. The map showed Bristol Road cutting directly across the middle of the loop, so we turned off early onto it. But...what the map showed was different than what the road actually did, so we had some false starts and concentrated reckoning of where we were in relation to the sun when Bristol Road suddenly ended. (I cheated and used the GPS on my iPhone to double check.)

Meanwhile, we were delighted to come upon the Sassy Cow Creamery surrounded by pasture and fields, and were sorry we were too early to pay it a visit as customers.

By the time we figured out our shortcut and were counting down the last ten miles home on our odometers, the temperature had risen to the high eighties and we were running on fumes, depleted, both hungry and thirsty, and soaked with perspiration. But that didn't stop me from waving wildly from my bike on the River Road overpass as it crosses Interstate 90/04 to all the people trapped in cars below. I thought I was hearing appreciative honks from envious drivers above the roar of the stream of traffic down there, but then realized I was blocking impatient drivers behind me as I veered in and out from the side of the road with my waving.

When we got home, I couldn't get out of my wet clothes and wash off the greasy, bug-crusted sunscreen covering my face, arms and legs fast enough, and rushed into the shower. Terry was starving and shaky, and headed for the kitchen. When I emerged just a few minutes later, he was standing by the counter looking a little dazed. Wrappers from bread and cheese lay scattered, and the container that had held cut up watermelon was lying on its side. He was holding a bag of chips. "I guess I was hungry...that was about as far as I wanted to ride," he said, looking around.

Gig Posters

On the kiosk at Memorial Union:

Jedi Mind Tricks
Black Lips
'Pert Near Sandstone
The Clientele
Need to Breathe
The Catalog Babies
Trampled by Turtles
Field Music
Leslie and the Ly's
Umphreys McGee
Heatbox
The Kissers

CSA Decision

The people of Madison LOVE community supported agriculture (CSA) farms--all the booths at Monona Terrace yesterday were mobbed. True to my talent for getting involved in a trend at its peak, I was there as well, along with my husband and 79 year old dad, who farmed for a good many years.

We stood like rocks in a whitewater stream, trying to decide where to strike out for first. Luckily a volunteer came by with delicious samples of an asian-style coleslaw from the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition cookbook. One taste and we shoved off to find the best farm to join so we could start picking up produce each week to make things just like that.

What a different type of farming the people there were doing compared to what my dad had done! The farmers we talked to were mostly people in their thirties or even twenties, thoroughly at ease discussing the nutritional value of the food they were growing, sustainable farming methods, and lifestyle choices. Besides farmers, they were sales people, promoters, educators, merchandisers, employers, distributors, and graphic designers.

Having struggled mightily to grow an array of vegetables in our garden, which is composed of dense clay soil, creeping charlie, and a favorite spot of deer, rabbits, groundhogs and Japanese beetles, I wanted to know about things like tractors and other mechanical help. I thought Dad would, too, especially since he spent a good bit of his retirement restoring John Deere tractors, but no. I followed him to hear the answers to his favorite question "Do you have working shares?"

We didn't make a decision on which CSA to join...I'm still sorting out pick-up locations and times, prices, and just what's in the weekly box. How lucky to have so many great places to choose from.

Deer Pasture

There's a deer herd living in our neighborhood. Last year there were four that ate the prettiest flowers in our yard, chomped on hostas in the middle of the night under our bedroom window, mowed down the raspberry canes, and jumped over the fence into our garden to annihilate the Swiss chard and lettuce.

They bedded down under our pine trees for the night and lounged around there in the dawn. Neighbors who are home during the day reported seeing them lying in front yards, and using the sidewalks and steps to travel from front to back of various houses.

This year we discovered the herd had grown to five, with a new little fawn. Scrooges that we are, we grumbled to see it. Last Saturday we came home and found two deer busily eating the safflower seeds out of a bird feeder, looking exactly like cattle. Grrrr! Terry stepped out the door, yelled, and they trotted a few yards away. Then we stood, stunned, as seven more deer emerged from the pine trees and surrounded them.

No wonder our back yard looks like a cow pasture, with trails and manure everywhere.

Byline Surprise

Last year my husband and I set a goal of skiing the American Birkebeiner race from Cable to Hayward in northern Wisconsin. That was pretty ambitious for a couple of novices: the race is 54 kilometers (that's nearly 32 miles!) for the classic course. But it was a really great way to stay motivated to get outside during the freezing, dark days of the winter months when we just didn't feel like it.

We managed to do it, and the experience was so powerful I wanted to capture in writing. I submitted my story this year to the American Birkebeiner Foundation web site to be included on its page of people's Birkie experiences. The editor said thanks, but we can't use it right now. I was a little disappointed but at least I'd written it.

Our plans were to ski again this year, which would have been this past weekend, but a family medical emergency came up and we couldn't do it. I clicked through the web site a couple of times this week to look up results and news stories, and consoled myself that next year I'd be there.

Yesterday my mother called and said "Did you write a story about the Birkebeiner?" A family friend who lives in the area had sent my parents a clipping from a newspaper which contained my story! Apparently the Birkebeiner people invite the local media to use stories they've received, and the Sawyer County Record took them up on it and published my story.

Not only am I thrilled to have it published, but in a way, I got to participate in the excitement of Birkie weekend even though I couldn't be there.

Valentine Skiing

Today was the best kind of Valentine: cross country skiing on a sunny day on perfectly groomed trails with Terry, my husband. Skiers around here are always talking about Lapham Peak as if it were a given that everyone goes there, but we never had.

No more of that. Its kettles, moraines and eskers have miles of wooded trails, perfect for Birkebeiner training, with climbs like Asthma Hill and Stairway to Heaven that leave you gasping for air and wondering if you're going to live to get to the top, and downhills like Big Slide that go on and on, making your quads beg for mercy--exactly what we were looking for with two weeks to go before heading up to Cable for Birkie weekend.

The morning sun was bright but low when we got there, and the long shadows of the trees weaving patterns across the snow on either side of the trail kept us smiling and congratulating ourselves on being outside in the woods on a beautiful winter day. Five deer leaped across the trail ahead of us, then stopped at the top of the slope to our left, looking down at us. They seemed magical, and maybe they were wondering if we were real, but a lot of people go to Lapham Peak...more likely they wondered if our presence meant there'd be anything to eat.

Human Bingo

We're playing Human Bingo at work this week. Last Tuesday C. and L. decided to try and do something about our feeble social culture--people don't seem to talk to each other much beyond the adjacent cubicle--and sent around an email asking who wanted to play. Out of 40-plus people in the building, 27 said sure.

To play, we each submitted three facts about ourselves to C. or L., who explained they'd pick one out for each person, put them in a bingo card, the players would go around and figure out who belonged to each little tidbit about a life by talking to people they wouldn't normally have reason to, and fill in the bingo squares by having the person sign their personal mini claim to notoriety.

I thought it was a great idea. I'm not an especially outgoing person, yet it's hard for me to be enthused about going to work if I don't have positive and fun relationships with the people there. But what to write about myself? The pressure was on to reveal to the world how I saw myself ! And yet...the fun of it would be to tell things people wouldn't normally know.

I decided on 1) I was born at midnight and the nurses asked my dad to pick the date of my birthday; 2) my high school graduating class had 47 people; and 3) I read about a book a week, sometimes more.

When the bingo cards were distributed yesterday, I saw C. and L. had kept in all three facts for each player. It was a revelation to read the incredibly rich collection of little pieces and insights of 27 lives! People had things like "Dad would be 100 this year if he were still alive;" I had breakfast with Charles Dickens' great great grandson;" "I got to meet Rick Springfield in the early '80s;" "I have perfect pitch, whether it's music, a vacuum, or an alarm clock;" "I have been to two professional bull riding championships in Vegas;" "I like sharks;" and, my favorite set: "I speak English yet no one understand what I am saying, I lived in six different states--seven if you count the state of denial, I was given a ticket once for 'headed in the wrong direction' and my mother agreed."