Harpoon Point-to-Point

 

This years bike ride for Harpoon Point-to-Point was a great success.  The weather was ideal and our team raised over $700.00 for the Vermont Food Bank.  A HUGE thank you to everyone who generously donated to the ride. 

 

 

We survived the 50 mile ride.  We had beautiful views and lots of comments about the tandem.  Our favorite of this year being, "Hurry up!  She's right behind you."

 

So in summary of our ride:  Eric pedaled hard.  Teresa had fun.

My mom successfully rode her 25 mile loop coming in with a smile still on her face.  Go lady, go!!

 

 

Go Team Mean Green Lime Machine!!!  It was a day of lots of fun, exercise and free beer.  Any takers for 2014?!?

Where's Waldo

Can you spot Thanksgiving dinner?

 

Under Construction: The Chicken Fortress

The day after the fox took off with one of our girls, we put up an electric fence.  Sunday, a raccoon managed to slide under a gap in the fence (in the middle of the day) and killed two more of the girls.  I had him shut into the chicken coop at one point after a lot of kicking and yelling (on my part) and hissing (on his part).  Sadly, he escaped, but phase 2 of protecting our chickens went into action.

 

Phase Two:

  - Buy a trap, rifle and cinder blocks

 

Night 1 saw no activity in the trap.  I spent all day digging trenches under the fence and placing cinder blocks in order to prevent animals from digging under the fence.  As you can see, the girls and Silver were helping to spread the dirt.

 

I can only hope this works.  One blogger suggested landmines and barbed wire.  I don't think we're there quite yet....

T - 24ish Hours

The time is near for Mt. Rainier.  You can keep track of the weather and our progress while I am in Washington. We are on the 5 day summit climb that hopes to summit on Sunday the 30th.

Massive failure, Mr. Weatherman

I waited all morning to go for a hike.  Watching the weather forecast drop from a 50% chance of rain down to 0%.  I figured I was now safe to hike and stay dry. 

 

The spitting started as I pulled out of the driveway.  This progressed to a very light drizzle as I drove.  By the time I reached the Brownsville Trail parking lot (only a few minutes from the house), it was raining steadily.  And as if that weren't enough, a complete downpour began immediately upon me stepping out of the car!  I figured it couldn't rain this hard for too long, but 40 minutes later it was still going strong.  The dogs and myself were completely soaked.  I actually wished I had goggles to keep the water out of my eyes! Of course, as I got back to the car, the rain stopped as quickly as it had started!

 

 

All I can say is, "Wow, Mr. Weatherman, that was a massive failure!"

Garden update: #1 of the year

All of the vegetable starts seem to be doing well.  Lettuce, beet, bean, and sunflower seeds are all sprouting.  There are close to eight pounds of seed potatoes that still need to be planted.  In all, we might actually get to eat something from the garden this year despite our late start.  

 

The fruit trees are doing well for the most part.  Most exciting is that there are two tiny apples on the Haralson apple tree.

We also found three snakes inhabiting the south facing stone foundation of our house and the surrounding flower bed today.

Too Cold for Tubing.

Today we had a river adventure.  

The conditions seemed right:  

1.  A perfectly sunny day in the high 70's with not a cloud in the sky.  

2.  Tons of rain this past week (meaning the river water was plenty high and there was

      no risk of getting whacked in the bum with a rock).

Logical. 

Logical until half way down the river we couldn't even feel our bums to know if a rock was hitting us.  Not to mention, the 60 pound chocolate lab who had frantically crawled onto the tube and was sitting in Teresa's lap shivering, with her teeth chattering because despite all her fur, she was COLD!

Maybe not so logical, but fun.  Next tubing trip...set for July!