Lighted Window

Back on the Wagon

The last three months have been... well, to get it out in the open, they've been your typical first trimester blah (plus two weeks of nasty poison ivy rashes). Of course that does mean I got on the proverbial temperance wagon, but I fell off the blogwagon around the same time. Sorry about that.

Things have gotten better over the last week, though, and I had enough energy today to:

• start cleaning up the guest room (inlaws coming!)
• run multiple errands
• go through 4 boxes of hand-me-down maternity clothes
• spray Roundup on the poison ivy
• GO TO THE FARM! YAY!

Thank God I got my groove back in time for One Local Summer signups! Barely in time. Today's the last day, so if you meant to sign up and haven't, get over there! I have definitely been eating non-local what with trying to get enough greens in my gullet, during a cold New England spring, but our CSA share should be starting up in a couple of weeks, and our garden has baby spinach and lettuce and onions and more. A strawberry patch, too. That was a complete surprise as the snow melted.

We've been greening our garden in other ways, too -- we installed a couple of rain barrels so that we're not watering from the town wells. Except for the Roundup, we're not using any industrial pesticides or fertilizer. Just compost and manure and soap. (I wouldn't even use the Roundup but severe allergic reaction means we have a zero tolerance policy for the plant, and it's nowhere near the food plants.)

We were biking in Western MA yesterday, out near Zoar, and we rode past one small homestead with a long road frontage. The veggie garden gave way to the rhubarb patch, which was followed by a dozen or so blueberry bushes, which yielded to a few venerable old apple trees. Blessed people!

Season Confusion

Seems like New England can't decide whether it's summer or fall, and personally, I can't decide which I'd prefer right now, so we're even. A little rain would be good, though. It is HOT and DRY.

No dinners this week for the Eat Local Challenge -- it feels good to take a bit of a breather. Dinners out with friends are not something to be ignored on a busy busy week. And there are Concord grapes in the fridge, along with a ridiculous number of tomatoes, so once the heat breaks (tonight? please?) I'll be putting up some grape jam and the family chili sauce. (Think condiment, not entree.) Finally, we decided to go ahead and buy a dehydrator, after playing with our friends' for a couple of weeks. Gots to get our Schnitz on!

Start to Finish MS

On September 29, Tim and I will be biking 50 miles in the Berkshires. Sounds fun eh? We won't be alone -- we will be part of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's "Start to Finish MS" ride. We chose to participate in the ride, rather than taking a quiet little vacation and doing the same thing ourselves, because we believe that by getting people together you can make a bigger difference than if you all did the same thing individually. Like drafting while you're riding -- you can get a 20% reduction in wind drag if you're riding in the sweet spot behind another moving object, and you take turns drafting so everybody benefits.

One thing I'm not shy about is asking for money to help a good cause. If you can spare a little cash for MS research, please go to my donation page and drop a little something in the jar. I have to raise $250 just to participate (so does Tim) and we would obviously like to raise more than the minimum!

In addition to the fundraising challenge, this is also a personal challenge. I haven't biked more than 34ish miles in one day, in my life, and I am raising the bar. I'll probably never do a 75- or 100-mile ride in one day, but 50 hilly miles is a reachable target. I've been doing some training rides:

Biked 33 miles on Aug 5 with Tim (Westford loop)
Biked 30 miles on Aug 11 with Tim and Patrick (Westford loop)
Biked 30 miles (8 to work, 22 home) on Aug 14 with Tim and others (Strawberry Hill, 225)
Biked 25 miles on Aug 18 with Tim (Strawberry Hill, 225)
Biked 32 miles on Aug 19 with Tim (Weston, Sudbury blue route)
Biked 32 miles on Aug 25 with Tim and Patrick (Weston, Sudbury blue route)
Biked 29 miles on Sept 1 with Tim and Patrick (cloverleaf centered on Bedford)

Obviously I've gotta get out of the 30-mile comfort zone in the next four weeks! Come on and motivate me! The MS Society will be very grateful and so will I!