Sunday again and the garden is a right mess of a jungle. I was going to spend some time in it this morning but got distracted by the Olympics women’s road race. We don’t have a television at my house and the one station with US broadcast rights does not let anyone watch online without a cable password. We tried to subcribe to an online TV service and then found out in the process that the subscription does not include Olympics coverage. Humph. Thanks to the marvels of technology, we found out about a service called Tunnel Bear that perfectly legally routed our internet connection so it looks like we are in Canada. I therefore got the pleasure of watching the road race on CBC which is streaming the Olympics for free. Woo!

And it was a great race too. My heart stopped and tears sprang to my eyes though near the end of the race on a steep and technical descent to watch as Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten hit a wet spot on the road and went over her handlbars and into the kerb head first. Reports are she is in stable condition, conscious and able to communicate. I very much hope she will be ok.

Speaking of cycling accidents, no I have not had a new one, I went to the dentist Friday for a check on my teeth. It has been eight weeks since I landed on my face and in all that time I have not been able to bite anything with my front teeth. The two top front teeth are still a bit sensitive but continue to improve, just not as quickly as I had hoped. Nonetheless, I thought the dentist might at least say I could bite soft things like a banana. Nope. Until the sensitivity is completely gone I am not allowed to bite anything. And once I can bite again I am to begin with soft things only and work my way up. It looks like I will not be eating corn-on-the-cob this summer. I will have to cut the corn off like I remember my grandpa doing. Oh well. Something to look forward to next summer.

I made an interesting observation over these eight weeks. Friends, acquaintences and the dentist have all asked me whether I have ridden my bike since the accident. Of course I have! I would say and then think to myself, why wouldn’t I? And sometimes the person asking the question would continue, looking surprised, and say s/he would be terrified to get back on the bike after that. And all I could say was, oh, and be a bit baffled about why they would be afraid. In case you are in the camp of my questioners and wonder why or how, I posted an extended answer at Vocalis last week. (I hope to have an essay by Bookman up in the next few days!)

I haven’t been able to get out for any long rides for the last two weekends — though I have done some hard interval training indoors — Bookman’s birthday and then yesterday I had lunch with a couple friends I have not seen in several months. I have my course mapped out for next weekend already, a ride north on the Mississippi River Trail to Elk River — another river confluence! — that will come out somewhere around 95 miles/ 153 km. Pancake sandwich ahead!

Closer to home and in the garden, it’s beans, beans, beans! The rattlesnake pole beans have turned out to be great. They never did all that well before because I admit, I neglected them for the corn and pumpkins they were planted with. But this year they are planted against some trellis netting along the back of a bed and in the front is bush beans. Happiness is fresh beans from the garden.

Happiness is also cherries. I picked the rest of the bush cherries and wow, there is a lot. We will have enough for a pie and leftovers to dry and put in cereal. I just have to finish pitting all of them. It is not hard work with a handy cherry pitting tool, but it is kind of tedious standing at the sink, pitting one cherry at a time. The results are worth it though.

Last weekend we weeded the green roof and, in order to keep more weeds from growing we seeded some annual ground cover, winter rye. All week we have had a super abundance of birds in the garden, many of them clustering around the green roof. It finally dawned on us the other day that they are all eating the rye seed! Yup. So much for the ground cover strategy.

I also seeded a veg bed with a winter lettuce mix, some bush peas (I have never tried these before), fava beans (never had these before either), carrots, radish, and a green called mache (also new to me). Instead of carefully planting in rows I went for the scatter method since that seems to be the most successful sprouting method this year. I spied a pea sprout today, a good sign!

Ok, here’s the good stuff today. Bookman was able to catch Marianne on camera jumping on my back. It took a while to get there and Bookman’s camerawork is at times questionable, so if you just want to skip ahead, go to the 4:20 mark or there abouts. Be warned however, the video verges on PG-13 as there is excrement invovled. And just a reminder, Marianne, she’s the one with the white head (and I am sort of worried she might be a Colonel Brandon), Mrs. Dashwood is black with the white speckles (can you see her comb and wattle?), Margaret is the all black one and Elinor is the red-brown one. If you turn up the sound, you will also hear they now longer make sweet peeping noises.