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Except Mother Nature had another trick up her sleeve. Thunderstorms. I have ridden in the rain plenty of times. Being wet is not exactly comfortable when cycling but it is bearable. A little rain would not have made me consider stopping. But when, after about 50 miles, you have to find shelter because of yet another thunderstorm with cloud to ground lightning, well safety is more important than finishing the ride.
We had maybe a few miles when it wasn’t raining and it was great. But the rain kept pouring down, sometimes so hard we couldn’t see the road. We missed one of our turns and took a 15-mile detour before we got ourselves back on course. Even our Garmin GPS bike computers had problems with the storms and the mapping for both of us stopped working for a little while. We both had backup printed cue sheets but my friend’s had gotten so wet they fell apart. Mine were wet but still usable and it is these plus an assist from Google maps that got us back on course. Eventually our GPS maps started working again, which is good because my cue sheets started falling apart.
At one point we thought we were finally going to get clear of the rain. The sky ahead was getting lighter and we could see the edges of the clouds. But then our route took us a different direction, right into the blackest of black clouds. The wind was picking up and driving the rain hard and ow, it hurt! Thankfully there was no hail, that really would have hurt. As we pedaled along into the storm, I hunched over my handlebars and yelled, “I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too!” And then started singing the Wicked Witch song from Wizard of Oz. I got a miserable smile from my friend for my effort.
Not long after that the rain was coming down so hard we couldn’t see and lightning struck only a couple miles away. We turned a corner and there was a huge barn with an overhang. We pulled in out of the rain to wait for the storm to pass. Now that we weren’t moving we got cold and both started shivering. We paced around, had a snack, watched the rain get heavier and waited. And waited.And waited.
Forty-five minutes and no sign that it was going to let up. The lightning kept flashing. A small river had formed at our feet just outside the overhang. We checked the weather and it looked like it was going to keep on like that for at least another 30 to 40 minutes. It was already approaching noon. We’d made it 50 miles and reluctantly decided to call a halt to the adventure. My friend’s husband was our rescue ride. She called and when he arrived about 40 minutes later it was still pouring. So we’d made a good decision. As we headed home, wrapped in towels and grateful to be warm, we drove by flooded field after flooded field.
The Dirty Benjamin, I have decided, is a cursed ride. Three attempts and three DNFs. However, half the starting field didn’t finish so I don’t feel so bad. Safety is more important than finishing and with the lightning and flooding, the safe choice was the best choice. My friend and I will try again next year. The only thing left to stop me is a blizzard.
The poor garden is so confused with the weather. We keep vacillating between hot and dry and cold/cool and wet. The lettuce and spinach never sprouted and the carrots decided not to sprout either. The radishes are doing great though as are the beets, tomatoes, potatoes and pumpkins. And the beans. All the beans are going crazy. Maybe I should just grow beans. The shelling peas are growing but slowly. They don’t like all the temperatures changes. The snap peas are shooting up and don’t seem to mind the temperature changes at all, hot or cold is all the same to them. So if I only get snap peas this year, I guess I can live with that.
The strawberries are beginning to get ripe. My mouth is happy. Almost all the honeyberries have been picked, there are still a few more. For such still small bushes we got a decent amount—two batches of pancakes instead of just one. Or maybe pancakes (they taste great in cornbread pancakes) and a batch of muffins. We’ll see.
Judging by the raspberry flowers that have just passed and are now working on becoming berries, it should be another great year. But is it never a good year for raspberries? They are pretty hardy no matter what it seems. If we didn’t dig out all the suckers every year, the entire garden would be a raspberry thicket.
The garlic has started forming scapes. So excited! I will let them get a little bigger before snipping them all off. Garlic scapes will make it into dinner later this week for sure. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
The apple trees appear to be doing well so far. Walter, our crabapple is loaded and Bee, our honeycrisp, is making a big production too. Bee had apples last year but she was ground zero for the Japanese beetle invasion in the garden and the apples either fell off or got eaten by the beetles. I was concerned that the tree might not do well after all that, but I was wrong. Since the winter was long and cold, my fingers are crossed that most of the hibernating beetles were killed off and won’t present a problem this year. When prepping the garden beds we found surprisingly few grubs. A good sign.
One plant in the garden that doesn’t seem to be having any trouble with the weather this year is the climbing rose. Last year it had a smattering of roses and I worried that maybe something was wrong with it. This year it has gone completely wild and I am worried it is going to knock over its trellising and invade the neighbor’s yard!I am on vacation this week. When I requested this week off a couple months ago I had planned to be going to all kinds of cycling events for the week-long Northstar Bicycle Festival. I was going to get to see some pro races even! Sadly a few weeks ago they cancelled the festival because there is so much road and bridge replacement construction going on around the Twin Cities that the original race venues were made impossible and it was too late to be able to get the permits to re-route anything. Grrr.
So now my week is completely unstructured. There will be cycling and gardening and reading but no big events to attend after all. Today will be an indoor day because rain is on the way as I type. That’s okay though since I was outside in the garden pretty much all day yesterday. Today will be a good rest day.
Tomorrow night is my last crit race in the State Fair race series. Bookman has Wednesday off and we are planning a little cycling adventure. If all goes well I will have some delicious photos to post later in the week. Other than that, I guess I will just wait and see what happens.
My garden is confused, too. Like yours, my green beans are doing great, but my tomatoes- although the plants look big and healthy- are dropping all the blossoms before they set fruit. I don’t think I’ll have any tomatoes this year. I never heard of honeyberries before.
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Jeane, oh no! Your poor tomatoes! We had that problem last year. They eventually did set some fruit but it was so late in the season they never had time to get ripe. Honeyberries are about the size of blueberries. They are originally, I believe, from Siberia. They don’t require acidic soil so are a great substitute for blueberries.
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Oh those roses Stefanie, I know you can’t because of your allergies, would I have those in my garden, my desk would never be without a tiny vase filled with two or three of them. Happy holidays, unstructured is good…
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Cath, I was weeding ear them and they smell so lovely. I can enjoy them outdoors but not in an enclosed space. I would send you a bouquet for you desk if I could!
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You’re right about the raspberries, they do well just about anywhere going from my experience. My strawberries are doing well but the peas are nowhere to be seen. Rain is due here – the first for weeks!
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piningforthewest, heh, I thought as much about raspberries. Hooray for your strawberries! Sorry about the peas. Maybe a late season planting for fall will get you some? If mine end up not doing anything I am going to give that a try. I hope you got rain!
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What are honey berries? I don’t think I’ve heard of them. If you make a dish with them please share as I’d love to see! And, you are definitely a bike warrior – I have ridden in the rain before and I didn’t last very long 🙂 Hope you have a fabulous week enjoying your time off.
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Iliana, honeyberries are like teardrop shaped blueberries. They don’t test quite the same as blueberries but they are very tasty with a sort of sweet/tart flavor. And the shrubs aren’t fussy about soil acidity.
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It sounds as if you made a heroic effort. You are correct in that safety needs to come first. I also will stick it out in rain storms when hiking and running but lightning is a different matter. Hopefully you will have a better time next year.
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Brian Joseph, lightning does take rain to an entire other level. If it was just rain for 100 miles it would have been miserable but we would have kept going. But lightning, nope. I will try again next year!
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Safety is VERY important. There are more Dirty Benjamin races but only one Stefanie! What a shame, though, about your holiday. Still, as I tell my daughter, holidays, even those at home, are an adventure and it’s best just to go with the flow. If you are a person who enjoys life you’ll make something of it to enjoy!
Our gardens have been confused here – and our autumn colours were less intense and later than usual because of the warm autumn. Today, though, is a cold rainy one – which is OK as we need to rain and I’m happy to snuggle inside.
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whisperinggums, you are right, there will be more Dirty Benjamins. It might just become a tradition to not finish this ride. Next year if I make it to the finish I will have to turn off before the line just to keep the streak going! 😉
I am making the most of my holiday and the garden is definitely benefiting. One more day of really nice weather before a hot and humid heatwave settles in. I hope you got to enjoy a good indoor snuggle that include some excellent reading time!
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Wow, what an adventure! Glad you made it safe… sounds like one of those “at least we’ll have a good story!” times… hope your garden catches up to the weather soon! I am busy trying to figure out the garden situation here. I have four tomatoes that are in various states of health (hoping that at least 1 or 2 of them produce this year; I have low expectations for my first summer here!) and a bunch of wild overgrown herbs and TONS of weeds. I think I will need to just start fresh next year with most of the beds. There are some strawberries that are producing little sweet berries but they are so buried in dense weeds that I might have to just dig out the whole bed. Oh well! That’s the good thing about gardening: you can just start from scratch if you need to!
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Daphne, heh, seems like a good many of my long bike rides end up having some flavor of “at least there will be a good story!” I went out yesterday to weed and seed some carrots to make up for the ones that never sprouted and what do you know, they have started to sprout! Only a month after I planted them, but hey, who’s counting? Sounds like you have your work cut out for you in your new garden. I have faith that you will whip it into shape in a season or two it will be absolutely amazing! It’s hard work, I know, but I hope you have fun too!
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I can’t comment on your cycling except to say you amaze me! Where do you get your energy?!
Inheriting a garden is interesting. I see new plants blooming and am surprised and most often delighted. I find I can only spend about a half and hour a day (weather permitting) weeding. I’m making inroads on that ornamental grass, though, and I think the black plastic has killed the Creeping Jenny. Still no vegetable garden.
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Joan, it’s the whole food plant-based diet! 😉 I can imagine inheriting a garden makes for some challenges. I am kind of glad there wasn’t much of anything but grass and weeds and one big tree in the yard when we bought our house. I hope the weeding is going well and I hope Jack’s back is feeling better!
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I should try the honeyberries. I’m not terribly fond of fresh blueberries (but my kids love them) so perhaps something similar would be ideal.
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Wow! Definitely a good idea to bail out – sounds as if it could have been dangerous to continue. Can’t argue with Mother Nature! I think I’d like the role of staying dry as the rescue driver 😀
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