Triathalon!

Today I completed my first sprint triathlon! Two of my friends in my office, Kelly and Kendall, signed up for the Iron Goddess and I decided to join them. I wasn't sure what I was getting into but I spent the past few months training for it. I borrowed a friends road bike (thanks Anna!) and learned how to road bike. I have come a long way since the first ride, not being able to change my gears, not being able to make it 20 minutes, and being afraid of falling. I bought a new bathing suit and started doing laps. The first time in the pool I didn't have a swim cap, no goggles, and thought I was going to crash into everyone (sorry everyone at YMCA!). Thanks to Arthur doing my training runs and rides with me I made it to the race today and completed it! It was a fun morning and was impressed by all the other ladies out there making a go of it.

Check out some of the pictures from the day!

Triathalon!

Hoop House Build 2

Two weekends ago Arthur and I did another hoop house build. It was a great day if not long and full of mosquitoes, but we built the whole hoop in one day! Lisa did such a great job of documenting the day I will let her blog speak for itself. If you want to hear more about the build and check out pictures check out Lisa's blog.

We are spending a lot of time on farms these days... maybe there is a farm in our future... or maybe we will stick to eating good food :)

Red Lining

Last weekend was my favorite weekend out of the year. It involves Starlight, family, friends, a canoe race, and lots of good food, including ice cream. This year was the 40th anniversary of Red Lining participating in the General Clinton Canoe Regatta. 40 years ago my dad brought his college crew team up for some crazy relay canoe race. 40 years later some of those guys are still coming back and now they bring their wives and kids. We now have three generations enjoying the weekend.

The weekend starts out with putting in the docks. This year we were blessed with really warm weather and the lake was so warm we decided to give some of the team a break and put in the docks before everyone got there. By Saturday the crew starts to arrive and by 6:00 our house is full for the annual pre-race dinner, where my mom creates an amazing feast. For the 40th year we decided to go all out and enter 4 teams (40 people) so we had 60 people enjoy the evening. Bebeth and I decided to surprise my parents with a few things that night including video taken one of the first few years of the race. It was great to watch everyone watching the crazy running start and looking at the pictures from over the years.

Sunday morning we all pile into the cars and caravan to the race start. It was a successful day. All teams finished, no one came in last, it was beautiful weather, and everyone had fun. The day is never complete without The Penguin! It is an ice cream place on the side of the road that has 50 flavors where they throw either chocolate or vanilla in the machine and then throw any other ingredients you want and pull the lever and out comes your flavor.... and the flavor of the person ahead of you. Thanks Will for ruining my chocolate coconut crunch with root beer!

The weekend is never complete without some task. This year, cleaning out the dam. So 10 of us headed down to the dam to pull out all the sticks that the beavers had carefully placed. 10 minutes into it someone finds a baby snapping turtle. It was very cute, but we went back to work blindly sticking our hands into the water and pile of sticks with out bare feet in the mud. 10 minutes later someone finds a very large snapping turtle, about the size of a soccer ball. By the end two more large snapping turtles were found. When the fourth was pulled out of the water we decided bare toes and fingers would make great food for the turtles so we decided to stop. The weekend is very complete without an adventure!

Thanks to everyone for making the 40th a perfect weekend! Here are some photos from the weekend.

Memorial Day 2010

Hoop House Build

Yesterday, while Arthur was in DC, I volunteered on a hoop house build. What is that you may ask? It is like a green house but is made out of metal and plastic and is used to extend the growing season. They are becoming more popular in Michigan because they allow a farmer to grow year round (without heating) and extend the growing season on either side. This means more greens in the farmers market year round (local lettuce in the winter, yum) and winter CSAs (community supported agriculture). But they are expensive, ~$10,000 plus labor, and most banks are not willing to lend to small farmers. To step in and fill this gap SELMA cafe (the local community breakfast where we volunteer at and have written about before) uses the proceeds from the breakfast to give loans to local farmers. A farmer can apply to the program, and if they are accepted they get a loan for a new hoop house and a crew of volunteers to help put it up. Jeff and Lisa organize the whole thing, so no skills are needed, and they provide wonderful food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So yesterday I spent 12 hours out at Sunseed Farm right outside of Ann Arbor. The day started off raining and knee deep in mud. Our bo0ts were coated with an inch of mud that wouldn't budge, it felt like you were walking around with 10 pound weights on each foot. But by lunch the sun was out, it was 80 degrees, and the mud was still there! 40 of us spent the day mucking around to get the hoop house built. By 7:00 we had everything done other than pulling the plastic, which would have to wait until the next day. We ended the day with a BBQ under a tree in the middle of the farm. Tried and muddy, what could be better!

Here is a video taken yesterday, check out that mud! And yes that is me sitting on the back of the tractor, I was using the tractor as a ladder to attached poles to the top of the hoop house and the tractor needed to be moved every few minutes, so no, I am not sun tanning!

Check out some pictures from the day.
This is how the day started!














10:00 am: Starting to put up the braces

1:00 pm: putting up the end walls















7:00 pm: All braces are attached, trenches dug, ready for plastic!














This is what it will look like when it is done, they built this one last August


















This is some of the greens growing in their first hoop house

Garden part II

It has been about a month since we planted half of the garden. We are past the risk of frost (hopefully) so it was time to plant the second half. We went back to the farmers market and bought a few more starts from Frog Hollar Farms and planted the rest of our garden. We now have three types of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, squash, eggplant, and zucchini. To celebrate we had our first lettuce out of the garden! Now all we need is lots of sun!

Choosing our starts


















Look how much everything has grown














Our garden planted!

Why I Hate TV

Well there are too many reasons to list here but my number one reason, advertisements! They are offensive, they make you feel bad about yourself, and then tell you to make yourself feel better you need to buy their crap. So most of the time we watch shows off of DVDs where there are no commercials. As always commercials find a way into everything and now they are on DVDs too. Clorox ran two adds back to back on the Mad Men DVD, both instilled the resolve to never purchase Clorox in me. The one that really got me is below:
Yes it was on before Mad Men, so put in context it made sense. But really, you are trying to convince me to buy Clorox so my husband can cheat on me and then hide it? That is reason enough to never buy it! Maybe they are trying to appeal to men, but for some reason I don't think that is their main market.

This trend of distasteful ads seems to be catching on. Sprint ran an add earlier this year about a wife that found out that he was cheating on her from a text message on his phone... now would you buy that phone?

CAMPING!

Arthur finished school for the year last week. To celebrate, his program takes everyone camping for a few days. 80 of us packed up our cars and headed south until we hit hills. Four hours later we were in Southern Ohio in Hocking Hills State Park. We spent two nights there, enjoying good company, going on awesome hikes, hearing spring peepers, and sitting around the campfire. We had perfect weather, 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky for three days, summer came early this year! It was the perfect way to start the summer off.

Here are some pictures from our trip

ERB Camping 2010