BICYCLING
Things have finally slowed down in the garden enough so that I don't have to be out there early every morning to water, pull weeds, check on hoses, tie up plants and harvest produce. Since I was going to have a few early mornings with some free time, I decided to get my bicycle out and get it ready so I could start riding it. I have always enjoyed bike riding when weather permits (this includes it not being too HOT). Since the mornings here are kind of cool up until around 10:00, it is a good time to ride. So I pumped up my tires, got a new battery for my odometer, and set out to ride in the mornings. After several days of this, I decided to have Linda take a picture of me with my bike for the blog. This bicycle is what I call the "old person's bike." It doesn't have the curl handlebars that most of my previous bikes had (because us old folks can't bend over that much). Nor does it have the streamlined seat, for obvious "old person anatomy" reasons. The bike shop where I purchased it told me this was the "comfort" bike model. They were right because it is probably the most comfortable bike I have ever ridden. The seat is nice and big and soft, the front fork has shock absorbers on it, and the upright-position handlebars have nice padded grips.
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| Queasy Rider? |
After Linda took the above picture I headed out for my morning ride. Linda had just come back from her walk and told me the route she had taken. I decided to ride my bike along the same route so I could tell her how far she walked. I was about three-fourths of the way along that route when all of a sudden I kept hearing this funny swishing noise. I stopped and inspected my bike and was dismayed to find a piece of metal about 8 inches long and 1/8 inch wide embedded in the side of my rear tire! I believe it was a part of some kind of fireworks. At any rate, my tire was flat as a pancake and I had no choice but to walk the bike back to the house. Fortunately, it went flat right as I got to our nearby park, so it wasn't that far. But it was starting to get hot and now I didn't have that nice "breeze" you get from riding a bike. By the time I got home I was nice and toasty! Linda came out and helped me load the bike into the truck and I took it up to
Yakima Valley Cycling & Fitness, which is close to where we live. They fixed me right up and now I can enjoy my early morning bike rides once again.
DEHYDRATING FEVER
As if I didn't have enough to do, I have now decided to take up dehydrating. One reason is because of all the produce coming out of the garden. The two of us just can't eat it all, and most people don't want it when you offer to give them some. But if you can dehydrate it, you can greatly extend the life of your produce and enjoy it well into the winter months. I decided to start with something simple and abundant: zucchini. I sliced it very thin using my mandoline and laid it out on the trays. I only have four trays, so they would only hold
half of the very large zucchini that I sliced up. I plugged in the dehydrator and magically, six hours later, I had zucchini chips! The next day I repeated the process and even sprinkled a little salt and paprika on the zucchini as I put it on the trays. Delicious! I think my next endeavor is going to be potatoes!!
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| Zucchini on Dehydrator Trays |
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| Zucchini Chips! |
THE EVENT OF THE YEAR
I hope most of you had the opportunity to take part in the event of the year. Of course, I'm talking about the Solar Eclipse of 2017. There was a lot of hype leading up to this event, but I am glad that the actual event lived up to all of the press. We had planned to watch the eclipse on television, but decided to pick up a pair of the solar-viewing glasses at the grocery store last Tuesday just on a whim. We are so glad that we did. While Linda sat in a chair and checked out the eclipse at regular intervals, I watched the live feed from NASA on my iPad. The actual experience of seeing the eclipse with my own eyes through the solar-viewing glasses was far better than the media coverage of the event. An added bonus was that Yakima was in the 96% totality area, so at the height of the eclipse we only saw a sliver of the sun peeking out around the moon. It was quite a sight!
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| Watching the Eclipse |
We were blessed with an absolutely gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky. I know a lot of you were plagued with rain clouds and didn't even have a chance to see it. For you, I am glad that there was so much media coverage and the chance to see it that way.
GARDEN UPDATE
The garden is just sitting back there pumping out the produce at an ever-increasing rate. My pepper bushes are loaded and a few of the peppers are finally starting to turn color. This is what I have been waiting for because this means that they are fully ripe. Most people don't know that a regular green bell pepper is one that has been picked before it has ripened. If allowed to stay on the plant until it is ripe, a green bell pepper will turn a different color, depending on the type of pepper it is. There is one type of pepper, the
Permagreen variety, that stays green even when ripe. But most of them will turn orange, yellow or red, with red being the sweetest. This holds true for most other peppers as well. However, this takes an awful long time which is probably why red bell peppers are so expensive. I can attest to the fact that it takes a long time because I play this waiting game every year. I am very patiently waiting for my Jalapenos, Anaheims, and Shishito peppers to turn red. The Tequila Sunrise pepper is supposed to turn orange, and the California Golds are supposed to turn...you guessed it, gold. The Sweet Banana peppers start out a kind of light-green color and turn yellow pretty fast. But if you let them stay on the plant, they will turn a lovely orange color.
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| Ripe Banana Pepper (top) and Shishito Pepper turning red (bottom) | | |
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| Panorama Shot of the Garden |
PARTING SHOT
Summer Girl has been enjoying the nice green grass we have under our Catalpa tree. She loves to stretch out on it and take an impromptu nap whenever the notion strikes. Too bad someone with a camera has to come along and mess up her nap!
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| What, me worry? |
Check back again next week to see what has been happening up here in the Northwest!
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