March is not a warm month.

Blue sky, plenty of sunshine and fairly light winds. A nice day for a bike ride?  After four trips to the beach this week, my legs are definitely feeling the shift from flatland riding to Idlewood Hill climbing. It is just another sign of spring.

JB and I are of the opinion that we have passed the point of no return on our building project.  I hope nobody was overly fond of the brick wall along the side of the house.

It will be good to get this stage behind us.  The mess is unbelievable, and I am pretty sure that our next door neighbors would like to throw us under a bus, just because of the noise factor.

This is a mess.

The main living area at the beach house looks more cluttered than normal.  There's this big old couch sitting in front of the fireplace, for example.  

It gets worse at the back end of the house.  This used to be our master bedroom.  Ouch.

We are attempting to "re-purpose" as much as possible.  The builder has been good about suggesting what can be salvaged, with some of the things that we won't use again going to Habitat for Humanity. 

The water heater sprung a leak over the winter, so its useful life is over.  I've stopped at the beach house on my bike rides on each of the last two days -- the temperatures are still hovering just above freezing, but each day seems a little bit warmer.  The builder complained today that our maple tree dripped sap on his truck.  I'm taking that as a sign of spring.

The process has begun

We got an email from our builder this morning saying that he would leave siding samples at the cottage for us to choose from. It was a ridiculously cold day for this late in March, but the roads were clear and dry, so I layered up and rode my bike out there. At these temperatures (28-30 degrees), the round trip to the beach is about as far as I am willing to ride.

It was also my first trip up the Idlewood hill on a bicycle this year -- always interesting.  I did not need all of my gears -- that felt good.  Here's a view of the back of the existing garage.  The roof acquired a distinct sag to it this winter -- probably from the wet, heavy snow.  So the remodel is timely, from that perspective.  There is a maple tree standing where the new garage is going to be -- that may be the only tree we lose -- at least that's what we hope.  The bushes are forsythia, and I hope to be able to save them and maybe relocate them along the fence line.

 I plan to document some of the remodelling process here, so here's another photo of the garage, from a different angle.  That big bush next to my bike has to go.

Siding color.  We're pretty sure that we don't want this color any more.  All of the siding will be replaced, so that the new addition will match the existing cottage.  That means that we can choose any color we like.

There are two entryway roofs that will have metal roofing, as an accent.  Metal roofing comes in a variety of colors, 'metal' being one of them.  This house has a 'metal' colored metal roof.  Our builder remodeled this house last year -- the owners say they're happy with the result.  In fact, they're planning to have him remodel their house in Grand Rapids this summer.  Sounds to me like they liked the guy. (In a bicycling related note, my hand protection system for today was woefully inadequate.  I was forced to stop, remove my gloves, and put my hands inside my clothing until feeling returned -- again.  This is getting old.  Of course, warmer weather would solve the problem nicely.)

Piles of Sand

Spring Break is this week at Hope, and sure enough, Spring took a break.  Locally we were spared the nasty ice storm that took down power lines and dumped 7 inches of snow as close to us as Big Rapids yesterday.  The freeze/thaw line wavered back and forth just north of us, but I think OSLO also escaped the ice storm. The cold air is filtering in now, but there's no precipitation to speak of today, so I took a walk after lunch.  Too cold to ride.  I walked 2 miles in about 40 minutes, and even enjoyed it, sort of.  The beech woods is pretty, even on a wet, gray day.  I took a couple of photos, but wet and gray don't photograph well.

My bicycle is still my favorite form of exercise, though, because it takes me farther.  And it's more fun.  Monday it took me out along the shore of the big lake, and I swung in to Tunnel Park to check out the hill and the tunnel.  That day's photos are gray, too -- but better than the ones I took today, so I'm posting them instead.

In other sand dune related news, we've been granted the final permit from the DEQ to remodel the garage area and replace the septic at the beach house.  Construction -- or more accurately, de-construction -- will likely begin soon.  It could be an interesting summer.

Spring feels a lot like late winter.

It was supposed to hit 50 degrees yesterday.  By noon it was 39 -- my preference is for 40 degrees at a minimum, but I called it good enough.  A light NW wind made it feel a little cooler, but I wanted to see what the roads were like to the north, so I headed out in that general direction.  The roads were good as far north as Van Buren Street, then deteriorated rapidly.  The paved shoulder on Butternut was littered with winter debris, and the bike path was still covered in snow. That last 1.5 miles was a bit sketchy.  Here's the Elite at my turn around spot, where I went inside to warm up.  (The red stuff in my County Cycles water bottle is a mix of Power Ade Zero (thanks, Mark) and diet Code Red.)

The return trip got a little bit interesting at about mile 12.  My hands had been cold the whole trip, and with 6 more miles to go, I was rapidly losing the feeling in my fingers.  The pins and needles feeling was driving me nuts, so I stopped to warm up my hands.  I did this by unzipping my coat and jersey, taking off my gloves, and sticking my bare hands in my armpits.  (Hey, it works.)  Naturally, this was the point in time when I would have liked to have gotten out my camera, as two deer jumped across the road in front of me, followed by two more, followed by two more.  They were close enough that I can tell you that their coats are looking a little scraggly this time of year.   Sadly, I couldn't get my hands on my camera in time to take a photo.  Still, it was a nice moment, and one of the reasons I love to ride my bike.  It was still just 44 when I got home, and it never did make it to 50.  I may need to look into some warmer hand protection.  It's looking like a long, cold Spring here.

Watching the snow melt.

Yesterday's mini heat wave was nice.  Too bad it didn't last a little longer. 

This photo was taken looking west, down Ransom, into blueberry field country.  I was 9.5 miles into a 14.5 mile ride, and I was feeling somewhat chilled.  There was a nice tail wind the rest of the way home, though.  I love tail winds.

Brrr

Most of the snow that is left here at this point is 'plow snow,' piled along the edges of the streets and driveways in the neighborhoods away from the lake.

There is a little more snow out near Lake Michigan.  Maybe it snowed more there, maybe it gets less sun, maybe it's slower to warm up out there.  (That last one is true, for sure.)

Tunnel Park's parking lot gate is still locked, but there were children playing on the playground equipment.  The side gate on Lakeshore is open all winter, I think.

It was just 10 degrees colder today that my coldest ride in Florida in January.  I worried about getting chilled, but as I re-learn every year, I have the right gear for cold weather rides.  I was warm enough.  It will take a few more rides before I fully make the adjustment though.  It is hard work biking in 43 degrees.  And I mostly loved it.

Pi(e) Day Process

I will post a Pi(e) day recipe later today, as I promised Wireless.  I have given this some considerable thought.  Last year, on National Pie Day, I posted a recipe for Key Lime Pie over there.  National Pie Day is a whole different deal than Pi(e) day, of course.  The American Pie Council has designated January 23rd as their official day every year.  That one slipped on by me this year.  I was alerted by the aforementioned Wireless to the approach of 3.14 (Pi), so I've had plenty of time to mull this one over.  I looked through my recipe folder, and found primarily blueberry, apple and pumpkin pie recipes.  It doesn't seem like the right season for any of those.  I polled the COTU over the weekend, who recommended their own favorite -- chocolate pie.  Which is fine, but they went home and any pie I make today has to be eaten by just two of us.  I'll happily eat a piece of pie, but my pancreas isn't up to my eating 5/6 or 7/8 of a pie, since my spouse isn't a huge fan of pie.

(For no apparent reason, here's a photo I took of the beach this morning.)

I thought of making something Irish, in honor of St. Patrick's day, but my friend Google seemed to think that the most Irish of all pies is Shepard's Pie.  Kind of bland, and full of mashed potatoes.  I considered a Michigan pie, the most famous of which is actually called a Pasty, and is mostly a U.P. tradition.  I ruled that out because it called for rutabagas,  something I will not eat.  (It said I could substitute turnips for the rutabagas, but that wasn't going to happen, either.) I even Google'd Norwegian pies, but didn't find much there either.  I did eventually find something I wanted to try -- so something new -- and assuming it works out to be edible, I'll be posting it on the Family Food Blog later in the day.  There are better pie makers than me in the family (most everyone, I think), so I hope that there will be some other offerings as well.  I gotta go do some cooking.

Out my back door

I was going to do a post about traveling, and the shortcomings of Delta, but given what's going on in Japan, it seemed to be unimportant.  I did want to let "the family" know that we arrived home safely, though.

The next to the last day in Florida started out with this -- the view out of my back door.

Which soon turned into this.

This morning my back yard looked like this.  Not a lot of snow, it feels really cold, but it is good to be home.  And my talented, genius Grandchildren were kind enough to visit us.

Put some sunshine in a bottle, and mail it home.

I've ridden on 7 of the last 7 days, but only three of those were "full length" rides.  The wind.  Egad.  The wind!  (Spring is a windy season, even in Florida, apparently.)  I think I'll take some time off from biking for a while.

Yesterday's ride took me out past Ollie's Pond, but I've photographed that spot from about every angle I can think of.  Instead I took a few photos of some of the shrubs and wildflowers that are blooming along the route.

I have no idea what any of these are called. 

I call this one "the road not taken."  I planned out a different route to Ollie's Pond on my map, and when I got to this spot, I changed my mind.  This street could use some maintenance, I think.  But since there are no houses on it, it's probably low on the priority list. 

Winding Down

Yesterday was yet another day that qualified as "too windy to ride."  Which honestly means to me that it was really, really hard to ride, so I didn't ride very far.  These short rides are messing up my statistics -- specifically the average length of ride number for March.  So be it.  It felt like the windiest ride I've taken yet, and after taking this photo at the beach of a palm tree with its fronds whipping around in the wind, I headed straight back to the ranch.

There weren't many people out and about, though it was plenty warm enough.  It ended up in the upper 70's by the end of the day, and the forecasted rain never materialized anywhere where I was.  I think Ft. Myers got .01 inches of rain -- hardly measurable.

Today I visited a neighborhood slightly south of where I usually ride, and found this (Below).  There's a house with an orange grove behind it -- there must be a hundred trees or so in a couple of empty lots.  They're selling oranges at the curb.  5 Valencia oranges for $1, or 10 tangerines for $1.  They looked like nice oranges, but I didn't need any, and had no way to carry them.  Maybe next year.

I'm making good progress on my list of projects that need to be done before I head home.  I've mailed off my cold weather biking gear to my dafter's house, for example.  The refrigerator is beginning to look a little empty, and the freezer is empty except for one package of corn.  The last trash pick up is Wednesday morning, so I need to take advantage of that.  At this point, it looks like the midweek storm will be mostly rain in my part of Michigan.  Rain on top of snow.  Sounds like a recipe for fog, to me.  Winter doesn't give up easily.

Yet Another Trip to Ollie's Pond

I can count the number of possibilities for more Florida rides on one hand now. Today the winds went from yesterday's gale force to merely breezy, and I finally got in a full length ride.  It was also a shake down ride for the new tube and rear brakes on the hybrid.  (And my new yellow vest.)  Everything worked as it should.

I haven't been to Ollie's Pond on a bicycle for about two weeks, but I remembered how to get there.  There was a small raft of coots swimming around in the middle, doing some of their "running on top of the water until they can fly" tricks.  They were noisy and entertaining.

Spring can't come to the north until it has come to the south, I figure.  So here's a sign of spring that wasn't here last week.  There are flowers blooming on the pond vegetation.  Delicate white flowers -- nothing like the pond vegetation in Michigan.  Spring is coming, I tell you.  It's on its way.  Please.

Beware the 4th of March

It has been two days of unrelenting winds here.  I tell myself that at least it is a warm wind, but it still is not fun to ride when the wind is blowing around 25 mph.  Yesterday I pumped the tires on the hybrid and set out to do the Rock Creek Loop. My rear tire started to feel soft, so I cut it short and headed back. (Why is it always the rear tire?)  I made it to within a mile of the house before "soft" became "flat." There were a couple of things I could have done, but I decided that with a 25 mph wind, walking my bike was probably just as much fun as riding, and avoided the "call of shame." Thanks to visits from two of my siblings, I've walked some serious miles the last few months, so .8 miles was no big deal. Pushing a bike that weighs -- what? 25 to 28 pounds? With a flat tire. In fact, it was not bad at all.  But I was grateful for all that walking with GZ and TT as training for this.

Today I headed out on the road bike, and found the wind to be, if anything, even stronger than yesterday.  I also left my water bottle and camera sitting on the table in the house.  Sigh.  So back to the house, conceding defeat.  Between the two rides I managed to push my total miles for the year over 500 miles -- so my goal for Florida miles is met.  And March now has miles recorded for it, so if GZ is correct, and winter is planning to hang around forever this year, at least I managed some miles this month.

So on with the show. A trip to the Bicycle Center this afternoon -- I had to take the front wheel off to get the bike into the Mazda -- and a ridiculous amount of money later, I again have the hybrid back in working order. (The tire repair was cheap, but I got new rear brakes and ... maybe a new bike vest. So the "ridiculous" part was probably mostly the new vest.)  Time here is growing short, and cold and snow await me on the Tundra.  I hope to get in at least a couple more rides before we go, but there's lots to do to wind stuff up here.  Stay tuned.

H#!! Hole

My guest and I did a lot of walking the last week or so.  We did three, one mile laps around Ollie's Pond spread over two different visits.  It was probably the favorite walking route for both of us.  I can't capture all of it with a photo -- part of its charm comes from the constant chirping, tweeting and quacking of the wild birds and ducks that are making it their temporary home before flying north.

Sunrise Park was the most frequently visited spot -- it is quite close and there were a number of after supper jaunts over there.  In addition, there was the usual trip along the Peace River in Punta Gorda from the banyan tree to Fisherman's Village, and the ever popular circuits of the Peace River Wildlife Center and mangrove trail.

The streets near the beach and those in the local neighborhood also became part of the exercise plan, with three or four trips in those directions.  Throw in a couple of trips to the ball park -- one to check out caps, and one to watch a game (the caps were finally judged to all be too stiff) -- and I think I earned my blister.  My bones are feeling quite dense, in fact.  The wind is supposed to blow from the east at 15 to 25 mph tomorrow, but I do believe it's time to rest my feet and take a bike ride.  Alone.  Again.  Naturally.