A Change of Pace

This was pretty tasty, and very easy to make.

It will probably go into the rotation.  Obviously shrimp (raw, frozen, peeled, tails on, thawed), tomatoes, minced garlic, olive oil and a teaspoon of Old Bay seasoning.  Toss, roast for 12 minutes or so until the tomatoes burst open and the shrimp is opaque at 400 degrees on a cookie sheet lined with foil.

TJ Graduates

Last night the relatives and friends of 400 graduating seniors gathered at the football stadium at the high school.  It was a big crowd, but the weather was (almost) decent, though there was a chill in the air by the time the ceremony was over.  Here are a few photos of the young man on his big night.

Photo credit: Nikki

The yellow cowl signifies that he graduated with Top Honors.  Photo Credit: Nikki

(Photo above courtesy of Nikki.)

We are obviously quite proud of him!

What's Not to Like about Caffeinated Red Pop?

You can't believe what you see and hear on TV.  But then everyone knows that, right?  "Believe half of what you hear, and none of what you read" as my father used to say.  (Or something like that.)  I am referring to weather forecasts, of course.  Yesterday was supposed to have just a few light sprinkles, and 5 miles from home on my bike, the light sprinkles turned into steady showers.  Today's forecast was for rain off and on all day.  Cloudy all day.

North of here, along Lakeshore, there's a sign that may or may not indicate a banjo player.  More to the point, there is evidence of the sun casting shadows.  Not so cloudy.

I arrived at my intended destination, and found an expired bottle of cold, caffeinated red pop in the refrigerated section.  Aaah.  What's not to like?

Being an aging, not very fit, recreational bicyclist means that this ride is harder than it used to be ( when I was a younger, fitter, serious recreational bicyclist), but it's really not all that hard. Especially fueled by some caffeinated red pop. I feel better for having done it.

Pictures of the Beach, May 20th, 2017

First of all, Happy Birthday to my brother Andy.

Photos of the beach taken on a short walk to Tunnel Park and back late this morning.

Over the River

Mother Nature has not cooperated much this week.  The line we've been using for years is that lousy weather is Mother Nature's way of telling you to take a rest day (or week).  This is one of those weeks.  Wednesday was hot, muggy and sunny -- and windy.  I heard later that there were gusts up to 40 mph along the lake shore during the afternoon.  From the south.

I put my bike in the back of my car and parked at Dutton Park, on the north side of Lake Mac, about a mile from the Farmers' Market.  It was one of the longest miles I've ridden in a long time, directly into a fierce headwind.

The Farmers' Market starts up for the season the first Wednesday after Tulip Time, and it was pretty sparsely attended.  I bought some asparagus and some rhubarb, put it in my back pack, and headed back the way I'd come.

The Black River is running pretty high this year... the walkway/bike path under the bridge is under water for the second year in a row.

There's a repair project going on at the pretend wind mill near the bridge.

Not all of my ideas are good ideas, obviously.  This one was pretty terrible.  The wind didn't calm down all through Thursday, but our Grandchildren arrived mid afternoon and stayed through dinner and a walk around the neighborhood later -- they are always a day brightener.  The cold front swept through last night and replaced the near 90 degree heat of Wednesday and Thursday with highs in the 50's and lighter winds.  And rain.  At least the asparagus was pretty good.

Mildly Weird

Yesterday would have been a good day for outdoor activities, but if I'd biked, it would have been three days in a row for me.  Too much.  There were a number of adulting type tasks that needed to be taken care of, and before the day was much more than half over, we'd managed to clean out half of our garage.

We accomplished this by selling JB's car.  He'd mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he thought it was time to sell it, since getting in and out of it has become difficult.  We appear to have come full circle -- the last time we had just one car, we were relative newly-weds.  It feels mildly weird.  A new chapter.  

Warmer weather has finally arrived here, at least temporarily.  It came on the wings of a strong southerly breeze, the summer wind that warms us up at long last.  The Japanese Red Bats are south of here, so while I often ignore the "ride out into the wind" rule, today I followed it.

There are still flowering trees and shrubs in abundance around here, and it was another pretty ride.  

Mother's Day 2017

These three people stopped by this afternoon to wish me a happy Mother's Day.  They came bearing cards and a lovely basket of mixed colored petunias. And cake.  It's not a celebration without cake.  (Pie would also serve that purpose, of course.)

As is typical here in the spring, it was cooler by the lake.  The college girl is wearing the new raincoat she bought for her internship this summer.  We had a nice supper, catered by Subway (really) and took a walk around the neighborhood before they headed for home.  I feel quite fortunate to have these people show up on a regular basis in my life. Gene pool, and all that.

Since they visited the other grandmother first today, I had time for a bike ride before they arrived.  I had ridden yesterday, but am at the stage of needing to relearn how to ride on consecutive days.  The "marsh marigold" ride I took last week was about the length that I want to be able to ride comfortably,  and I probably won't try to stretch out the miles per ride until I adjust to back to back rides.  Primarily because I've noticed that nice, rideable weather seems to occur in short stretches of back to back days.  It went okay today. Progress.

Elusive Marsh Marigolds

I searched my blog and Jim's for mentions of marsh marigolds, and found photos of them in April and as late as May 8th.  It's been a cool/cold spring, so I expected to find them in the swamp/marshes along Blair -- where I've found them before.  No luck, but it was a nice day and a nice ride.

It was my longest ride of the year so far, by a couple of miles, primarily because I wanted to be sure I'd looked everywhere I'd ever seen those elusive marsh marigolds.

At least I didn't miss this display of flowering crab apple trees.  The wind was beginning to take their petals, and they won't last much longer.

Along the Bay

It was a lot warmer inland today than here by the big lake.  I know where there's a row of flowering crabapple trees that are nearly 34 years old, and, it was well worth the bike ride just to inhale their fragrance.

I really like those old trees.

First Day of Tulip Time 2017

Tulip time traditionally starts on a Saturday with an arts and crafts fair in the park across the street from where I used to work.  It's always a zoo, and I've only attended that particular event a few times over the years we've lived here.  Today I went with LH and her partner, and I thought I'd record some of the images from today here, just because I can.

A long line in front of the FatBall booth.  I did not partake.  I will admit to a smallish piece of an elephant ear a bit later, however.

Dutch dancers -- the first group is on a break from the dancing.  The costumes, as well as the shoes, stay on between performances.  OSLO was a Dutch dancer during her senior year of high school, so I am familiar with a few of the rules.

And of course, a few tulips.  These were all taken in Centennial Park, and a few were a bit past their prime, but there were plenty of tulips.  No stem festival this year.  As an aside, Bowerman's had a booth at the craft fair, and seemed to be selling mostly blueberry donuts.  Fair food.  Deep fried anything.  Except for the crowds, it was a pleasant way to spend a cool and windy Saturday afternoon.

May is windy.

It's been an "interesting" week here, providing a little bit of fodder for the blog. Yesterday morning we woke up to a furnace that wasn't working.  Temperatures are in the low 40's in the morning these days, and this was the second time this week the furnace had refused to start.  Scratch that -- it was the third time.  On Sunday we called the furnace repair guy who replaced a part and charged us double for the Sunday service call.  To make life even more interesting, the garage door wouldn't open.  Another broken spring -- some of you may remember that this has happened before, and fairly recently.  (August 2, 2014.  An overlap day, with a number of Minnesota visitors here.)

Perhaps obviously, I spent most of yesterday waiting for men in trucks to arrive and fix things.  Which they did, thankfully.  The garage door now opens and the furnace starts and runs -- much more quietly than before.  Then today the dryer temperature switch stopped working --

Anyway, I let JB wait for the phone call today, and I took a bike ride, in spite of being warned by my neighbor that it was cold and windy.

Of course she was right, but it was also sunny.  And a hard headwind on the way out is an easy tailwind on the return trip.  Other good stuff balanced out the day when the College Girl texted that her work visa for London this summer arrived this morning.  That was the last big hurdle for her, with lots of time to spare.

It's still windy this evening and the waves are interesting -- cold and windy just doesn't seem like a good enough reason to stay inside.

Is it Spring yet?

As predicted, no bicycle rides have taken place since my last post.  Lots of other stuff though -- the College Girl finished her semester, and is our tradition, I helped her move out of her dorm last week.  She's finishing up the details for her internship in London this summer, and she and I drove into Grand Rapids on Monday so that she could be fingerprinted for her work visa.  JB had some medical tests, which went about as expected, and the lawn mowing season has begun.  So has the new season of Dr. Who.  Mostly we've had lots of rain and wind.  No snow, though.

Today there was no rain, and I took a ride out into the blueberry fields.  This year the process of earning some bicycle fitness is going very slowly -- the weather doesn't help.  Neither does my age.  I took a couple of photos, but the results weren't good.  Here's the best shot I have of a blueberry bush in bloom --

All the others were badly out of focus.  The shadow shot below was on purpose, proving there was some sunshine today.

It was cool -- 50's, but with light wind and sunshine, It was good to be out on my bike.