Battle With An Overgown Hedgerow (I'm winning!)

Yesterday, I tackled a huge yard project. We have a hedgerow along our driveway that has only had basic trims two or three times a summer for the past six years at least. Well, it had spread and started to take over the driveway and scare our guests, who probably wondered if they were visiting Jeff and Sarah’s house or venturing into the 'Wild Wood' (you must see The Wind in the Willows!). As I began my attack on the hedge, I did wonder what I creatures I would find living in it!
before pic
I was ruthless in cutting it back and told the hedge this was for its own good and that this seemingly cruel treatment would allow it to have more sunlight and better new growth. Still, the hedge fought back. It poked and scratched me. Then, it tried to break my clippers! About 10 feet into the job, I couldn’t close the clippers anymore, so I had to go into the barn and look for some sort of grippy tool to release the nut at the hinge on the clippers. I found something..a wrench or pliers? I'm not sure what they are! I didn’t know which way to turn it…righty tighty…lefty loose-y…oh, the other left! It worked! I went back to the hedge and showed it that it would not win. It was trying to become a wild hedge rather than an ordinary, suburban garden hedge. There were wild things growing in it including tree seedlings, woodvine and wild roses. Not pretty roses or delicate ones like you find in a tea garden. I mean, the ones with long, snappy vines that will whip you if you are not exceedingly careful. The thorns on these roses are like wolf teeth! They don’t even have large or abundant blooms to make up for how invasive and miserable they are. Despite its efforts to stop me, I managed to chop back an entire side of the hedge in one afternoon. It's the most important side too, the south facing side along the driveway. Jeff was pretty stunned when he got home from work and saw all I had done! I told him ‘Happy Early Anniversary'. Hey, what guy wouldn’t be thrilled at getting out of all that yard work? Heehee!

I hope to do the other side today. At some point, I will go back over the whole thing to even it up a little. I must admit that my arms and shoulders are quite sore from yesterday. It’s a major upper body workout to chop back an overgown hedge! (Probably wasn’t the best activity to undertake right before the 5 Boro Bike Tour!)
after pic
Oh, a dormant, spring hedgerow doesn’t look very great in photographs, but you can see what I got done. It will green up in the next couple of weeks and look nice!

Stopping to Smell/Eat the Blossoms

Saffy pauses to breathe in the smell of sun-warmed plum blossoms.

They really do smell good!

Chomp! Maybe they taste good too?

Plum blossoms and blue sky.

Plum blossoms close up.

Pink peach blossoms and sky.

Petals & Pedals

These daffodils are such a happy yellow color! I love the extra frilly petals, but I have no idea what variety they are. They were one of the few things already planted here when we bought the property!


And, here’s another happy color! The bright orange line on this graph shows my pedal cadence during the club ride last night. My best/highest to date! Even with all the stopped/slow bit around 2.5 miles where we were meeting up with the group, I had an overall average cadence of 77 rpm!

The route was 19 miles long with 1,073 feet of climbing and I got an average speed of 17.9 mph including the warm up and cool down. About a dozen people showed up for the ride. Riding with experienced cyclists is really helping me to improve my averages. Also, I love getting helpful tips for better bike handling from them! It was a very fun ride and I hit 1,000 miles for the year!

Recent Bike Rides

I’m starting to push myself to ride harder! Jeff and I did a longer ride on Sunday to test our stamina. We rode a total of 51.45 miles at an average speed of 16.7 mph. You can see a map and stats from the ride here.

Our ride went past marshes with wading herons, dunes and beaches covered with rocks from the recent storm surge. Other parts of the ride went uphill to open farmlands and followed winding roads through dense woodlands.

Jeff lost his chain on this long hill, so while he stopped to fix it, I pedaled slowly and took out my camera to snap a few pics while rolling. This is a working dairy farm and the cows were all lined up by the barn waiting to be milked.

Sometimes there are breaks in the woodlands for little pastures framed by stonewalls, like this one with some grazing sheep.

We ended our ride with hot fudge sundaes at Gray's Ice Cream. The sugar boost was just what we needed!

The next day, we did a 21 mile ride around Conanicut at an average speed of 18 mph. All the details about this ride are here. Near the start of our route, three deer crossed in front of us and we had to brake hard to stay out of their way! We rode past the osprey nest and I could just see the back of one of the birds sitting on the nest. You get a much better view from the webcam!

Having biked 100 miles in the last three days, I should take a day to rest, but this evening we have a club ride, so I will have to wait until tomorrow to 'recover'. I'm not sure yet if I will do a slow ride or take the day off. I guess it will depend on the weather.

I've started to put links to some of my more interesting ride stats on my sidebar under 'My Cycling Stuff', so check that out once in awhile!

Only 1 week to go!

While most of my bike rides are spontaneous, there are a couple of event rides this year that I am especially looking forward to and require pre-registration due to their popularity.

The first organized bike event I'll be taking part in is the 5 Boro Tour in NYC on May 6th! Jeff and I received our tour registration packets in the mail and here is one of the vests.

It seems most practical to use our mtn bikes on this ride. We won't have to worry about them being tightly packed with other bikes on the train. Also, it will be easier to see the scenery riding in a more upright position and the standard, flat pedals will be better for riding the crowded route.

Looking at my ride log, I noticed we hadn't had the mtn bikes out for a spin since January 14th. So yesterday, Jeff and I got them out of the barn and went over them, cleaned them, oiled the chains and pumped up the tires. We decided to do a test ride in preparation for the Tour! We rode 27 miles of the East Bay Path at an average speed of 14mph. The pace was relaxed, easy and fun. We enjoyed the sunshine and views and shared some snacks as we pedaled along.

Although I haven't followed any specific training program in preparation for the Tour, I have enough miles in my legs that I should have a fun time riding though NYC.

We'll be riding with Debby and Chris!

Show & Tell: Favorite Pottery

I look forward to at least one vanilla latte every day! (Today is gray, rainy and chilly and the coffee is the only thing keeping me from falling asleep!) You can tell I sometimes get carried away steaming the milk. It's fun to do and Silas likes the noises the steamer makes as the milk froths. He sounds just like it when he snores!

The mug is from my small collection of Emma Bridgewater pottery. I think most of her patterns are really lovely, but this robin always makes me smile. The eye gives it a lot of character!

Saffy

This time of year, Saffy gets a bit warm in her winter coat. She likes to crawl into the shade under the brush pile where she's created a den by chewing the branches.



When she's not tunneling under the brush, she frequently rolls. Pretty soon, all that winter hair will start to come out and there will be patches of hair left behind on the lawn where she's rolled!