icemonkey

Sunday ride on my 83 Bianchi Campione d' Italia, zipped up the Colorado River Road and got rained on, swore at by a pickup truck driving teenage idiot and had a great time. Love that bike.

jimmuller 

First bike commute of the season. I took the '72 Bertin today. It felt like an orange kind of a day. On the return:

gaucho777 

Nice Bertin, but please keep an eye on that panier strap. Looks like it might be dangerously close to getting caught in the rear mech.

It's a gorgeous (albeit windy) day here in Northern CA, but I was running late and needed to drop off my daughter at school on the way, so I drove my car 2 miles to work.

candid

Sixty Fiver

Still winter here...

noglider 

Waffle waits patiently while I shoot her picture, which is also a picture of a tree with the tiniest buds on it. Can you see them?

Grim

Older I get the more I enjoy Normans work. You might enjoy this. I happend to be flipping channels in Jan and found Antiques road show on and decided to watch for a few minutes. Apparently the lady as a child had modeled for Norman several times. Her Father took the photos that Norman worked from. They ended up with Normans Chair. Here is the Segment.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/201201A08.html

cobrabyte

Surinam Cherries from the bushes in my front yard. Hedges that make food. Gotta love it.

-holiday76

is the bike very small or is the grass very big?

Bimdapogs

Ontario Lake in the background..

non-fixie 

This is what’s currently going on in my front yard:



What you’re looking at is the construction of a weir, all part of strengthening of the bosom dike that my house was built on. When it’s finished, 30 to 40 centimeters of soil will be added to the top of the dike to make it level with the timbering. That should keep the dike safe for the next 25 years or so.

This is necessary because the soil in this area is mostly peat, basically rotting vegetation, and very soft. It sort of compacts over time, which means that the grounds around my house sink at the rate of about half an inch per year.
A peat dike to keep the water out of a polder (a piece of land below sea level) is not something a civil engineer in his right mind would come up with, but after creating this polder by digging up peat to fuel our stoves for centuries, it’s what we’re left with.
A particular risk with peat dikes is “shear”. It can happen after a long dry period when the peat loses its weight as the water evaporates. This happened nearby some years ago, when the water pressure shoved the dike back, and the bosom canal emptied itself into the nearby countryside:

southpawboston

Neat! So if the ground is sinking at 1/2 inch per year, what keeps the home foundations stable from sinking?

dvsjes28

Shortcut through the golf course

noglider 

Waffle loves riding in the car. Here we are, driving to High Falls today.



We're almost there! We climb the Shawangunk ridge, through the Mohonk Preserve, to get there. The house is on the other side of the ridge.

Here's a blue sunset!

seedsbelize 

I LOVE Suriname cherries. Only place I've seen them is Belize. Do you have rose apples there too?

Chris_in_Miami

Do you just eat them right off the bush? I had Suriname cherry bushes lining my driveway when I was a kid, but after being told they may contain worms (probably untrue,) we mostly used them to stain each others clothes... Like seagrapes, they're all over the place and I occasionally see people harvesting them, but I have no idea how they're eaten.

cobrabyte

It is a good idea to check them for worms, I've heard the same thing. I usually check a few and if they look ok I eat them all. I never have found a worm so i don't know if there's any truth to that or not. I'm not sure what people do with sea grapes either, most folks just eat them right off the bush. I tried one once. gross.

@seedsbelize: I've never seen rose apples I had to look those up, that's a new one to me. I'll keep an eye out though.

Sixty Fiver

It is like Christmas...

non-fixie 

The houses are built on piles, that rest on the layer of sand beneath the peat, which is very stable. So, depending on your point of view, either the world around us is sinking or our houses are slowly moving skyward.
Either way I have to add sand and re-pave the garden paths and driveway every three years or so. After 15 years I'm getting to be pretty good at it.

apollored

non-fixie 

Cool! Who won?

apollored

The cyclist because although the plane passed the finish line first it was pointing in a completely different direction and was disqualified.

Okay I made that up lol

mkeller234

That is fascinating non-fixie. Thanks for the great pictures and extremely interesting description. I look at the second picture and imagine what homeowners on each side of that canal are thinking! The ones on the right are probably feeling pretty good.

JJScaliger

Another cold opening day @ 45 degrees in the bucket.



David Ortiz doing rehab start. He went 2 for 3. Defending International League Champs (AAA) Pawsox beat the Redwings 5-4.

noglider 

Phone wiring closet.