Considering Roadkill and the Live Animals Among Us While on my bike rides, I keep a roadkill count. I don't get off my bike to consider the smear, just make a snap decision and move on.

And usually, it is a tally something like this.

3 birds, 1 raccoon, 1 squirrel.

Except....yesterday there were at least roadkill entries that fell into a category I will only dub as unindentifiable. There's brownish fur which could signal squirrel, but white too, which could be possum, and it's not a large smear, so it's not too bad, but it doesn't smell as bad as skunk, so that's out.

That's kind of odd, to not be sure. Those animals were not just hit, but obliterated.

And yesterday's route, well, there was a lot of roadkill. This I can only attribute to having been semi-close to Madison in a pretty dense countryside.

The week before, in a much more remote area, I saw quite a few healthy beefy deer, and almost no roadkill.

This last week, J and I saw a wet animal dragging another wet smaller animal across the bike path just a few feet from our our spinning wheels. J thought it was a weasel, I thought maybe a muskrat, or a marten. Why it was dragging another animal is a mystery and by virtue of both animals being wet, I'm leaning towards a muskrat.

And as we rode on Thursday, we watched a hawk being harrassed by a raven flying 20 feet above our heads.

It's certainly surprising the sights you can see on the back of a bike.

Labels: animals, biking

  ¶ 3:47 PM 2 comments

  Inspired by Dane County Treks: Iron Loop

I don't know why I have a basic inability to follow a map, but today, I intended on biking just the loop of the Ironman Wisconsin bike course. The real ironman triathletes do two loops, but this one was challenging enough for me. The loop should have been just over 41 miles.

And it was hilly, very hilly. This surprised me because the course starts immediately right outside of Verona, and really don't stop at all. The roads were more heavily trafficked than I would have liked, but the day was beautiful, and not too hot. Because so many people took today off as a holiday, there were a LOT of other bikers out there. That didn't really surprise me. They are much faster than me, and more than once I was surprised to be overtaken by a stealthy silent biker. They are just lucky that I have a tendency to hug the shoulder pretty tightly when biking on state and county highways.

So, back to other tendency; to get completely lost. This time, I stopped every couple of miles to check the map and I thought I was doing really well. I hit Mount Horeb after about 17 miles and I felt good as I headed for the next part of the loop, which was supposed to take me to Cross Plains.

The roads just outside of Mt. Horeb are really really hilly. So hilly that as you coast down, you just hold on for dear life and hesitate to brake for fear of being thrown off. (That's probably an overblown product of my imagination.) Climbing the hills is exhausting; they aren't steep but they are long. More than once I had to get to granny gear to inch my way up.

And as I followed Garfoot Road, I thought I was doing well. It turns out that Garfoot is one of those "split" roads. It jogs to the left where it connects with another road, and wouldn't you know it, I took the right.

I didn't realize it, because the road was still challenging and relatively quiet, but I had taken the very far end of Mineral Point Road, and was heading east, instead of north like I should have. I only noticed it after about 4 miles, and by then I was thinking, well, Garfoot Road goes NE, so maybe this is just a more easterly area. Yeah, it's called denial.

By the time that I hit a major intersection, I was gazing at the map in confusion. Was I really way over there? At this point, some lady in a mini-van stopped and asked me for directions. I shared my map with her and explained that I was kind of lost too. I thought she should go back the way she had come. But as for me, if I was really going east, and that is what the compass said, then I'd eventually hit Madison at some point.

And that is what I did. As I neared the west side of Madison, the traffic drastically increased and it was with relief that I spied the road I should have been on for the trek from Cross Plains back to Verona, Timber Lane. I've also taken Timber Lane before and having that familarity made me very secure that I wouldn't (probably) get lost again.

To celebrate, I stopped on a hill and ate a Luna bar. As I gazed at the map and munched my bar, some of the very people who had passed me earlier asked if I was okay. Yes, fine. Except you guys both passed me and went the correct loop and I just spent a lot of time lost.

Timber Lane is very hilly. So hilly that granny gear came into play again, but the traffic was light and I knew that I was almost home. 3 hours from when I started I rolled into Verona, and with relief headed home.

The second that I am able to follow a bike route map without getting lost is going to be the height of my season.

Labels: biking, hilly, lost, training

  ¶ 1:02 PM 0 comments

  Pet Gadgetry. I realize now, in the last week, that I'm a complete pet gadget nerd.

This is why.



Yes, Monty now has a water fountain. It has a water filter to purify his water, and his water is likely better than my own.

And he has this....a automated pet feeder. It will rotate every 6, 12, or 24 hours. It even has custom ice packs for the bottom to keep the food cool.



Which is how I plan on getting calories into that very very skinny cat or plan on feeding him when J and I are out for long periods of time.

Oh...did I mention that I bought this?



But we had to put it away after Monty made himself sick all of the time from all of the food that he was eating. And I tire of cleaning up cat puke. But it was entertaining to watch him spin the wheel in front to get his food. I should really sell this one on Ebay.

And then this was last year's attempt...the automated cat little box. Fail.



Which was really difficult to keep clean. I eventually gave this to St. Vinnie's.

Some people go out and buy the newest cell phone, I go out and buy gear for my elderly cat, who drinks better water and eats more controlled and precise meals than I do.

Labels: cat

  ¶ 9:01 PM 0 comments

  One Addiction Feeds Another "You should try the Sims," said J.

He said this because I'm absolutely addicted to this stupid Facebook flash game called Farmtown. Farmtown is great because you can plant crops, watch them grow, and then harvest them. I know. I live the glamerous life. There's a lot of clicking involved, and you can send fruit trees and flowers to your farmer friends. (That sounds even lamer than it actually is when you say it out loud.)

Because in FarmTown, you have to earn money to pay for improvements to your land, and you have to earn that money doing farm stuff, it's apparently like the Sims.

So, I've got a Windows partition on my Mac, which exists for the sole reason of allowing me to play PC games. And J had the Sims disk.

So, I tried to play it. And it's hard. First off, my Mac doesn't have a right mouse button, and I can't find my external mouse, and this game is OLD and wants a right click button to do things like move stuff around and delete stuff. So, I'm trying to do this with a shift-click or a control-click (which is the Mac version of a right-click) and it is NOT WORKING. I think this really wants a mouse. I can't delete stuff and keep inadvertently drawing walls where there shouldn't be walls, and I can't delete those stupid walls.

Couple this with the fact that my bachelor guy is having problems maintaining his fun rating and keeps forgetting to take out the garbage and I got frustrated fast. Of course, all of my clicking and complaining got J into his own version of his SimTopia, and he's now trying out his Sim Commune, trying to get 8 people living together in one giant house, trying to manage people and bathrooms and getting them out of bed in the morning, without being late for work.

I know, major excitement in our household.

And today, as J was riding home his bike from work with me, chatting about how his day at work went, I realized that I have a lower outgoing rating than he does and how he was gaining outgoing points by chatting away about how future generations were going to cap off nuclear waste dumps so that 10000 years in the future, when humanity forgets to read English, people would understand that this place was dangerous and that, while by listening to him and occasionally throwing a comment in, I was really not being very social.

Was that a bad thing? Or does my very Capricorn nature make me more likely to curl up with a book for fun and less likely to engage in lively chitchat? I have more points in my cooking skill than he does, but he certainly outranks me in mechanical expertise.

Oh, Sims....you are a very very bad game. As soon as I figure out where I put my mouse, you are going to learn who is the boss!

Labels: video games

  ¶ 10:22 PM 0 comments

  Inspired by Great Dane Rides: Brigham Park Bop So I have this book of good rides to take that is put out by the Bombay Bicycle Club.

In it, there is a ride ranked as Hilly, that starts out in Blue Mounds and hits some pretty hilly land to the north, to just outside of Black Earth. In fact, this is the area that is staked out for some of the Chicago Olympic bid for great bicycling for the world's best bikers.

It is part of the Horribly Hilly Hundreds too, so this is not easy cycling.

I got up super early to get there before the day got too hot. I drove to Blue Mounds, and found Brigham Park. Brigham Park is at the top of a ridge. And given the "what goes up, must go down rule" that meant a long downward coast from the ridge and it meant finishing with a long upslope.

I knew this. I prepared for this. I reviewed the route. I knew where I was going.

I set off and coasted a LONG WAY. This, I knew, I'd pay for. The land undulates with sudden bumps and slow rises. It seemed that I had picked the slow and easy start. I found myself on the bottom of a long valley. There were slowly curving creekbeds and fields upon fields of flowing corn.

But as I took the road onwards, I could sense the altitude increases, slowly gaining and losing a little less each hill. The roads were good and there was very little traffic. And the day hadn't yet warmed up, so I even shivered on some of the long quick coasts.

Of course, I knew, in theory where I was going. But I didn't pay close attention, and ended up outside of Black Earth, where I didn't mean to go. I checked the map again, and tried to go back and I missed it again!

After studying the map again, I turned back again and finally found the turn. And it looked like a driveway, except for the great big sign that said Fesenfeld Road.

Actually, Fesenfeld Rd. was one of the first "true" roads that I envisioned as part of the hilly that I was going for. It had long curvy roads that I chewed up with relish. The roads were short, but then you hit a bend and saw another hill, and then another turn and more height. It was tough, that's true, but I was able to do it. I'm not fast, so I'm glad that I'm training for the untimed Dairyland Dare 66K ride.

And I was able to resurrect the ride. I found a cut across that put me back on track, and even though a couple of the roads weren't well marked, I found myself back on the bottom of that big final upslope to the park where I started.

Oh, I was tired. I had taken a Gu and kept plugging away at it, drinking my water, and dreaming about the coffee and cinnamon scone that I had in my car as my reward. And, though it was plenty hot and late when I got there, I did get there.

So, for a ride that should have been 5 miles shorter, it was still pretty good. 28.4 miles, in 2 hours and 35 minutes.

Labels: ride, training

  ¶ 5:36 PM 1 comments

  MJ is dead Here's how I found out.

I had to check on the size limitation of a user profile on a Windows XP machine and my machine is a Mac. So, I go next door to check out the public station and LJ tells me that Michael Jackson is dead.

My first reaction..."Huh...on the same day as Farrah Fawcett. That's weird."

My second reaction..."He's faking his own death."

I started walking to where J and I had agreed to meet, at a friend's house.

Along the way, I stopped for an iced coffee. And the young lady behind the counter said, "Did you hear Michael Jackson died?"

"Yeah! I know! And on the same day as Farrah Fawcett!"

"Farrah Fawcett is dead?"

"Yeah, this morning. And the same week as Ed McMahon."

"Do you think it is a full moon or something?"

I stopped to think. "I don't think so. But it is weird."

So, I didn't get home until late, a full 8 hours after this had happened. And that's when I learned that Twitter had gone down. People Magazine (with 8, count em, 8 articles on MJ) was refusing to load. Major news sites were having problems with the load. So this is what it takes to bring the internet to its knees. A major celebrity's surprise death. Or maybe just his surprised faked death.

All I know is I thought today about getting the album Thriller for Christmas many years ago, and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. (I think I was 13.) I remember the near epidemic of moon walking that sprang up and how I really never figured out how to do it.

Who cares if he was a freak? He was an immensely talented freak and I think today the enormous outpouring of interest just underscores what a huge star he was. I just hope that his kids will be okay and not have to suffer under the shadow of such a man..er...sort of a man. Sort of. Maybe he just defies description. Anyway. Those poor kids.

This is weird. What's next? Alien invasion?

Labels: gossip, news, star

  ¶ 11:26 PM 0 comments

  So you got a whole bag of spinach from your CSA... I am in a CSA which delivers me a half-share of veggies every week. This means I get a bunch of stuff and immediately panic. After all, a week isn't too long to eat a gigantic bag of spinach among all of the other deliciousness. And although I really like salads, I think J would rebel at them every day.

So...here's a quick and tasty way to use up a LOT of spinach.

Spinach Alfredo Sauce on Pasta.

Pasta
onion/garlic stuff
Butter 3 tbls.
Flour 3 tbls.
Cream/Milk/Sour Cream/Yogurt 2 cups (I didn't measure, so this is just an estimate.)
Salt/Pepper
As much spinach as you can fathom eating.

Get some pasta water boiling. You know how to make pasta. I don't think it really matters what kind you use.

Cut up some oniony/garlicky type things. I used garlic scapes and green onions (also from the CSA) but you can use straight onion and garlic if you wish.

Put them into a big pan (I used my wok) with about 3 tbls. of butter.

Saute until you start getting them softened.

Add 3 tbls. of flour. Stir. This is a roux. Don't be afraid. Rouxs are good thickeners. Keep stirring until the butter and flour are smooth-ish.

Add milk/cream/yogurt/sour cream. Whatever you have. I think I added 2 cups.

Stir. Add 1/2 - 1 TSP of salt (to taste, really) Grind in some pepper, to taste.

Now, once it looks like the roux is in the sauce okay (you don't see globs anymore), the sauce will start to thicken.

This is a perfect time to throw in your spinach. How much spinach? Well, I cleaned three colanders full of spinach. Yes, that's a lot. But as spinach tends to do, it will wilt in the heat of the sauce.

So, throw in your spinach, as much as you can, then cover it and wait. After it wilts add more. Stir. Add the cover again and it will wilt again. Stir. Add some more spinach. Cover again. Stir. By this time, hopefully you have gone through your entire container of spinach.

At this point, the cream sauce should have thickened, the spinach should be nicely wilted and your sauce just about done. J wanted to add cut up cheese cubes and some diced summer sausage and I relented, even though I could have done without.

We served this over rotini pasta and it was delicious. In fact, it was even better the 2nd day for our lunches.

Labels: recipe

  ¶ 9:12 AM 0 comments