Bike Stolen

Someone came into my carport last night and stole my bike after attempting to cut the lock twice the third time was a charm!! How awful. That bike wasn't even worth much used but to replace it is a very difficult thing as the gearing has to be just perfect so that my knees don't explode and hurt for the rest of my life.

I am very sad and angry. This was not a recreational vehicle or a luxury, this is the only way that our little home runs with one car. I have to ride a bike thousands of kilometers to pay it off in money saved that would have been spent of a vehicle.

On the funnier side, however, they did not steal my trailer, market tent or the crate full of carefully cleaned and restored running shoes that I was going to take down to the local homeless shelter to help out. They are all stored locked up inside now in case someone else takes an interest in my few hard earned possessions.

Also, a quick note to the thief if they should decide to google the name on the shingle in front of the house, you forgot the bike computer so call or email and we can get that to you free of charge.

Any of you bike lovers out there will notice the bike in photo three is actually red. It is the bike before the specialized and shows how fully integrated cycling is in my life. Snow:schmow!! Ride anyways!!!

As many of you can imagine there a re few photos of the now dead bike and I will be cycling in all black for the next month if I can find another bike. Meanwhile, I am walking (angrily) or gawd forbid taking the car to the Markets :~{

Full Swing Summer Solstice

Last night was the summer solstice which was a chance for me to spend some quality time in the garden working on building up the rows for this planting season. I threw the bowls that I had prepared the clay for and then escaped the studio for the garden at 6pm.

The most glorious evening started with such a lather that the black jogging visor I was wearing slurped up enough sweat to create a white salt accumulation!! I worked up soil until 10pm and wouldn't quit until the rows were finished. I put some plastic sheets over the peas that are always a very tasty snack for the apparently ravenous local birds and used unbreakable clumps of clay (i mean that i wailed away on them with the sharp end of my hoe for a while and then gave up) to stabilize the sides of the built up rows. The clay (very funny i know) clumps hold water well and help the soil from being washed away into the walking lane.

At 10pm when I finally couldn't see to walk around any more, I sat down and listened to the neighbourhood. When evening shift dave came home, I was scraping and scrubbing my soil blackened feet and feeling very happy at my effort.

Today brought a warm wind and sunny skies to greet the new season and such a combination tends to dry my fresh pots quickly so I am off to trim them now.
The Markets (Duncan Farmers' Market & Sidney Evening Market) are running along well and we had yet another new vendor adjudication monday that went really smoothly with a lot of quality vendors wanting in.

As a conclusion of sorts, the two spare rooms (race dave's dirty room and my guest/knitting/sewing room) were completed on time as the folks were walking through the door who had to then help with the construction mess and cutting dust that blanketed everything. I will put up a photo or two of the new rooms once I catch up with some chores that have piled up.

Any local potters who might read this blog, I am going to the supply shop early next week and could take someone or bring something back for you, email me if you'd like to partake.

This Neighbourhood

Ironically this photo from last year of the front yard has the orange crate visible on the pottery shelf.

Handy dave and i have been working on the house in preparation of my parents visit and needed to purge some stuff out of our two spare rooms. We each have our own spare room, mine is clean for sewing and wool and race dave's is dirty with bikes and bike stuff. We are switching them so that my clean room will be the guest room as it has a tiny bathroom for the people who stay over. In two days we emptied the room, removed the carpet and underlay, patched the walls (badly i might say my skills are very rusty), painted twice, laid the new underlay and built the laminate floor, painted and replaced the baseboards, painted the closet and bedroom doors, and put things back in there set up for guests.

Today we take the other room apart and build the floor, then when nurse dave goes to work i will paint and then trim and handle a batch of mugs.

We put a big orange crate of books out on the curb that we had read and re-read and wanted to share with others. Now, our street has had quite a long history since it was built in 1967, and the diversity in age, race and socioeconomic status is quite wide. I was so impressed that everyone came by and picked up a book or two for the first day and tucked it under their arm with a smile. We were working on the guest room and saw that there were only a few books left at night so we left them over night. When i got home after the Market the next day i found that someone had seem the orange crate empty on the curb and assumed it was homeless and took it home.

I out a clay box in it's place with a sticky note asking for the orange crate back and waited. The very next morning it was back there on the curb!!!

I am so impressed! Well, back to work on the room and then trimming and handling the mugs waiting in the damp cupboard. ttyl

We are so lucky to live here

Photo is from a group of people who get together to weave and knit and sip out of the mugs they have fallen in love with. Leola was kind enough to take the photo and send it along for everyone to see. Thank you so much!!

Apparently someone has cancelled the daily dose of rain and cloudy skies in favour of a little sun and some heat to finally please my tomatoes and pepper plants. I spent all of sunday in the garden building up the soil into raised beds and planting but I only got through one half of the overall garden. I took a break to ride down to star-bicks to get a load of coffee grounds and discovered that one of the three has gone to a no plastic bag policy and the other one is now using biodegradable ones. Without a shovel and sealed container for the loose grounds and filters I was out of luck so I had to settle for 8 bags from the other store.
They are a strong nitrogen fertilizer and I mix them with my clay soil and top dress various areas around the gardens but they also confuse a lot of bugs that are looking for your seeds or small plants as a place to lay their young. Apparently, the carrot fly isn't looking to your local coffee shop as a place to put it's offspring, go figure. It was a bit of work to haul them up the hill but I had a small and lively cheering section of possibly inebriated people to encourage me on the climb loaded down.
I made a batch of french style butter dishes in the middle of last week and trimmed them friday night and did the surface effects on sunday night and took them out of the damp cupboard today. The sunshine has completely changed my throwing to trimming schedule and I have to adjust myself accordingly. This area of the island is so vastly different from the rainy season to the dry season that it boggles the mind. Our lawn shrinks back from the curbs and sidewalk about 8cm during the summer!! We have been saying that we will install a couple of fans and another screen door in the house for many years now but this may just be the year.
I had a student today that is just a lovely little person and very steady in herself. It is nice to see. I also have a Board meeting tonight with a few things that really need to be decided, it is just so nice to have the discussion and then debate and then a decision and all the fallout after that. It is clean and we can move on to the next thing.
"Mondays off dave" took me down to the river today and we played in the water with the dogs for as long as we could take the sun. The water around here is SO clean you can make out every scale on each fish and all the little bugs and creatures that live under there. We went out for lunch and then came home and now I am sitting on the back porch in the shade with the cat and a nice breeze. The melting blended coffee drink is forming a little puddle on the table and the laundry is hanging heavily on the line.
We are so lucky. Now I must re-read the "non inspected kitchen low risk food at farmers' markets" policy from our neighbour market in preparation for tonight's meeting and then have some rice and get down to the meeting. Have a great day and let the sun touch you today.