Training Log Archive: barb

With Dave, to a fundraiser dinner for CitySprouts, for which Dave has volunteered time and equipment to install drip irrigation in a couple school gardens. This is the first year that CitySprouts has created a garden in every school in Cambridge. The one at our school is thriving, with lots of kinds of food including wheat.

We shmoozed with the two city councillors we know, Larry and Henrietta. Henrietta's new web site is going live tomorrow, and there's rumored to be a picture of her with Dave and one of our chickens on it. Can't wait to see. I told Larry about the abandoned greenhouses and how I think the city should take them over and grow vegetable and herb seedlings each spring to distribute to every household in the city. I guess I need to talk to Henrietta about it again too.

We drank way too much and had a lot of fun.

I was reading this article on epigenetic control of retroviruses, and I thought maybe they'd find that the amphibians who survive the latest decimation to their population have genetically evolved resistance to the pathogens in a way that is be observable, if you look. I guess you'd look by massively-parallel DNA sequencing, by DNA methylation profile and by mRNA expression profile.

CSU training put on by Ian, at the Sheepfold. Dave and I drove there together; skipped controls and ran trails to try and keep up with him.

Work and then errands around town including dropping off David's athletic medical forms in case he goes out for cross-country at the high school.

Excitement in the side yard this morning. Lots of squawking; it was Raspberry (our bravest and most adventurous chicken) sounding the alarm; similar to the egg-laying sqawk, but just kept going. She does that sometimes and we usually don't know why. I looked out the window and saw a hurt pigeon on the ground unable to get up. Dave went to investigate and told me that the other two chickens were missing. I went out looking for them; we ended up finding them hiding in between pots in the garden, which is quite a mystery because we have a big net fence erected to keep them out of the garden -- how did they get there? We figure the most likely explanation is that a predator dropped the pigeon in our yard; Henny Penny and Apple Blossom were so scared they flew over the fence and hid, and Raspberry did her rooster-substitute thing. Henny Penny had hidden herself so well between pots that she was wedged in and Dave had to move the pots to get her out. I called Animal Rescue and we were going to take the pigeon there but then it died. Dave did what he could to calm the birds, feeding them a neighbor's hasta plant since ours were decimated by the chickens months ago, and turning over some dirt with a shovel in the back yard to distract the girls with looking for worms.

The leg-in-the-stick saga was gripping to follow, getting the info here and there in AP threads and WMOC website and photos. I would find myself wanting to know more, like, how long were they there in the woods helping the injured Swede (I guessed about 30-35 min from looking at the live results), and how did they know they needed to help him (he shouted for help), and did they pull out the stick (they did). And the answers would just show up. And then there was some unasked-for information, like, did Thierry whip off his shirt to staunch the wound (yes).

It was great to read Eddie's account first, the puzzlement at seeing these guys, and then the practical, well, I've got a Canadian to beat, and I'd better get to it. What was really cool was to read Eddie's story, and then get to see Clem's (?) photos. And to see the photos chronologically was fun. First there were shots of Eddie finishing and, because I'd read Eddie's story, I knew the next photo was going to be of the heros. Two of them were in that photo, and neither was Thierry... As an aside, is there some kind of Thierry fan club cult thing going on these days? There's all this internet chatter, like, Oo, he's going to be at the Highlander! Will he wear a kilt? Etc. Anyway, I knew Thierry was going to be in the next photo, and I knew that he was going to be shirtless, and then there it was, the photo, him, shirtless. Hm. Compelling, as always. Extreme skill is like that.

So it was fun checking out the story piecemeal. The pictures were icing on the cake.

This morning at 6:30 after doing the chicken chores I ran around the neighborhood. I'd missed garden tours of two community gardens last night due to having a friend over for Dave's excellent fish tacos and gazpacho, so I jogged to those gardens and gave myself a wee tour. Rather warm for so early in the morning (77F); hoping for some thunderstorms to cool things off after our 3-day heat wave.

Last night we watched another episode of Hamish Macbeth. Previous episode had ended on a cliffhanger so it was fun to see where they took that. I love this series. Not only because it's Scotland. The episodes sometimes get pretty wacky; this time it involved a couple different weird religious pseudo cults and a love relationship between their leaders.

Some photos from Edinburgh; click for larger versions:





A young volunteer:


Me with my immediate ancestors and descendents. We're at Venue #34, C Chambers St. In the background there are posters for some of the shows at this venue.


The Udderbelly, one of the hundreds of venues at the Fringe Festival:


Dad:


Looking up the Royal Mile:

ha HA!

Running in terrain; CSU training. One map, 5 people. Still hot; had no thunderstorm. Nice.

To work. To Central Square for CSA veggie share. Home. To Pine Hill map and back with Dave.

We arrived back home Saturday afternoon; Caz picked us (me, Steph, Dave, Geoff) up at the airport. The chickens were fine and we spent some time harvesting. Yesterday I cooked: ratatouille, pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil, and gazpacho. And we watched the first three episodes of "Hamish Macbeth", just to remain in Scotland a little longer. A fine last day of vacation. I also made iced tea containing stevia from our gardening for sweetening; the stevia was a perfectly satisfactory sweetener! Really cool.

I need help getting exercise. Maybe someone could invite me to go hiking or running or something? Carrots, sticks, anyone? I am really having trouble getting out the door.

Izzy in the next car up, on the way to Day 6 of the Scottish 6-Day:



Photo as we were leaving Farleyer Lodge for the last time. Bob, Beth, Simon, Norma and Hadley had already left, but there will be photos of them anon.



Day 6 terrain in the background. Steep fernside, leading up to the nice hill and marsh area of the map.


Linda Moore

Our Scotland photos are posted here. Still have some days to upload.

Scottish 6-Day, Day 6
54/67. Mostly open heather, some bracken. Interesting topography, little hills interspersed with marshes that I found easier to run in than the heather.
Routegadget

Part way up Schiehallion with the kids. Again felt really tired and throat is sore.
Skipped the orienteering b/c of the long drive, not feeling great, and kids quite happy to skip the O.

52/71.
Felt really hard to just move.
Beautiful sunny day.
Nice to see so many people I know there - Mike M, Charlie Sh, Valerie, Sandy, ... Specially thanks to Valerie who is really responsible for us being here: it was her initiative/enthusiasm that got the ball rolling on the early planning stages of housing even though she didn't end up staying with us in the end.

Izzy finished 16/28 in W16A, and David was 10/20 in M16B - really nice work! Here is his Garmin track:



Dinner was "Aberfeldy soup" by Virginia - SO YUMMY! And quiche, slaw from local farm veggies, and local berries in a cobbler like dessert with ice cream.



Our lodge is next to Castle Menzies; the kids and Geoff walked there yesterday for a tour.

C • aha 2

Bagged two Monroes with Rick and Susie. Ben Lawers and the one on the approach to Ben Lawers. No rain except an almost sprinkle at the end; mostly cloudy, quite windy and cool.

Um, I would just like to point out that we had what was generally agreed to be the best chocolate mousse ever tonight, whipped up by my English cousin Hadley to top off a fabulous pasta meal. Chocolate chocolate chocolate.

Worked on going slowly and steadily so no huge errors today. Light rain. Streams were high but the meet was far from canceled. This was my 8th orienteering event in Scotland, and the first with rain.

Got the English cousins out on recreational courses today - a great success.

My cousin once removed, Virginia, turns out to be a fantastic cook. Tonight she made Yorkshire pudding and strawberry mousse. Mm.

Isabel had a lot of trouble today. David did really well - but he mispunched. He's reading the map well.

Isabel finished 12th of 25 and David finished ahead of two boys today.
I had a lot of trouble finding controls 1 and 2, and came in 50th out of 68.

David's route today:


We went to see "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" at the Pitlochry Festival Theater in the evening.

Event: Scottish Six Days Tay 2009
 

Day 1 of Scottish 6 day. I guess my goal is to do better tomorrow in the rankings (30/69 today). Some slow sections and a couple of bobbles. Izzy was 11th out of 27. It was a much harder course than she's been doing at home, where she's on the white course. I think she enjoyed having more of a challenge.

Very happy that David finished his course. His birthday is in December, so he's M16. Tough course. He wore the Forerunner.



My first cousin once removed, Hadley Hunter, making breakfast.