Tag: bike rides

A Perfect Ride

~ Crystal Sands ~ 7 Comments

Day 153 of 365

Today, we managed a bike ride in the city forest. In the past month, our schedules have been so busy that we barely have time for bike rides, but we keep managing to sneak to the forest every chance we get. I still love riding my bike. I am getting better at it, too. I don’t feel so scared I’m going to crash and die all of the time. I am definitely the weakest link in our little trio, but Ron and our son stop every time there is a turn and wait for me, so I won’t take a wrong turn. Ron, forever the motivator, tells me what a good job I am doing. Our son, so completely a teenager, sometimes seems annoyed with my slowness–but only sometimes.

Today, he seemed tired, so while Ron did an extra lap around the forest, our son stayed with me until Ron came back around to us. While Ron was making the extra lap, my son went slowly the whole time, so I could keep up. We stopped for a while and talked about the trees. We saw a magnificent rabbit. We met a little porcupine. We had a great time, and because we were traveling more slowly than usual, I stopped quite a few times to take pictures.

It was the best bike ride of my life, and I am thankful for these pictures. I hope my son will remember this day, somewhere down deep–the bike ride with his mama in the beautiful city forest with the fantastic foliage and the little rabbit and porcupine. He’ll remember that, right?

It was just this perfect afternoon being with my family and the trees. One time, we stopped in a clearing for a break, and looked up to see like 50 beautiful birds flying high, right over our heads.

“I wonder that kind of birds they are,” Ron asked.

“I think they are crows, but they are so quiet. I’m not sure.” I responded.

And, then, as soon as I finished that sentence, as if just to let me know, we heard the “caw, caw, caw.”

I love crows more than I can say.

The pines were so tall I couldn’t get their tip tops in the picture, but aren’t they magnificent?
I am not sure, but I think the trees are extra beautiful this year. Usually, there is this kind of sequencing to the colors I notice, but this year, it’s like the trees coordinated. Some of them look like they are just on fire. Oh, how I love Maine.
This is one of the back trails we often take. This is where we met the bunny and the porcupine.
More of the trail–with magnificent color. Of course, the pictures cannot do it justice. Everyone says that because it’s true.
I think I could have gotten a closer picture of the bunny, as we were being very still and quiet, but some people came up behind us fairly loudly. The bunny hopped into the trees, but this is still a pretty good picture. The bunny was so incredibly beautiful.
I wish you could see his little face better in this picture. I could see his little face so well. I loved seeing this beautiful animal because our son, who is usually such a grumpy teen, was talking so sweetly to the little porcupine. That kiddo rebels agains my hippie ways, but I can see he has some hippie in there down deep.
And this is now my favorite picture ever.
And, when we got home, we had a pear-cranberry crisp I had made while the guys were doing homeschool math today. That was a little bit of perfection too, and I will definitely share the recipe tomorrow.

Bicycles and Witchy Fences

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 103 of 365

Yesterday, Ron bought me a bicycle. Ron would correct my grammar on that sentence and say to write “Ron bought a bicycle for me.” And then I would glare and him and say “I teach linguistics.” And then he would say, “I’m just letting you know.” But I have to say it this way because I’m so excited about it, and it feels more personal this way. It’s the best present to me! It’s a beautiful bicycle. A friend was going to give us a bicycle, and we thought we should pass because we never ride bicycles. But it planted a seed in Ron’s mind, and yesterday, he bought me a beautiful blue bicycle.

I hurt so much from riding and riding and riding it that I can barely walk tonight, but I am in love with this bicycle. First of all, I can’t believe I can ride it. I think it’s been 25 years since I rode a bicycle. I was sure I couldn’t remember how to ride, but it’s true what they say, “It’s like riding a bicycle.” How is this possible, by the way? I forget how to do all kinds of things. I surely can’t remember html anymore at all. But I can still ride a bicycle? How is this?

And riding a bicycle is a joy to me, though I have to tell you I nearly ran over a couple of chickens in the driveway because I was a little wobbly at first. They were curious about my bike, but they learned quickly to stay away!

Still, I got better quickly, and have been bike riding all day. We took our new bikes to the coast and road a VERY easy trail. I smiled so much my face hurt. I was planning my life around bicycle rides in nature.

I had to be careful because, a couple of times, I nearly crashed looking at the nature, but I loved looking at the nature! The water was beautiful. I was trying to figure out how to plan our days around bicycle rides until winter. It’s tough. We are very busy with harvesting and back to school (we homeschool) and, this year, we are doing a Farmer-ish booth at the Common Ground Fair. It’s a lot for sure, but I am going to need more bike rides. I hope I don’t fall. I’m pretty careful. I can’t believe how much fun it is to ride a bicycle. It was the best gift ever!

On our ride, I saw and greatly admired this fence. There was a cool old house on the water behind this fence. Ron called it a “witchy fence,” and that made me love it even more. I know a few witches and fancy all things witchy. Isn’t this the most fantastic fence?

It’s so much work to build a fence. Ron built all of the fencing on our property by cutting down old Cedars and then digging the holes and then putting up fencing all by himself. I would help when he really needed a hand, but he did most of it himself because I was doing other work. His work was epic.

I would love to talk to the person who built this fence and ask questions about how they did it. I assume they must be so proud of such a lovely fence. I mean, it couldn’t keep in a chicken, but fences have other purposes, of course.