Short Track Week 6 - Series Finale!

Well this week my race was not so hot. I got off the start line really well and was riding in 2nd place for about 3 laps - then I got passed by Julie Browning who is just an absolute queen on her bike - she's so fast! I was still holding my place until about the end of the fourth lap (out of 5) when I somehow managed to flip myself over on my back when I hit a ledge I was trying to ride up. ugh. I laid there like a little beetle on my back while a couple women shot around me. I hopped back up and tried to ride off....only to be met with the most atrocious noise coming from my bike. I got off and looked at my rear cassette to discover that I had completely shredded the housing on my rear derailleur cable and kinked the actual cable itself. Sniff. I walked my bike along the course to where Thor was cheering and he helped me untangle the mess so I was able to ride again - just not shift. At this point I was definitely in last place and was only able to catch one masters rider while I finished my final lap. Dang! Crappy way to finish the series, but at least I didn't DNF! Here's a video that a fellow racer took using their helmet cam at the race on Monday. The actual racing starts at about minute 2 of the video and gives you a pretty good idea of what the course looked like. There are links to other still pics below the video.

Now Playing: Race 6 (HelmetCam) from Scott Barker on Vimeo.

• Megan looking chill while leading the race
• Me in 2nd place BEFORE my stupid mechanical
• Julie Browning - crazy fast! Pretty much won every short track race this season
• Another shot of me racing - I think about to be passed by Julie!
• Katie Breene & I chatting it up after the race with my 'beer' bottle
  
• Megan taught me the cross 'mount & dismount' I was really excited about practicing it after the race!
• A shot of Josh Hutchens who owns CyclePath - our sponsor bike shop. This is pretty much a typical face for Josh at any time. (www.cyclepathnw.com)
  

Shameless Plug for i crave daily!

Ignore me - look at my favorite new addition to my jewelry collection! These matching earrings & necklace were designed by my good friend Stacy who runs her business, daily, out of her home here in Portland, OR.

I LOVE these clear acrylic pieces because they go with absolutely everything which makes them my new 'go-to' choice for practically every outing this summer. Do you need a birthday gift? Anniversary gift? Best-friend gift? Gosh my girlfriend is so great I just want to give her something gift? I highly recommend these earrings or the necklace!

Check out Stacy's site - www.icravedaily.com - to see her other jewelry designs. Her jewelry is beautiful, hip, excellently crafted and super functional. Stacy is working on big plans to launch a new web-based business sometime this fall - it will be AWESOME - and I will make a plug for that too when she has it up and running. (I am not sure how much I am supposed to disclose about it at this point....so we'll just leave the nature of the business a surprise for right now).

A Weekend of Landscaping...ugh

Thor and I got a bee in our bonnet about some ugly yew hedges we had in the front of the house. They were ugly, tall, and pruned into hideous rectangles - they were just not us at all. Here's what the house looked like before we dug the yews out (the tall, dark green rectangles on either side of our front door). I won't even begin discussing the enormous, green juniper bush growing across our front bank. We refer to it as Jabba the Hedge. That's how much we like it.


Here's what the house looks like from the street after we got done digging out the yews. It really opens up the front yard and the porch a lot. We like it a LOT better.

Thor in the middle of digging out one of the huge root balls.

Here you can see all the dirt that poor Thor had to schlep around the front yard.

A shot of the red New Zealand flax, Phormium tenax 'Rubrum', that Thor & I put in instead to replace the yews. Eventually these flax should grow to 6-8 feet high and 4-5 feet wide.


This butterfly bush also came out the same weekend. The butterfly bush is the large, overbearing bush on the left hand side of the park strip with the purple flowers all over it. Butterfly bushes are incredibly attractive to, you guessed it, butterflies -- BUT -- this bush was overwhelming our pear tree which is right next to it. Hmm...pears or overbearing bush....pears or overbearing bush? Yep - pears win out. Out the bush came!


I replaced the butterfly bush in the parkstrip with a Russian Sage Perovskia atriplicifolia.


Here's a shot of the park strip after the butterfly bush came out. Once again - much more open and I think it makes the park strip look a bit more balanced as well. It has been about two weeks since dug the bush out and I swear our pear tree is looking healthier already. The pears have grown a lot and the foliage looks healthier. Thor snuck a baby pear and he said that although it was really hard & crunchy the flesh was delicious & sweet. Hooray! Hopefully we'll be harvesting our pears by the end of August!

Short Track Week 5 - Pictures

Howdy - I raced out at Short Track again on Monday night and thought I'd share some pictures that were posted online.

• My friend, Megan Murray, going over some roots (she eventually won our race!)
• Me - in the exact same section.
• Beth, my great teammate, in the same section.
• Sarah Sturdy looking tired on her single speed (she's AMAZING).
• Megan, smiling, even as she's annihalating all of us in the race.
• I must have been thinking about beer here!
• Lindsay Kandra - kicking ass and passing men on single speeds!
• A final shot of me. I'm not sure what I'm doing with my face here.

I ended up 4th in this race -- which is great for me -- but I was sort of tweaked about it because I let two girls pass me coming into the finish because I thought we had another lap left. Hmph. Two lessons learned:

1. Learn how to count laps.
2. Don't let anyone pass you.
   

Fig Tree Container

This fig tree was the first fruiting tree I purchased after we moved into our house. It is a 'Brown Turkey' fig which produces medium-large maroon fruit. Yum! I don't think we can expect any figs this year, but hopefully next year this tree will produce it's first crop. This is supposedly a good variety to grow in our area -- so we'll keep our fingers crossed! There are also a few other plants we have in this container with the tree - scroll down to see them in detail.

Delosperma 'Mesa Verde' - cold hardy Ice Plant. Masses of apricot-peachy flowers. 2" tall and spreading quickly to 2' wide (no joke! this plant is growing FAST)

Penstemmon. I am not sure what variety as it was a plant that was here in a different container when we moved in.

Black Mondo Grass

New Rug!

Thor and I finally found a great rug for our living room this weekend.

Megan & Lainie's Sheep

I knit this sheep for our friends Megan & Lainie. Lainie is due in September and some friends of theirs threw them a baby shower brunch this morning. This is the second baby shower that Thor & I have ever been to -- both were co-ed, with good food and NO silly games. We had a good time.
I used the Fiber Trends 'A Felt Flock' - pattern #206x to make this sheep. The body is knit out of Nature Spun worsted weight yarn in the color 'Bit of Blue' (115W) held with Austermann Felin in turquoise (#0012) for a little bit of extra fuzz. The nose and feet are out of a dark charcoal Lamb's Pride.

Short Track Mtn. Biking

I have been racing in the Portland Mtn. Bike Short Track series this summer. These races are held out at the Portland International Raceway (PIR) where they have a motorcross course set up - we race different variations of this course each week for six weeks.

This week my mom was driving through Portland on Monday night so I was able to talk her into stopping over to watch the race. She got some great pictures!

Here I am at the start (black helmet with visor - about third from the right). My teammate Beth is to the left of me in the picture - and my friends Lindsay & Megan are the two riders to my right. The start was crazy this week and they sent us off in loose gravel and one of the girls went down about two pedal strokes in. It was a mad scramble to get around her without causing another crash!


A shot of me riding straight through the 'wooded' part of the course.


Rounding a corner on the course.



Here I am on the backstretch - you can see other riders on the motor cross course in the background.

Champoeg State Park

This past weekend we went to Champoeg State Park for a fun weekend of camping & water sports. Thor & I forgot our camera, but thankfully our friends Becky & Daren brought theirs and captured a TON of pictures from the weekend. Check out Becky's Picasa album for some hilarious pictures of us and many of our friends water-skiing, wake boarding, wake surfing and spectacularly crashing on the Willamette River!
Most people headed out to the camp site Friday right after work - but due to one mix-up after another Thor and I didn't bumble into camp until about 10:30 pm. Spirits were high in the car, let me tell you! From there things could only improve - and they did - we had a fantastic weekend with Katy, Andy, baby Nick (on his first camping trip!), Sean, Becky, Daren, Chris, Stacy, Becky's parents Bruce & Joan, and some of Andy's siblings: Joe, Molly & Jenny.

Fresh Basil+Other Yummies = Tasty Pesto

We took our first harvest from our basil plants on Sunday and were really surprised by the volume of basil we got off our plants! I did the harvesting - and Thor did the actual cooking in the kitchen (that was the original deal. Thor wanted "tons" of basil plants so he could make enough pesto to freeze for the entire winter. All I have to do is keep the little buggers alive and he does the rest of the work. Good deal for me!)


Here is Thor with an ice-cube tray full of pesto to freeze. I think we have at least two or three more jars in the freezer too. We ended up with about 6 cups of pesto this time around. Yum! Thor uses the pesto recipe out of Cook's Illustrated - The New Best Recipe.

2 Dahlias, 1 Crocosmia

In the last two days we've had a couple new flowers open up. This dahlia is on the west side of our house underneath the lilac tree. The flash makes it look a lot more pink than it actually is - it is a much deeper purple in actuality.


This is a crocosmia - from what I can tell we only have one of these in our yard - it's really neat!


This is also a dahlia - although it is unlike any dahlia I have ever seen. A co-worker gave me the bulb as a house warming gift and it was labeled as a dahlia. The foliage and bud both looked like a dahlia as well, so I was pretty shocked when it blossomed and this is what came out!

Yucca Container

This large yucca was one of the plants left behind by the former owner of our house. I thought it was an otherwise empty container, but this spring about 5 lilies started growing out of the dirt. Odd. Lilies & a yucca. My mom thought this was a strange combo as well so on one of her visits to Portland this spring she transplanted all the lilies for me and chose some succulents at the Portland Nursery to fill in the pot.


Mom chose this Sedum to add a little height to the pot. It is a Sedum alboroseum 'Mediovariegatum' and it is very closely related to Autumn Joy. Later on in the summer these should have blooms of little white flowers all over them and attract a bunch of butterflies. At the end of the summer this will die back and can be cut to the ground - then it will re-sprout next spring.


This little red guy is a Sedum spurium 'Dragons Blood'. This spreading, evergreen ground cover is covered with starry red flowers from late June into the fall (you can see them here in this picture). I have a lot of this plant out front in our rock wall, but it is doing great in this container too!


I am not sure what these fleshy little succulents are. I have been collecting them from around the neighborhood where they have self-seeded into the parking strip. They are a wonderful bright green all winter and are just now producing these delicate white blooms.


I scavenged these hens & chicks from a neighbors rock wall down the street. Shhh. They have about a million of these covering their front bank and earlier this summer a couple had fallen off and were sitting on the side walk. So I took them home with me and planted them and they re-rooted and look to be doing quite well at this point. I am hoping they spread!

Little Green Tomato Babies!

This morning I was out on my regular early morning watering schedule (6am, MWF) and I noticed that one of my large tomato plants was sprouting little green fruits! The beginning of tomato season is here - hooray! I am 98% sure this is one of my cherry tomatoes based on the shape of the fruits, but it could be a jelly bean tomato too that just hasn't gotten long yet. My roma tomatoes are a tad smaller and have just started flowering - so I don't think I'll see any fruits on them for at least a week or two.

Early July Blooms

When we got home from Katie & Zabyn's wedding yesterday I took a quick tour around the garden and we have a whole host of new flowers that opened up over the weekend while we were away. Enjoy!

This little red lily is over near the fence on the NW corner of our yard - it is tucked away in the shade and there is only one of them - I haven't seen a single other lily this color in our yard.


This cluster of pink lilies is in our front yard in full sun. They are a beautiful coral pink with school bus yellow centers. There are a few more stalks of lilies around the front yard that haven't blossomed yet, but I'm hoping they will be this color too!


One of the many dahlias springing up all over our yard - this pink variety is one of the first to open up this summer. It is currently in our back box with the nasturtiums and geraniums, but I'll probably transplant it somewhere else once it is done blooming.


This gorgeous, delicate yellow dahlia is out on the east side of our house tucked in next to the raspberries.


This fuschia was one of the un-identified plants left behind by the previous owner of our house. There was a container sitting out underneath our cherry tree that had a very dead looking plant in it this winter. Being the lazy gardener that I am I didn't feel like dealing with it so I just left the container alone and at the end of May I noticed that the branches were starting to get little buds on them. It had turned into quite a healthy looking green bush, but I wasn't expecting the flowers! It was a treat to come home and see these blossoms and finally be able to identify what was growing. It's a good thing I didn't dump my 'dead plant' into the yard waste in March!


This lily is all pink and is one of a number of this variety growing on the west side of our house in the shade. They look very robust, but not that happy as they are growing horizontally along the ground as if they are trying to find some sunlight. I think once they are done blooming I will transplant them to an area of the yard with more sunlight.


Remember those 'Himalayan' poppies I was all excited about earlier this month? Well - they're blooming and they are NOT himalayan poppies. They are a very nice, fringed, single petal poppy that is coming up in a wild fuschia color... But they are not himalayans...sniff. I wish I could find my seed packet to read if they were some sort of varietal or if I just thought I bought the himalayans...or what happened. oh well. these are pretty too.


I think this is a Hollyhock. I am not sure -- anyone know what a Hollyhock looks like?


Our hydrangea finally bloomed. And they are not blue. I was SO SO SO looking forward to having a sky blue colored hydrangea in our yard -- and instead it looks like the Easter Bunny came to visit -- all sugary purple & pink covering the bush. Hmph. I have heard you can change the color of the hydrangea blooms by altering the nutrient content of your soil. I may need to look into this and figure out whether it is true or just an old wives tail.

Dream In Color Shrug

I finished this shrug in time to wear to the wedding we went to over this past weekend in Bellingham, WA. It is the Dream In Color Shrug (P-601) and I knit it in their 'Classy' yarn (worsted weight) in the color 'Spring Tickle' (VM140). I am sort of happy with how it turned out. I tried on the sample at Twisted, a local yarn shop here in Portland, and I swear it fit much differently. I checked my gauge, but my shrug seems baggy in the wrong places - and I'm not entirely thrilled with it. I may go back to the shop and check out their sample again to see how mine differs....or I may just try tossing mine in the wash briefly to see what happens (dangerous, I know).

Here's a view of the shrug from the back.

A close up of the very easy lace pattern. (I don't like how it bags under the arms at the edge of the back!)

Here's a shot of Thor & I on the way to the wedding - here you can see a bit how it looks from the front.

Harvest

Last night we had our good friends Eric & Joe over for a dinner of salmon that Thor caught this spring in Alaska and fresh veggies from our garden. Here's a picture of Thor with his first carrot harvest of the season! They are delicious & tasty and Thor was like a little rabbit nibbling away at them all evening. At this rate our carrots will not last much longer than this week.


This is a shot of some of the other harvested edibles from our garden last night. Carrots, raspberries & snap peas. What a treat!