From my flickr page, taken today…

Disclaimer: I am a humungous gardening noob.  Feel free to point and laugh, but please keep in mind i ain’t no expert.

Cherries and Roma Tomatoes seeded in the last week of April:

The seed beds are recycled containers with holes cut out on the bottom for drainage. I wrapped them up with plastic wrap. Within a couple of days, the seeds began to sprout. Romas are in the rectangular tray, and cherries are in the sour cream tub.

Seedlings, beginning of week 3:

I diligently thinned the sprouts and will probably do more thinning. I don’t think that every sprout will get planted. I know they’re a little leggy. I went away last weekend and didn’t anticipate they’d come up so soon so I hadn’t given them ample lighting. I have a desk lamp with a plant bulb over them now. I rotate the dishes when I can so they don’t lean to the light.

The true leaves are coming in. I’ll keep watching them and when the leaves are a bit more established I’ll re-pot selected plants in larger containers (or all the plants, we’ll see how many recyclables I can turn into pots in the next few days).

The plan:

I’ve been spending a lot of time in my backyard lately, and a bit in the front. This is what I’ve accomplished so far:

• manually removed wild violets and other weeds from half the lawn
• turned, tilled, raked the soil, amended it with gardening soil
• plotted out where the veggie patches will end up
• aerated and mowed the remaining grass in the backyard
• mowed the grass in the front yard
• cleaned up the front garden and weeded a little
• seeded lawn with an eco-friendly type of grass (needs little watering)
• overseeded the remaining lawn with same grass
• more weeding! /argh
• cleaned up a couple more gardening patches

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So, today I went over to the vet’s office to pick up a refill of insulin for Niko. The office isn’t even half a kilometer away. I was on my bike, waiting at a red light, when I tried to remove my left foot prematurely from the clips. The foot got stuck in there… and I knew it was misbehaving even as I was riding away from the house… so down I went. I keeled over right in front of a stopped truck and a lineup of other vehicles waiting at the red. I got up, chuckled to myself, fixed the straps, smiled my embarassment at people in their cars having yuks at my expense.

I got to the vet, and as I waited for the vet assistant to get Niko’s insulin, I checked my damage. I had scraped and bloodied up my left knee, though it looked worse than it felt. I asked the vet assistant if she had any “human first aid”… she had a bandage and gave me some paper towels to clean up in the bathroom, but surprisingly no “human” antibacterial stuff. Come to think of it, I may not have any here either. I got home half an hour ago, gave Niko his shot, and tidied up the front porch a bit. The blood is soaking through this cheap plastic band-aid now so I guess I should take care of my flesh wounds.

I love wearing cycling gloves, by the way. Not only do they look hardcore, I’ve been in two falls this week and haven’t fucked up my hands yet.

Taken today by a co-worker (co-rider?), on our company group ride after work. This shows me in a completely unnatural element… that is, me in natural surroundings. Trees and stuff.

The trees, however, sensed this and had their way with me. They caught themselves on my handle bar during a narrow, descending and winding track, causing the bike to fall and me to be thrown from it. I have a couple of bruises, and my shoulder took the brunt of it. I was fine, the bike too, and was able to finish the ride.

This past weekend was mostly about entertaining the boyfriend’s Mom, who had come down to TO from Sudbury for a visit. The first stop was the Royal Ontario Museum, which was awesome, because if she didn’t drag my boyfriend out, then I would have had to and I don’t have quite the leverage that she does. I have to be honest… I love the ROM. I am vastly interested in just about everything and I couldn’t ask for much more than having so much history under one roof to spend one afternoon with.

We spent an evening with food and wine, and more food. When boyfriend’s mom went to bed, we settled in for a night of GTA4. Unfortunately the boy didn’t get too far as about midnight there seemed to have been some kind of huge explosion outside which took the power out right down the block. The initial explosion was pretty nuts, but seeing absolutely no lights in the buildings in the complex, except for candles and flash lights, was also sort o weird and scary. The blackout lasted probably about 3 or 4 hours. No GTA4 that night.

Sunday was spent taking a stroll down the Danforth, starting from our favourite crepe place and just slowly heading eastward. I took home a fashionable aluminum water bottle by Sigg from IQ Living. I mostly bought consumables from various places like tempeh and Tofurky kielbasa from the Big Carrot, gourmet jellybeans from some candy shop, chipotle hot sauce and garlic grapeseed oil from a place that just sells hot sauce. I sliced up the Tofurky kielbasa for a late snack just a few hours ago, and I was pretty happy with it.

To end off the night, we dropped the boy’s mom off at his brother’s and took off to catch Iron Man. And that ruled. I’m such a Marvel comic book nerd, and I loved everything about the movie. I feel like unearthing my old Avengers comics and reaquainting myself with Iron Man.

Old school Iron Man:

There’s a guy at work who’s pretty experienced at mountain biking and all that fun stuff. Last year, he arranged group rides with co-worker, which was pretty neat, but as I had obligations to main tank Karazhan at the time, I had not been able to take advantage of the group rides. This year, I’m determined to make it out more.

Today was the first time we got to ride. I wasn’t sure that we’d be able to because it was grey and overcast all day. However, the threats of rain were all empty and promptly after work, a group of us went out and took the trails around 12 Mile Creek and up the escarpment around Brock University.

Ok, this is the first time I’ve done any single track riding, and for the first time out those trails were challenging. Climbing up Hydro Hill was brutal but that was all just energy. For me, going downhill with rocks and tree roots, across narrow makeshift bridges was probably the most extreme thing I’ve done in my life. That’s sad, I know, but I’m learning. Of course, a lot of those steeper hills, I walked down, but it didn’t help that I was bonking closer to the end of the ride.

Would I do it again? I’m already signed up for next week, and yes I’d do those same trails again. In time, I’ll have more confidence with the downhills. The big thing for me was trying it out, getting out and catching some pretty scenery, particularly along the escarpment, and even some wildlife, like the doe we saw on the stone dust trail heading home.

My red faithful kept up nicely with the big kids at least. I love my bike.

There’s a big bowl of spaghetti with veggie meatballs waiting for me now. Yum!

Going through my backyard, I found these tiny heads poking up from beneath the dried leaves and old mulch from last year. These were the ferns I planted in this corner of my garden that I didn’t think survived because I underwatered them. But it looks like they want to live. Now I have to decide if I want to keep them or plant a bush there instead. I also found baby hostas and a Japanese ferns. The woodruff I planted last year is also coming in nicely… a bit messy, but it’s growing. Russian sage that I thought had just dried out is budding again and little leaves have sprouted around the base. It also looks like echinacea, lavendar and the crazy daisies have survived too.

The lawn renovation is coming along. Because i’m too cheap to rent proper power equipment, I’m doing this on my own, bit by bit. The boyfriend was in town with me this weekend, so he helped me with a Home Depot trip to buy soil and various seeds. I’m a little determined to grow myself a small vegetable patch this year, starting with herbs, lettuce and tomatoes. We’ll see how that works out. This could end in tears… or pasta sauce.