Ella's world

So I am talking on the phone tonight to John Q. and Troy before Ella's bed time at 8:30PM. I go out of my shop to where she is playing with her animals and ask her what she has been up to and she says, "The animals are eating." Well here is what they were eating.

A new road and a tunnel with Maya in it

The road named Lyman just north of our home has been closed much of the summer to be widened and fancied up. It will also have a tunnel under it for the users of the trail behind our house. Using the trail and tunnel Ella will have a direct trail route to her high school and soul mate Casey's house. Until my kids are reckless teens this will likely be the only time they will be sitting in the middle of this road. I can't tell you how hard it was to get the pic of Maya in the tunnel. She kept crawling toward the light.

Ben is Sarah's babies daddy

About a week ago Ben who is a friend of mine and a friend of many of you who look at this blog got a new baby boy from his wife Sarah. The little guys name is Ellis and I am super happy for the three of them. From the looks of the cute little guy and Ben faces I don't know who is luckier, Ben or Ellis.

I have a dream

Ella has been talking about and quoting the Pancake Puffs commercial for many months. Each time it airs she talks about the little frosted cakes you can make with the Pancake Puff maker as being something she dreams of doing. Well today while buying formula for Maya at Walgreen's I found and purchased an "As seen on TV" Pancake Puff set . When presented to Ella she said, "yea I just saw the commercial on TV again. You can make Jalapeno popper puffs with it. But there spicy." We decided to use cake batter and made pink frosted, sprinkle covered, chocolate pudding filled Pancake Puffs.

Determination

Maya discovered that it was fun to climb into the toy chest. Getting her out was not so fun after she decided to open up like a toggle bolt.

Fun on the Farm

This is the old Randolf Probstfield Farm north of Moorhead. He was one of the first people to settle in the area so they named my elementary school after him. Howard stores his old 1 ton Dodge truck and a few tractors on the grounds. The John Deere Model D in the pics below was made within 3 days of Howards birth in 1941. The old farm has a community organic garden area and historical/cultural events at it during the year. Howard is a big part of the task of fixing up the old veggie barn on the property and recently finished the new wood shingle roof. He is nice that way. Or old and bored. I learned to double clutch the old truck without too much grinding.

Wish I was on my bike right now

Who me?

Cycling speed vest

Here is a vest you can buy that will alert drivers of your speed while cycling. They are usually very expensive to buy but I will be getting my at a substantial discount being that I only need the single digit model. Link to the site

Tonights hike

Unfortunately the woods beyond the grassland and beyond Bluff Creek behind my house have been violated by city planners needing to plan cities. Over all I love all the paved trails in Chan. I can basically ride anywhere in town or to Minneapolis exclusively on trails. These new woods trails will however lead to nowhere and seem to be way over built. At least they kept two big oak trees while cutting every other tree in their path.

Feng/English Tao Te Ching translation Chapter 16

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind become still.
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The way of nature is unchanging.
Knowing constancy is insight.
Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.
Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted, you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.

Fred from YouTube

Above is Lucas Cruikshank a 14? year old you tube comedian who does a parody of video bloggers. His Blogger persona is Fred. A six year-old with anger management issues and an alcoholic mom. His father is doing time.
As of September 2008, Fred was YouTube's all time 3rd most subscribed channel overall with over 500,000 subscribers, and also the 3rd most subscribed in the comedy category. Within 105 days of launching, Fred's YouTube had 10,000,000+ video views, 13,000,000+ channel views, and 500,000+ subscribers. He seems to put out videos often and his short clips are downloaded from 2 to 9 million times each. I want to make it clear that I am not impressed so much with the quality of his work but rather by his ability to draw interest. Here is a link to a typical video of his. Do not and I repeat do not demand those three minutes back after watching. My interest in this is more like my interest in Nascar events than a real interest. Kind of a "mmm I wonder why millions of people watch this?" kind of interest.

Bike Burnout (Funny Video)

Here is a video of a guy doing something I can't, or, at least haven't tried. Link

The Salsa Fargo

First I bought a Salsa 29r mtb looking for the do everything mountain/commuter/ adventure bike. Then I bought the La Cruz cyclocross bike from Salsa for a similar but slightly more road purpose in mind. Well it looks like my bikes went and had a baby and named it "Fargo". 29 inch wheels of mountain bike/road bike/adventure touring bike goodness. I think I would still rather have my La Cruz for this purpose with its integrated shift/brake levers but sure would like the triple crank and extra gears of the Fargo.

Grave Maya

Sorry I haven't posted in some time. I find it anoying when I have a blog I look at regularly and it suddenly isn't updated for a week or more. I found myself going to my blog hoping it had been updated most days myself. Click the pic for the full size and detail. A few hours before this pic last Thursday Morning Maya was home with Ella and Susan getting ready for school. Maya was doing her regular impersonation of a Roomba or other bottom feeder (or here) picking up anything she can find off of the kitchen floor and eating it while at Susan's feet. Susan, while getting bottles ready shut the dishwasher door which was enough disruption to tip a round bottomed kid plate that happened to have my largest, very sharp chef knife on it. Even though the knife and plate were near the back of the counter the hard plastic of the kids plate, and later ceramic under the knife created a ramp allowing the knife to slip off the counter and onto Maya's head. The cut was about a half to an inch long, to the bone and became very bloody. Once the bleeding stopped it wasn't too bad and didn't seem to hurt her to much. She didn't seem pithed at all. I took her in to have it glued shut later in the morning just to make sure. The cemetery is rather old and in downtown Chan by her school. It is full of dead people.

Exploring the old farm near our home

I have driven by the rough road to an old farm off of Pioneer Trail most days for a year now and wanted to ride my bike to it each and every time. My other road bikes would not have enjoyed the trip but the salsa la cruz found the rough road and other ride obstacles quit delicious.


At the end of the trail from my house where the dead turkey lays is the opposite of this view.

The old farm house.

A hilly meadow behind the old farm house. My next path was as far as you can see up the hill behind the nose of the saddle. It was at this point when I was visually isolated from civilization that I remembered the mountain lion that keeps being seen in the area. I also started to see deer tracks with other big odd tracks following that I could not identify. I saw a few game birds and picked up some cool turkey and whatever game bird's it was feathers left behind just past the meadow by a field.

Once by a soy bean field and heading for home I then followed a deer trail into the woods in an attempt to cross bluff creek and stumbled upon some poop. It had some big seeds and partially eaten fruit. I don't know what animal made the poop but I found the wild apricot/plumb? trees it ate from close by.

Ella's new shop

Ella got a cool little shop from her grandma Vic for her birthday that has little wood veggies and other products to sell. Ella named it. The funny thing is she demands that every word on the board be stated in the title of her store. So the name of her store at this time is the: "Air Fin Flay Store. Made By Susan. Ella and Sammie Like To Play With It." And yes you do have to say every word when referring to the store.