Plant Identification 101

There is no greater happiness in the known world better than coming home with a plant that you have absolutely no idea as to it’s identity, turning to the front of your 1042 page “Plants of Pennsylvania,” starting with first step on the technical key and 90 seconds later worked your way directly to the correct species. This happens to me about once out of every 32.7 plants I try to identify.

The rest of the attempts end up as an epic struggle with my Flora of Pennsylvania where I spend hours pecking my way through the key ending up on incorrect species after incorrect species. Often times, I can’t even figure out the correct family. At those times I usually refer to my botany book as “Road Block.” Which comes from the fact that the authors are Ann Rhoads and Timothy Block.

If you have never looked at a botanical tome you might think they were of another language and culture altogether. And for the most part, you would be right. These works usually start off with a dichotomous technical key to the families. If you are unfamiliar with a dichotomous key, they are a simple concept where you are presented with two options. You decided which option fits your situation and then move on to the next option. In business and management they are referred to as “decision trees.”

The first two lines of Road Block is this;

A. non-green epiphytes or parasites, or plants lacking normally expanded leaves and/or stems

A. green, not obviously parasites, stems and leaves present

Seems easy enough, right? Well after than all hell usually breaks loose. Sometimes the route to the right plant can have scores of options. One wrong turn and you are sent off to the incorrect part of the plant kingdom. Further, the specialized botanical language alone is enough to make a normal person not so normal. In fact, I have another book to assist me for that called Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary, because words like cleistogamous are not part of my every day lexicon. Cleistogamous, by the way, means a flower that never opens. Who knew?

To make matters more difficult, you must have a dissecting microscope to see many of the plant parts that are used in the keys. In this regard, I am lucky in that I happen to have one of those in the basement. Still with all this highly specialized and precise terminology and advanced optical technology, I can still often come up completely empty.

Not long ago, I came across a shrub at the Stroud Preserve that was unfamiliar to me. It had “wings” on the stems and green flowers. Both of these characteristics are fairly uncommon and conspicuous features and I figured that this plant would fall into the category of species that I quickly identify. I broke off a stem to bring back home to work through the key.

I was wrong. I spent hours trying to figure out to which stupid species this stupid plant belonged. In fact, I felt pretty good in calling it a “stupid shrub” because of the fact that “shrub” was really the only thing about the plant that I knew was a certainty.

I was obviously over looking something as I keyed it out. I checked every fork in the key to make sure that I wasn’t over looking something to no avail. I was clearly overlooking something. Frustrated, I walked away from it and moved on to something else. Later in the evening when I was sitting at my computer I figured why don’t I give Google a try. I typed in “shrub green flowers.” In less than a second, there were scores of images of winged euonymus (Euonymus alatus).

I still chose to refer to it as stupid shrub.

Russell

Kevin's Graduation

A few years ago, Mary’s brother Kevin decided to change bring his acting career to a close and begin a new career in nursing. He enrolled in an intense 18 month nursing program at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. When I say intense, I mean intense. We have barely seen hide nor hair of him the past two years. Highly unusual for someone who likes to be seen!

Yesterday, he graduated, with honors, from the program. He has already landed a job at the Jersey City Hospital just four blocks from his condo. Mary, Grandpa, and I joined Enrico in celebrating this massive achievement yesterday.

We are not the only ones to think Kevin has done good. CNN published an article about his journey yesterday! All those years of acting and he finally gets some major media attention for…leaving acting.

We are all very proud of Kevin and wish him well in his new career!

See photos of the graduation here.

Russell

The Kids

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on what the kids have been up to so I thought I’d do that now.

First and foremost, they are very, very, very excited that there is only one full week of school left. Next week is the full week, then the last week in May they have one day off for an in-service day for the teachers, then the first week of June they have two full days, and three half days. The last day of school is June 8th! They don’t know it yet, but after school lets out they go to work at the North Franklin Street work camp for the rest of the summer.

In the last post about the kids, Paddy was playing basketball and taking swimming lessons. Basketball season is over and he has now moved on to baseball. He is still doing swimming. He doesn’t seem to care much about which sport he is doing at any given time, just as long as he is doing it. The one constant is that he talks trash at all of them. Next week he is going on a class field trip to the Herr’s potato chip factory. He is very excited about that.

William, on the other hand avoids sports at all cost, especially if it requires communication with another human. His primary mission in life is to collect every fact about every animal that has ever lived on planet Earth, and remember it. At the rate that he is going he will done with that project by the start of the next school year. Yesterday (May 17) his school went on an all day field trip to Washington DC. When we arrived we mapped out the most direct route from the bus to the Museum of Natural History. We’d have William tell you about it but his head exploded. He was doing pretty good until he came upon the exhibit with a real giant squids (there were two, a male and a female!). Lets just say he is a pretty happy boy today. See photos from our trip here.

Emily is also pretty happy, for two reasons. First, we finally hooked up her hand-me-down iPhone. She now has a gizmo with a phone, email, text message, and internet that she can carry around with her. Second, and probably, the main reason she is so happy, we let her dye her hair. It is now black and purple. These were not freebies for her. To get them we asked her to pull up her grades, which she did. Next year, at Henderson High School she will be in all honor’s classes. We are very proud of her. She is also doing well in fencing. She will be moving up to the intermediate class soon and will be learning to fence with an epee (a type of sword).

See more photos of the kids over the last month or so here.

Happy Spring time!

Russell

My new back yard

When it comes to the location of our living quarters, Mary and I have always preferred homes that are in an urban setting where we are within walking or biking distance of everything. The tradeoff for this that I have to forgo a backyard that offers anything close to natural.

In Sequim, our back yard was very nice, we had a grape arbor that provided shade for our slate patio, grass for the kids to run around on, and room to plant things. It even had room for me to park my bikes (left). For me, my need for nature was met because Sequim was located at the north end of the largest unbroken wilderness area in the lower 48 states. I considered the Olympic Peninsula my "effective backyard" (above). By the same principle our front yard would have overlooked the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where one could see seal, sea lions, whales, and orcas on a regular basis. Not bad by any measure.

In moving to West Chester we liked the fact that Mary's family home was situated only a few blocks from downtown putting us within walking distance from most things that we need. Our back yard is less than half the size of our yard in Sequim, but fairly typical for a city lot here. It does, however, have all the required elements; shade, brick patio for the grill, grass, and a place to plant things (right).

Now we come to my need for things natural. Let us just leave it that southeastern Pennsylvania ain't anything like the north Olympic Peninsula. When we arrived in Western Washington back in 1992 and I saw Mount Rainier for the first time I said to Mary "you don't see shit like that in Philadelphia." This became my mantra every time I saw anything in the Pacific Northwest of overwhelming natural beauty. It is clear, now that I am back here, that I will have to redefine my idea of what is "natural" if I am to retain any level of sanity. So, I have come to accept that Chester County simply will not have landscapes that approach the idea of "natural" in the way that Washington State did.

To that end I have adopted the Stroud Reserve as my adopted backyard (left). Sure, it is not the Olympic Mountains, but at only 2.9 miles away from our home it will more than do. The reserve is 571 acres of mixed agricultural lands, upland hardwoods and riparian wetlands that mirror much of western Chester County is today. It also has a couple of acres of serpentine outcrop that makes for a very interesting native plant community.

Since the beginning of April, I have diverted much of my cycling energies into long walks around the reserve reacquainting myself with eastern flora and birdlife. For now, I'll let these photographs serve as a brief introduction to the reserve. Over the next weeks and months I'll post more about my observations at the reserve and thoughts about its ecology.

Russell

A Common Criminal

The primary reason that we have been telling everyone that we moved across the country is to be closer to our families. This is a lie. The real reason that we moved, nay, had to move, from Washington State is that Mary is a common criminal.

In 2010 when Mary was back in Philly with the kids and I was in Sequim, a couple of older women wearing drab calve-length skirts, white blouses buttoned to the top, black orthopedic shoes, and thick horn rimmed glasses, came knocking at the door. I opened the door. In low monotone voices they held up a photo and asked, "Excuse me sir, do you know this person?"

I looked down a saw a photo of Mary crouched down behind a bookshelf. I hesitated, then asked, "Well, maybe, it's hard to make out a face behind the big stack of fiction. Why do you want to know?"

"We have our reasons and we'll ask the questions." said the tall one. The short one smirked. The tall one said "Does this person that you may or may not know live here?"

"My wife lives here, as do our three kids, but they are not here now"

"That's convenient. Do you know when they will be back?

"Ummm...they are on an open ended visit to the east coast. They'll be back later this summer, I don't know exactly when."

"Fine. We'll come back later." they said. They turned, walked through our front gate, and rode off on their vintage 1965 Schwinn Breeze 3-Speed Women's bikes with big baskets on the front.

I went inside and called Mary right away. I got her on the phone and told her about the strange interlude that I just had with a couple of very strange women.

"Damn. They found me."

"Who found you?"

"The library."

"The library?"

"Yeah, I owe them some money."

"Well that's no big deal, I'll walk down to the library and write them a check."

"That won't help. You didn't get to close to them did you? You could probably take out Margret, but Stumpy bites."

"What, you know these people? Stumpy?"

"Yeah, Margret and Stumpy are library detectives. They've been after me for a while."

"What?"

"We need to talk."

So over the next 4 hours and forty-seven minutes, Mary laid out all of her altercations with the library enforcement officers. It turns out the scene from the Woody Allen movie where the police tell Wood Allen "to come out with your hands up and kick the book in front of you" was based on a real life event that Mary had with Margret and Stumpy back in Philly. Apparently, that is where Mary learned that Stumpy bites.

After learning about all of Mary's library problems, we decided that it would be easier to pick up and move, than to try to come clean back in Washington. So, when Mary and the kids returned from vacation in the summer of 2010, we quickly loaded up a trailer and moved Mary and the kids into hiding in West Chester. We put Mary into a treatment program and put an ankle bracelet on that would shock her if she got within 200' of a public library.

All is well, or so we thought. Last week, William and I went down to the West Chester public library to checkout a few books. It seems that Mary has gotten a new account using the names of the children. When William and I walked in and handed the librarian our card, red lights started flashing and the doors to the building automatically locked. Margret and Stumpy dropped down from the ceiling repelling on long ropes with night vision goggles and red-laser beam bar code readers attached to the belts of their drab tweed skits.

"Well, Mr. Rogers, we meet again" Margret said.

"This must be William. Come with me." She pointed to me and said, "You stay here with Beatrice." This time Stumpy smiled, revealing a grill with little golden books inlaid in the front teeth. Then she grabbed my arm with a grip that would impress Pop-eye. I looked down at her wrist and saw a tattoo that said "It's a book bust - Bitches!"

"Beatrice?" I snickered. The smile went away then she leaned over and bit my elbow.

In the back room they told William that if he didn't rat out his mom he wouldn't be able to check out any more Animorphs or dinosaur books. He screamed as if he were having bamboo spikes driven under his fingernails. "I'll tell you anything, just let me have my card back!" William cried. 

A half hour later, they are hauling Mary out of the house, bite marks on her elbows. The total from her West Chester rap sheet is $55.10. They haven't calculated what she owes in Washington State, but it is sure to balance out the state budget. If you see Mary out and about, and it looks like she is heading to a public library, please help her out by taking her to Starbucks or something. Do anything you can to keep her away from the library, as it never works out well when she goes there.

See her mug shots here. 

Russell

Website Update

Website update

I am starting to get the hang of the software for my website and have been thinking more about how to organize it. With the Apple service, I created two different websites, one for the family and for the bike club. This of course resulted in two different blogs. With this new site I can't really think of a good reason to maintain two different blogs. When you get right down to it, I could have a separate bike blog, family blog, plant blog, soccer blog so on and so fourth. However, I think that would be cumbersome. Instead, I have decided to merge the family blog and the FABC blog into a new blog called, Le Blog. When I post a family related blog, I'll let family and friends now, and when I do a cycling blog, I let my cycling friends know. Also new is an index for blog entries (on the side bar to the right), which is nothing but a simple list of post from newest to oldest.

Flying Abalone Bike Club website.

The Flying Abalone Bike Club has always be an ill defined conceptual model consisting of a loose confederation of my friends who like to ride bikes, with most of our members working in shellfish, and further still most of those working with abalone. Now that I'm on the east coast, in isolation of all the Flying Abs, I think the conceptual model has become even more ill defined. One thing that I really miss in the northwest is a resource like Gene Bisbee's BikingBis.com. His site is an excellent central location for all things relating to Northwest cycling. I especially miss his ride calendar. There are few similar things here in the Delaware Valley that comes close to what Gene has done. So, I think I might transform the FABC mission to something similar for our region. I'll have to think about how to organize such a thing.

Photos

To the right you will see a heading called "Galeries." Listed below it are photo collections for family, art and plants. Just click on the gallery that you want to see and start browsing. The plants photos have two directories, one with thumbnails photos for each family of plants that I have identified and the other is a simple list of all the families of plants found in Pennsylvania with a link to the gallery of photos for that family.

Most of March and April I have spent birding and botanizing. I've been visiting a local place called the Stroud Reserve, which is only about 3 miles away. I'll post more about that later. As time allows, I'll create other pages as I had on the last website. But for now, the way it is now will have to do.

In the mean time, here is a painting by our friend Nancy Stroud from the small collection of art that Mary and I have. Check out the others in the" Art on N Franklin Street" gallery to the right, then go to the Moore-Rogers Collection. I think you will agree that I have some talented friends. 

Let me know what you think, or if there are ways to improve it, or if there is something you would like to see.

Russell

Ride lots, stop often 

Soccer Season?

Major League Soccer has been underway now for almost a month. Today Steve and I went to the third home game of the year for the Philadelphia Union. 

Up until today, we have not had much to be happy about, other than our intrinsic need to be present at the games. Not only have the Union been winless, but the last game had weather more appropriate for a outdoor hockey game. Here is our friend Nancy trying to keep her sprits up at our mini tailgate. 

The last home game was particularly hard because the opposing team was the Vancouver Whitecaps, whose star player is Sebastian le Toux who was formerly the Union's star player. On the up side of that game it was a draw at 0-0, so it wasn't a loss. 

Today however things turned around with the Unions first win of the season! A 1-0 win over Columbus. Steve predicted that the Union would win 1-0 with a controversial call in the last five minutes of the game. That was close as they won with a controversial call in the last five minutes of the first half. The call was a hand ball at the net against Columbus which resulted in a penalty kick for the boys in blue. The best part of today's game was the weather which was great, a little overcast but temperatures in the low 70's. 

One thing about today that was a downer was that Rico couldn't make it down for the game as he was busy moving to his new studio in Brooklyn. The next home game is against the San Jose Earthquakes on April 28th. 

Check out photos from our soccer foray's here.

Russell

Pennsylvania: the bicycle friendly state?

Year after year the League of American Cyclist ranks Washington State first place as the most bike friendly state in the County. Now that I no longer live there, I can tell you that I whole-heartedly agree with their assessment.

However, I think Pennsylvania might be giving them a run for their money. Why? I'll tell you why. On April 1^st a new law went into place that makes up for the lack of no shoulders to ride on here. In Pennsylvania giving cyclist three feet wasn’t good enough. Nope, we had to have four! The widest margin for cars passing cyclist in the country.

Not only will this law make it safer for cyclist, it also puts more of the law on their side if there is an accident. Here is an overview of what is now in place;

• Bicyclist shall keep to the right. While this has always been the case, the new law allows for cyclist to take any position in the lane to be safe. It allows for the cyclist to “control the lane” and move at a speed that is appropriate for the cyclist. An example would be on a narrow street with parked cars. The cyclist is allowed to ride well to the left to avoid being doored. Any vehicle that comes up behind the cyclist must conform to the speed of the cyclist.
• Cyclist’ do not have to move of the roadway if going slower than prevailing motorist if they are traveling at a reasonable speed for cyclist. This reiterates cyclist have a right to the road.
• Any vehicle overtaking a cyclist properly on the left shall allow at least 4 feet distance from the cyclist. To achieve this motorist are allowed to legally cross a centerline, even in a no passing zone. However, it is the motorist responsibility to pass only when it is safe to do so.
• Motorist’ are prohibited from making right turns into or across the path of a cyclist proceeding straight. Motorist should stay well behind cyclist and wait until they have passed the point where the motorist will turn. This formalizes what should be common sense.

When I moved to Pennsylvania I checked the PENDOT website to see what rules were in place for cyclist. Much to my surprise, the state used pretty strong language to encourage cyclist to stand up for their rights to the road. Check out the website here (note: the navigation bar for this website is at the bottom of the page).

Of course, it is up to local law enforcement as to whether or not the laws will be enforced. This is usually a weak link with many bicycle/car issues. There is hope that things are moving in a good direction here. Only hours after the law went into effect, it was used to charge a driver who struck a cyclist and tried to flee the scene. Checkout a news link about the incident here. Bob Mionske also had a good column recently about progress in this direction.  

So far, I have not had any cars buzz me since the law went into effect. Let’s hope it stays that way!

Russell

Ride lots, stop often!

The Birds of Grapevine

Just for the record, here is a list of all the birds I saw in the Mountains of North Carolina, 1-6 April 2012.

1. Great Blue Heron
2. Canada Goose
3. Mallard
4. Wood Duck
5. Turkey Vulture
6. Black Vulture
7. Broad-winged Hawk
8. Red-tailed Hawk
9. American Kestrel
10. Ruffed Grouse
11. Wild Turkey
12. Mourning Dove
13. Belted Kingfisher
14. Red-bellied Woodpecker
15. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
16. Downy Woodpecker
17. Hairy Woodpecker
18. Northern Flicker
19. Pileated Woodpecker
20. Eastern Phoebe
21. Blue-headed Vireo
22. Blue Jay
23. American Crow
24. Tree Swallow
25. Barn Swallow
26. Tufted Titmouse
27. Carolina Chickadee
28. White-breasted Nuthatch
29. Carolina Wren
30. Golden-crowned Kinglet
31. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
32. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
33. Eastern Bluebird
34. American Robin
35. Hermit Thrush
36. Northern Mockingbird
37. European Startling
38. Northern Parula
39. Black-throated Green Warbler
40. Black-and-white Warbler
41. Yellow-throated Warbler
42. Ovenbird
43. Northern Cardinal
44. Eastern Towhee
45. Field Sparrow
46. Chipping Sparrow
47. White-throated Sparrow
48. Song Sparrow
49. Swamp Sparrow
50. Dark-eyed Junco
51. Western Meadowlark
52. Brown-headed Cowbird
53. Red-winged Cowbird
54. Common Grackle
55. House Finch
56. American Goldfinch
57. House Sparrow

Not a bad start for spring!

Ride lots, stop often

Russell

The Rest of the Trip

I ended my last post on the Family Blog with " The day was put to rest with a yummy dinner of home made pulled pork BBQ, coleslaw, and hush puppies. The boys made it an authentic southern meal by washing it all down with a coke-cola." Well later that night Paddy got to experience it all again as he started throwing up around 2:00 AM. Actually Grandma did as well as he was sleeping in her bed! Ugh. His illness was short lived and by the middle of the following day he was all better, as you can see by this photograph. 

Most of the rest of the visit was nice and relaxing. The kids stayed up late watching TV and playing computer games. I got up early and went bird-watching. By the time I got back they were up and feed. Afterwards it was play in the creek or computer, watch TV or just lay around time. By mid day, I would take off for a bicycle ride. Then, when I got back it was dinner time. Afterwards the kids would stay up late, and we would begin the process over again.

One rainy day Grandma took the kids to see a movie, "Mirror-Mirror." Grandma, William and Paddy gave it three thumbs up. Emily gave it two thumbs down. But she is a teenager and simply hasn't figured out how to operate her thumbs in that manor just yet.

William and Paddy did get to ride the horses one day. That was pretty exciting. They also got to help brush their hair and give the a wash down as well. Not something we get to do here in West Chester very often despite the fact that this is horse country. 

On Saturday we got an early start and headed back to West Chester. Again, we had absolutely no issues along the way. It was a nice drive back in fact. By 5:00 PM we were back home and happy to see Mary.

It was a fun trip and we are happy that we now live close enough to make move visits! We are certain to head back again soon.

Check out photos of the rest of the trip here. Also, a side not about the photos. Up till now, I've been loading photos much to large for the website and have been trying to readjust them. Some of the last photos are a little different. Let me know if you have any trouble viewing the photos or have any other issues with the site. I'll try to correct it.

Russell

Sap Sucking Parasite!

For those of you who may not know it I have a special place in my heart for parasites. especially Dipterian (flies) parasites of birds and mammals. I find the ecology of parasites endlessly fascinating.

On one of my bike rides this week I spotted another pretty cool parasite. This one a plant, Conopholis americana, commonly called squaw-root or cancer-root.

Conopholis americana, 4 April 2012, Fisher Branch, near Mars Hill, North Carolina.

Unlike most other plants C. americana has no chlorophyll and does not require any light whatsoever. It gets everything it needs from the roots of other plants. More specifically, actually, quite specifically, oak trees.

Much to my surprise, it appears that not much is known about the life history of this species. The bulk of the plant is in the form of a gall that is attached to the roots of oak trees. What you see in the photograph is the flower stalks that push up through the ground about 3-8 inches. One of the few studies that I found stated that it appears to be largely autogamous (self-pollination), however, some pollination by insects, such as bumblebees, has been documented. How it's seeds are distributed and how those seed find the roots of oak trees seems to be largely a mystery, although some long distance seed dispersal has been documented through mammals, mostly white-tailed deer.

It is found in eastern North America from Nova Scotia, west to Iowa and Wisconsin and south to Mississippi and northern Florida. In the states of New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island it is considered threatened. There is a very similar species C. alpina found in the mountains of New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, which is an obligate parasite to ponderosa pines.

In addition to its interesting life history, I think it just looks pretty darn cool, and so does William.

Ride lots, stop often,

Russell

Riding Grapevine, Stinking Willies, and the Land Speed of a Turkey

This post comes to you in triptych form; bicycle, bicycle botany, and bicycle birding.

Bicycle: Riding Grapevine

The kids and I are spending the week at Grandpa and Grandma's house in the mountains of western North Carolina. They live on Fisher Branch (a branch is a small stream that a healthy Appalachian resident could easily jump over. The key word is healthy. This eliminates 95% of the population of Western North Carolina), which is near the community of Center (a fork in the road), which is near the community of Petersburg (an actual cross road), which is near the town of Mars Hill (a real town), which is about 16 miles north of Asheville, North Carolina. Needless to say, they are up in the hills.

The road that leads from Center to Fisher Branch is Grapevine. Grapevine is a road that is about 7.3 miles long. It runs the length of Grapevine Valley, which is only a few miles long. The rest of Grapevine road goes up and over Walnut Mountain to Big Laurel Road in Big Laurel. Got that? Don't feel bad, I ain't got it either. What's important is that Grapevine road crest Walnut Mountain at approximately 3163' in elevation. When you ride your bike from Fisher Branch to Big Laurel it is a round trip ride of about 14.6 miles with about 2000' of elevation gain (see a map of the route here). It takes about an hour and a half. All in all it is a pretty good workout with some fantastic views. Like this one.

Bicycle Botany: Stinking Willies

On the way up and to the pass on Walnut Mountain the pace is kind of slow. Slow enough that a cyclist can glance over and check out the flowering plants as you go. Coming up on the far side of Walnut Mountain I passed a small stream that was loaded with many different kinds of flowering plants. The most dominant amongst them was a species of Trillium.

This is Trillium erectum. Here is a good example of why the use of the scientific name is a good ideal.

Scientific Name: Trillium erectum (L.)

Common Names: Wake Robin, Red Trillium, Purple Trillium, Stinking Trillium, Birthroot, Beth Root, Stinking Benjamin, Stinking Willie, Birth Wort, Nodding Wake-Robin, Bathroot, Bathwort, Bath Lily, Nosebleed Trillium, Ill-sented Trillium, Indian, Shamrock, Squawroot, Lamb's Quarters, Ground Lily, Wood Lily, Daffy Downlily, Jew's Harp Plant, Milk Ipecac, Pariswort, Rattlesnake Root, Bumblebee Root, Truelove, and last but not least, Three-leafed Nightshage.

The reasons that T. erectum has acquired so many common names are many. One reason is because it is a showy plant that is wide spread in eastern North American so many people (other than plant nerds) take notice of it. It is also highly variable, coming in white, red, purple, pink, and rarely yellow and green, leading people to believe that they were different plants. It was also used for medicinal purposes by early midwives and Native American cultures as something that would induce labor or help control hemorrhaging during childbirth. And as some of those names imply, it also smells to high heaven. Like skunk cabbage it is a plant that uses the smell of rotten meat to attached pollinators like flies and beetles. The common names that caught our attention was "stinking willie." When we pointed this out to William he screamed "Oh no! Another reason for Emily to torture me!" Back in Grandpa Gene's yard there was a deep red one blooming. Same species different flavor!

As I mentioned above it enjoys a wide distribution through eastern North America. In North Carolina is primarily found the western mountains. It Pennsylvania it is found in almost every county except Chester! So, I'm going to enjoy it while I'm here.

Bicycle Birding: The land speed of a Turkey

Coming down Walnut Mountain may sound like an easy thing. However, it is almost as difficult coming down as it is coming up. The reason is for the winding road, with many hairpin turns and blind curves, that is starting to deteriorate with gravel and sand in the most unwanted places. Going up the workout is with your legs. Coming down it is with your forearms because you are applying the breaks where possible without skidding over the side.

Coming down you always want to make sure you stay in your lane because a car coming up would certainly take you out. Today, I round a curve and found something else to worry about. A male (tom) American Turkey jumped in front of me with on a few feet to spare. I was able to slow down enough as to avoid and negative outcome for both the large dark chicken and cyclist alike.

Once the situation was under control the turkey did the oddest thing in that it ran straight down the road about 10 feet in front of me. We rounded a bend and it kept on running. I laughed out loud (lol) at the way it dashed down the road; a view of a turkey that I have never seen. I glanced down at my speedometer and was impressed that this bird that I always thought of as clumsy and somewhat gangly moved along at a steady 16+ mph! After about 100 yards of this we got to one bend and the turkey simply ran off the edge of the road, spread it's wings and flew up into a tree. I chose not to follow suit, made the turn and continued down the mountainside via the road.

Ride lots, stop often,

Russell

Spring Break

This week is spring break for the kids in the West Chester School District. If the rest of West Chester's kids are as happy about this as our kids are then the area is a utopian paradise like none other at the moment. Except for Mary. Mary doesn't work in the West Chester School District. She works for the Catholic Church. Which as (un)luck would have it has classes Monday through Wednesday. With the kids off for a week and dad being unemployed we seized the opportunity to strike out to the open road for trip to North Carolina to see grandma and grandpa.

At 5:30 AM on April 1st we woke the kids and told them that we were really off to Disney World! Then we reminded them it was April 1st. Parents are mean sometimes, but such is the way of the world. By 6:00 AM sharp, we said our goodbye's to Mary and hit the road. Mary, by the way, isn't to broken up about this. She will have the week free of any parenting duties and on the day's she has off she is planning to visit her brother Kevin up in Jersey City.

We are very, no, extremely happy to report that our trip down to North Carolina was completely uneventful. As you may remember when we did this trip last year we got half way there and we ran into engine problems with our old Honda. The kids slept for until about 8:30 when we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Then we drove until we needed gas, which was also lunch time. We stopped and made sandwiches, used the potty, and ran around for about 30 minutes. Then we got back in the car and didn't stop again until we got to Fisher Branch, North Carolina. We did the trip in 10 hours and 45 minutes.

We pulled up to the house just as a gully washer of an afternoon thunderstorm set in. Wow. For all the rain that western Washington gets we never got rain like that. Fortunately, it was short lived. We were all pretty worn out, but a yummy dinner of fried chicken helped rejuvenate our spirits.

Today we woke up to pancakes. Actually, I should correct that statement because Emily didn't wake up until about 11:30. I suspect she watched a lot of TV last night. After breakfast I don't know what the kids did as I headed out into the woods to look for birds and wildflowers. It was mostly a pretty lazy day. The kids did some fishing in the pond. Emily wore surgical gloves so the wouldn't have actually touch a fish in the off chance she actually caught a fish. I went for a bike up and over Grapevine (the mountain ridge at the end of the road). When I returned from my bike ride, William and Paddy were having a contest to see who could get the dirtiest. Paddy won by a wide margin. Grandma and Grandpa's friend Sean down later in the day and did some horse grooming, which the boys enjoyed.

The day was put to rest with a yummy dinner of home made pulled pork BBQ, cole slaw, and hush puppies. The boys made it a authentic southern meal by washing it all down with a coke-cola.

Check out more photos in the album here.

More later!

Russell

Back in the Saddle

Bicycle Botany: Bloodroot (Sanguinaria candaensis L.) blooming on a roadside in Chester County on 26 Mar 2012. 

At long last, I have our new site up and running! On my last post on the old website I stated that I was having some health issues, which included, but was not limited to, joint pains, cramping, extreme fatigue, numb toes, general malaise, to name a few. 

My bike riding was going great up to December then it fell of quite dramatically. Before December I could do 40 mile plus rides and maintain a healthy pace of over 18 mph (a good pace here with all of our rolling hills). Then in December I was struggling to do a 20 mile ride in an hour and 45 minutes. And when I got home from those epic 20 mile rides I was absolutely drop dead exhausted as if I had ridden ten time that many miles. 

My best guess as to what was going on was a tick illness. Back in November I did get a tick bite from an Ixodes tick, the type known to carry Lyme Disease. So, I went to my doctor to get a blood test. The test came back mostly negative (these blood test for Lyme Disease of not very precise). However, what it did show was that I had a severe vitamin D deficiency. Humm....

The doctor said that normal levels of vitamin D in your blood were 33-100. Mine was seven. The doctor said that many of my symptoms could be attributed to low vitamin D. So, they put me on some heavy dosages of vitamins.

This turned things around almost immediately. I have now gone through an eight week course extra D and I'm felling pretty good. Last week I managed to do a 50 mile ride with a 17.5 mph average without any issues as before. So things are looking up!

Another thing that I talked about in one of my last post was my goal of riding my bike on February 29, April 17 and September 23 as they are the only dates on the calendar in which I have never ridden my bike. I have already failed at this. The whole week of February 29 Paddy was home sick and I just wasn't able to jump on my bike at all that day. Oh well. My next chance to close out that date will be in 2016 when I will have a high school senior, high school freshman, and a fifth grader! Holy Mackerel. 

My riding thus far this year is at a much reduced pace with only about 900 miles logged. One reason for this is stuff like the photo above. As spring unfurls in my first east coast spring in tweny years I am seeing many plants that I haven't seen in a long time. When I see a new and interesting plant, I just have to stop and check it out. So you can expect more bicycle botany in future post. 

This one is commonly called bloodroot because of its reddish-orange sap. The genus name Sanquinaria comes from the latin word sanguis which means blood. This is amongst the eariliest blooming wildflowers that I have noticed here. It is also a native plant to North America. Most of the flowering plants that I have seen so far have been introduced. More on that later. 

That's it for now. Ride lots and stop often!

Russell

A New Beginning!

The last blog post on our old site was way back on February 11th about me meeting Sebastian le Toux, the famous soccer player. The post prior to that was January 8th about birthdays that occurred in December. So really, we need to do some catching up for the first three months of 2012! 

As with all kids, ours are growing like weeds. Emily quite literally so as she is as tall as Mary now. She has gotten into fencing and seems to really enjoy it. This past week she got her own sword and outfit with helmet. She has chosen to do epee, which is one of three types of swords used in fencing. I wanted to post a photo of her in her new equiptment but she said she didn't want any photos taken of her. I would have fought her about this but then I realized that she is learning to use a sword, i.e. a weapon, and that I better rethink that a little. I'll get a photo when she is at practice. Don't tell her about my plans...

William is doing great. He and I have been working on models. The first one that we did was a WWII B-17 Flying Fortress. We finished that and moved on to a German U-boat. Those were "level 3" models in terms of difficulty. And we must say that they came out looking great. William, feeling a bit cocky, wanted to move on to "level 5" the hardest level of all. So now, the model that we are working on is the Cutty Sark, Level 5. These are good projects for William as it makes him slow down and be patient. We spend a great deal of time painting the models and try to make them look as authentic as we can. With the Cutty Sark we have learned that when they say "Level 5" the really mean "Level Eleven"! Here are photos of Will with his B-17.

Paddy has accepted sports into his life. He is currently doing basketball and swimming. He did soccer in the fall and is signed up for baseball in the spring. You would think that all the running around would wear him out. If you think that you would be wrong. It doesn't wear him out. It wears Mary and I out. It only seems to get him warmed up. 

Paddy's basketball team is something to see. It is, from what I can tell, the smallest team in the YMCA league with only six players. The other teams of 9 to 11 players. One of the players on Paddy's team has no legs or arms past his knees or elbow. Yet, he runs up and down the court and fights for the ball just as hard as anyone else. He will get the ball take it down court, shoot and score. He may be short in stature but he is ten feet tall in determination. One of the other little guys has a neurological disorder that causes him to trip and fall a lot. My knees hurt just watching him. Three of the other guys have clearly played basketball before. They look like pros at times.

Then there is Paddy, who is still struggling to understand the basic concepts of the game. When he started he just didn't know how to dribble, he was totally unaware that it was required at all. He is now to the point where he has scored a goal three times...in practice. Paddy's real gift to the team is that he can talk trash. Matter of fact, he can talk trash like nobody's business. And he does a lot of it.

For example, at the beginning of the game the teams line up in front of each other so that the players know who they are supposed to guard. One game the referee pointed out Paddy to his opposing player. When he did Paddy leaned forward, took his hand and and formed a peace sign with his index and middle finger and pointed it back and forth to his eyes and his opponent's eyes and said, "yo bro, I'm watching you. Uh-hu, that's right, I said you." Paddy did watch him. He watched him score a lot of points. 

Despite Paddy being the weak link in the team's abilities, they win. Actually the always win, every game, and usually by a lot. Once they are up bay 10-20 points, they start doing a "P play." This is where they feed Paddy the ball and hope he scores. He came close one game. He got the ball, shot, and it circled the rim but fell the wrong way. Our hope is that he scores a goal before the end of the season. Here is a photo of the team in action. Paddy is number One!

I am still looking for work. I've had one interview out of 36 applications! I haven't heard back from the job I had the interview for and I'm still in the running for four jobs with the Federal Government. Mostly there are very few jobs in my career path available here. Most of the environment type jobs are looking for people that have experience with freshwater wetlands. Having spent 11 years in Marine Resources in Washington State is not the best match for such things. However, positions do turn up that I am qualified for and we are sure one will come through at some point. The good news is that Mary's job is stable and she is enjoying what she is doing. It pays just enough for us to get by, which ain't bad!

How is that for our first post on the new website? Let us know what your are up to in your neck of the woods. 

Russell, Mary, Emily, William and Paddy