HayStack Rock

Campobello Island :: Head Harbour Lightstation

Thursday, September 20th - - Also known as the East Quoddy Head Lighthouse, the Head Harbour Lightstation sits on a small island at the northeastern tip of Campobello Island. Built in 1829, it is the oldest surviving lighthouse in New Brunswick and one of the oldest in Canada. Its distinguishing feature is the red St. George Cross on the front.



However, at low tide, this island is no longer an island. I arrived at Campobello too late to take advantage of the low tide and visit the station. Ladders, partially visible in the second photo, allow visitors access to go down and walk across the bay.



The first three photos were taken between 12:45 and 1:30 while the last three were taken between 5:30 and 5:45 (Eastern Time, in reality though they were an hour later because Campobello Island is in the Atlantic Time Zone).

Frozen Fog

3 mornings this week we woke to find a strange world of frozen fog. We couldn't see any farther than our own yard. It was as if the world didn't exist anymore beyond our place. It gave a odd, fantasy-like feel to everything. I took some photos but they don't have the true feel that I was getting as I wondered about. Within a few hours the fog was mostly gone but it was still dark, dreary days. It made me want to hybernate instead of getting out to finish my Christmas shopping.

A Taste of the Radish

As anticipated after our meeting at Interbike,Xtracyclehas sent over a demo model of their Radish long tail cargo bike for me to test ride. I will be picking it up from Harris Cyclery next week, and after trying it for the first time a few days ago, I have a feeling we will get on nicely.Pioneers of the long tail concept, Xtracycle makes two main categories of products: the Free Radical, which is an extender kit that can turn almost any standard bike into a long tail, and a line of integrated longtail bikes. The step-through Radish model has been around since and is available in multiple configurations.The Radish pictured here is the Classic - designed to carry "groceries, cargo of all shapes and sizes, and adult passengers."






As the term "long-tail" suggests, the Radish sports an extended rear end: The back wheel is set back considerably, allowing space for a massive deck to extend along the chainstays. Other than that, the Radish looks like a fairly normal transportation bicycle: lowered stepover, swept-back handlebars, fenders, flat pedals and a chain guard. All it is missing is lights. Current retail prices for the Radish start at $1,220 for a complete bike, bags included.






California-designed and Taiwan built, the frame is welded cromoly steel. The complete bike weighs 43lb.






The 1x9 speed derailleur drivetrain is geared to provide a nice and useful range, including a low 1:1 gear.






V-brakes front and rear.






The cargo deck can serve as a carrying platform for large objects and passengers. It also integrates with XtraCycle's expandable FreeLoader bags, as well as with the optional WideLoader side platforms (not pictured). I am going to experiment while the bike is in my possession and see how well this system accommodates the sort of cargo I am likely to carry.






My initial ride on the Radish was modest. First I rode it completely unloaded, just to see how it would handle in that state. Then I added some photo equipment, my laptop bag, and an armload of random heavy-ish items from Harris Cyclery for extra weight. Here are my first impression notes based on the (4 mile) test ride:




. The unloaded Radish felt surprisingly light to pick up, something the shop staff noticed as well.




. The Radishhandles like a normal, faster-than-average upright bike. There was no learning curve involved in riding it. I would wager that if you can ride an upright bike, you can handle the Radish.




. I could not feel the long-tailness of the bike, even when cornering.




. I could not sense a difference in handling or speed between the Radish unloaded vs lightly loaded. Apparently it will take a lot more than the equivalent of a week's worth of groceries, plus camera equipment, plus laptop bag, for me to feel anything back there.




. Ride quality over potholes was great (26" x 2" tires).




. I like the quick and efficient feel of the derailleur drivetrain.




. The geometry makes full leg extension possible when pedaling, while still allowing me to put a toe down at stops without dismounting.








. The quick release seatpost makes sharing the Radish easy.




. The stepover is pretty low, but still requires leaning the bike toward me in order to step over the top tube. It is not quite as low as a full-on step-through or loop frame.




. The size of the Radish makes it impractical for me to store it indoors (we have a tiny place). I wonder how it will fare when stored outside.




. While my impulse is to say that if the Radish were mine, I'd want a box permanently affixed to the rear, I will give the standard setup a fair chance before jumping to conclusions.



. Aesthetically, I have to admit that I like the Radish a lot; it just looks so darn friendly and adorable.




All of this combined leaves me in eager anticipation of truly putting this bike through its paces and experimenting with various types of cargo. If you are local and interested in taking it for a spin, the Radish remains for a few more days atHarris Cycleryin West Newton, MA, and will return there after my review.

Alta Vista Snow Pit

Howdy Everyone!

This week's snow pit is from the east side of Alta Vista and features the massive amount of new snow that we received during last week's storm cycle.

As you can see from the pit graph, there is small sun crust at the surface (that made for bad skiing) and below that is a 105 cm layer of cold, new snow. This layer has settled about 5" and continues to stabilize. Below this layer there are a number of complex ice crust layers that were observed just below the surface in the Feb. 9th snow pit near The Castle in the Tatoosh Range. These layers remain a source of instability and are acting as release surfaces for the deep slab avalanches that have been occurring in Washington.




Stability tests from the Alta Vista snow pit did not indicate deep instability. The compression, extended column, and the Rutschblock tests had failures either near the surface or did not fail. However, as noted by NWAC, even as the snowpack stabilizes there are still persistent weak layers, and localized areas throughout the region are experiencing large, slab releases.

The forecast is showing another series of fronts that are expected to cross the Northwest through the end of the weekend, bringing significant new snow accumulation. Cautious route finding is encouraged if traveling in the backcountry.

Heineken Brewery Tour: Brew You Ride and Heineken Beer Tasting

Let me highlight the ‘Brew You Ride’ and ‘Heineken Beer Tasting’ we experienced last September at the Heineken Brewery Tour. This is probably the climax of the tour because here we BECOME the beer and we finally get to TASTE the beer behind the visit, even though we’ve probably drank litres and gallons of it already.

Here comes the Brew You Ride. The concept is experiential, it is for the audience (that is me) to BE a beer for a few minutes. So we entered this dimmed studio, that is supposed to be the cistern where we will be brewed =)

We are now inside the cistern, er studio, and we have this big panel screen in front of us and a narrator telling us we are now going to be brewed, step by step. I even felt the studio shake underneath me (that explains why the foto is a bit off!) and water was sprinkled on my face! Cool effects, reminds me of Omniversum in Den Haag and Rialto Theater in Enchanted Kingdom in the Philippines.

Enough of the brewing experience, now the official beer tasting ceremony has began! Give me my beer alstublieft!

She is explaining here why the Dutch cap the froth of the beer (the act of skimming off excess froth with a plastic tool which beer lovers find an abomination) when serving and it has something to do with letting the beer breathe and reach its strength limit or something like that? OK, I admit, I honestly forgot, I was not really listening that well, haha. Shame!

Anywho, it was a very fascinating week of beers because a few days before my visit to Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam, I was at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin as well. I did the self-guided tour, the beer tasting, all the works.

Interested to hear about my final assessment? So which is which? Heineken or Guinness?

*DRUMROLLS* (with splashes of beer in the background)

Answer: Guinness beer of course as I love dark brews but the Heineken Brewery is much, much entertaining and engaging than Guinness Brewery.

More of the Heineken Brewery Tour on my next post.

We All Fall Down?

[image via Nationaal Archief]

Girl on Roadbike: So you've never worn clipless shoes?

Me: Nope.

GOR: Oh you should just do it! It's really easy, honest.

Me: Really?

GOR: Oh totally!

Me: So how did you get the hang of it?

GOR:Well, I fell down all the time at first!

Me: [horrified silence]

GOR:Yeah, it was pretty funny. I'd come to a stop and just go plop!

Me: Oh my God...

GOR:But don't worry, after a couple of weeks you'll be fine!



You see, that right there is what separates me from "normal people" who've grown up playing sports: I see being guaranteed to fall and being told not to worry as completely incompatible notions.



Hopefully I won't jinx myself by writing this here, but I've never fallen off my bike as an adult. When I tell this to experienced cyclists, their reaction is usually "Oh, that's not good. You need to get used to falling." The idea being that, if I have no concept of falling - and more importantly, of how to fall "correctly" - then when it actually happens (the use of "when" instead of "if" is in itself alarming), it's going to be bad. I've been given advice such as to go out and practice falling on some grass, but honestly I cannot imagine doing that unless someone holds a gun to my head... and even then, I'd probably be trying to talk my way out of it!



What exactly scares me about falling I don't know. I don't have a fear of pain, so that's not it (I sat though an emergency root canal without novocaine yesterday, which was honestly not so bad!). Maybe I have a strong self-preservation instinct, and the physical sensation of the fall triggers it. Either way, when I am told that a specific behaviour - like learning to ride clipless - is pretty much guaranteed to make me fall multiple times, I am highly motivated to avoid that behaviour.



How do you feel about the idea of falling off your bike? Is it something you view as an inherent part of cycling (be it for sport, recreation or transportation), or do you believe that it can (and should) be avoided?

Mini fallout

Late yesterday afternoon we had a mini-fallout of spring birds, so we got up early this morning to see if they were still here. They were! In addition to the usual suspects, we heard and/or saw these migrants:

Ruby-throated Hummingbird
White-eyed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Hooded Warbler
Kentucky Warbler
Louisiana Waterthrush
Northern Parula
Worm-eating Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
[Ed - forgot one!]
Green Heron

And maybe - Swainson's Warbler. Maybe. We never saw it, and we're not very familiar with its song. It sounded a lot like a Louisiana Waterthrush's song, only not quite. But I'm remembering that time on a bird count when we chased what I thought was a singing Swainson's warbler for quite a while, scrambling over hill and dale, the ID becoming more concrete with each warblery rendition, and then when we finally saw the bird... Well I can't remember what it was, but it sure as heck wasn't a Swainson's. A lesson in birding-by-ear humility.

A few birds we saw hanging out with the warblers will be leaving us soon and heading north:

Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
White-throated Sparrow
Cedar Waxwings

Oh, and we saw a new yard bird!

Eastern Meadowlark


Many small spiderwebs were visible in the early morning dew.


A bigger web.


Another big one.

I wish I could show pictures of all the migrants we saw, but this is the best I could manage - I don't have the camera for far-away birds.


A Louisiana Waterthrush. They constantly wag their tails up and down when they walk. The Northern Waterthrush looks almost exactly like this, but his song is different.

And if you think that picture is small and fuzzy, you should see the Pine Warbler...


Oh well there's always...

the female Red-bellied Woodpecker at the suet feeder.


The amount of pollen that fell on my binoculars while we ate lunch in the back yard.

O Joshua Tree! O Joshua Tree!

The Joshua Tree isn't really a tree at all, rather, it is a giant yucca plant. The trunk of a Joshua Tree consists of thousands of small fibers and it lacks annual growth rings, making it difficult to determine it's age. New seedlings can grow up to 3 inches per year in their first ten years. After that they grow only 1 1/2 inches per year.

According to park literature, the Joshua tree was so named by a group of Mormon settlers who crossed the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century. The tree's unique shape reminded them of a Biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer.

I was told by a Ranger, that each of the “arms” or the branches of a Joshua Tree was the result of it blooming and flowering. Each bloom creates another branch. The trees bloom in the spring, though they don't all bloom every year. In fact there were some Joshua Trees that were six to eight feet tall without any branches! And then there were other trees with an overabundance of blooms. After flowering, the blossoms drop off, leaving a length of dried stalk. New leaves grow beneath this dead portion, and a new branch begins its growth in another direction. The numerous shapes and sizes of the trees is fascinating.

This was one of the largest Joshua Trees that I saw in the park, perhaps 35 feet high. I don't know what caused it to lose the limb hanging down on the ground but it was somewhat recent damage.

It wasn't the first damage this tree sustained. On the side opposite of the new downed limb was a gaping hole from a loss in the distant past.

It also had one of the most complex branching systems that I saw. It must be very old and is still blooming!

The “furry” nature of the branches helps it to grab and retain moisture from the air.

New branches will grow from the remnants of the flower stalk.

One of the blooms of the Joshua Tree.

And another.

Hole in the Rock

There seem to be more beleivable skulls in these rocks.

Abbie and Kaylah's Baby Lambs

Nathan's brother, Chris, and his wife, Katee lived in Arizona when we were out west. We had fun visiting different places there and even went to the Grand Canyon together. They have moved back to Virginia since then and now live in the house that the three brothers lived in while growing up. We knew they had added animals to their space, but I have not been up there to see all that is going on until this visit.



I hit the jackpot when I did go up, because two babies were born that day. One of them was born minutes before Mom and I arrived and was still all sticky and wet. What a beautiful thing to be a part of!







They are all active in 4-H, and shared some of what they are doing there. Abbie showed us her skills with bracing.



Katee showed off some of the beauties that live here. It was clear to me that she spends a lot of time bonding with the animals and really loves it.











We can't forget about the chickens. Well, you really can't forget about chickens because they won't let you if you are anywhere near them.



Every farm needs a great dog and this was one great dog. I wanted to bring Zoe home with me.



It was so heartwarming to see life and love filling the place that had sat empty for far too long. Do you think I could fit one of these in the RV? It could sleep right next to the horse I am wanting to bring along when we start to travel again! That will be one downside to our lifestyle, no space for the cool animals that the other family members get to own. I guess I will just have to be content to soak up the goodness of their animals when I visit and be the aunt to both the children and the pets.





Living the life in VA!