tomatoes, spiders, and bikes

Tis the season of spiders. Anywhere you walk outdoors, you are likely to walk through a web or strand, or even smack into a spider. I took this picture this morning in a tomato cage of a beautiful yellow garden spider. They are huge, but are quite harmless. This one had a couple of small bugs wrapped up for lunch.

We've had a few 80 degree days, and the tomatoes are booming. I picked four bowls of them this morning, and there's many more that need a couple more days to ripen up. The tomatoes have some yucky fungus. So far, it hasn't affected fruit development, but the plants are looking sad. The stems are not very strong either, so I've picked up several fruits off the ground. Oh well. Next year I know: yellow fungus gets trimmed immediately.

And bikes. I biked out to Rochester on the Lost Bridge trail a few days ago. It's about 13 miles round trip from my house. I am surprised I managed the whole 13 miles pretty much in one go. The last mile home was hard and slow, but I did it. I'm hoping to find some more low-key bike rides, like the critical mass bike ride. I can't afford to pay money or wear fancy clothes. And biking to the far west side to begin a bike ride is too much for me. The Springfield bike club has two weekly rides that go on the Lost Bridge trail, so I hope to go on one of those before winter hits.

I went to the bike shop today, and there was a really sweet used bike. It had a 15" frame, and it fit me well. I couldn't get my feet flat on the ground while in the seat, but pretty close. It has the handle bars kind of raised up, so I wouldn't be hunched over in my seat, killing my shoulders. It's a hybrid bike, meaning it has not thin racing tires or fat mountain bike tires, but ones (new) suitable for city riding. The price? $250. Oh well. Maybe at tax return time I can think about that, but otherwise, I'm going to have faith the universe will provide.

I'm thinking about putting Kaleigh's tag-along on my current bike and trying it out with her. It's not the safest thing in the world, but I hate riding the bus when I could be saving money and getting exercise at the same time. We'll see how it goes.

I'm looking forward to the Rev. Peyton tonight. Hopefully I won't get too trashed I won't be able to bike home.

carey