Just for fun...

[JGcycle]

Inundated with blackberry here. Before I went tubeless I got 3 flats, all from blackberry thorns.
But... they are delicious!

Here, the blackberry brambles are well over 10' high...

I love blackberries--they're my favorite berry.

 

[PedalUma]

This is something I wrote early last month, titled Thorn Season.

It is Thorn Season for cyclists in Northern California from August 7th through to the first rains in November. The best solution is to not go off-road with your bike during Thorn Season. One bike today had 50-80 thorns in each tire. The thorns are barbed and break off in the tire and only go one way, in.

What are the plants that cause the vast majority of bike flats in our area during Thorn Season?



Goat heads, Tribulus terrestris, or bad land in Latin. Stay far away from areas with this plant. It can often be found in sidewalk expansion cracks.

Yellow Star Thistle, Centaurea solstitialis in Latin, or yellow star. Satay away from areas with these. The barbs are microscopic and the thorns long. A landscaping crew can weed whack these and rake them, but that disburses the thorns by bike paths.

Wild Blackberry, Rubus moluccanus in Latin, or Spice Islands Blackberry. Even when you do stay away from growing blackberry bushes they are still often along creeks and bike paths. Crews will cut them back and use power blowers to clean up, thus spreading the thorns out on to paths and trails.

Although not a plant, avoid riding behind restaurants that serve wine, such as their alley ways. It is nice to avoid cars by using alleys, but those wine bottles drop out of their bins on recycling pick up days, spreading shards of glass. Brown beer bottle glass is especially hard to spot. During Thorn Season it does not rain in Northern California, and this glass accumulates behind restaurants with nothing to wash it away.

Copywritten Material by PedalUma.com.

 

[BlackHand]

This was an 8-10ft wide trail, it kept getting narrower and narrower until the clear space was only about a ft across.

 

[PedalUma]

My friend Natalie has a coffee shop and just got her beer and wine license, so I added a hint at that. I wanted to take a negative and make it good PR for my friend. It got published and became the subject of the editorial cartoon with a skunk talking to his therapist. Okay, so here is the story I submitted to the local paper that they fact checked and edited:





A skunk-at-the-garden-party situation in Petaluma recently reminded locals of the endless unpredictability of local wildlife.

The incident, disrupting an otherwise calm morning on Friday, Aug. 22 just outside Petaluma’s Grand Central Cafe, began with a woman screaming.

“Oh, God! Now what?” thought Natalie Vinueza, co-owner of the riverside coffee and community destination.

“A skunk! A skunk! A skunk!” the woman shrieked.

Vinueza jumped to her feet, summoned her husband and business partner, Juan Carlos, and together they ran outside.

Although they had smelled a skunk earlier that morning, Vinueza said, the couple was surprised at what they saw: The woman, while throwing away a coffee cup, had startled a skunk inside one of the garbage cans and gotten sprayed. Some other people were in the line of fire and also were sprayed.

The unlucky customers were there that morning for a singalong led by local music teachers Tyler Johnson and Julia Cramer, who host a free preschool music hour as part of a grant from Play It Forward Music Foundation. On this particular Friday, they were performing to a crowd of no less than 30 kids and their caregivers.

Once the hullabaloo had died down, Juan Carlos placed the lid over the can and kept the skunk there until animal control could arrive a few minutes later. They safely retrieved the animal and removed it from the premises.

Vinueza said they removed the skunk-infused garbage can.

With the incident finally over, the Vinuezas said they went back to their cafe, grabbed a Henhouse Saison Ale, sat down in one of their Adirondack chairs, and looked over at the river, wondering, “What else does the day have in store?”

The normally skunk-free Play it Forward Preschool Music Hour takes place every Friday from 10-11 a.m. at Grand Central Cafe, 226 Weller St., Petaluma.

 

[PedalUma]

What would you do if you found a dubious joint in the crack of your couch?

 

[JGcycle]

What would you do if you found a dubious joint in the crack of your couch?

I would start wondering: when was Willie Nelson here?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@Chargeride: While blackcurrant in the form of jam or juice is manageable, the fresh fruit and the bush just stink It is a very strong odour I can't stand. The smell is reflected in the Eastern Slavic (not Polish) name of the bush: smorodina (literally: something that stinks).

When I was a 9 or 10-yo kid, my family lived at home with a huge garden. We hag sour cherries, sweet cherries, strawberries, wild strawberries, redcurrant, white currant, numerous vegetables (such as peas), and, well, some blackcurrant. I got ill and was spending days in the bed. Meanwhile, my Grandma called in; she had the idea to make blackcurrant jam. It was the worst what could have happened to me at that time. I turned out to be allergic to some antibiotic with a bad skin reaction; my body stank. Add to that the stink of blackcurrant and you may understand how badly I felt that summer...