The last few weeks have been busy, now that the more temperate weather of Autumn has settled in until November gets its "Winter is Coming" script in gear.
Two weekends ago we had our annual ebike group ride from our farm, hosting 37 very happy very jovial fun loving ebikers with a great ride (best part besides the 25 miles of gorgeous scenery and equally gorgeous roads was passing a group of road bike cyclists going the opposute way on the road and hearing one of their group exclaim out loud in astonishment "those are all ebikes!!!!") . At the end of the ride we all returned to the farm for a fabulous catered lunch which received rave reviews. We all had a blast, over 60 photos were uploaded to the club site for everyone to share, and our farm is already on the club schedule for a repeat October ride in 2023.
We took 2 days to recover, and then once again we were swamped with things to do at home before I could find time to sit on one of my bikes again.
The day before yesterday I stole two hours to cruise down my adopted road to do some litter pick up using the LaFree and it's modified trailer for the litter bags, and just enjoy being back out on the bike again. During our recent hosted ride the trees had presented themselves at close to peak color (thank you, Ma Nature, for that perfect timing), but a recent storm afterwards, and another week of declining sunshine, had sent a great number of leaves to the ground, and turned the majority of the remaining leaves clinging to the trees from their brilliant reds and yellows to a dull brown . Even the normally colorful mountains were looking a bit tired and ready for a white winter.
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Back on the gravel roads the more protected trees tucked in the woods safe from the winds still had some leaves worth a peek. But for the most part we are past the season already.
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I have noticed that we haven't had a lot of "leaf peekers" touring our roads this Fall. I'm guessing the ever rising heart-attack-inducing gas prices have put a dent in most people's frivolous plans to ride around the countryside in their cars just to look at trees. We still are seeing lots of cyclists, however.
Yesterday I managed to steal some time away again to hop on the Gazelle this time and try for at least a 30 mile ride. You know that old saying by Robert Byrnes "The best laid plans...yadda yadda". Had I not stopped to visit several neighbors to catch up on the news, I'm sure I would have easily gotten in those planned miles instead of the 12 miles I ended up with on my GPS. But by 12 miles i had run out of time and needed to get home to drive to the store for a plumbing fixture, and then rush to a friend's farm to go riding with her (horses, this time) while hubby fixed the plumbing at home.
I did get some lovely pics from the 12 mile ride which I'm happy to share:
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Above shows were I was headed, while below....
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...showed where I had come from.
The views to one side of the road...
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and the other side....
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I was honestly surprised to see this local pond (in the picture below) at such a low level. I'd believed we'd had more rain than this water level showed. The water should have been to the top of the basin.
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The hay fields have all been cut, the hay rolled or baled, and the product now sitting in the fields ready to be picked up, stored, or sold at the farm auctions.
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The holiday decorations are still holding court at most of the driveway entryways enroute. This is a neighbor's farm just a bit down the road from me. Their maples are just now coming into their colors which make a nice backdrop for a close-up shot of their pumpkin display under their farm sign.
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Today will be a free day with gorgeous weather, so maybe I might just get in that 30 mile ride...if I don't run into too many neighbors to entice me to stop for a chat, in which all bets for a long ride are off. We shall see!
Oh, and least I forget - our new solar array has captured enough sunlight since going "live" on August 13th to record a total of 4 million Watt hours. We have "banked" for future use with our electric company (as of yesterday) a touch over 1 million watt hours of power. (Gleeful fist pump) We are in our electric company's Net Zero program, so they take all our excess power, and "return" it to us for free as our needs increase. Once the cold winter weather moves in, we will have plenty of banked electricity to pull from our account for the house's energy devouring dual heat pumps, and not have to use any of the electric company's power. It is nice having just a $6.65 monthly electric bill (a "connection fee") rather than monthly bills in the $200 range. Every day that we have sunshine, I'm thrilled. We put a lot of daily miles on our electric car and that sucks a lot of kilowatts when the car is plugged in at home to recharge. Recharging the bikes is just a small sip of power, thankfully. Sorry for the brag, but I'm just really happy with my solar. I'd waited a long time for it to be a reality, and it's turning out to be everything I had hoped it would.