The Best Time of the Year

Our house has a stream (officially Five Mile Run) that runs along the back of our yard and beyond that is big section of green area where there is no housing and all trees and untended land. Combined with the many trees in the developement it gives us a kind of park like environment - one of the big reasons I bought the house in the first place. We get a pretty good variety of wildlife thanks to that little creek and our trees and this morning I was treated to two woodpeckers trying to clean out the insect population in our yard. And my thought was that this is a good omen for the day - I need to get out and enjoy the country. And the country is enjoyable. Everything that was gray and brown last week is now in flower or is turning a brilliant green. The trees are all in bud and many are showing leaves. The flowering trees are a brilliant white and pink and with the early spring they are now in full bloom. And I know, I should have taken my camera - maybe next time. I did an anchor house route today called the Tour d' Manure - lots of farmers out plowing and spreading that good stuff on their fields. Very soon we will be watching corn and soybeans coming up (no snickers please, New Jersey is the Farm State after all). And it was an almost perfect ride: the temperature was 80 when I got home, the first time this year I've gone out short sleeves. I did about 45 miles with a few hills and am getting better at coordinating my heart rate with my cadence; that little Garmin is a great training tool, I wish I had started with it twenty or so years ago. Quite honestly the only thing missing is people. I have always been kind of a lone rider, mostly because when I was working I could never coordinate with someone else's schedule and almost every ride was opportunistic and spontaneous. The cross-country ride spoiled me I think. I now go out and I wonder how George is doing, whether Jim has pulled up to the hotel, where Mike might be - and usually it was easy to see Hank and Champ and maybe Nancy for lunch or a D Q. In an ideal world an XC ride would be something to do every year....(but don't tell Susan I said that).