All things go in cycles — for quite awhile there, my writing was very food-centric, almost to the exclusion of anything else. My concerted effort to post more on the bicycling-side of things perhaps worked too well, as my food-related posting feels a bit sparse of late.
I blame this in part on my slightly blah feelings on cooking in general, as I’ve been feeling unmotivated and [finally] a bit tired of eating primarily from our frozen and root-cellared stores. After a number of months, it began to feel like the same food all. the. time.
Fortunately, spring is here (today’s blustery weather notwithstanding), and abundant fresh, local produce is just around the corner. We’ve already had a few small spinach harvests (from the plants that grew under the low tunnels all winter), and I can’t wait for more.
In the meantime, I finally caved and bought a head of broccoli at the grocery store. That broccoli is the first non-garden, non-local produce (other than onions, garlic, and frozen corn and peas) that I have bought in I don’t know how long. It’s easy to focus on the [still many] foods that we don’t grow ourselves or buy local, but in reality we’ve taken some pretty big steps to lighten our food footprint.
Back on the biking side of things, after debating whether it was worth thirty minutes in the car to meet a Craigslist seller (to buy a life jacket for Sir’s upcoming beach trip), I contacted the seller to set things in motion. Rather then me going to her (over six miles away), she suggested a meeting point conveniently located about two miles from us.
I happily ditched the car for a lovely (though windy and chilly) bike ride and returned home with a worn-once (looks brand new) life vest. Sir approved the purchase and happily wore the vest for the rest of the morning (you never know, our second story apartment could flood — better safe than sorry!).
He’s carrying the pump for my exercise ball, which he pretends is a vacuum cleaner (complete with cute sound effects). Something about the life vest and pump-vacuum combination makes me think of Ghostbusters, though I can’t say quite what, having only watched the movie once, a long time ago. For those of you more familiar with the movie, does my association make any sense?
Her Green Life 
This reminds me of a getup Ben one chose for a local (i.e. in the neighborhood) hike. It included sunglasses, a furry scarf that i knitted in white and cranberry colors, blue wind breaker, and a monkey hat…oh and a yep, this is what I’m wearing look. 🙂 Love self dressing/styling.
Important safety tip: Do not cross the streams!!!