Thank You Sir, May I Have Another

I owe all my middle tn riding friends an apology for the weather. See, I was supposed to be out in Colorado to race worlds this past week but life, as it tends to do, decided to intercept the fun ball and take it home. Since my mood controls the weather, the rain we've had all week has been my fault. Case in point, I was happy earlier when riding and the weather was dry and partly sunny. Now that I'm sad the weekend is ending and the work week is about to start, it's raining again. So be nice Peter or I'll make it snow up there.


Knowing the local trails would be saturated and still waiting on a full paycheck to fill the coffers, a road ride close to home was the best available plan for the weekend. I'd taken Mon-Fri off of the bike not wanting to run my immune system down after all the immunization rounds forced upon me for work. So, eager to get in some good miles, I put out a notice on the local board of the ride and as is usually the case, no takers responded. So I unplugged and hung out with the pups expecting a solo adventure early Saturday morning. Luckily the Great Fondoadie with his multi-pronged communications got word to me that he was interested in joining in if it wasn't raining too badly. Sweet.

We rolled out under high humidity and dark skies that threatened to open up on us, but they never did. Instead the sun peaked out from time to time just to keep the humidity just this side of horribly muggy. The Great Fondoadie is coming off a strong season and is still in beastly shape, but luckily I played our route to my strengths and saved the longer climbs for the end of the ride.

A repeat for Sunday, though this time I had about 5 others interested, only to loose them as the departure time approached due to myriad reasons. Just as I was about to give up having company on the ride the Great Fondoadie showed up ready to ride, though this time he brought his big guns out, his super beast Bianchi race bike. No prisoners was his creed today.


I took him out on a newer to me route that doesn't have the long steep climbs typical of the Highland Rim but rather 6% or less gradual rising climbs and punchy power rollers. As anticipated, the route played to his strengths and he had me dangling off the back in the pain cave for much of the ride. As the grades steepened and lengthened I was able to take a few hill tops and an occasional mailbox sprint to keep from coming home empty handed, but my arse was still handed to me. It was just the beat down I've been needing. I came home having left everything out on the course and the tank drained. Thanks for coming out Jeremy!

In other news...


JD has long been a huge admirer of Dish. Pretty much since he first met him. Dish on the other hand took a while to warm up to the idea of another dog in the house after getting used to being the only kid for a while. I'd estimate that JD probably loves Dish more than he does me or H. It's been interesting to watch them as JD matures. When Po was a puppy she didn't have other dogs to really learn from and was more human natured than canine natured. JD follows Dish around and copies whatever he does. He follows him around the fields, watched him get up on the couch then tried to get up it himself, watched him get in and out of the truck, and swim in the river.

Having Dish around to help teach the urchin has been great and a completely foreign experience for me. He's like a big brother and it's interesting to watch the interaction between the two. For instance:

Dish is now playing with JD and tug-o-war is the coveted game outside of chase.

Then there's the chilling out in front of the barn

And how to nap on the couch.

And how to sleep on the bed.

The girls also got a ceiling and front wall installed in the tack room the weekend I worked. That led to interior decorating and painting the walls. I came home from work to find them less than 1/2 way through the first coat painting. They'd been painting for hours and I expected them to be further along. That was before I realized they were painting the cinder blocks, yeah like trying to paint a sponge.

Vogue: When painting, it is best to match and be aesthetically pleasing to the motif

Luckily I was able to spend the Slumlords' money and got a Wagner power sprayer. Hell yeah, power tools!! 45 minutes later and the first coat was done. Pizza, beer, and football followed (Joe has me in training) with the Slumlords. 19 coats (or so it seems) later and the tack room is coming along nicely in it's JD inspired brown, cream, and beige color scheme.

More rain and work are on the schedule for next week. Hopefully I'll be able to ride in more as it sucks driving in when it's raining as it's more sitting still in traffic than actual driving. Though the schedule at work seems to be settling down some and I'm hopeful for some regular hours to kick in for a while. Oh, and flu shots start tomorrow too, whoot!