Another Afternoon in the Wood Gym

Finishing up most of the sawing and chopping of the Sandy wood, and assorted storm scrounge wood.

What I thought would be a quick in-and-out, followed by a nice bike ride ended up being a few hours of heavy lifting and very sweaty work. Turned a 40-something sunny day into one that felt more like a 75-degree day.

Great workout but my back is feeling it. Four rounds were just two when they rolled out of the van.

Tomorrow we'll see just how many calories were burned, or maybe not.

Off-Road and Road Ride Outdoor Exercise Mix

Ingredients, mix equal parts muddy
tires, trail, and downhill, add a dash of snow,
and repeat until cooked.

So, finally back on two wheels after what seemed like an eternity off. In reality it was only a few weeks, but with all the wind, snow, freezing weather and rain we've had, it seemed like a cyclist might have to wait until March for a good riding day.

Well, a good riding day it was not, but good enough.

It wasn't raining; there was no snow — except remnants on the ground; sure it was windy and cold but not as bad as the last two day's bitter cold wind-blasted offerings. Mercifully, It was marginally above freezing in a few sunny spots, and in the relative shelter of the hills, and with the sun on the jacket, it was almost “warm” in a steep, sweaty hill-climbing kind of way.

An oil truck disappears over the brim of
demon Longview

This was almost a carbon copy of a ride I did a few weeks ago to stay out of a similar blustery and frigid wind. Up Longview all the way; down to Beacon, up Summit, a detour round Orchard Farm to check out some tree-trimming action (chainsaw from a bucket) courtesy of AAA Tree Service, and around Ridge Dr. to the trail.

Best part of the ride? The mostly downhill road ride back home with the tires, slinging off all the mud and clay that had become caked between the knobbies. Mud chips were literally flying for the next mile — that's one way to get rid of mud without having to hose the bike down. Besides the garden hose is frozen!

With the temp hovering around freezing, and breathing heavily as I grinded and spun the pedals up the 1 mile Cat 5 hill that is Longview, I was worried cold air on my lungs would set off an asthmatic reaction as it has done a couple of times this winter. Sometimes it's delayed until the next day or the evening. A good nose cleaning halfway up, however, and a good nose-blow into at the top cleared the pipes. Glad I brought some tissues—handy to have on winter rides.

Not sure if I was making good or better time up Longview — one of these days I should time it without the stops for photos and, erm, expectoration.

Once on the trail, the reward is a downhill first. A veer left to a downsloping traverse onto a side trail, then a hard right, down a technical drop T-boning onto the main trail to a hard left. A downhill section over woodchips, down a curb, across a road, then down a fast dirt downhill to the sledding hill. Frozen snow and ice at the bottom means that's a guaranteed wipe-out awaiting. Will take a pass on that.

The trail back up is hard, slow work, granny gear and pie-plate, not unlike parts of Longview, except this time over dirt, roots, mud and woodchips. Detouring over to the right another fast downhill to the sports grounds, and U-turn back up to the hill trail. Right onto the South outlet.

The roots form ledges and steps here, and are excellent for technical climbing practice skills needed at Stillwell. In a few places where the sun was unfettered, the dirt had thawed from frozen to mud. The tire spun losing traction immediately making the this trail a lot more challenging and fun than usual. And back down one more time for a technical downhill, and hard right back up the traverse, to the main trail.

Down one more time halfway to the road crossing and back home via a hodge podge of road routes, behind the church, down to Harbor Acres, up South Road and back home. Done. 59 minutes and x seconds.

Definitely a feel good ride, just the exercise I was craving after a week of cabin fever.

OK the time was sloooow, but there were a lot of stops for pics and technicals.

Distance: 4.92mi, time: 59:52, pace: 12:10min/mi, speed: 4.93mi/h. http://mapmyride.com/view_route?r=2859840343824662529

St. Francis of Assissi ... Bless our Surf

Taken 2/17... in less than 8 days, Pope Benedict resigned (the first pope to do so in 600 years) and by March 13, the Vatican's cardinals elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who chose to be the first Pope Francis. Well here's to you Pope Francis. I think you will enjoy being the shepherd close to the sheep.

Please bless our surf, Long Island, Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey could use a break.

Just Dog-Walking, 3.5 miles, Fresh Air and Hills to Climb

Skating rink for small birds

So if I want a 3.5 miler, or 5K, this is it. Plenty of elevation to go with it. About an hour and a quarter with the fur-missile.

A favorite of Kodog's—at least when it's nice and cold. Marg and I decided to treat Kdog to a long walk and ourselves to a healthy dose of fresh air in the rolling avenues across the other side of the tracks.

And then it snowed

Quite the snowstorm to begin the weekend.

But with the help of a neighbor who generously intervened with his snowblower while we dug out we were done in an hour less — a few hours rather than several. It wasn't so funny for the people who got stuck in snowdrifts on the roads coming home from work Friday.

Here, we were lucky only; 12-15 inches of snow. Further East on the Island and in Massachusetts, it reached 30-40 inches as the winds cranked to up to 60 mph.

Nevertheless, by Sunday, the sun was back in full force shrinking the piled up snow, and allowing for a good outdoors day.

First order of Business was to take Robby up to the Community Chest where he had an interview on a special project. I regrouped at the town dock overlooking Manhasset Bay. Amazingly the dock had been well cleared and was quite walkable.

After picking Robby up, he, Marg were at a loose end for food so decided to give a first try to a new local central asian/Uzbek restaurant named 'Kazan.' It's gotten some good press reviews but having a tough time on Yelp from some very poor reviews.

Some gems here if you stick to the vegetarian fare, such as salad Kazan (great, and reminiscent of caponata, but satisfying as a salad option with some pita, or bread, sold separately), the shepherd salad (great), hummus (seems homemade and great).

We appreciate that and hope it sticks around, because finding restaurants (especially since Mama's Korean restaurant closed) that also serve tasty and authentic vegetarian options here, that cater to those customers, remains a challenge, in particular for my vegetarian wife.

The meat, however was not so great, a little cold, but passable for the price. The home made seasoning redeems it, and is very well done and unique, and the accompanying onion-based salad is a welcome complement.

We went back for a second round the next week, and overall, it's a good choice for the diet conscious if you go the route of grilled meats, shepherd salad, salad kazan, and other vegetable-based side orders, with maybe a little pita or bread on the side.

Small portions and some reasonable prices on appetizers allow you to build a variety of servings to share or taste, if you have a group. Samsa (think samosa in phyllo dough) was very tasty but greasy, and the fried dough crescents with meat — again tasty, inexpensive but, as to be expected perhaps, extremely greasy, and leave a residual greasy taste in your mouth. The salmon kebab was a little more expensive; tasty but a tad fishy. K-dog rated the few leftovers extremely highly. Both my sons enjoyed and would get takeout again. I am not a fan of the texture of the chicken kebab, personally. It had the softness that I'd associate with being smoked over low heat. Looked nice but could have used more of a sear. The lamb kebab was tasty but a little chewy.

Just enough calories in the bank for sawing and splitting some firewood rounds I still had sitting, certainly no excess calories — until I tried the samsa and the dough crescents the next week.

K-dog enjoyed the fruits of the storm the most perhaps, just laying in the snow for the duration of the aftenoon, supervising my work.

Splittin' Pretty

It almost seemed like spring for a day. Despite the around-freezing chill the sun was bright enough to make the yard look almost green.

And if you had black fur, it probably felt even warmer.

Definitely a good day to split some firewood before the funky weather returned.

As clear as it looked in the morning, by evening there were surprises in store; a couple of quick inches of powder snow.

Outside in the night, the flakes sparkled in the streetlamp light. A vast improvement on some of the heavy glop and sleet that has masqueraded as snow in recent years.

But as pretty as it was, the road conditions did not lend themselves to cycling. And splitting wood, while a good arm and shoulder workout, has not really helped in the burning calories department.

Schnooze; Miscalculate; To the Doggo Go the Spoils

So CK calls at 10-ish — "want to go for a paddle?"

Not a bad idea, except it's 30F outside — a little below freezing, and there's ice drifts on the bay.

This would definitely mean wrestling with a drysuit...plus the wind is supposed to be 8-13 out of the North. So we're talking a wind chill of minus-fuhgeddaboudit!

Fine for windsurfing maybe (if it was a 10mph windier) then we wouldn't give a rat's pahtootahy about the wind chill, but paddleboarding in 30 F — the water better be flat.  

LUMBERJACKITIS

On top of that I discover that movement is not coming to quick. Yesterday's log-splitting mini-marathon had taken a toll. And there was the prospect of amore of the same, except involving moving bigger logs at Grand Nanny's.

It did not materialize. The tree fellers took all the wood back to the house next door--from whence the tree was felled.

No matter, for a bit if exercise, surely I could ride the MTB on local roads, up the hill, to the same trail as last week, and back?

First, however, K-dog should have his walk. He deserved every inch of pavement and treeline explored. But the further we ventured down Sandy Hollow, the more I noticed patches of snow that had melted and refrozen into black ice. This was not a good recipe for cycling anything without studded tires.

Ah well, best option is to continue the dog walk and get in a nice hill or two. Up Shell Road the silence was a delight to listen to. So quiet in every nuance of soundless winter tranquility. This is most unusual. It bears stopping and listening to in every whispered detail of distant birdsong or far, far away indistinct background murmur.

Kodog, meanwhile, sniffed on. The treeline above the valley is always an encyclopedia of raccoon scents, a canine olfactory treat and reward for climbing the small but steep hill. We took our time and returned home to more of the same quietude. I stopped to listen to it some more, until some neighbors pulled up in their car, breaking the moment and my gaze into the sky. I would definitely not startup the chainsaw today. Too beautifully calm to disturb.