Heartland Trail

The family's heading to Nevis to ride the Heartland Trail. We also plan to wet a fishing line -J- <^><) swim and cruise Lake Belle Taine. Bring on the heat.

Here's my latest order of green coffee beans from Sweet Maria's. I chose lots of smaller lots, as I haven't tried any of these coffees before. I hope to find some new favorites.

Peru Organic Cusco Canelon Small Producers - 2 lbs
Brazil Cup of Excellence - Fazenda Sertaozinho - 1 lbs
Ethiopia Organic Shakiso Sidamo 'Maduro' - 2 lbs
Sumatra Grade 1 Mandheling - 2 lbs
Tanzania Nyamtimbo Peaberry - 2 lbs
Ethiopia FTO DP Sidamo Shoye Union - 2 lbs
Sulawesi Wet-Process Toarco Flatbean - 2 lbs
Kenya Kiambu Peaberry - Riuki - 2 lbs
Costa Rica Finca La Ponderosa 100% Bourbon - 2 lbs
Ethiopia Organic Yirga Cheffe, Koke Coop - 1 lbs

Outstanding Weekend

Starting us off Friday, we went to Ling-Hui's graduation ceremony. The red ribbon and hidden medal indicate that she earned highest honors for students with G.PA.s of 3.75 and higher.
Saturday we went to Afton State Park for some hiking, geocaching and playing in the St. Croix River. The water was still cool, but I'd have swam if I had a suit.
Sunday morning Ling-Hui woke up early and made buttermilk pancakes from scratch +. The cool part of it was that the kids and I made the butter in the foreground by shaking up heavy cream. The buttermilk for the pancakes was the by product of our butter making.
To finish off the weekend I took the Long Haul Trucker out for a workout ride from Fort Snelling out around Lake Calhoun and back for 28 miles. I felt good that my average speed was 14.2 MPH. This felt fast considering the number of times I had to slow down for cars, pedestrians and other cyclists. This bike keeps proving itself to be a great do-everything ride.

Well, Life Isn't Like Disney Kids

Some creature came in and ate the baby rabbits in the back yard yesterday. (See a couple of post below for the earlier part of the story) The suspects include A cat, but the nest seems like a lot of food for one, and they don't travel in packs. Crows seem the most likely diner. Vultures are another possibility; we see them flying high over head quite often.

I intended to use the nest to teach the kids about how creatures grow. Instead the kids learned that, with the exception of a few bacteria, all living things kill other living things to live.

I'm proud of their ability to understand that bunnies don't just hop around and sing with orphaned deer.

Dirt Burger

This looks fun. Anyone interested?

Dirt Burger

* Sov is once again putting on the event on June 11th-13th
* Surly will once again be sponsoring the Porta-Johns
* No Ride scheduled to Bluffton as was last year
* Campground will be located under the Quarry Hill Bridge across from the Old Bruenning Truck Garage
* Schedule- Not set in stone!!!!
o Night Ride Friday Evening- Meet at Campground at 8:00 p.m.
o Bucketball World Championships- Saturday at 3:00 p.m. Location TBD
o Trail Ride throughout Saturday
* VERY CASUAL!

Back Yard Rabbits 4 Days Old/Here's the Hassenpfeffer

We've continued to keep an eye on the rabbit's nest in our back yard. The mother rabbit comes at about 7pm to feed the babies and again sometime in the morning. Claire is holding one of the kittens in the top picture; Harris has one in the lower picture.

In case anyone is worried, rabbits do not reject her babies if they've been touched by people. In fact she came shortly after we handled the kittens today. No bunnies were hurt in the production of this post. But, I do like rabbit meat.

These rabbits in the yard have me reflecting on a most famous rabbit. Using my best Yosemite Sam voice (which is not very good), I asked the kids "Where's my hassenpfeffer?" If you don't get the hassenpfeffer comment, watch the video.

Newest Neighbors

About 6:30 tonight I noticed an eastern cottontail hanging out in the backyard. It seemed sluggish and reluctant to move. After it waddled away, I walked over to where it had been and noticed a shallow hole.

I've seen rabbit nests before and knew that this was a Doe looking to deliver her kittens. About an hour later the rabbit was back. I checked the nest and saw it was full of hairless babies nestled in a mixture of mom's fur and dry grass.

I didn't want to disturb the nest to take a picture, so the image above is pulled from the web. Our nest and kittens look almost identical to photo. The bunnies in our nest are even smaller though.

If you click on the picture it gets sparkly and pretty.

Then and Now

Minneapolis May Day Parade and Picnic @ Q's

Met Jared and Ella for Lunch at United Noodle then headed to the parade. We were on the corner of about 28th and Bloomington

This parade is a wonderful departure from the typical Queen of something sitting in the back of a convertible parade I'm more accustom to seeing.
My favorite group was the one below. The people on the lead vehicle are all pedaling to propel the band which is hooked to the shed full of other people pedaling to pull the sofa followed by a dragging oil drum.
I'm happy to see the cousins hanging out.
After the parade we headed to Q's for some good BBQ chicken while the kids played noisily together. A fine way to spend a Sunday.