Day 8 of 30 days of biking

Today's departure shot for day 8 of the 30 days of biking, just slightly before Jack's nap time, so we gave him a bottle for the ride. After taking this picture we realized we should probably bring the trailer along. I'm thankful that we remembered because otherwise I'd have been the one lugging all of our purchases home!

 And so we headed out to Home Depot to pick up some veggie seeds.

You really couldn't ask for better weather than we had today and it's certainly been a welcome change in comparison to last weeks rides. There were quite a lot of cyclists out, but overall the streets were dead. I had some cramps in my calf muscles today, a little soreness but definitely not like it was after our longer rides. I'm really happy with the progression that this month has given me so far, I'm trying to focus on frequency rather than distance and I feel like its paying off. I don't think any trip has been over 5 miles distance, but the shorter duration rides enable me to build habit and confidence that will hopefully lay a good foundation for the coming months. I think confidence is key to becoming a safe cyclist and even picking a route according to your comfort factor, would be something I'd encourage new riders to do.

Jack totally loves these shopping carts, notice he uses both steering wheels the same time, he takes this kind of thing very seriously. If Mum or Dad get's too close to his controls we are swiftly ushered away and told firmly "NO". Yes, the terrible twos are officially just a few weeks away, with Jack's 2nd birthday fast approaching at the end of this month.

We got spinach, beefsteak tomato, yellow squash, zucchini (or courgette as we call them in the U.K.), snow pea, cucumber, carrot, sweet pepper and giant sunflower seeds, also a hot sweet pepper plant for salsas. We grabbed a bag of steer manure and potting soil too, which put Kyle's cargo weight about the same as mine is on a regular basis, a point I was sure to remind him of a few times on the way home.

We get through a lot of greens with these daily green smoothies and it would be nice to grow our own now we have the space.  We have yet to pick our site for the raised beds, but I'm thinking somewhere along that far fence line should give them the most sunshine. Our raised beds are actually shipping crates for turbine parts, from the huge electricity producing windmills that are being installed all over the Walla Walla Valley and surrounding areas. They were a gift from a friend whose husband works on the windmills.

When we got home it was dinner time, Kyle cooked us a very nice barbeque and we hung out in our back yard for the first time since we've moved in our house. I love our backyard and look forward to having lots of fun family time there this summer. We're hoping to put a chicken coop in the far right corner and possibly a little greenhouse area. Although before all of these other projects I think we will be putting a door on our carport and securing an outside storage area for the bicycles that have taken over my laundry room
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As far as weekends go, I generally judge how good they have been by how messy our house is on Monday morning.  As I sit here surveying the damage and planning my attack, I'd say it was a really good weekend! The thing about bikes that I'm discovering is, you really can't go wrong with any amount of use, and while you don't have to dive in the deep end like I did, I do honestly think it helps in some ways.  I'm sure if we had a vehicle we may have been tempted to drive to Home Depot, but we would have missed out on some really good family time. I honestly feel like most of the problems of modern living could be solved with less fossil fuel use and more family time, it's really that simple but we like to complicate things.