Musings on horticultural therapy and the soothing effects of plants and nature
“Would you guys like to come in out of the rain?” she asks unlocking the front door of the Three Pines. “The stove isn’t on but we could rustle up some sandwiches for you.” Ted and I go from despair to elation. We’ve been on the Erie Canal trail all morning and are drenched from […]
It’s a cool and rainy morning in Syracuse as we look to bike 48 miles to Rome. Unlike our circuitous entrance to Syracuse through a maze of back roads, our exit couldn’t be simpler, safer or nicer. A new bike trail has been built on Erie Boulevard (on top of a filled in section of […]
Ted and I are throughly spoiled this morning at the Laura Hubbell B&B as Holly’s breakfast was exceptional. We don’t want to go. But onward to Syracuse 52 miles away we must travel and with full bellies and extra blueberry scones in my saddlebag, we leave on a cloudy morning with a brisk, cooling breeze. […]
We leave upscale Bushnells’s Basin on a cool and bright morning. The sun is glistening in the sky reflecting off the canal while mallards swim in the water and nest on the shore. We are well aware, however, that this idyllic start will become a hot and sweaty slog in the late afternoon as we […]
I believe that it is better to be lucky than good and lucky is what we are as we spot two boats heading into Lock E30 in Macedon. Locks are used in the Erie Canal, and all others, as a series of water steps letting ships go up or down to different water levels of […]
“Ted, we’re not in Medina anymore,” I tell my riding companion as we look to cross a busy highway with cars and trucks whizzing by at high speeds with little regard to our need. We are in the thick of Rochester, which is a far cry from where we were and what we saw just […]
A gray, cloudy start to our trip punctuated by an ill-timed, flat tire is the only glitch in an otherwise delightful first day of 53 miles on our bikes. Our legs take us from the industrial debris and buildings in Buffalo to corn fields and apple orchards in Medina. The Shoreline Trail in Buffalo takes […]
The day long ride from Connecticut to Buffalo is incident free. Now that sounds good from a safety perspective, but is awfully boring. It is a long gray ride where the sun refuses to show itself under a blanket of clouds, fog, rain and mist. Like many drives on interstate highways in this portion of […]
Starting tomorrow, I will be biking the entire length of the Erie Canal with my buddy Ted. This 400-mile trip will be our fourth long-distance sojourn together. We start from Buffalo tomorrow and with luck, the wind at our backs and minimal mishaps will arrive in Albany on the following Tuesday. I will continue posting […]
The final strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) harvest of Sunday was also the first of our blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum). I have been spying them from a distance looking for when an entire berry rather than just one side becomes blue. Our birds have been cross with me as their attempts to penetrate the defensive veil encasing […]