Be Still My Dutch Heart

In the miracle of all miracles, look what has popped out in the garden:

While tulips aren't completely unheard of in the Yukon, they aren't exactly a regular northern occurrence. When my Mother and I dug the tulips into the ground last fall, I never dreamed that they might actually make it through the winter. When not a single crocus made it through the winter months, I was sure the tulips were DOA. Despite it all, they made it and look great with the hostas.

This success has given me the inspiration needed to invest obscene amounts of money in bulbs and hope for an even bigger tulip success next year. This tulip experience has reaffirmed my belief the less I take care of a plant, the better they do. For the bulbs all I did was make a 2 inch deep hole in the ground, sprinkled in bone meal and hoped for the best.

The other new bloom in the garden, is an interesting looking purple flower.

Sierra posted this on Jun 28, 2007 from the garden | | permanent link

The Veggie Garden - June 22

Things are finally coming together...the camera was located, a memory card was found and the sun was out, so it was time to get a picture of the vegetable beds. This year, I planted most of my vegetables on the May long weekend. I've kept the row covers on them and will probably keep the covers on right until August. I've altered my planting slightly from last year, when I followed the square foot planting method. This basically meant dividing my garden into square foot sections and planting evenly spaced seeds. This year, I abandoned the idea of separating up my garden, but kept with the evenly spaced seeds. I use a companion gardening book to determine what goes where and this year, I was extra careful about making sure that beets and carrots didn't get overshadowed by lettuce or cabbage.

Garden #1 has (from front to back): kale, mustards, turnips, carrots, beets, onions, red cabbage, broccoli, dill and some mixed greens in the attached planter.

Garden #2 has (from front to back): carrots, lettuce, cauliflower (one met an early demise), beets and chard in the attached planter

Garden #3 has my potatoes with the back red wheelbarrow full of herbs.

Every year one of my beds does really well and the other is crap. Unfortunately, I've never been able to remember which is the bad bed, so every year I have to guess which one is flawed. I've tried to mitigate this by adding lots of manure and compost to both beds, but we will see in a couple more weeks. Already, I'm worried about bed #2...

Here is the anemone I have that's grown back really well. The flowers are simple, but beautiful.

I'll save the greenhouse for later this weekend, after I get it cleaned up and looking snazzy.

Sierra posted this on Jun 23, 2007 from the garden | | permanent link

Garden Musings

I desperately want to write about my garden, but I feel unprepared to do so without my camera. Unfortunately said device is nowhere to be found and I'm unwilling to describe without images. while I wait to find my camera and start snapping, I've realized the great irony of my garden. Today as I was cleaning up grass and weeds I realized that everything that I've tried to eliminate in my garden - chickweed, wild yarrow, aspen, and other weedy wonders, have come back stronger than ever. Conversely, many of the perennials that I've coddled and loved, failed to make a return appearance this Spring. Is the key to success to ignore the garden, do I have to resign myself to growing "weeds" in the garden, or is there something else I'm missing? In my northern garden, the most impressive sophomore perennials to date have been the anemone, delphiniums, maltese cross, columbine and surprisingly hostas. I'm hopeful that next year more of the perennials will make a return appearance and, with time, I'll figure out exactly what survives in a Yukon garden.

Sierra posted this on Jun 21, 2007 from the garden | | permanent link

The Return of the Fat Bottomed Girls

The week-end before the solstice crazy people from across the Yukon, and apparently North America, gather to ride their bikes across the Haines pass. These people are crazy, because they know the ridiculous elevation gain and leg numbing hills, but what you never know is how much wind there will be, whether or not it will rain (or better yet, snow), or any other number of factors that can easily change race day into the day of doom. Thankfully, this year's Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay had excellent conditions, a much appreciated change from last year's wind-fest.

Last year, Lisa and I split up the race, with me riding the first half up to the summit. This year, I joined up with Kathryn from Fort St. John, with her taking the first half and me finishing us up in Haines, Alaska. When we arrived in Haines Junction on Friday, the sky was falling and we were pulling out every piece of rain gear we had packed in anticipation of a very wet and cold ride. Saturday morning, things weren't looking terribly optimistic and about 30 minutes after the cyclists shot out from Haines Junction, it started to rain. Luckily, the rain only last for around an hour, before it started to clear up and turned out to be a gorgeous day. Even with the small bit of rain, the most important weather detail was the wind. Last year, the first half of the race was pounded with a nasty headwind. This year, it was calm all the way to the American border, with only the last two legs subjected to a windy assault.

My goal for the second half of the race was to do it under 5 hours. I am please to say that I shattered this by coming in at 4:01. I decided not to check the time until after I crossed the line, I detail I slightly regret, as I think I could have easily broken 4, if I would have known 3 km from the finish. In any case, I'm not complaining because my race went fabulously and I was even able to walk the next morning. Our time took 3rd place in our category, which was exciting (even if there was only 5 teams in total) and we finished in the top half of the duos.

My dad came up for the race again this year, along with some friends from Edmonton. Dad smoked the course in 8 hours and 40 minutes. He was feeling so good after the race that he put in a strong "leg 9" and stayed up listening to bluegrass at the bar and until 2 in the morning, significantly later than my 11 pm bedtime. Now that he's met is sub-10 hour goal, I'm going to work on convincing him to ride solo with me next year. This will mean getting my butt on the bike as soon as the snow melts, but I think I can probably do it, with a little bit of training and a lot of Cliff shots.

The greatest part of this year's trip is that we managed to get hotel rooms in both Haines Junction and Haines, Alaska. There is no greater feeling in the world then rolling over in the morning to see pouring rain and realize you could have been stuck in a tent. Maybe I'm just getting to be an old yuppie, but a warm dry bed is just too appealing these days!

Our weekend was almost perfect, which meant that something needed to go wrong. That something ended up being a broken tire valve right at the Haines Summit. We tried pumping up the tire with our bike pump every could kilometers, but that was a bit too time consuming, so we decided to slap on the ol' donut. The spare made it 260 km (approximately 180 more than it was ever intended to drive) before blowing up 20 km out of Whitehorse. We were able to limp back home using the original tire (with quick pump-ups every 8 km or so). In the end we got to the house and managed to jump on our bikes and make it to Klondike Rib and Salmon for a huge (and very well-deserved) dinner.

Sierra posted this on Jun 18, 2007 from the outside | | permanent link

Our New Outhouse

In true Sierra style, it took a half a year to get finished, but it's done! With 2 days until my Father arrives, we have a new fully functional guest bathroom. In the end we replaced the paint, sink, faucet and various hardware. In all, it probably cost around $600, with almost all of it going into the sink, vanity and faucet. Hopefully we can fix the door before Dad arrives...or the only thing the bathroom won't have is privacy!

Sierra posted this on Jun 12, 2007 from the livingroom | | permanent link

Three Times the Pain! Three Times the Fun???

Today I finished my first ever triathlon. While I would love to tell you what a wonderful experience this was, I hate to lie...it was horrific. I didn't realize that a body could hurt like that and for the first time ever I realized that sometimes no matter how badly you try to convince your body to do something, it just won't do it.

This triathlon was the most challenging physical activity I've ever done in my life. I was under the false impression that triathlons were simply sticking three sports together - I didn't quite calculate the cumulative affect of these sports. My goal for the triathlon was to finish it in less than 3 hours and 15 minutes...I came in at 3 hours and 13 minutes. Although I should be happy, I can't help but be a bit disappointed with a slow run (that in reality was a run/walk) and some sloppy race-day errors that made the experience more draining than it needed to be.

At the 5 km point of the run, I was convinced that this triathlon would go down in history as being my first, and last. Of course, it's been 12 hours and 4 ibuprofens and I'm already planning next year's training schedule. Thankfully, I've learned a few important lessons:

1. The bike to run transition is the most grueling...practice running exhausted because that's how you'll feel.

2. Don't take 4 ibuprofen and a Clif bar 2 minutes before jumping into the pool. It will make your stomach hurt and you will spend the next 3 hours wanting to vomit.

3. The little silly things that you do to make the transition time faster: springy shoelaces (the 80s style ones), triathlon shorts/bra, carefully positioned bike shoes, etc... are all worth it. It may only be 2 minutes, but it's nice to feel like you are in motion.

4. Ice is your friend...

I'm glad that my first athletics goal for the summer has been met. Next up is the Kluane-Chilkat, although I've revised my goal to 5 hours, instead of 4:30. My knee is still hurting pretty badly and I'm doubting I'll get a chance to be on my bike anytime before the race. The half-marathon in Calgary is out as my physiotherapist is insisting that I give my knee an 8 week break, if I ever want it to properly heal. This means that Victoria marathon is unlikely, but I am a determined individual and am adamant that I will fulfill my New Year's resolution...if that means running 42 km on the Alaska Highway on December 31st, so be it... The more likely, and definitely more amusing option, is the Las Vegas marathon, complete with Elvis impersonator mile markers. Sounds like good times, if only there wasn't all that running business involved...

Sierra posted this on Jun 04, 2007 from the outside | | permanent link