Ashby Folville - Barsby-Twyford figure of eight

Led by Barry. Good weather, dry and firm underfoot, rolling countryside, fine views. Around 8.5 miles. less than 500 feet of ascent.



A poignant gravestone in Ashby Folville churchyard - a long life and a hard one?

Here liesSarah Smalleywho was a faithfulservant toWilliam Smtihof Barsbywho departedthis lifeDecember 6th 1859aged 83 yearsthe weary wheels of lifestood still at last

We walk along the path past the church, crossing bridges and a private drive . . .

before heading south west over fields along a footpath to the attractive village of Barsby.

A church or chapel converted into a house

another picturesque thatched cottage

timber frame

cruck frame

From Barsby we turned right and headed south east over several fields, crossing another footpath and continuing as far as Twyford.

cherry blossom

Spring is here, the blossom's out and the benches have emerged from the church porch.

The old "national school" with two dates in Roman numerals

A short way along Twyford's Main Street took us to our path - off to the right, and now heading south west again, over the B6047 and along Park Road, just to the north of Lowesby.

A right-angled turn to the right and we're going north west, following the field edges, and the waymarkers for a while, then turning slightly right and uphill just before Carr Bridge Spinney. We join the Mid-Shires Way for half a mile or so, walking along a ridge until we reach the road to South Croxton. This is still Mid-Shires Way. We turn left and walk along the road for a few hundred yards, then turn right down a track past farm buildings and houses. Spring has arrived - primulas in abundance along here.





Soon after this our path crosses the route we took earlier in the walk and it's downhill into Ashby Folville all the way.

Wooton Cottages. This plaster work called "pargetting" is more common in East Anglia.

A walk of fields, extensive views, and a variety of interesting buildings.

For more info on this area see this linkas well.

We saw swallows and, later, buzzards.

River Continues to Rise

Wednesday I was back on the trails. This time I parked at the Wabash Trace Trailhead. From there, headed out on the Lake Manawa trail. Rode down to the mountain bike trail area.
The Missouri River level is up from what I saw Sunday. Today's photo is of the water level at the exit of the long loop. Sure would be nice to be able to ride my favorite trail once again! Guess like I will have to keep riding the pavement and the Wabash Trace.
Rode on over to the Trail Center. From there to I-80 (get in a little more miles - a very little more). By the time I was back to the Trace trailhead, the day was warming up and the wind was kicking up. Still, a good ride.

Lucky 07/07/07

An inch and a half of rain yesterday! This system shown arrived in the wee hours this morning, and since then we've had a long steady rain for a total of 1/4 inch so far.
We are such happy campers!
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1.5 inches = 3.8 cm
.25 inches = 6.4 mm
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Other lucky things recently:
-Bobwhite quail singing in the yard (we've had that luck every day lately)
-Ran across the same turtle (I think) from the post of June 19, and got a pic of his plastron this time (coming soon to a blog near you)
-Old high school friend came to visit
-Cousins came to visit
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Updated:

The radar image almost 12 hours later.
Ahhh prolonged precipitation. Deep drenching. Slow sustained showers. Recurring relentless rain!

Arnold and The Village Blacksmith

We may have lost our school, post office, butcher's shop, grocery shop, cobbler and church, but our tiny village still has a pub, a village hall and a blacksmith!



In 1908 a blacksmith fresh out of his apprenticeship set up in business at the far end of the village. Horses from the nearby villages were brought to the premises for shoeing, and the blacksmith would also travel to several other local villages which had small forges. In 1936 they moved the business up to this end of the road. The main business was shoeing horses but they also made and repaired cartwheels in conjunction with the carpenter. I have heard it said that the carpenter also used to make coffins, on the top floor of the black corrugated building. When the coffin was ready to be loaded it would be discreetly loaded down a chute onto the back of a wagon!



During the Second World War the blacksmith was commissioned to provide 1000 shoes for mules.To this day a member of the same family is still active making weather vanes, wrought iron gates and commissioned works.

I like this place for many reasons - including the beautiful worn and weather doors, the quaint roof tiles, the old metal work around the place, the sun-bleached wood and, of course, the sense of continuity.

Of course, on the way home I called in to see Arnold.His sheep friends have been taken away because the farmer doesn't want any more accidents. So poor Arnold is on his own again.

See Bennie having a wash as Arnold prepares to frisk my pockets for some more carrot or apple!

Except, who should I spy there but Bennie, sitting having a lick and a wash near Arnold!I had a chat with John and he said she has been spending time up there recently.I'd like to think she is keeping him company, they certainly seemed very relaxed together.

As I was leaving Bennie was checking out John's workshop

- which pleased him -

apparently he has quite a mouse problem.Not for much longer with Bennie on the job!

Southwest Rock Art

Along the first leg of our journey back to Minnesota we made a couple of short side trips from I-70 to some rock art sites. The first of these was the "Head of Sinbad" rock art site. This is some of the best preserved rock art in the southwest. According to local literature these pictographs are at least 3,000 years old.





The second site we checked out was Sego Canyon. Unlike the Head of Sinbad panel, some of the Sego Canyon pictographs have experienced a lot of vandalism. There was one panel, however, that was high enough on the canyon wall that it was relatively untouched by vandals. According to the BLM, Sego Canyon contains 3 culturally distinct styles of rock art: Fremont, Ute and Barrier-style. After these quick stops we got back on the Interstate and continued our journey home.

The Blonde Assassin

I will concede that it may be a strange name, but in view of the colour scheme of my new MTB, and in view of something that happened on Saturday, I think it's wholly appropriate. Martin and I decided on a slightly shorter ride taking in Urliup and Tomewin, with a slight detour out to the Garden of Eden on the dirt. The reason for the shorter ride was largely to do with the crazy weather that we've been experiencing lately. Only on Friday, someone in Surfers Paradise had been killed by a tree branch being driven through a window, but that's not enough to keep me off the bike for a day.


As it happened, we did get battered by a headwind while heading south, but the rainforest at Urliup provides shelter against the most vicious wind in existence, and in truth, despite the extravagant language used in some of the news reports, I still recall encountering stronger winds in both New Zealand and Scotland in the past. Still, we also had to negotiate FIVE flooded creek crossings in the first 45km of the ride to reach the start of the climb of Tomewin.

I had never managed to do this climb in under 25 minutes before Saturday, and I didn't look like I would this time either, as my early attack faded alarmingly quickly. However, when the climb kicked up to 11% in the middle, I felt strangely comfortable. At the higher end, where the gradient eased to something a little more sane, I realised I had more than enough time to finish this one off. I did it in just under 24 minutes at it turned out, on the first ride on an MTB!? I think The Blonde Assassin is highly appropriate after this.

We took a detour on the very beautiful but very cut up Garden of Eden road at the top. These days we can no longer ride across the top of the ridge back to Bilambil, so we had to settle for the out and back ride on the western side. I'm still trying to figure out how there were no leeches in the rainforest on a day like this. After this little detour, it was a simple matter of descending Tomewin, and coasting home on the back of the tailwind. The only noteworthy thing that happened on the rest of the day was a successful "test" of my disc brakes on the 14% section of the descent in the wet.
I feel sorry for those suckers who stayed inside during the wind and the rain. I really do.

A Victorian Reading Challenge

I've decided to do another reading challenge in ..; a Victorian one. I was inspired by this blog:href="http://worthwhilebooks.blogspot.com/../01/personal-victorian-challenge.html">

I'm glad to be doing this challenge as it will delve into my TBR stack. Out of the twelve books, I own ten of them. I've always loved this period in literature. And many beautiful movies have been made from the books; many of Thomas Hardy's, one of my favorites.

So here's the list:

1. Middlemarch-George Eliot

2. The Small House at Allington-Anthony Trollope

3. Tess of the D'urbervilles-Thomas Hardy

4. The Woman in White-Wilkie Collins

5. The Way of All Flesh-Samuel Butler

6. The Cloister and the Hearth-Charles Reade

7. The Soul of Man-Oscar Wilde

8. The Story of the Amulet-E. Nesbit

9. At the Back of the North Wind-George MacDonald

10. Lady Audley's Secret-M.E. Braddon

11. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-Robert Louis Stevenson

12. Cranford-Elizabeth Gaskell

There are many more I could have added, but I really wanted to read what I already have.

Do you have a favorite Victorian author? Mine are Trollope, Hardy, and the Brontes. I didn't include the Brontes in my list, even though I own all their works, because I've read lots of their books and wanted to try new authors. I could have listed Charles Dickens also. I may have to read more than twelve this year or have another Victorian challenge next year!

Hoppin' To See Ya!

Hi Pals! It's been raining quite a bit this week and Mom's been attending to neglected duties, so we are sorry we haven't been around to comment and see what's going on for the most part. We're headed your way on Blog Hop Saturday! Hope you've had a great week!

The burn

I don't know if it's possible for a day to get any more hot and humid than New year's day was here. I saw an ambulance go past at 9am, almost certainly treating someone for heat exhaustion. That looks even worse when the usual two-hour response time for emergency services around here is deducted. As it was, I managed 103km in Tallebudgera and Currumbin Valleys. In truth, conditions were a little more bearable deep in the valleys once I got away from the coast, much like the scenery in those areas.


The most exciting part of the day was realising I would be short of distance in Currumbin Valley, and opting to climb out on Bains Road, toward Tomewin. This climb has, for some reason, acquired a fierce reputation, but after climbing it I'm none the wiser as to how that came about. The early part of the climb is steep, but it's also very short and didn't present any major problems even in the difficult heat-wave conditions. After that it flattened out across the top of the ridge. To be honest, the ride home against the hot northerly wind was far more difficult.
Still, at least that climb is done now. I'm sure I'd still be thinking about it if I hadn't put it to the sword.

McAllister Park

First off, happy birthday to my sister, Jan. I hope you enjoyed your day today and partied with friends. I look forward to spending time with you in September.

This morning, San Antonio Hill Country Hikers meet-up group met at 7:45 a.m. for a hike at McAllister Park. The early birds were there at 7 a.m. to do yoga warm-up moves before we set out on the trail.

At 7:45 exactly, Paul led us on another trail adventure, faking us out from time to time and taking us around in circles. No disrespect, we love you, Paul. You make the group fun.

McAllister Park is 976 acres with 15 miles of trails on the north side of San Antonio, not too far from the International Airport. Today we hiked seven miles of trails, mainly on the Red and Blue Loops (I think). If you asked me to lead a group of people on the same hike we did, I would be bamboozled as to where, exactly, we went. I'm glad Paul knew where we were going! We didn't get lost in the urban wilderness.

Here are a few photos of our hike.

Paul caught us looking dazed and confused at the beginning.

Now we've got rhythm and someone to follow.

We didn't see any bunnies. : (

Virgin's bower clematis

Snapdragon vine (Maurandya antirrhiniflora)

The hiking train keeps on rollin' down the track.

I ran ahead to get a photo from the front and they all had to ham it up.

Paul, our leader, wins for the best model pose.

Lots of deer in this park!

Deer in the headlights look.

After seven miles of hiking, eight of us wanted to have breakfast, so we went to The Egg and I. It was a great group with lots of conversation and some really big pancakes!

Sandy

Ruby ordering.

Jessie with her hazelnut coffee and SmartPhone.

Paul with not one, but two, monster blueberry pancakes.

After the walk and a good breakfast, I went back to the 5er and slept for three hours. (I only had four hours of sleep Saturday night.)

This evening, Bob and I went to see "The Way, Way Back" movie with Steve Carrell and thoroughly enjoyed it. The story is a coming of age tale about a 14-year-old boy going on vacation with his mom, mom's boyfriend and the mom's boyfriend's teen-age daughter. They vacation at the shore and the boy is bored, mortified, and angst-ridden dealing with his mother's boyfriend and the interesting group of people vacationing at the beach. He goes to work at a water park where the owner takes him under his wing and helps him deal with being an awkward teen-ager in an awkward life situation. We both recommend this movie.

The short sale on our rental property in Las Vegas is finally going through after we put it on the market a year ago. Tomorrow we sign papers. One more property off our responsibility list; three rentals left in two western states. Luckily, they are all rented and have property managers. Things are looking up.

Travel Bug out.