Biking to Urbana

Taking advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend I biked all the way to Urbana which is about 22 miles away. It is about 7 to eight miles away from Center Point which is the usual destination for me on my biking treks. This picture shows the street that leads to the town. Fortunately the weather was good and except for scorching sun the temperature was mild.
After Urbana there is Brandon which is another twelve or so miles further north.
The only section remaining on this trail that was not trekked by me is the part from Waterloo to Brandon, passing by La Porte. The total distance from home to Waterloo and back on the trail is about 112 miles, a little too much for a one day excursion. However, it might be possible as a one way endeavor, if I can be dropped off at Waterloo and bike back home, or park the car in Waterloo and bike to La Porte and back to Waterloo. Now that is manageable and it would be about the same as biking to Urbana from home, but the difference would be riding on a different section of the trail.

Harvesting Spinach

A couple of days ago we had the first spinach harvest. This picture was taken just before the spinach was harvested. It needed to be washed but it had to be stored dry so that it wouldn't wilt. It was already consumed with green salad. The taste was fresh and fine, and it is enough to know that no pesticides were used in this crop. It is said that commercial spinach contains one of the highest pesticide contamination as it is subjected to many insects that eat the leaves. That might be true but we don't use any pesticides and merely clean the leaves by hand. Some leaves get eaten partially though by the insects, and that is fine, consider it a fee you have to pay to the environment to keep the cycle going and the earth green.

Vegetables in Pots II

As you see the pot vegetables are doing great. The tomato plant that was started from a seed is actually doing better than the transplanted plant in the raised bed. This is due to amply sunshine on the deck as opposed to meager sun in the shady backyard. Notice also that the peppers are growing and there are new plants introduced.
We use organic Miracle Grow liquid to supplement the nutrition introduced to the plants and that also has a great effect on the growth rate taking place.

Vegetables in Pots

Since the deck receives more sunshine than the actual garden, we are trying to grow some vegetables in pots as well. The pictures shows another tomato plant started from seed inside and then transplanted in the big black pot shown. We started also some peppers from seed directly in the pot as well as a transplant bought from the nursery, the latter is the rightmost pot in the picture. The pot to the left of the tomato plant is parsley started from seeds indoors and then transplanted into the pot

Vegetable Garden

Many plants have been transplanted already into the two raised beds as shown in the picture. Some plants were started from seeds, like the radishes. The transplanted vegetables so far are: Tomatoes (various kinds), peppers (various kinds), red and white onions, red and green cabbages, broccoli, spinach, and parsley. Unfortunately there isn't enough sun throughout the day thanks to the many trees around the yard, and because of that not many plants can tolerate these conditions, so I am not sure which plants will thrive and which will not. The total amount of sun needs to be at least 6 hours per day, but due to the shades of the trees we would be lucky to have four hours of total sun during the day. Other seeds did not make it like the beans, cucumber and zucchini, so we disregarded those for now. Maybe it is still too cold for them. Some plants are harder to grow than others, so it was decided to start with whatever is easier for now.

Bike Trail

It is spring again and it is time to bike along the trails wherever they exist. This is the Cedar Valley trail on the way to Center Point from Robin going north. The weather is still kind of cold but is fine for biking especially when it is sunny although windy conditions can feel much cooler than it really is. My typical trip is about 30 miles from home to Center Point and back. Sometimes I do less if it is not the weekend due to the time limit before sunset after work. It is excellent exercise and does not hurt the knees like running for example.

Colors of Spring

After the long winter here in Iowa spring is no doubt welcome with its colors and mild cool mornings. Unlike places that have moderate weather throughout the year, Iowa has four distinct seasons, three of which are nice and one long cold winter. You might think of winter here as a useless dead time but that is not true, because one does not really appreciate spring without a cold winter. Once the snow thaws and the grass starts to turn green again, people here start cleaning the remnant brown leaves from last fall and make way for their wonderful perennial flowers to grow again. The picture here shows some tulips that grow every year. Once you plant a perennial it grows every year on its own. So we clean, mulch, and compost for the growing seasons of spring, summer and fall. We enjoy the outdoors, and work hard in our gardens, which makes it worthwhile after all this effort to rest in the winter and prepare for the next growing seasons. This is the life of the farmers in this area.

Raised Beds Project

This summer we decided to grow some vegetables in the backyard. We chose the sunniest spot which happened to be in a badly sloped section so we could not just place the raised beds on the ground but had to create a terraced structure as seen in the picture. First of all we had to make the two frames which we constructed from cedar wood so that they wouldn't rotten. We used twelve 2"x6" pieces that were 8' long each. Four of them were cut in half to make the two 4'x8' beds shown. The pieces were nailed together at the corners using one foot pieces cut from an 8' long 4"x4" cedar lumber. That was the easy part. Next we had to lay the frames in place. The top one was easy to lay down because the ground there was more or less flat. We had to dig a little around the edges to put it in place as flat as possible. The second was much harder due to the large slope in the land. We chose bricks to raise the steep end in order to make the bed flat. It took 40 bricks and lot of digging in order to construct the wall that would carry one end of the bed. On the other side of it we also did some digging in order to lay the bed as flat as possible. In the end it was perfectly flat and level to our satisfaction.


Next we had to install hardware cloth at the bottom of the beds in order to prevent burrowing animals from eating our vegetables from under the ground. Many moles live in our area and if we don't take any measure to stop them from getting to the vegetables from underneath they will surely eat all the onions, turnips and carrots from down under. Laying the hardware cloth was not that difficult, but it took some time to make sure there were no gaps from where the moles could come through. The hardware cloth is shown in the picture before filling the beds with soil.
Filling the frames was the hardest part, even harder than laying the bricks. First we had to cover the ground with newspapers and cardboard so that all grass and weeds would die. Then we used the compost that we started last September to fill in the bottom of the beds as seen in the picture. The compost was not completely ready but it will get finished in the ground as time passes as long as it is topped with finished soil and/or compost. Then we topped off the unfinished compost with organic soil as shown in the last picture. The only thing remaining is possibly surrounding the frames with some chickenwire in case we see rabbits jump over to the beds to eat the cabbage and lettuce, but we won't bother with that yet.

The project just was concluded just in time before rain starts in the next few days. Now the two beds are ready to be planted with either seeds or transplants or both. Normally the time to start planting is late May to early June here in Iowa after all risk of frost is over, but there are some vegetables that can tolerate frost and can be started earlier in spring. We are thinking of planting the following vegetables: tomatoes, cucumber, beets, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, mustard, parsley, radish, spinach, turnips, beans, cauliflower, eggplant, onions, and peppers. We hope it will be a productive endeavor, and looking forward to some rewarding produce this summer.

A Walk by Lake Tahoe

With the application RunKeeper running on my iPhone I took a walk along lake Tahoe, Nevada. The path of the walk is shown on the map as taken by the iPhone's GPS. I started from the point on the right and reached the extreme point on the left then went back. It was cold, around 32 F, but it was convenient for a brisk walk. The area is on the northern part of the lake near the border between Nevada and California. Actually the walk itself was in the California side. As usual the area was covered with snow, especially on the tops of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which means in Spanish the snowy mountains. The scenes in the area were spectacular. The picture shows a glimpse of the beauty in the area. People go there for skiing even in the spring, and of course boating, canoeing, kayaking and swimming. Swimming must be in the summer only.

Walking activities

It is spring again and one of the ubiquitous activities in spring is walking. It is simple and does not cost anything. I ran across this great application for the iPhone that uses GPS to track your walking path and displays your speed, calories burnt and miles you walked. It is very useful. You can even add photos along the path you're walking across.

In this example I walked for about three miles at an average rate of 21 minutes per mile. The path itself is shown in the red meandering line.

Of course it is not a big deal when you just stroll locally around the house, but if you hike in an exotic place somewhere in the nation then it would really be priceless. But even for local strolls wouldn't you like to know your speed and how many calories you burnt? I would. I think it is one of the great applications of the iPhone.

Still Growing

Well, the chives are doing very well and have been moved safely to a pot as seen in this picture. The Rosemary is growing too but the stem is weak and can't hold straight, so it was buried in more soil hoping that it will get more nutrition to grow healthier. However the Thyme has died completely and has not made it.
The only source of light for these plants so far has been florescent light. They would do better in real sunshine but there isn't enough of it in the winter and therefore they will have to remain in the basement under artificial lighting for a while.

Plants growing

It has been three weeks so far and the plants are growing now under neon light in the basement. As you see the chives are doing better than the others. There seems to be one healthy rosemary plant on the right, and few small thyme ones in the middle. It is difficult to predict which one is going to make it and which is not.

Seeds Sprouting

After a few days, the Thyme seeds started to sprout, so they had to be taken out of the greenhouse and put under sunlight to grow. The tiny leaves coming out of the seed are called cotyledons. Soon true leaves will emerge and then the plant will be ready for potting. Once the true leaves appear the plant will no longer have energy stored in the seed as it would all have been consumed by then. Plant food needs to be supplied at this point in the soil to support plant growth. Remember plants need food and light for photosynthesis.

New Seeds

The picture you see is a small greenhouse that includes three sections of peat pots. The first section has Chives seeds in it, the second has Rosemary seeds, and the third has Thyme seeds. In about ten to twenty days the seeds should germinate and become ready to be moved to a sunny spot for growth. Since there isn't enough sun in the house, usually neon light is needed to accomplish sufficient growth before potting. The final pots should be large enough to enable the plants to flourish and flower. These are useful herbs that one can actually use in the kitchen, so hopefully they will grow as planned. Other herbs that are nice to have include Nasturtiums, oregano, Dills, and Basil. The nice thing about these herbs is that they are perennials, meaning they produce every year without the need to plant new seeds. Another nice thing about them is that they can be grown in pots if they are big enough. The main challenge is finding a sunny enough spot in the house, otherwise even the pots will need to be placed outside.

Midway to Black Gold

After about three weeks from the start here is how the compost pile looks now. I think it will be ready after two weeks. The original pile has been continuously turned once every two or three days since the beginning. This is necessary to keep the reaction going and to aerate the pile. Also, the layers needed to stay wet, but not too wet. I had to add water every two or three days as needed. Notice that the pile is now less than half the volume of what it used to be three weeks ago, so I added more brown leaves and grass clippings to fill the bin again. That is OK because the first batch is going to be ready in a couple of weeks at the bottom while the new batch can continue to rot. The new pile can also be ready before winter, and if not then it will be ready in spring. The picture of the finished compost (humus) will be posted in a couple of weeks (hopefully).

Making Black Gold

No I am not talking about petrol. If you live in Iowa then black gold refers to this dirt that you make by composting. Fall is the best time to compost. We gather the dead brown leaves and grass clippings from the backyard and we put them in the compost bin shown in the picture so that they rotten and become black gold. Black gold is the dark soil that results from this chemical reaction. It is very rich in nutrients for the plants and the lawn.
Be careful not to add weeds because they don't die, nor rotten. Add brown leaves, grass clippings, pieces of dead wood, straw, fruit and vegetable peelings from the kitchen, and even paper and card board. Don't add animal feces, meat, bones or grease. These cause bad smell and can attract flies and other bugs.
The chemical reaction that results from the wet compost causes the mix to heat up to 130 F and it starts to rotten making the black gold. To accelerate the process it is best to turn the mixture every two to three days and make sure it stays wet. When done properly the soil will be ready in one month typically.
It is a very simple process that not only provides precious nutrients for the garden plants and lawn, but also reduces waste going to the landfill and saves the environment.
I believe in recycling and keeping the environment clean, don't you?

More on Cedar Valley Nature Trail

Since I recovered from my bike accident and I have been biking on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail almost daily. My accident caused me to become leery of trails in general, being afraid of having another mishap which would not be good especially at my age, you know too many concussions can lead to some serious head injury eventually. Anyway, I thought how could I protect myself better than I used to. Well how about wearing some protective eyewear so that you don't have to leave the handle bar each time a bug hits you in the eye ... or how about not braking suddenly while looking backwards, da! Well anyway, I got bored of treading the same section of the trail each time, which is from Hiawatha to Center Point (13 miles) . This time I decided to carry my bike in the car, and ride to Brandon so that I could bike from there to La Porte City, some 10 miles each way.
I carried my bike to Brandon, which took about 35 minutes driving on the highway. It took a few minutes to find the trail there, and then some more minutes to find a place to park the car, and off I went on my bike towards La Porte. I kind of lost direction and was not sure if I was going in the right direction or if I was going south to Urbana instead. My confusion did not last long because after about two miles along the road I found that the trail was closed in that direction, so I was forced to go to the other direction. Now the sun was in front of me which indicated I was going south to Urbana. That meant I was going to La Porte the first time. I did reach Urbana from Center Point before but never went past it, so it was still a new section of the trail for me to go from Brandon to Urbana (about 9 miles). The trail in that section was a little different from the sections I was used to. Here the trail is less trodden as evident from the heavy vegetation on it with two narrow paths on either side about the width of a mountain bike tire. It was kind of hard staying on that narrow path, and I was kind of afraid I might fall if I got out of the narrow path to the untrodden terrain. On one occasion I hit a deep hole that sent my bike and I flying high up, but fortunately nothing bad happened other than some rear ache due to impact with the saddle. After about four miles the trail turned into more familiar gravel path wide enough to make the ride easier and more comfortable. After a while I passed a bridge over a small river, then some open fields with cows grazing in them. I crossed some rural roads along the way to Urbana. I was making one mile about every five minutes. At Urbana I ate a small snack that I carried with me, then headed back. Overall the ride was nice and different than before. At least I tried a different section of the trail than what I used to before. Too bad I did not make it to la Porte, but riding between Brandon and Urbana was not bad at all.
I am looking forward to riding on the rest of the trail which is about 52 miles long, one section at a time.

Bike Accident

It happened on the Cedar Valley trail last Sunday (July 5th). I remember biking all the way from home to Center Point (at 13 miles north of Hiawatha). I rested there and ate some dates and drank the water I had. I filled my bottle and used the restroom there and then went on my way back home. I remember all went well, and I must have reached the last three miles to Hiawatha, because that is where the dirt road turns into asphalt. Somewhere there I had a blackout, total blackout. I don't remember what happened after that. They told me at home that I rang the door bell, and my bike was there next to me. I told them I had an accident and that I needed to go to the hospital. I don't remember any of that, but they took me to the hospital and they did a cat scan on me and then did some stitching under my left eye, under my nose and lip. I also had a long gash in my leg that was stitched as well. They said after we came back home that I was awake and talking all the time, mainly asking the same questions over and over. I went to bed but they said I kept waking up and asking the same questions again, like: what kind of bike I have, is it a black Connandale? F9 series? They said yes, and I asked again: Did we just come back from vacation in Egypt? Yes. Where do I work? Who is my boss, etc.
My consciousness came back to me some time at night, as I woke up and went to the bathroom and noticed my messed up face in the mirror. I asked a few more questions and slept until the morning. I fully realized what happened in the morning. I sent email to my work telling them what happened and that I was not coming for at least a few days. I took my pain killers and then took a shower. I felt the Tetanus shot in my left shoulder hurting a bit, but the worst thing was the burning sensation in my left eye. The eye itself was not injured, but I had stitches above and below it, and the lid was kind of sagging. Other than that I felt OK.
I am still trying to remember what happened. They say I must have had the accident close to where I live, because it seemed that I walked back home. I don't think so. I think somebody gave me a ride. I vaguely remember as in a dream somebody asking about my ID and me telling them my address. I remembered my address, and I think whoever brought me home had a GPS and also a bike rack. They must have dropped me at home and left.
Where exactly I had the accident or what was the nature of it I have no idea. I don't remember at all. Did a car hit me? The bike has no sign of any dents or scratches, so that excludes the car accident theory. Did I sleep while I was riding my bike and I fell? Did I brake suddenly and flew off the bike? I can't just remember what happened at all. I vaguely remember me stopping to eat some berries along the way. Or as if I missed the berries tree and when I realized I passed by it I braked suddenly which caused me to fly off the bike. I think that is what happened.
I hope that my memory will come back to me so that I remember what happened exactly. I just need to know. It is a period of a few hours that are totally wiped out from my memory and I want that memory back. I want to know what happened. I am lucky that I did not have a more serious injury, thanks to wearing a helmet. Imagine what could have happened if I did not wear the helmet. Wow! Its feels like a dream, except that my messed up face is a cruel reminder that it all happened for real.

Improved Passport Photos

As a follow up on my previous blog, I did some improvement on the technique I described of taking passport photos at home. There were two problems with the photos in the previous article. First the resolution was low, and second the background was not quite white due to shadow in the background. To fix the first problem, I made the following modification: Instead of scaling down the image as I described before, re-size the print size of the image. The new image print size should be reduced until the dimension from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head is about 1.05 inch. The rest of the steps are the same.
As for the background problem, make sure that the person stands about one to two foot away from the wall to avoid any shadows.
After the pictures are arranged on a 7x5 inch page, use the image adjustment tools to adjust the colors as needed. For example you can lighten the background to make it closer to white than the original photo by using the Curves tool.
The resulting photo should be much better than what I described before. Try it.

Passport Photos at Home

You can take your own passport photos at home and print them at any photo print shop such as Walmart or Sam's Club. Refer to the photo guidelines in your country. In the US the passport photo needs to be 2"x2" with the face looking straight at the camera with a white background, and the distance between the chin and top of head needs to be between 1 to 1.3 inch. Here is how you can take your own passport photos at home:
First make the person stand in front of a white wall, and have two lamps shining at the face as shown in the picture below. Make sure that no shadows show on the white wall and that the lighting is adequate.


Then open the picture in a program like PhotoShop or the free Gimp software (www.gimp.com). In PhotoShop or Gimp measure the distance between the chin to the top of the head with the measuring tool. In my case the distance in inches was about 7". In order to scale this distance down to about 1.1" I scaled the image by a factor of about 1/7. The new scaled image in shown in the picture below. When I measured the distance between the chin to the top of the head I read about 1.1". Perfect!


Now select a window of exactly 2"x2" with the select tool as shown in the picture above, and copy into a new frame that has the dimensions 7"x5" which is the size of the picture you will print at the print shop. Make an array of that cropped photo in the 7"x5" frame as shown in the picture below.


Finally print that picture in a print shop such as Walmart or Sam's Club using a 7"x5" size prints and you will get four passport size photos in each print. The photo dimensions will be exactly 2"x2" and the distance between the chin to the top of the head will be about 1.1". All you have to do after that is cut the four photos in each print and there you have them, cheap and clean.