Our Bold Adventure Continues

It's now the week before my big Avon Walk. I walk next weekend, June 28-29. If you'd like to donate, there's still time. If you're tired of my groveling for dollars, you can ignore me guilt-free: I made my fundraising requirement. I'd love more support , but I am cleared to participate now that my many friends (and some strangers) have coughed up $2150. (Though, if I raise another $50 I get a baseball hat.) I am sure I'll post more after the Big Event, but the truth, dear blog reader (both of you), is that I'm kind of over this whole Avon Walk thing. It's dragged on too long. The lead-up has been too slow. I signed up sometime last fall, jazzed and excited, so thrilled I literally jumped up and down when I decided to do it. My concerns at the time were about raising the money, not completing the walk. Turns out, fundraising was a challenge and I didn't enjoy it, but I got it done with only minor stress. It's the training that had me in tears. Not...

I'm back from the wild west. Last week I traveled to Worland, WY for a short business trip. The trip went well, but the place is what merits mentioning here. Worland, WY is not just a small, rural town. It's a small, rural town more than an hour from the closest Target, Wal-Mart, or interstate. It's a place where the only national chains are a McDonald's and a Burger King. It's small, and not in a quaint way. It's got appeal -- mostly from outstandingly friendly people I met while there and the unique land that surrounds it, but this factory town with a wild west history is certainly dusty around the edges. The plane trip in shows you how remote Worland is -- nothing to see for miles around -- and the town feels very flat. Maybe there were a few two-story buildings, but apparently it's cheaper to build out than up. It all felt dwarfed by the space surrounding it. I came home humming Cole Porter's song, "Don't Fence Me In." I flew in on a bu...

Me and 54,250 of my closest friends were part of the biggest timed road race in the country today. I wasn't exactly racing, but there were those who were. I walked the 10k course along with thousands of other people -- the Bolder Boulder is open to everyone, and has a large contingent of walkers in addition to some serious runners. It's been going on for thirty years and attracts people from all over the country. And it's right here in Colorado (which I recently heard is considered the nation's healthiest state). It was fantastic, and I can't wait to do it next year. Who wants to come to Boulder and do it with me? Ten kilometers (roughly six miles) isn't a tough walk, and for someone training for the Avon Walk it should be like a warm up. There were 85 start times to stagger the elite runners from the slow-poke walkers -- I left in a fast walker group at 9:10 a.m. (9:10:40 to be precise, and as they shuffled each starting group to the starting line, they actua...

Someone brought an archery bow for target shooting in to my office. Because that’s just the kind of outdoorsy place Boulder is. Or ECOS is. Or it’s what kids do. I’m not really sure what collection of reasons combine to make this seem like the sort of thing that happens here, but there she was with a bow in her hand, flat and unstrung. Her kid doesn’t use it anymore, and another colleague’s kid may use it for summer camp. Like the proverbial person who gets on a bicycle after years of not riding only to pedal effortlessly, I knew what to do. I strung the bow in about two seconds, gently threading my leg through the loose string, placing the lower end over my left foot and the center of the bow on the outside of my right hip. A gentle push out with my hip and down with my right hand, and the job was done. I haven’t even thought about archery since the summer I was 17, and yet I remembered how to string a bow as if I’d just emptied a quiver. Isn’t it funny what a person keeps locked awa...

I hope every single person reading this has a friend this great. She's using her blog to help me raise money for my Avon Walk. Rock on. And thanks -- to all who have supported me, and to the ever-wonderful Lynsey.

Some people have pointed out that I've been a little lame in my blog posting of late. Sorry. I've been busy. Already I'm in over my head with my gardens (yard and vegetable) -- who knew you had to water every day here beginning in April? That is, on the days it doesn't snow. It's a lot of work and so far I'm doing okay, though only okay. Martha Stewart won't be giving me any gardening awards this year. My onion tops got a little scorched and my strawberries didn't transfer well. But I have pea sprouts and small spinach plants. There are tiny lettuce heads growing, my beets and radishes are coming up, and the broccoli looks great. My carrots are slow to send up shoots, but I have hope they'll get with the program soon. There are weeds between the rows, but I've been vigilant about the rest. This weekend I hope to install my drip irrigation watering system which will be on a timer and should help me not kill things as the heat sets in. There's ...

As a new backyard birdwatcher I marveled at the Very Busy House Finches building a nest under the eave of our porch. It's an old house finch haunt, apparently; they come back to the same nest year after year. The previous owner told us about the nest, and said it'd been there since they bought the house. They'd never had the heart to take it down -- even though over a sliding glass door doesn't seem like an ideal location. Someone put a little ledge up there to encourage nest building, and it works. Each spring the birds spruce it up with new, found materials and get busy. We have lots of house finches on our feeders, but two chose to call the nest home, and I was thrilled. All spring I've watched these busy birds swoop in and out, and I've just been waiting for the day I hear little peeps. It's been tough to wait, especially since I don't know a typical house finch schedule. When should I expect babies? Larger, heartier birds like eagles have had their ...