Starting to realize that we will be in Michigan soon

After a couple of days when the standards of acceptability for July were seriously violated today returned to the normal parameters. It was still cool at dawn but the clouds had parted and the sun started to shine. I commented to TOPWLH that it is July, if the sun is out it just isn't going to remain in the 60s for long. It took until nearly noon but 70s returned and a spectacularly nice July afternoon eventually occurred.

We watched the Contador show on Versus and then rooted for the old guy in the glof. Yes, I do mean glof, that's the way I say it. When the old guy chunked his second on the 3rd playoff hole, not getting the ball out of the rough, we headed for the road.

It was still a tiny bit cool but quickly enough it was just fine and 2:30 or so at Vadnais looked like this:For some reason she took her helmet off.

There is new pavement on Rice Street on an underpass where we have both discovered that we can accelerate down into the bottom and hold the speed all the way to the top coming back out, resulting in excellent uphill speeds which today were 18 mph. We like that on the uphill. It makes us feel strong, it makes us feel fast.

We also had an extended period on Hamline after the four way stop at County B where the pavement is good and a slight downhill is followed by a false flat that we both can hammer, 18 mph again. Mind you, 18 mph without particular strain, just a good solid effort producing good solid results.

We stopped at the corn field for the obligatory photo. The corn continues to grow and because it is so tall, today GRider stood closer to the edge of the field.For comparison, here is the same corn field photographed on Memorial Day. What a difference six weeks makes.The next step is for the corn to tassel out and start to form cobs. There is no sign of that today in the farm field but for the second week in a row we had sweet corn from the girl who sells vegetables on Sundays at the hardware store parking lot. Last fall when asked she reported that she will be there on summer Sundays "as long as Grandpa wants" to keep growing the vegetables that she sells. The corn was very, very good.

We have a chokecherry tree/bush in our back yard. Usually the birds get the berries/cherries way before I even notice but today I noticed. Here is a picture to prove that we have fruit growing in our back yard.This is perhaps important because some may know that we have an apple tree which has never produced apples.

Fruit is an appropriate subject at this point. I recently saw a Yahoo news article on "How to Open a Banana Like a Monkey". The guy in the video comments that his whole adult life he never knew the right way to open a banana. But in the video he shows how and now I do too. I exposed TOPWLH to the technique earlier today.

She tried it. Later on she came by where I was sitting on the deck. With the appropriate fruit in her hands she asked me if I knew how monkeys open an apricot.