Ring

I don't like delaying the start of the ride, especially at this time of year. It gets dark so darn early, I don't like being out there when the light starts to fail and the low angle of the sun starts to hamper vision for those people driving their cars towards the setting sun. There are enough hazards out there under good lighting conditions.

But it was cold today, colder than what I wanted to ride in. I didn't want to start until I had at least one source that said 40. That's about 10 degrees colder than yesterday. I think three separate items of gear that didn't go along on yesterday's ride made the cut for today. Riding when it is this cold is really, really hard.

And then, cattle barn: 39 at 1:43.

Pretty cold.

Before I got that far though I took this photo of my current front yard situation.

The city crew arrived at 7:55am. Today is literally the last day of leaf pick-up, the third and final day for this section of town which is the last section being picked up. Being this late meant at least for this year that the crew was using slightly different tools than they have used every other time I have seen them in action.

Always before there were a couple of guys with metal leaf rakes keeping the leaves moving towards the maw of the giant vacuum. This late in the year and with the rain we recently had meant that only one of the three guys had a rake. Lots of leaves because of when they were raked could be damp in the pile and with morning temperatures in the 20s the leaves could be frozen.

Two guys were using what I think of as barn cleaning forks. Long handled, five tine pitch forks, definitely not garden forks but also not the kind of fork you use for moving hay, more the kind of fork you use for moving manure when you are cleaning the barn.

As I say, a little different, interesting.

I would probably ride past these guys all of the time except that most approaches involve an uphill, a couple of which are not on my personal favorites list:

I found myself exploring parts of Como Park where I haven't been before. It looks to me like they are planning a big expansion of the amount of paved pathway they have, particularly in the southwest corner of the park, near where this is.

All things considered though, it ends up having been another nice day to have been out on my bicycle. The season continues.

And the ring finger curls inwards to the palm.