Teleion Holon - Manchester, VT

OK, this post has been sitting open on my computer for a week now and I haven't put it up. I can't deal with myself. Sorry I'm so lame.

I have some fun things to talk about, including bike rides and food (of course). Yesterday Dresden asked me if I was up for a bike ride, and Kelly and Elyssa were into it as well as myself. Guv was standing there while we talked about it so he of course wanted to come. The only problem with that is that his little bike is not so safe to be taking out on the street. There's this crazy bike attachment that can be put onto another bike that would allow him to ride beind as a kind of trailer. It basically adds another person and another wheel to the bike. There were several obstacles involved in this: The bike it attaches to is too tall for me, so riding it is possible, but stopping is tricky and impossible with Guv on the back without someone to hold the bike up. Guv also has no sense of balance on a bike, so when he peddles he shifts his weight wildly. We got around this by agreeing that Guv should only peddle when we were going up a hill. The last problem, and most obvious one is that pulling Guv up a hill on the bike is freaking hard. We only did three really tough hills, but by the last one I was sure I was going to die. The up side of all of this is that when we were on straight road, or going downhill having Guv on there was no problem at all and he was great biking company. I'm glad he came along, it was fun to have him back there there whole time and made the ride so much more interesting.

Today was a potato day at Theo's. However, before we could head over a number of confusing things had to happen. Guv had to get to school, the white van needed to be loaded up, Oliver needed to do tractor work at the big white and then drive it over to Theo's and someone needed to pick up lime from the Big White. Bonnie couldn't take Guv though because Oliver had driven the minivan to the big white and all of the kid's car seats were in there. Dresden and I offered to take him in the Jeep, then swing by the big white and pick up the lime and the minivan while everyone else took the white van to Theo's and Oliver would drive over with the tractor and meet us there. This seemed to be a great plan, until Dresden and I passed the white van in town. Everyone was sitting on the curb and the van was parked. They had run out of gas and Mike and Elyssa had hitched a ride to the gas station. Dresden and I still needed to get the lime and the minivan and head back to Teleion before going to Theo's, so we said we'd look for them on the way back, as they seemed rather content. Things took a little longer than planned and by the time we got back to where they had been, they were gone. Turns out that The Logger saw Mike walking back and picked him up. Problem solved. On to Theo's.

We spent some of the morning and all of the afternoon there planting our own potatoes and helping him plant his. It's amazing how much can get done in a short time, with a good group of focused and willing people. We planted about ten beds of potatoes, which was close to 500 lbs. A good potato yeild will give us 10 lbs for every one lb, but we will probably get closer to 5-7 lbs per 1 lb, which is still a lot of freaking potatoes. Oliver used his tractor to make the furrows that we plant to potatoes in, and in order for the thing to work properly two people need to stand on it. I really wanted to get a picture of it, but before I could get my camera out, Theo's brother declared the activity unsafe and put a stop to it. Boo.

After many, many hours of working, Theo took us all over to his neighbor's pond for swimming. Bonnie came with the kids and some bathing suits. Talula did not like the cold water, but I couldn't get enough. I kind of wanted to swim all the way across, but the water was so cold it was hard to breath, so I stayed close to the shore. I wanted to bake in the sun a little (or allow my clothes to bake, as I was wearing about ten layers of sunscreen by that point), but Theo's brother again ended our party and told us it was time to go.