New Hampshire Mountain Mommy

Eating Local: Vacation Cooking Edition

At the end of August, we took a 5-day trip to Kingdom Trails. We rented a room at the Inn at Mountain View Farm that we’ve stayed in before, which we knew had a full kitchen. Because we’d spent the previous week in Maine, eating out, and had a week of riding in front of us, I wanted to make sure our nutrition was spot-on and that we ate well every night. It was a challenge – although I had a four burner stove and plenty of prep space at my disposal, I knew that the cookery available to me wasn’t what I’d choose. In order to minimize how much we had to pack in the car – we also had the kids’ bikes to load in, and two Rottweilers taking up the best space in the back of our bigger vehicle – I decided to bring only knives and three trusty iron skillets – one small (12″), one large (16″), and our grill pan. It wasn’t like cooking at home, but we still managed some lovely meals! Here are two of them:

 

Chicken Under a Brick and warm Corn Salad with Local Shishito Peppers and Tomatoes

Two locally grown chicken breasts seared under a “brick.”

Chicken under a brick is probably one of my favorite meals. Simple and pleasing, it lends itself to endless variations in seasoning, and is great as a main dish or salad topping. This time, we went super-simple and seasoned only with salt & pepper, throwing a few smashed garlic cloves into the pan for some extra flavor. I set the pan over med-high heat and constantly adjusted it because the stove I was working with was wonky; put in the breasts skin-side down; and set the other two skillets on top, covered in tin foil, to act as my “bricks.” After around 10 mins, when the skin was crispy and fat was rendered, I took the pans off and flipped the meat, cooking it over low for another 10-ish minutes.

It’s really important when choosing your meat to get SKIN-ON breasts. This way, as the fat renders, the skin crisps and gives a nice pop of crunch to your chicken breast. Skinless chicken gets a dry, flavorless, chewy texture when cooked this way.

Colorful and satisfying, this salad was a good way to use up leftover August corn!

After I took the “brick” pans off, I set the small one over high heat with a splash of olive oil and seared a pint each of shishito peppers and tomatoes. Once they’d swelled and popped with the heat, I added the corn cut from two leftover ears and heated it through. Voila. Dinner!

 

 

 

 

 

Seared Steak, Broccoli from the Garden, and pan-fried New Potatoes 

Good fuel for the next day’s ride.

We ate this feast halfway through our trip. It was not the most successful iteration of this meal, because we were working with an oven and stove that weren’t behaving like ours at home, and because we were already exhausted from riding when we cooked. We brought the steak to temperature (some temperature – not 115 degrees, which we were hoping for) in the oven, then seared it quickly in butter and vegetable oil over high heat. I cut the broccoli florets into approx. 1/2″ heads – largely because this is what the kids will eat, but also because, at this size, it cooks quickly and ends up with a soft crunch when sauteed gently with garlic over medium heat for a few minutes. The potatoes were boiled at the beginning of the steak-warming process, and then cut in half or quarters, according to their size, and fried in olive oil with copious amounts of pepper and salt. They were the star of the meal, because they were delicious and because we rarely eat potatoes any more, and also because we were ravenously hungry.

 

 

 

 

Garden Problems: &$%#ing Squirrel Edition

This year has seen a record influx in the squirrel population in New Hampshire. As I write this, I am soothed only by the knowledge that the rest of the state (and much of New England) is experiencing the same thing we did; and that predator population ought to be rising in the next few years to even out the squirrel population as a result.

PILFERING PEACHES

This year, all six of our peach trees were mature enough to produce a – how do I say this politely? – holy ton of fruit. Last year, we were swimming in peaches — in fact, we started the summer with three full gallon bags of frozen peaches left over from last summer. We reveled in our 2017 harvest; 2016 saw a huge crop loss of peaches across the Northeast, and we’d had a measly 3 peaches. Watching the trees bloom and the baby fruit come in, we were poised for another bumper crop of peaches.

2017’s beautiful peach crop!

And then the squirrels came.

Red and grey and brown, they nearly cleared my early-setting tree, leaving half-eaten hard peaches strewn across the lawn: silent little taunts. I rescued ten peaches from the first tree and let them ripen indoors, half the size they should have been. I let the dogs out into the orchard more frequently. I screamed at the squirrels when I saw them. I thought it was kind of funny, and that they’d grow bored and go somewhere else.

And then they cleared two trees overnight.

I didn’t think it was possible. They’re squirrels. There were hundreds of peaches on those trees. I called my husband, and told him I thought the bear was back (although the birdfeeder, oddly, hadn’t been touched this time). And then I found the piles of peaches with tiny tooth marks; I found them thrown into the driveway; I found them scattered by the compost heap and in guilty, half-eaten trails leading to the woods. This wasn’t the bear.

COULDN’T THEY AT LEAST EAT THE WHOLE PEACH? 

Please, PLEASE deter these rascals!

I went to Blue Seal and talked myself out of squirrel traps (not the humane kind) because I didn’t want the dogs or kids to get injured. Instead, I was lulled by the relative harmlessness of hot pepper spray, which seemed – from what I’d read online – to be the generally accepted way to repel pesky rodents. I sprayed our three remaining peach trees (one large, our oldest tree, and our two youngest trees) and the pear trees for good measure. For a few days, everything seemed to calm down.

And then it rained. And then there were no more peaches and only 3 pears one morning, and I hung my head in defeat and thought, “At least they haven’t touched the vegetable garden.”

 

STEALING SUNFLOWERS

Nothing escapes the notice of the resilient red squirrel. After exchanging horror stories about squirrel damage with local friends, I wondered what they’d find to eat next. But a month passed, and my garden was untouched. We harvested peas and Swiss chard, green beans and cucumbers. Birds pecked at my tomatoes and blight eventually took them, but no little critters chewed through the bird netting around the tomato cages. I shrugged, laughed ruefully at the now-ubiquitous news about the bumper crop of acorns and ensuing rise in squirrel population, and tended what plants needed tending. The squirrels devoured sumac as it came in, but continued to leave the garden alone. We went up to Kingdom Trails, and my son yelled one morning, “There’s a squirrel eating a sunflower!” Sure enough, there was a squirrel nibbling through a sunflower he’d chewed off a stalk. I’d never seen a squirrel do that, so we laughed at the silly squirrel and had a great time biking.

When we came home, we marveled at OUR sunflowers. The boys planted them indoors this spring, and they’d grown into a sunflower forest, shading them in the late summer heat and humidity so that they could play comfortably in the garden while I weeded and harvested. They were magnificent 7-ft-tall tangles of torso-sized leaves and serving-platter flowers. We cut a few to bring the cheer inside.

Three days later, my son said, “Mommy, why are the sunflowers all dead?” From the back porch, it looked like all the happy heads were drooping. We’d been through a few days with no rain; I had my husband set the sprinkler up and watered the garden, although nothing else seemed to be suffering. “They’re really bent over on the stalks,” he reported; “You’d better cut them tomorrow.”

Victim of Nibblers

Dutifully, I went down to the garden the next day to cut sunflowers. Sure enough, they were bent over on their stalks. But leaves were stripped. The thick stalks were marked. And worse, flowers were strewn through the garden. And they’d eaten the first watermelon I’d ever been able to grow. Murderous thieves! I harvested what I could and tried to trim off damaged stalks, flowers, and leaves. Charles suggested that we spray the ENTIRE GARDEN with pepper spray, and then plant hot peppers, and then build a jail for squirrels.

Salvaged Blooms

With a heavy heart, I remembered a friend telling me that gardening is an exercise in letting go. I sighed, and said a prayer of thanks for the bounty we have had this year in other vegetable crops, and another that we are not dependent on our garden or orchard for our income.

 

But I still dream of a pellet gun and squirrel traps, and I’m excited for the growth of small predator populations….

 

Nutrition in Hot Weather: My favorite formulas

This summer, New Hampshire has been a mess: hot, humid weather was broke only very occasionally by severe thunderstorms. As a result, we haven’t been shy with our energy and electrolyte supplements on rides; the last thing we want is to bonk or – frankly, worse to me – cramp up halfway up a hill on a 95 degree, 90% humidity day. Earlier in the summer I reviewed Skratch energy+electrolyte drinks, as well as Hammer products (HEED and Perpetuum). After three months of riding with various energy/electrolyte/endurance product combinations, here is what we found worked best in warm, humid conditions. 

Road Biking – 2h+

  • Before ride: Protein bar (Hammer, Kind, or Clif) +  banana (for me, not husband); plenty of water
  • During ride: 1 serving size Perpetuum split between two water bottles. After 1st water bottle is gone, replace with water + 1 Hammer Electrolyte Fizz [so easy to carry on a ride!] or plain cool water. SIS isotonic energy gels for fast energy every 45 min/hr. I cannot stress how much I like the SIS gels, especially in hot weather, because they are not sticky or strongly flavored, and they’re isotonic, so they don’t require extra water. I don’t feel nauseated on a hot, long ride from taste, texture, or need for even more hydration because of my gel. Their taste and mouthfeel is consistent whether they are cool or 100 degrees from being pressed against my back in the sun. It’s worth the small extra bulk (they’re about twice as big as normal energy gels).
  • After ride: Hammer Electrolyte fizz in 8oz water; Hammer Recoverite or other protein shake. If I have Recoverite instead of a protein shake supplemented by fruit/veggies/etc, I need to eat something solid within an hour or so. This is solid practice for intense exercise, anyway. The Recoverite has a very mild taste and dissolves completely in water; I prefer it to protein shakes for this reason.

Road Biking – 2h or less

  • Before Ride: granola bar (+/- on extra protein) or banana
  • During Ride: 1 Hammer HEED in a water bottle and SIS gel every 45min – 1h OR Hammer Electrolyte Fizz and SIS gel every 30-45m
  • After Ride: Protein shake

Road Biking – Less than 1h

  • Before Ride: Banana and/or energy gel
  • During: Water + Hammer Electrolyte Fizz
  • After: Protein shake

Since most of my riding falls into the 1 1/2-2h category because of babysitting availability, I found I tweaked the nutrition here most frequently. If I eat too many calories beforehand, I have a heavy stomach/stomach cramping on hot days, so I have been tending towards granola bars right around 200 calories, with a 3:1 or 4:1 carb:protein ratio. I cannot stress what a difference the Hammer products made in my hot-weather riding. If I took Skratch on my ride, which has “real” sugar in it instead of just maltodextrin, I ended my rides with a sticky, well-coated sugar-mouth. This is especially awful on high-humidity days when my entire body is already coated in an extra layer of yuck, and the air feels thick to breathe. For rides closer to an hour, or in less humid conditions, the mouthfeel of Skratch didn’t bother me as much. But also, who wants to be bathing their teeth in sugar while riding? I could see using this for an early morning commute, as the energy is a little more immediately felt than with HEED.

The real hero of the summer, however, is electrolyte tabs. Since I have found Hammer products so awesomely useful during intense exercise, I will admit that I haven’t tried any other brand of electrolyte-only tabs. I love that they are essentially calorie-free, which makes it easier to tweak my caloric needs during a ride without having to consider what’s in my water bottle. I also love that I can carry them with me on long rides and use them when I start to feel depleted; especially in hot weather, my body needs salt replaced more urgently than it needs extra calories. When my husband bonked on a hot mountain bike ride, two electrolyte tabs in a water bottle revived him without also giving him a sugar hit.

The happy rider in this photo brought to you by Perpetuum, Electrolytes, and SIS gels

Learning to Ride a Pedal Bike, Part 1: Frustration & Elation

At the beginning of June, we took a family trip to Kingdom Trails. Before this trip, we’d tossed around the idea of getting a pedal bike for our oldest a few times, but he’s pretty small for his age and was happy on his balance bike, so we weren’t particularly anxious. On this trip, we did some longer rides with the boys, and realized that the kind of trails Charles was ready to ride would be faster and easier with pedals. [Who really wants to tripod up a hill, which is what you do on a balance bike?] So, we came home and, after a few nights of fevered kid-bike research on Two-Wheeled Tots, ordered him a bright orange Cleary Gecko. At that time, he was around 33lbs and had an inseam of 16 inches – but was a pretty aggressive rider, and does most of his riding on our gravel driveway or in the woods  – which really limited us in terms of bikes that weren’t too heavy, would fit his inseam, and would still fit his riding style. These attempts are listed in chronological order but take place over the course of a month! 

Attempt 1: The Bike is Heavy and Pedals are Hard Feeling warm and fuzzy from stories of elated parents who’ve made a painless switch from balance to two-wheeled pedal bike with no need for training wheels – and so freakin’ excited for him – I couldn’t wait even ten minutes after the box arrived to put together the Gecko. We adjusted the seat so that his feet were flat, and he excitedly put his feet on the pedals…… ………and fell over. Then he tried it again, and fell over. So I pushed him through the grass; he put one foot on a pedal, tried to push it, and gave up. He abandoned the bike in the grass and got back on his balance bike.

I pushed him too hard. He’ll never like riding. Why did we do this. What were we thinking. What about all the parents who told me their kids just hopped on their pedal bike and went? What’s wrong with our kid? Apparently, after 5 minutes with the new bike, I was showing about as much patience as he was.

After the kids scurried off to hit each other with sticks, I picked up his pedal bike to put it up against the wall of the garage. Then I picked up the balance bike, and realized that it was half the weight of the pedal bike. Then I remembered that, even as one of the lightest options in kids’ 12-inch-wheel bikes, the Gecko weighs in at 13 lbs, which is almost half my kid’s body weight. How would I feel trying to pedal a 60-lb bike???

I took the pedals off and called him back over. “Charles, this bike is really heavy. Would you like to try it without pedals on to see how it feels? I bet it will go SUPER FAST for you down the hill!”

Attempt 2: Dad & Cleary Customer Support Save the Day After I spent the whole first afternoon telling Charles that he could ride his new bike as a balance bike for a while just to get him on the darn seat, his dad decided to spend some time coaching him the next day, and got him on the bike with pedals. They talked through pedaling, they talked through using toes instead of heels, they talked through being brave and working hard, and then his dad gave him a push and I watched him get his feet up and pedal. For a few pedal strokes. He looked awkward on the bike and we kept adjusting the seat height and arguing about whether he should be toe- or flat-foot-on-the-ground. I finally called Cleary’s super helpful customer service line, was assured that he was NOT supposed to have full leg extension on his bike (this encourages him to stand to pedal — actually very useful, but so far from where we were that I couldn’t even imagine it at the time) and that he WOULD, in fact, someday pedal this bike and rip it on trails.

Attempt 3: Bike Date #1 with Friends Buoyed by the success of pedaling with Dad, and hopeful that he’d let me help him by giving him a boost, I arranged a biking playdate with a friend of his who was just getting comfortable on a balance bike. I didn’t want him to cop out of riding his new bike, so I deliberately “forgot” his old balance bike. Unfortunately, I actually forgot the wrench I needed to get the pedals off, so he tolerated my help and encouragement with pedaling for about 3 minutes and then stole his brother’s balance bike. I ended up pushing Little Bro on the new pedal bike and came home with a sore back. Womp.

Please let me interrupt my own narrative for a hot second here. It’s VERY IMPORTANT to me that I point out two things: one, that Charles had NO ISSUES balancing his new bike, even though it was heavy; two, that we were both ready to give up on the darn thing after THREE attempts at it. Have some faith and patience, Mommy and Charles! 

Attempt 4: I Figure Out how to Explain Bikes Easily frustrated parents of easily frustrated children who are competent at riding a balance bike, take heart. After I watched Charles and his dad work for a good half hour on pushing off and getting his feet on the pedals, I realized we were missing a very important piece of information: how a pedal bike works. Charles was putting his feet on the pedals, but hadn’t quite figured out that this is what moved the wheels. I sat down with him, showed him that when he pushed on a pedal it moved the chain, watched the chain move the back wheel. VOILA. Understanding, and a lot more enthusiasm for riding the bike!

Attempt 5: Bike Date #2 with a Different Friend G has been riding his pedal bike for almost 6 months. He is one of those kids who transitioned immediately and without issue from balance to pedal bike, on his 4th birthday. G is also one of Charles’s best friends. The two of them have one of those dude friendships where they don’t say much but constantly invent new projects together. I wised up after our last playdate and threw a multi-tool and a wrench for his pedals into my purse. [Let me tell you, it makes me feel awesome to carry tools in my little handbag with blue flowers, while wearing makeup, in wedges. I feel like Super-Mom when my hand touches that cool metal and I know that, whatever the world throws at my kids and their bikes, I can fix it for them.] I was able to fix all the kids’ bikes for them, adjust everyone’s seats so that they could ride each other’s bikes… and then they decided that running around and riding scooters was more fun. And Charles still refused to ride his pedal bike with the pedals on. But the kids were happy!

Attempt 6: Family trip to Kingdom Trails on which Daddy refuses to take the pedals off Charles’s bike and Charles is frustrated that he can’t go fast but then he does go fast and then we all eat ice cream. Phew. 

After the KT trip, Charles didn’t ask to ride his bike without pedals anymore, so I’ll end this chapter of our story here and pick up the story of learning how to use his bike in another post!

 

Cooking Local: Tomato and Green Bean Salad with Cheese

This year has been particularly bad for pesky wildlife. We’ve lucked out – red squirrels have only wiped out our peaches and half my tomatoes. Deer jumped an electric fence and ate an entire crop of lettuce at a farm down the road!! Fortunately, I’ve been able to source any produce I don’t or can’t grow myself from farms close by. My goal with summer cooking is to keep everything as fresh and quick as possible, especially while the northeast suffers through record heat. The green beans and basil in this recipe came from our garden; beautiful heirloom cherry tomatoes came from Work Song Farm; and the sheep’s milk feta — I can’t rave enough about its mild flavor and creamy texture — came from Gilded Fern Farm. 

Tomato and Green Bean Salad

1 qt green beans, trimmed, halved, and blanched

1 pt cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered

6 oz sheep’s milk feta (or other fresh feta), cubed or crumbled

15-20 basil leaves, chiffonade

Mix all ingredients together. Add olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste.

Cooking Local: Haddock with Summer Herbs

One of the things we love the most about living in New Hampshire is that, in the summer, we can eat almost exclusively NH-grown products. We like to eat what we can from our own garden and fruit trees; pick our own at other farms; visit our farmer’s market; and make trips to farm stands and stores. For the past two years, we’ve also done a fish CSA through New Hampshire Community Seafood. Most of the fish we get is white, flaky groundfish. This past week, NHCS was selling fresh haddock at the farmer’s market in one- and two-pound bags. A quick, delicious meal was just waiting to be made!  

NHCS Haddock with Fresh Garden Herbs

1lb fresh haddock (or other whitefish) filets

4tbsp fresh herbs, roughly chopped (I used parsley, lemon thyme, and summer savory)

1/2 lemon

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Pat fish dry and lay filets out side-by-side in oven-proof baking dish. Squeeze lemon and drizzle olive oil over fish. Sprinkle herbs evenly over the fish. Cook under HIGH broiler until done – approx. 10 mins/inch of fish thickness. Whitefish will flake easily when done!

Fresh from the oven!

Bumbling in the Berry Patch

raspberry of my dreams

Over in the corner of our orchard squat two big boulders, surrounded on one side by a few brave wild strawberries, raspberries, and a lot of poison ivy; and on the other with a thick tangle of ferns that was slowly spreading into the orchard. Last summer, in a fit of rage and determination to make that corner productive, I ripped out a third of the ferns with a hand tiller. The boys and I decided it would be fun to turn it into a berry patch, and put in a lowbush blueberry that was moderately shade-tolerant, two thornless blackberry bushes, and two raspberry bushes. This spring, before the ivy started to grow, reaching furtive tendrils up the side of the rock, and before the ferns became so large that the job was daunting, i took the kids out to the corner with their hoes and my tiller, and we dug up the rest. Eventually, after two days of labor on our part, my husband brought a shovel out, helped dig up the rest of the fern roots, and edged the new bed for me.

Planting a berry patch in this corner made sense for a few reasons:

(1) it gets partial sun, making it a terrible place for vegetables, but a happy corner for fruit that can tolerate some afternoon shade;

(2) we only had one blueberry bush at that point, and wanted to expand our fruit selection;

(3) I was spending upwards of $50/wk on berries for my voracious children. [They can eat a quart of blueberries in two days. They are toddlers.]

However, I remembered the tangled, dangerous brambles of the blackberry and raspberry patches of my own childhood. I decided we’d need to trellis the plants – to contain them, and for picking ease – and buy thornless varieties when possible. The end result?

The newly cleared portion, plus new plants. Isn’t the edging just lovely?

The initially cleared portion of the bed, with one year old bushes just trellised this spring. Note the encroaching ferns lurking in the left-hand corner…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found thornless blackberry varieties, and planted one more blueberry bush, a shade-tolerant northern varietal that should grow 4-5′ tall, putting it at approximately the same height as the blackberries and raspberries. Trellising the berries created natural pathways between the bushes, and has been a huge boon as they’ve grown – but not overgrown. In addition to controlling the plants, it provides a framework for pruning the plants.

After losing our first “crop” of raspberries to the birds and chipmunks, the kids and I threw bird netting over the plants. We saved a few berries; hopefully the fall crop will be more successful!

Mulched, in the sun, growing. Love the rich soil in our orchard!

 

Charles and Theo Plant a Garden

It feels like I’ve been waiting forever, but our kids are finally old enough to actually help me with the vegetable garden! Now that Theo is 2 1/2, he follows directions and doesn’t smash seedlings; Charles, at 4 1/2, helps plant seeds and harvest. Two years ago, I set aside a small corner of my garden for Charles’s play – a spot he could happily dig in without fear that he’d destroy seedlings. Last year, with both boys mobile, we put in a pea tent/fort and tried to landscape around it with kid-friendly plants. This year, things have expanded quite a bit, driven by the boys’ own creativity as well as my desire to have more than a giant dirt pile.

Starting our Seedlings

I generally haven’t started anything indoors; as an impatient person, I find sprouting and tending seedlings tedious, and with young dogs and children in the house, couldn’t stomach both the wait and the impending [imagined] disaster: dirt and baby plants all over the living room floor. This year, I decided it was time to watch things sprout, and the garden tends to put up too many weed seedlings for it to be a truly fun thing to watch for the kids. So we set up a small seed-starter and planted

Our little seedlings!

  • Pony Watermelon
  • Charentais Melon
  • Summer Savory
  • Bush Cucumbers
  • English Cucumbers
  • Sunflowers
  • French Marigolds

Each of these plants has distinctive seed shape and size, and we ran the gamut from 2-inch-deep single-seed planting to surface scattering, so the kids stayed involved and interested in our tiny planting project. I sourced my seeds from John Scheeper’s Kitchen Garden Seeds; I find that their seeds germinate well and the varietals they carry work well in our climate. I’ve had less luck – although I try every year – with our local organic garden seeds.

Preparing our Garden

While we waited for the weather to warm up enough to plant outside, we turned compost, hoed and shaped our rows – including the kids’ bed – and put landscaping fabric in between the rows to help keep weeds down and show the children where it was safe to walk. The boys were eager to help with this project; they love being outside, and they both like to be helpers. I was happy to find them little jobs to do, and happy for their company!

Raking compost into the asparagus bed.

Theo ready to take compost to the garden!

Charles in the compost bins, helping me turn compost.

 

The Boys’ Corner

Theo in last year’s pea tent

Last year we planted sweet peas to cover the tent!

Once it was warm enough to plant, it was time to think about what was going where! I walled off the asparagus bed, which is tucked behind their corner, with some old tomato cages spread out; these formed a natural trellis for peas to climb up, and had the added benefit of keeping the kids from stepping on just-emerging asparagus heads. We planted peas around one side of the pea tent, as well. [The “tent” is made from bent fenceposts covered in trellising netting.] They chose snow peas – a wonderful choice, as the plants are large, hard to destroy, and easy to harvest from inside the tent.

 

Pansies and watermelon climbing the tent!

The boys in their tent this year.

Both boys are partial to watermelon, and because I couldn’t find a better place – or even space! – in the rest of the garden, we planted our pony watermelon seedlings around the other side of the tent. They had a rough start, but we tucked fresh compost in around them every week for the month of June, and once the heat of July kicked in, they started climbing the trellis. Hopefully no little critters or coyotes will eat them this year!

The sunflower seedlings needed to go somewhere desperately, so one afternoon while Theo slept, Charles and I delineated “beds” with old wooden tomato supports and planted the sunflowers in one tidy row. Charles placed a little blue garden fairy at the head of the row, to watch over them as they grew. Sunflowers are an amazing flower to grow with kids – they sprout quickly, grow quickly, and can be any number of imaginary things; we’ve read books where sunflowers are pretend monsters; serve as gifts for dragons; make their own grown-up free fort as they grow in a circle; and the boys come up with their own stories. Planting all of ours in a row has had the intended effect of walling off the boys’ section of the garden so it feels like a special enclave to them. They’re especially thrilled now that the flowers are up over Mommy’s head!

Also in their corner are plants they chose, planted, and tend themselves: two ever-bearing strawberry plants, covered in a good deal of bird netting to keep out birds and chipmunks, and tucked in with straw; and two large purple pansies, selected by Charles for color and me for hardiness [kids can step on pansies, and pull them up, and unlike their name suggests, they persist]. I also planted baby beets in one corner as a surprise, and we’ve let flowers from last year’s wildflower patch reseed themselves – a large maroon cosmos keeps them excited.

It’s exciting to watch them sit in their pea tent and munch peas from the plants around them. They emerge and bring in a cucumber or green beans to share, pretending one is cooking dinner for the other. They’ve dug a huge hole in one corner countless times – there is still a big enough patch of unplanted ground for them to have a satisfying game going with construction trucks and matchbox cars. I’m glad they’re entertained while I’m weeding and harvesting; their little voices keep me company; and they now have a sense of ownership and stewardship. Win. Win win win. I’m so happy to have my boys in the garden!

No plants were harmed by bikes or digging! Everyone and everything is welcome in the garden!

My Kids are Rockstars

Or, an overview of two great rides for early, eager riders.

Or, how to bribe your kids up a bunch of hills with the promise of tasty snacks. 

Or, look, let’s admit it, we are obsessed with Kingdom Trails. 

Before we dive into this post, let me first say that we did not intend to take our children on difficult trails on this trip. Charles is just now comfortable on his pedal bike, and Theo is fully 2 1/2 – alternately brilliant and charming or whiny/screaming/throwing a tantrum, all very articulately and utterly unpredictably. After our ride with our friends, we all took the boys down to the pump track behind The Hub, and it took a fair amount of cajoling to get them to even leave for a ride on Bemis – a trail they’ve ridden before, several times, but still collapsed on in the first 100 feet and announced they were just too exhausted to ride.

Ready to go again after a snack break!

Once we got into the rhythm of riding, we all enjoyed each other as a family again. The boys were cheerful and observant; Charles was brave enough to start pedaling over some roots; we took a pit stop for some kids’ Larabars where Bemis and Loop join and snapped a few pictures of happy kids itching to ride more. Because they were so enthusiastic, we kept going on Loop, intending to come out near Mountain View Farm, where we’d end our ride and send a grown-up to fetch a car and drive us back to Wildflower Inn.

Best Dad Ever coaching our kids up a steep section

But the trails leading to Mountain View were closed (OH NO!), so we took a very pretty detour through a field and up a steep hill, re-entering the woods and finding ourselves at a totally unmarked intersection. A nice man out with his daughter met us having just descended the trail we were considering ascending, and informed everyone present that it was Poundcake. A black diamond. And the shortest route out.We talked in low tones about turning around, although that would have meant a three mile ride back for our tired kids. My husband finally rode ahead to check out the trail, and, given how close we were to the farm, he decided we should try it with the kids.

They freaking killed it.

Emerging victorious in the parking lot of the Inn at Mountain View, my oldest said, “Can we ride some more?” And we took the road back to Wildflower, with only a few boosts to get them up the hills. No need for a rescue ride in the car. They rode into the parking lot by Village Sport Shop Trailside to cheers and “awws” from onlooking groups of adults.

My kids are rockstars. 

Riding up Darling Hill Road

 

The next day, Charles sulked and gave the sitter attitude while my husband and I rode in the morning. He devoured a hot dog with great gusto at lunch, and announced he was ready to hit the trails. We had scoped out a route on our ride – now that we knew they could climb Poundcake, we were tired of riding Bemis with them. So we took them on a route at the south end of the trails.

Impatient to try Culvert Cut!

Rooty descent? No prob!

Once again, they killed it. We’d been looking forward to riding all of Culvert Cut with them, but the skies opened up and we decided we’d better turn around. By the time we got back to the road, it was sunny again. We stopped for a snack, let them run around [how do they have energy for riding and running?], and set off down Border. A trail that starts in a field, enters the woods, and has a rooty, knobby descent: no problem for these guys. Snack in a clearing bordered by wild raspberries, accompanied by the songs of a wood thrush and song sparrow: magical.

 

 

Stopping for raspberries on our way up Old Webs

Climbing out on Old Webs, the grumpiness set in. Charles flopped over on his bike several times, declaring it “too hard.” Theo plodded along rather cheerfully, musing, “Mommy, do birds have teef? Can dey eat raspberries?” and only whining when his brother stopped. We crawled up the trail at snail’s pace; I grew irritated; my husband, luckily, had the genius to let them pick raspberries as we went up. The frequent stops for fruit, as annoying as I found them, got us up the trail. To the chorus of, “I don’t want to go up any more hills, where’s my downhill?” – a feeling I totally get – we emerged onto Up and Downing. Charles and my husband flew back to the car, happy to finally ride fast. Theo and I brought up the rear, pretending our bikes were rally cars and “vroooooom”-ing our way back well behind the two of them. All-in-all, a successful ride.

Those two are rock stars. Despite their complaining, they get an A+ for effort and riding. They both took on roots bigger than their bike tires, zoomed along narrow trails, and hopped easily over rocks. Their infectious enthusiasm for trail riding even when it’s hard reminds me that it’s okay to push our kids a little, as long as the family is together and we can keep it fun!

Happy Bike Family at the end of the day!

Livin’ the Dream

Taking a friend for her first mountain bike ride

We spent the weekend of July 21 & 22 at Kingdom Trails. This time, we took two of our [newlywed] good friends with us – the husband is one of my husband’s best friends, and is part of the reason he still cycles. His wife hadn’t been mountain biking before; I’ve been dying to take her out, because she used to trail run, she’s getting stronger as a road cyclist… and there are really, really not enough women out on the MTB trails. Also because she’s awesome, and I really enjoy her company! Taking her out spurred recollections of my own first time on the trails, really only a year ago. I’ll describe our ride, using it as the framework to talk a little more generally about what it’s like to be an adult beginner on the mountain bike.

[The trails at KT are demarcated like ski trails: green circles for easy trails, blue squares for intermediate, black diamond for advanced riders.]

My husband was my first mountain biking “instructor,” and he didn’t scare me off, so I generally trust his plans in this aspect of our life. He decided the first half of our ride on Saturday; we started down Heaven’s Bench, a relatively straightforward single-track* trail without too many roots and rocks and without any steep dropoffs. It does have a very large berm at the beginning of the ride. Because of this berm, I question why it’s marked on a recommended beginner loop; however, the friend we were riding with tends to be more comfortable with downhill speeds than I am, and she was on a full-suspension bike with 150mm rear suspension – a bike I’ve ridden – that I knew would keep her secure on the trail if she tried the berm. She didn’t; she walked it; I walked it my first time, too. There is never any shame in walking any part of a trail that makes you uncomfortable. She hit the last half of the trail smiling and without issue. We took on a rooty descent with a couple of small bermed turns on Ridge slowly, and emerged, to her considerable relief, onto the wide, smooth double-track of Vast. Vast took us up to more lovely double-track: we went down Bill Magill until we hit Widow Maker.

The alarmingly-titled Widow Maker is a moderately paced blue single-track with a few steep descents, but it’s mostly roots, sharper turns, and passes between trees that make it a more difficult trail. It’s a decent “first” blue trail because there’s nothing to terrify the new rider on it – no steep embankments, no narrow bridges, no huge berms. Similarly, the next blue trail we went up, Riverwood [full disclosure: my favorite trail], provides a nice introduction to the fun of cross-country as opposed to downhill riding: narrow, winding trail that never strays too close to edge of the ridge on which it’s built, laced with tiny berms to practice leaning on and handlebar-wide passes through small trees. No steep ascents or descents, just fun riding.

The boys, after we finished Riverwood, discussed the best way back to the Village Sport Shop Trailside, where we were based for the day. They decided to try Leatherwood – our friend seemed to have gained some confidence riding Riverwood, and she’s strong, and it’s a more interesting trail than Sugarhouse Run or Vast, our other options at that point. I should have spoken up. I knew that Leatherwood has a section of trail I was only just recently – two weeks ago – willing to ride. I didn’t want to psych out our friend, who might not have the same issue that I do – a weird fear of left-hand drop-offs. I also forgot until we were on the trail that I’d walked the entire trail the first time we rode it. Forgot, in fact, until she was walking the same section of steep drop-off that I loathe, frustrated and ready to throw in the towel. Luckily, after a narrow bridge, there’s nothing but roots to get through until Nose – not a bad black diamond – which we climbed out to meet the wide double-track of Sugarhouse Run. We slogged up Sugarhouse Run and Bill Magill and emerged, breathless, onto Darling Hill Rd.

The climb to Darling Hill on double-track reminded me why I’m glad I got comfortable quickly on single-track: double-track climbing is boring. It’s wide, so it can’t crawl around and switchback the way that single-track ascents can. There’s no relief to the slope. You just have to make it up. It gave me a lot of time to reflect on what we’d just ridden, and to decide that I wasn’t going to let the guys decide the rest of the ride for us. They’d pushed our friend onto trails that I wouldn’t have liked as a beginner, forgetting some things about beginning mountain biking:

(1) We need to trust our bikes, and trust that we are balanced on them, before we can think about how to maneuver technical areas of the trails. Coming down a berm or up a steep trail; coming over a rooty climb; rolling over rocks: all of these are skills we can develop, but we need to understand what it feels like to maneuver a mountain bike on a basic trail before we start adding features. Does that sound boring to you, man who has been biking for 30 years? One boring run on a green could mean the world to your lady.

(2) We don’t know how to raise ourselves out of the saddle when we first start biking, and so roots and bumps in the trail hit us everywhere, and it hurts. Rising out of the saddle to avoid these jars – which cause bruising and chafing – requires proper pedal control and foot position (pedals parallel, toes horizontal or slightly upturned). Descending a steep, rooty single-track trail as a beginning mountain biker takes enough focus just to stay on the bike that it’s impossible to work on pedal control and coming up from the saddle at the same time.

(3) It takes time to get used to the way a bike slips (or doesn’t) on different surfaces. Mountain bikes don’t feel like road bikes. Mountain bike trails are much more varied than pavement. I repeat: one boring run on a green could make your beginner-friend’s day, because it allows us to feel dirt, grass, rocks, slopes, bridges, sand, mud, etc, without adding technical features to our ride.

(4) Mountain bikes shift very differently from road bikes because their gearing differs considerably, and anticipation of gear changes is, as a result, very different. For a beginning rider who is used to road-riding, this can be frustrating for a few different reasons: we can’t climb as quickly; we mix up our gears; we’re not used to when we need to shift – it’s not the same as climbing on pavement! – so we shift too quickly and lose momentum, or shift too late, grind our gears, and fall off our bikes.

(5) We need to learn how to focus on the trail! This is something that only comes with practice. Nobody can teach attention that must be paid on the trail until you’re riding, and where and what you focus on varies from trail to trail. But where road-riding requires tuning out cars and also anticipating the wind generated by their passing, focus on line, and paying attention to grade of slope and potholes, mountain biking demands attention to myriad details, big and small, that are changing second by second. It’s mentally draining, especially at the beginning. (It’s also part of why I love it!)

With these things in mind, I sat down and looked at our map. The guys were antsy to ride more; our friend was not sure she wanted to go out again. I promised to take her on a kinder route, hoping I’d be able to show her why she should love mountain biking even though she was bruised and getting discouraged.

We all set off up Bemis, a long double-track green that wanders across the edge of fields, enters and exits woods, has a few wide, satisfying bridges to ride, and serves as the connector to most of the trail systems on the west side of Darling Hill. We dropped our husbands off at the top of Troll Stroll, a black diamond descent that I tried two weeks ago with a great deal of trepidation, but which those two were itching to rip down. She and I continued on to take a small section of Loop over to River Run, and I have no regrets. A wide, smooth, black diamond double-track descent built her confidence in her bike; she didn’t have to worry about roots or obstacles, and could focus on learning how to shift her weight over the bike and feel secure. Knowing that after the initial descent, the trail turned from black diamond to blue square, we were both confident that we’d be able to handle any part of what was coming next. We chatted. I told her about keeping her toes up to help balance her weight backwards… and also about the headache I’d had for two weeks, and what the kids had been up to. It was a lovely ride along the river; I almost didn’t want to meet our husbands, but we found them at the bottom of Troll Stroll. From there, we took a pleasant ride down Eager Beaver, an easy blue single-track with cool variations in vegetation and a couple of fun berms (not too steep or sharp) to rebuild confidence from the initial Heaven’s Bench descent. After that, we all climbed out on Burrington Bench after we showed her how to lock out her rear suspension, so she’d feel a little more efficient about climbing — one of the only things I dislike about going from road to mountain biking is how slow the climbs can be.

We’ll see if our friend will come riding with us again. Even if she won’t, I loved having another girl to ride with, at least for a few hours; and I’m happy that she got to see some beautiful trails without worrying about how she was doing on her bike. How did she do? SO WELL. I’m still impressed she took on the trails she did. She was brave, strong, focused, and able to keep her head about her even when she was frustrated. I’d ride with her any day.

 

*[So what’s the difference between double- and single-track trails? Double-track trails provide enough room for at least two riders; this allows them to act as kind of “highways” for bikers to pass in both directions or to ride next to each other. They’re usually big enough that an ATV or pickup could fit down them, and sometimes double as access roads for trail maintenance, or as snowmobile trails in the winter. In contrast, a single-track trail is often only as wide as it needs to be for a bike to pass through; it looks like a hiking trail, and because it’s narrower, is considered slightly more difficult than a double-track trail of the same level (ie, green, blue, or black). When I was first starting, I *really* preferred double-track trails, as it felt like they provided me with more room for error, the way a wider ski trail feels easier because it’s less confining. Indeed, you’re much less likely to hit a tree on a wide double-track than a narrow single-track unless you’re trying hard.]

 

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