The Raven's Roost

It's "warmer" today, and I'm going out for a short run soon. While 45 is warmer than 33, the difference feels quantitative rather than qualitative. In other words it's still cold as ass outside. But I dreamed about running last night and I just want to go.

( I actually remembered this one. )
I'm going to take another stab at reading The Count of Monte Cristo. I am stealing an idea from decemberthirty about "Tome of the Year," wherein one reads a large, ponderous tome of a book. I'd thought about re-reading War & Peace but I feel like I'd enjoy Dumas' hulking adventure novel if I can just get far enough into it. I dropped out last year while he was still setting up characters and plot lines because I felt like I couldn't keep track of what was going on. I still could probably use a "who's who" guide to keep everyone in line.

I am also considering filling out the formal application through the State of Florida to be a state park volunteer. Volunteering is a good way to get a foot in the door to be a park ranger, which would be a pretty awesome job. Even if I didn't, it would still be great to help out. And maybe get to pet a bear. Petting a bear is completely safe and nothing bad would ever happen to me.(I should maybe delete this if I want them to actually consider my application.)

It's getting to be about as warm as it's going to get, so I need to go run.

I debated with myself whether to try to get my blood draw done this morning, but the way it's raining, I don't really want to deal with it. I have some last minute cleaning and prep things I want to do before the power goes out - which it likely will. Yesterday I went with Fox and while he did his PT I managed to buy some ethanol-free gas for the generator and fill up a couple of the diesel jugs for the tractor. I also filled one of our water bottles at Walmart which was not crazy yet, but they were out of toilet paper and bottled water. There was still beer though, LOL.

Trash pick up is supposed to be going on today until conditions become hazardous, so we'll see if they get mine or if I'm skipped over again. We did manage to finish the trash shed, so it's tall enough for the county-issued cans, but the doors are also on it. We prefer to protect the generator, so it goes into the shed where it can be out of the rain. It does have adequate ventilation in there, but then we also have an older model without the carbon dioxide sensor.

Today I'll start taking rain gauge readings every four hours. By tonight things should start getting rough, but the track is trending more to the south, which pulls it away from us. And of course there's much cooler temps after this thing. Seven weeks until Space Coast :D

Speaking of - I found some scrap denim, and I plan to do my "Dorie's Marathons" hashmark patch with a permanent marker. I can also do the word marathons in the style of the Metallica logo because why wouldn't I? I'm probably listening to Metallica while I run anyway.

I'm not feeling as much need to stress bake, but I'm going to make a tray of granola today. I'll probably feed the sourdough. Hmm. I would have sworn I saw a link yesterday to a recipe for sourdough cinnamon muffins, I need to go look for that.

Today is another long run, 2.5 hours like last week's. I had considered going to Keystone Heights and running the trail, but I don't know if they would need to clean up much from the storm. I decided not to chance it and give crews time to do their work. But since I also do not feel like dealing with moronic drivers on SR21 I'm running on the treadmill again today. I may use the time to catch up on episodes of Old Gods of Appalachia since treadmill running can be deadly boring.

Space Coast is going to be my tenth marathon, with WDW my eleventh. I vaguely started to consider making a "battle jacket" style patch for my hydration vest with hash marks for each marathon race, but I haven't quite decided how to do it. I could always just use fabric paint on the Osprey pack itself, but making a patch out of spare cloth would allow me to remove it for training runs, and switch it to a new hydration vest if/when I get one. I've always enjoyed seeing people wearing something about how many races they've run, especially older-than-me folks with a lot of racing experience.

Or I could make an ACTUAL battle jacket out of cut-up race t-shirts. LOL sounds better than a quilt. Some of my race shirts from my first year of running are starting to get worn - especially the Spud Run one which I wear a lot because I like the logo. I think they still do the Spud Run, it's just a 5k and 10k now with no half marathon.

OH HEY they still do it! :D And you can do both distances for a 15k "challenge." I might do that instead of Gate River Run this spring.

Anyway, enough about running. I started picking up branches in the yard yesterday. One of the thuds we heard was probably a small-ish pine tree in the side yard that had been leaning for a long time. Happily it fell away from the radio tower lines. The power is back on for most of the county, with some people around Keystone Heights proper still without, but we started out with something like almost ten thousand out of power so that's pretty good. Obviously the internet is back online despite all the towers being down, and Fox isn't 100% sure why, since even the ones that still had power were offline and he could only connect to the main server at the FastNet warehouse.

Our new garbage collectors take over this week, and as a special "welcome to Clay County" gift, they get to do yard waste/storm debris pickup, too. Have fun, guys. I never got a chance to call and find out what day our pickup is supposed to fall on, so I have to call over there Monday, or text my neighbor and see if she knows.

It's muggy and hot outside, well before sunup, so I'll be doing today's workout on the treadmill. I have five minute threshold intervals, which can go very badly on gross days like this because the hot, humid air makes it so hard to breathe. I return once again to the joke that humidity is the southerner's version of altitude training.

Fox has a follow up appointment this week about his leg. They did an MRI last week, and hopefully he'll get some sort of actionable information out of this. He thinks that he may need to avoid using it at all, and that being told to do physical therapy exercises on it has prevented whatever is going on from healing properly. Space Coast will allow him to drop from the full marathon to the half, if he feels he needs to, and if he does I will do that along with him. I haven't told him that yet because I don't want him to feel like he's preventing me from doing something, but I also don't want him to have to run alone ... or to wait forever for me to finish. Going all the way to Cocoa for "just" a half marathon seems a little over the top, but we've been racing this one long enough we're up for challenge medals - I think it's "Mission To Mars" this year. And depending on how he feels about running on his own, can always use the fast & flat course and relatively light crowds to try to PR. I have PR'd at Disney but they can have some pretty bad choke points with all the runners, so it's never a given that you'll be able to run the whole way.

He helped me turn over one of the garden beds and I got my Everglades Tomatoes set out. I also have an army of tiny basil seedlings where the two bigger plants were so instead of trying to start anything I'm just going to let a few of those get big. I trimmed around the pumpkin vines, harvested two more pumpkins, and found another starting to form. There's one bed that I want to do pest control on (wireworms) before prepping it for winter potatoes. We can get two rows of potato mounds in there, which would provide us with a pretty generous amount of 'taters. I may also set out garlic, because I think the intense summer heat wasn't kind to what I started in spring. A lot of that is vanishing from stores here, because everyone operates on a general timetable, rather than what you can actually plant from region to region. It's probably great if you live in Ohio, but October is when we can really start growing things here. So if I can't find seed potatoes and stuff locally I'll just order some online.

I may try growing ube yams, too, though I think they're technically considered invasive here. But think of the desserts!

Today is mostly baking - sourdough sandwich bread, potato waffles for running snacks, garlic knots.

I'll be getting around to commenting/responding later today, but for now here I am posting an entry. Woo!

I mentioned that I didn't have a TV for a longish time, but when I was in high school we did have one of those massive floor model things that cats like to sleep on, and we even had cable! I grew up with three channels plus PBS, and there was a FOX affiliate in Knoxville but we couldn't pick it up. So it was 2, 4, 6, and 10, and of course, video games on channel 3. Having cable meant I spent my summers ... watching classic movie channels. This was an all day thing for me - I loved (and still love) movies, and getting to see all these old movies was just amazing. I watched stuff I never hear people mention any more, like Mighty Joe Young, The Last Remake of Beau Geste, all those Esther Williams "swimming flicks," The Long Long Trailer ... okay that last one is actually referenced in a They Might Be Giants song.

Later, I enjoyed things like "Silent Sundays," and whichever channel it was than ran samurai flicks on Saturday mornings. I love Kurosawa's historical epics, and will talk your ear off about why you need to watch The Hidden Fortress.

These guys. You need to watch it because of these guys. :D


Aside from all the Star Wars stuff, it's just a tremendously good movie.

Anyway. I have a small backlog of films I need to watch this summer, so whether it's too hot and the sand's too soft, or if that tropical system comes and sits over us and dumps rain, I'm likely to be on the treadmill, which means catching up on films and on my Crunchyroll shows.

Yesterday I tested a suspicion I've harbored for a while now, and yes, the closet door mirrors in the main bedroom/exercise room ARE warped. I took a wooden ruler and put it against the glass, and every mirror has multiple warped areas, both horizontally and vertically. This is likely why when I see myself in those I typically wonder what the hell is going on with my body. Actually, nothing is going on with how I look, the mirrors are just distorting my reflection enough to mess with my self-perception. Since they're large sliding doors, I would guess the glass that the mirrors are made from is thin, so it's both cheap and lightweight, but thinner glass warps more easily. The bathroom mirrors are much heavier, so my reflection there tends to be more reliable. The few times I've taken mirror selfies, they're using the bathroom mirrors.

Oh, and we have two pumpkins starting to form. YAY! And Fox came across a UF Extension flier on something called an Everglades Tomato, which I'm going to try to acquire and grow here. It's getting to that time of year when not much of anything grows here aside from the squashes, certain tropical spinach varieties, and some herbs. But these hardy little tomatoes thrive on heat and humidity, and they're self-seeding, so they'll be a welcome addition.

We're finally having nice weather, so Saturday Fox and I headed to Florahome for our long workouts. Well, Fox is cycling so his ride wasn't super long, but I needed a long run, and my last two hadn't been exactly stellar. I headed up a side road and passed by FPL's solar farm before deciding on more or less a whim to go into Etoniah Creek State Forest and run a section of the Florida Trail. I knew from the map it would connect with a road on the other side of the forest, then back down towards 100 and the rail trail, which would lead me right back to my truck. Easy.

Oh boy did I not even once think about that trail until I was too far in to really turn around.

Not to dump on the trail maintainers - they're all volunteers and they do a great job, but we also just had a major hurricane, and there's only so much people can do each weekend. There were a lot of downed trees to contend with, including a big pine that fell almost ON the trail, necessitating several yards of climbing through its branches. On stretches where I could run, I kept up a decent trail pace, but I was frequently forced to walk. But it was a nice day, no other people out, and I just stopped worrying about my pace and distance and stuff, and just enjoyed the run.

Except for about a half mile of open area that was just thick with sand spurs. Fuck those things. There was a convenient bench on the other side of that patch where I sat down to pick them all off my socks and shoes. Yeah, these things.

I was surprised at how good I felt, both mentally and physically, when I was done. Tired, yes. I was out of it to the point where when I made pizza that night, I forgot the sauce on one of them. And the next day I found I was stiff and sore that morning, but by breakfast, I felt better and was moving normally. So, I didn't quite get as much distance as I wanted, but I maintained a good pace for the kinds of places I was running and wasn't wiped out after. Plus, I saw some Hawks doing a territorial display. Not too much other wildlife, but they probably all heard me crashing around and stayed away. Which is good because one of the sandy patches looked to have some small bear tracks. That, or some little kid really needs to cut his toenails.

I gotta add yoga back into my routine. Between weight lifting and running, I feel kind of stiff and very mildly achey. Like a 1 on a 1 to 10 scale, but I'd prefer a zero.

I've stopped playing anything requiring fast inputs and stuff on my Steam Deck. Yes, it's a little slow, but so is my brain. So normal gamers with good reaction times might not have a problem with it, but I'm better off doing any fighting or tight platforming on my desktop PC. But this is also not exactly why I got the Deck. I have plenty of things like turn based, resource management, and other lower-key games I'd like to play, and they're perfect for laying on the couch or hanging out in the camper. I loaded up Kingdom Classic, Abzu, and Death & Taxes. Kingdom is interesting, and I'm already on day 16 or 17, but I think I fucked up and don't have enough builders.

But I do want to finish up Blasphemous 2, and I'm on the next to last boss fight. As with the first game, the next to last boss is turning out to be a really tough fight. This guy even has Crisanta's sword so you know he's a bastard. Overall I'm really pleased with the second game and looking forward to any DLC they decide to put out. I like most of the modifications and changes, and the ones I don't like, I understand.

This morning, the heaters set up for the younger fruit trees are cycling on and off as expected. Drips are dripping. The front deck is slippery with, I assume, ice, though there isn't a lot of obvious crystallized ice everywhere. The birds are noisily appreciative of the seed and suet I've put out. And I have a decent fire going, though it could probably stand to be stirred and have another log put on it. The problem is that both Crowley and Feisal are curled up on me, so I am a cat hostage.

It may only barely touch 40 here today, so my long run is going to be interesting. By "interesting" I mean "ass-cold." I have base layers, gloves, and all that good stuff so I'll be fine. I will probably also set up the Keurig to make me a peppermint mocha, so when I come staggering in like I've just come from the South Pole, I can just hit the button and have hot coffee by the time I've backed up to the fire and thawed my butt cheeks out.

Looking at the Facebook groups, a lot of Trail Angels have opened their homes, and a lot of churches along the trail opened their facilities to get everyone inside overnight. I still don't think I'd exactly want to be camping in this stuff, though.

In gaming stuff, Little Nightmares 2 is incredible. The first game was unsettling but this one is actually kind of scaring me, and I'm a ghost story and horror film fan. My only technical issue is that sometimes Mono's jumps seem hard to line up, but that may be "end user error." While going through the School, I felt like I could smell the musty, dry skin smell of some of one of my kindergarten teachers - that claustrophobic smell of dust and old crayons. I'm now working my way through the hospital, and the Patients are just a whole lot of "NOPE fuck that nope nope nope." So far, five stars.

I made some peanut butter cookies yesterday by an internet recipe. That was my big mistake - I have an old Betty Crocker's Cooky Book from 1963 and it has never failed me. My cookies taste fine, but the texture of the dough was completely off, and some are really crumbly, even after baking. I'm thinking of making some cheddar cheese rolls to pack tomorrow if we still want to go out for a short hike.

We're heading over to REI today.

Several weeks ago, we started talking about one of my bucket list runs, a cross-Florida trek. These come in basically two flavors - 116 miles and 200 miles. Fox has been pondering how best to support me as I try this, and by that I mean practical support, not emotional support. So "here's some hot coffee and dry socks" as well as "you can do it." Anyway, somehow in all this we started talking about hiking, which I've always liked doing.

I grew up around the Smokies and for a while I live in Kentucky, on the Cumberland Plateau. I was surrounded by places to hike and explore, and I did. So when Fox suggested we start doing some local hiking, I was in. Then he threw out a crazy idea, which is we thru-hike the Florida Trail.

I wasn't sure how to express the fact that I'd wanted to do this ever since I found out it was a thing. I think I'd stopped at an information kiosk in Jennings State Forest and found a brochure about the Florida Trail, and it had the different sections, maps, and the website. I just didn't mention it at the time because neither of us had started running or doing much then, and it was one of those ideas that make me say to myself, "That's stupid, Bird, don't tell anyone about this. You're stupid for even thinking about it."

So we're gonna thru-hike the Florida Trail. But first we gotta buy some stuff.

I thought our local REI was up near Jacksonville Airport, conveniently located in Georgia, but there's one in Towne Center now. (Near Bento Cafe!) Fox has actually had experience camping, which I never did. We went hiking and stuff when I was growing up, but I was never allowed to camp. Like, not even a tent in the backyard kind of thing. But I've always wanted to at least try it. The general idea today is to go put our grubby paws on some backpacks, hammocks, and tents. Maybe talk to some people there. Maybe buy some gear, maybe put it off until January. But it will help the planning stages that we're in right now.

The first thing will probably be a test-run for me literally camping in the yard. I might set up camp here one night, then break it down, load up, and hike over to one of the primitive campgrounds in Belmore, a whole four or five miles. This is the same Belmore I go on trail runs in, LOL. But I should find out pretty quickly if I enjoy it, or if camping is the dumbest thing ever. From there, we will likely do another, longer test hike down in Ocala National Forest for a week.

This weekend, it's about to get damn cold, just in time for the Christmas weekend. Santa is going to bring us a massive mosquito die-off, if we're lucky. With temps in the lower 20s, it also means I'll need to protect my citrus trees. The lemon and calamondin are old enough to withstand it, but the Key Lime and new yuzu trees need to be covered, and the yuzu is still just a sapling, so it will get a small heater, as well. I already picked the calamondins, and now have a couple of huge baskets of them, one of which I plan to pawn off on give to my neighbors. Then I'll be making some orange-glazed white chocolate scones.

We might even drive over on Saturday or Sunday and pick up a section of the Florida Trail that runs near us, in Gold Head. It crosses the highway and goes onto Camp Blanding - I run past the trail markers all the time on my long runs. That will be a shorter day-hike but it'll be fun to get out and do something active.

It's been a while since I posted a race report! Disney races have gotten to be a bit "eh," and most of what I would post would be bitching, so I don't bother. But we finally got to run a small, local race, and I'm here to tell you about it.

Penney Farms is a small .... town? I mean, it has its own garbage pickup, ZIP code, shit like that, though it's also part of Green Cove Springs. It's a retirement community. It's actually very nice - a small neighborhood of houses and duplexes laid out on the site of a farm once run by James C. Penney. Yes, that JC Penney. The route along highway 21 is shaded with massive live oaks, and the community off the highway has more live oaks, towering pines and shaded spaces. It's meant to be walked or golf-carted mostly. And this morning some of the old folks were out early to cheer for us idiots. I mean, runners.

The 5k loop took us all around the town, past the art center, church, model train club (which I should have stayed to see, what was I thinking, not going to the model train club???) and numerous parks and green spaces. With a field of 218 runners, it wasn't a big race, either, so no need to jockey for position, no getting cut off by slower runners, everyone knows racing etiquette, just a generally fun experience. After the finish line there were even some homemade goodies, like cookies and muffins. God bless these people and whoever made those chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

On the technical side it was a pancake-flat course with a mere 13 feet of elevation gain. One small stretch was decaying concrete with potholes, but nothing too gnarly. The rest was asphalt. Fast and flat. Oh, and speaking of fast ...



Finishing at 26:35 this is the fastest 5k I have run so far. I knew I could bust out a good time, given the opportunity, I just haven't been in a race lately that hasn't been a super-dense pack of people. I wasn't expecting to win my age group, but I did expect a PR. The plaque is a nice bonus!

Overall, good race. Would run again, and recommend to others. Might do it again next year.

Little, Big is getting a 25th anniversary edition! I already have a paperback, but this looks like it's going to be a gorgeous, illustrated, nicely bound book. If you feel like dropping ninety-five bucks on it. There are some higher tier editions but it looks like the pre-orders are sold out. I wouldn't mind having an illustrated edition of this novel, but it's a tad pricey for me.

I've got a few more blank journals/notebooks to get rid of, and I'm in the same pickle as before - where to do it. So if you want a blank journal for a diary, hobby journal, or something similar, I can send you one or two. I have six, which isn't too bad. Heck, if you want them you can have all six. Four are the smaller A5 or A6 size, and two are larger, almost 8.5x11 like regular student notebooks. Now that I'm moving up to having real fountain pens and nice ink, I've decided my thoughts are worth better than the notebooks that went on clearance at Walmart after their back to school sale ended. Paper quality is unknown, binding is dubious, cover is kind of pretty. I don't mean to talk them down so much, they're perfectly good notebooks, I'm just being a snob.

Fox is out doing his virtual Boston Half run this morning. I'm still looking at doing mine Sunday. It absolutely poured rain last night - I haven't checked the gauge yet, but some big storms rolled through yesterday evening. Most of it went north of us and stalled right along the coast, but later on we got pretty heavy rain. I was half asleep, so I'm not sure how long that went on.

I think it's finally starting to be fall here. In the past two days I've found two centipedes and a scorpion in the house. Feisal was just tapping the scorpion with his paw ... like ... how did that thing not sting you, you stupid, stupid cat?? So that's going to have me shaking out shoes, bed sheets, and pillows for a couple of weeks. On the other hand, it's gorgeous weather early in the morning, but it gets hot and gross in the afternoons, like usual. But autumn's on the way. I get so ground down by summer's heat and not being able to go outside much that it becomes hard to function. I just get into a daily rut and don't think to do much of anything different, because what does time mean when I live in an air conditioned box? I'm like a zoo animal, except a really boring animal no one wants to look at.

I have this weird urge to drive into town today. We don't specifically need anything urgently, I mean, Fox might need some more brake fluid to finish fixing the Birdmobile. Just for some reason I want to get out and go do something. Although with me, after I've gone out, stopped and gotten a coffee, contemplated life for a bit, I'm good and ready to go home.