5 May, 2019           Race day

Today I celebrated my thirty-second year (!) of being a triathlete! This was my bike at Lake Anna this morning just before noon, maybe forty-five minutes after I’d finished the race:

My bike shortly after the race

This was me about half an hour earlier. A group of athletes asked if I’d do a group photo of them; I asked them to return the favor, though I was only racing in a group of one:

Me today after the race – 32 years of triathlons! My gratitude knows no bounds

I carried my phone on the run; I took this picture at 11:12, a moment before crossing the finish line:

The finish line awaits

All this was today – these irises were ~30 seconds walk from the finish line:

Also at the finish line. Beauty everywhere I looked.

My brother Kevin had been at Davidson college recently at a volleyball tournament with his daughters. He photographed this and sent it to me. Late in the race I was having a problem running; the quote was perfectly timed:

Late in the race I had a problem with running. Voila.

I got a cricket frog at the river Thursday – check this out:

Cricket frog at Pony Pasture

Tadpoles ~1 / 4 of a hop away from that frog:

Cricket frogs to be, a.k.a. tadpoles:

Ev’s roses are still stunning (and will continue to be, if history is any guide):

Another stunning rose from your yard:

I got up at 4:45 this AM to do that race, drove to Lake Anna, raced and came home – and I am way too tired to blog much more. But a couple other things at Pony Pasture caught my eye Thursday. One was I was lamenting that I’d missed the locust blossoms in 2019. They are as ephemeral as any trout lily but they smell 1,000x better – or more – since trout lilies don’t smell. Locust blossoms smell stunning – possibly better than a gardenia or honeysuckle. I wanted to write this week about what you miss when you read a blog – you miss smells. Flowers are blooming like mad at Pony Pasture (and everywhere else) now, and they’re pleasing to the eye buy you have to smell them! Here are the locust blossoms:

These locust flowers are simply beyond compare

And while I was drinking them in, their scent attracted the first hummingbird I’ve seen in 2019. This is a female ruby throat. Although they’re called “ruby” throated, only the males have “ruby” throats. Her throat is white. She just stopped at the locust flowers for an instant then flew across the trail to some other tree. Here she is. You have to look carefully – she’s to the left in the center. You can see her eye and her slender bill and white throat:

Female hummingbird, center-left:

I still have to walk Mackey and Turner before they – or I – go to sleep. So have a great week! Come back next week!

All best,

Jay