Suburban Garden Update!

The summer is in full swing in our suburban garden in PA. I have been trying to post last week's garden picks but haven't gotten the opportunity until now. The apple trees have apparently been hit by the Cedar Apple Rust, I have had to apply some organic fungicides to get it under control. The rest of the garden is doing fairly well. The asparagus plants are thriving now, with 5 of the original 7 plants sending up fresh pine tree like shoots.



The peas are doing very well, now they have grown up to 6 feet tall. All the pea plants are yielding very heavily at this rate. I expect the rate of yield to sustain itself until early august. At any rate, the pole beans that I have sown in succession have begun to establish themselves at the base of the peas.





The Summer squash plants have gone crazy with growth. The entire bed is covered by their broad leaves. Underneath the canopy, there are scores of small baby golden squashes growing.
The peppers alongside the squash are also doing well, they have been flowering. I'm expecting to get squashes within a couple of weeks, and peppers within a month.




The tomatoes have been growing vigorously. I have seen over 100 small green tomatoes growing in the bio-intensive matrix that I've set up. One thing that I have noticed is that this style of gardening is very water intensive, even with heavy mulching.






The potatoes are thriving and will be ready for harvest within 2 weeks at the most. I can't wait!







So in any case, I harvested 6 lbs of peas and 4 lbs of onions and garlic shoots.

First Fishing Trip of the Year

For Father's day Weekend, I took my parents out for lunch. Afterwards, I went fishing with my old man. Fishing is a great way to bond with one's father. It provides a great sense of continuity as well as free food. In any case, we went to Marsh Creek and went to our business with great vigor. The conditions were perfect for pan-fish, the weather was hot and humid forcing the fish closer to the water surface. We caught 46 panfish, yielding 27 lbs for the freezer and 10 lbs for the compost heap.

mile 200 Montauk Point and Journey's end

I spent half a day on Tuesday riding around the shorelines of Montauk. Everything was so beautiful there, I didn't really want to leave. The effects of the sea air on a hot summer day was quite wonderful. Near the sea, the temperature was in the low 80s versus around 100 degrees inland. At the Montauk downs state park, I gathered some stones smoothed by the sea, they were very intricate looking. I think I shall give a few of them to my friends and turn the rest into amulets.

Near Montauk Point, I saw these strange looking sand dudes. The were basically hills of sand with ferns or perhaps dwarf trees growing all around them. It was like a scene from an alien planet, definitely very interesting. After awhile, I got a bit tired and the damages done to my body over the last 3 days had begun to catch up with me. I assessed the situation and came to the realization that I could not safely go on. My body has been thoroughly devastated. My stock of dried meat and fish were entirely gone and there were no sources of replenishment to be found in Montauk.

I knew that I had little chance of biking another 180 miles back to NYC, so I decided to call it a day and head home on the Long Island Rail. I arrived back home to the Upper East Side on Tuesday evening. And now, I'm still recovering. My legs were at first numb, and then under intense pain all of last night, and are now sore but flexible again.


While it's true that I didn't circumscribe all of long island, I had succeeded in crossing the entire length of it alone on a bicycle. One can only aim for the stars and do one's best. And I gave this journey everything that I had, and thus have no regrets. I had never gone so far on muscle power nor had I suffered so much for it. But I think this trip was entirely worth the pain and discomfort. I had pushed myself to the bleeding edge of my physical and mental endurance. I had learned a great deal about the practical side of bicycle travel and the scope of the fuel/food crisis. And finally, I have met many decent(and a few not so decent) people along the way. So I think I'll remember this trip for a long time. :)

mile 190 Downtown Montauk

After playing at the beaches for an hour, I rode around down town Montauk and got some food. My bicycle felt a little bit weird, so I took it to the Montauk Bike Shop. I told them of the purpose of my quest. Raj from the shop asked for the store's motto to be posted, so here goes: ride the wave! :-D

In any case, they gave my bike a performance tune-up. And I accidentally forgot my helmet there. To the pretty girl in the left of the picture, I know that you have already checked out my blog. If you're out there reading this right now, can you please send my helmet back? Just private message me and I'll send you my mailing address.

mile 186 The shores of Montauk!!!!

The last half mile to Montauk was a ride down a series of hills. At last, the cool blast of ocean air swept over my body, as the bicycle cruised into the other limits of the town of Montauk. The highway ran by the shore line, and I road onto the beaches of Montauk. My body was utterly broken. All of my food was gone. Yet nevertheless, words cannot do justice to the joy in my heart! Only when I asked someone to take my picture did I realize that I had been weeping uncontrollably. These were of course tears of happiness. Despite all the odds, all the pain, and all the warnings to go back, I had finally made it to the eastern shores of Montauk!!!!

mile 184 Hither Hills State Park

The last 2 miles since leaving Napeague Park had been a continuous climb uphill. I had no feelings left in my legs, shoulders, or buttocks. My back was feeling like it's are being stabbed by hot white blades. I just kept saying to myself that the pain didn't matter, that I was going to make it to Montauk after all. The final two files to Montauk was a series of steep hills, it was a cruel, back-breaking experience.

mile 182 Napeague State Park

As I sped through Napeague, I couldn't help but notice the interesting flora. There were forests of these dwarf trees everywhere. The land was real sandy, so I guess deciduous trees of greater size simply couldn't establish themselves there. I saw no sight of the ocean in that part, but the sound of distant waves and the smell of sea salt permeated this world. I only had 4 or 5 miles to go until Montauk!

mile 178 Amagansett

I left East Hampton early on Tuesday morning. I was trying to reach Montauk before the day's heat got to me. After 8 miles of riding, I had reached the Historic village of Amagansett. The village had a "pseudo-historic" touristy feel to it. As I biked through the settlement, I noticed a van ahead of me that was dropping of Hispanic people. It made at least a dozen stops before it drove away on a side road. I suppose this is a local form of concentrated car pooling? In any case, it was only 10 miles to down town Montauk. So I kept on riding.

mile 170 East Hampton

I arrived in East Hampton at around 8:30pm on Monday night. The last 5 miles were very tough on me. I had to stop 3 times to recover my breath and rub down my legs to get the blood circulation going. Once in East Hampton, I got a room in the Hampton Inn, and proceeded to get dinner. I walked over to the TownLine BBQ and ordered an entire rack of Ribs. I ate outside that evening. The ribs were awesome! But the real show-stealer was the scenery. Someone had planted a large field of oats right behind the restaurant. Being so close to the sea, there was the distant sound of waves, and a cool breeze that smelled refreshingly of sea spray. As the breeze swept pass the oat fields, the plants rippled and waved almost like the waves of the ocean. The diffuse, pink glow of twilight, the salty breeze, and the grain field "ocean" made everything seem surreal and magical. I felt as if I was no longer in this reality any more, but some kind of parallel universe found in Monet paintings.

mile 165 Bridgehampton

I arrived in Bridgehampton in very poor shape on Monday evening. A few miles outside of town, a blond teenager in a BMW convertible had chucked a half filled bottle of soda at me as he drove by. There were two girls in the car with him, and they all laughed as the car zoomed past me. I was too tired to make a fuss over it. I could barely keep riding due to saddle fatigue. As I rode into town, I saw a Carvel's Ice Cream shop on a small hill. So I did what any delirious cyclist would've done under the circumstances. I went and got me some ice cream! As I was eating my treat, I had the good opportunity of meeting up with Ruth, her daughter Patty, and Patty's son Matt. Ruth mentioned that she's afraid of going to NYC because of the summer blackouts. I thought it was a real good point, since the summer blackout of 2003 taught me just how quickly things could unravel in a large city without power.

mile 160

arrived in south hampton. mcmansions and nice cars everywhere. temp cooler now, im getting a 2nd wind! :-)

mile 155 Hampton Bays

There were a whole lot of yachts in Hampton Bays. Everything was so very posh in that town. Gleaming cars, huge houses by the shore, private yachts. There were mansions by the sea side where the owners hand artificially converted the nearby shoreline into a beach of their own choosing. One house had only round stones for a beach. Another had only white sands. Yet another had only shells. It was a feat of incredible opulence. I absorbed all of these images into my brain. I think the pain that was afflicting my body made me remember these things with more clarity. In any case, my body was near it's breaking point. I could no longer feel my legs or buttocks as I pedalled down the roads. My back was this giant mass of throbbing agony, and my arms and neck were on fire. My father called and asked me to quit. I got real angry and told him to stop bothering me. I regretted saying that almost as soon as I disconnected the phone. But I had to keep going, the day was near it's end and I had to make it.

mile 145 Don't grow up to be that bum!

As I was bicycling between East Quoque and Hampton Bay, I marveled at the surroundings. There was stretches of beautiful coastlines everywhere. The roads were magnificent, there was even a bicycle lane for me to ride on. As I road on the bike path, a huge Mercedes SUV came behind me. It honked like 3 or 4 times behind me for some reason. I was wondering why the car couldn't simply pass around me, since we were on a 2 lane road, and I was on the designated bike path. As I coasted to a halt by a stop light, the SUV came up right next to me and it's windows rolled down. Inside there sat a middle aged Asian woman with her son. She was actually pretty good looking as I recall. "Get off the road and let normal people drive" she yelled. I was very tired and in a lot of physical discomfort to argue, so I simply shrugged. Then the woman said something to her son in the Shanghainese dialect. Little did she know that I too was born in Shanghai. She told her son, "see him, don't you grow up to be like that bum." And with that, she drove the SUV past me.

mile 140 Westhampton

As I rode into Westhampton, my shoulders were feeling numb, as were my legs and buttocks. They felt numb because the nerves there were overstimulated by the pain and have by then ceased to relay additional information to my brain. Otoh, both my arms and my neck were badly sun-burnt and the skin was breaking own. I felt as if someone was stabbing knife into my spine every time I pedalled. There were lots of gated houses in Westhampton. The roads, the lawns, and municipal facilities, everything was exquisitely maintained. The cars were real nice looking too, lots of Mercedes and BMWs on the road.

mile 130 East Moriches

As I biked into the Hamlet of East Moriches, my back was hurting like hell. I must have twisted a muscle along my spine right before getting into Shirley. I was also running really low on food. I had consumed 4 muffins, all the beef jerky, and half of my dried fish. I still had 2 muffins and 6 Oatmeal bars left though. So with that in mind, I stopped at Cathy's Kitchen in East Moriches for some lunch. Her Eggplant Parm was really good. Cathy mentioned that she had to close the store early today due to the heat, that it was causing power outages in NYC. I had been pretty much out of communication contact with the city, and was real surprised to hear that. She told me to consider taking a break from biking today since the heat could cause more accidents for me. I thanked her for the kind words and kept going.

mile 122 "Homeless" in downtown Shirley

I rode for a few miles through the town and stopped by a 7/11. I really needed to get more water, I couldn't go on in this heat for much longer without it. As I entered, the store's Indian shop keeper looked at my bicycle and then at me and said "please, you have to leave the store now." I told him that I just needed to buy some water. He then told me to beat it, saying that homeless people are not allowed in his store. I left without another word. I understood how I must have looked. Sun burnt, dis-shelved, soaked in sweat with white rings of dried salt around my face and arms. In Eastern Long Island, I guess I really could've passed myself off as a homeless person! :P In any case, I stopped half a mile down the road and got 3 Liters of water from a hot dog stand.

mile 120 Shirley

I had barely limped into the town of Shirley. I was dehydrated and in great pain. I saw a woman mowing the lawn of a storage complex. I stopped right there and then and asked her for some water. Maddy was her name, and she came back with Jim and a bottle of ice cold spring water. Jim and Maddy gave me the spring water for free and warned me of possible heat stroke, they were really decent :). My scraped hand was festering under the heat. And after gulping down the cold water , I quickly applied alcohol patches and a band aid to the wound. Jim was telling me that he biked to work every day. He mentioned that people around here looked at cyclists as either crazy or as homeless people. I thanked them for the water and advice and was on my way once again.

mile 115 Caught in the heat

The 15 miles between Sayville and the town of Shirley was very hard on me. A combination of poor roads, 100 degree temp. had multiple muscle cramps forced me to stop often for breaks. During these breaks I drank prodigious amounts of water and took potassium tablets to reduce the intense pain of the cramps. I could no longer feel my calves. Even when I pinched my calve muscles, I felt nothing. The upper reaches of my legs, buttocks, and shoulders felt lanced through with pain. As I closed into Shirley, I had run out of water again. And near the outer limits of the town, a delivery truck passed very closely by such that I had to jerk away from the edge of the road. A piece of skin on my right hand was torn off by that abrupt move. I heard a small popping sound in my back, and my entire spine was suddenly arching in agony. It was so painful that I couldn't breath for a minute. But I kept on going.

mile 106 Sayville

I came to Sayville to refill my water empty water bottles. The sun was so hot that I had barely made it on the water that had on hand. While there, I met Carl, a fellow biker from Sayville. Carl had been bicycling for fun for the last 20 years. He said that we have plenty of resources, the government is just bullshitting us as usual. After getting water at a gas station, I was on my way again.

mile 105 West Sayville

I made it West Sayville as the sun really started to beat down on everything. This town had a lot of golf resorts and country clubs. I saw stretches of nice houses and cars. Not surprisingly, I was the only person out on the road. The weather was in truth too hot to safely travel in, but I still kept going.