Week 8: A bike ride, brakes, bread, and Bo-boi treats

Had a couple of papers due today, so I headed off to school, turned those in, chit-chatted about design theory and methods for aging-in-place housing, and talked with an advisor about two fellowships that I'm hoping like heck to get to fund my doctoral research. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Probably not my best day for healthy eating since I was off to school without food this morning, thanks to all the time I spent on my papers. But, I came home and juiced, and once again, the weather was awesome, so off on a bike ride we went. Before I get to the bike ride part of this blog, I'd like to share one of the juice recipes we make regularly. We try to give them funny and fitting names. Here is my favorite (you can guess why it has the name it has, see the pic):

32 oz Weasley Polyjuice (16 oz each serving)

Apple (1 med)

Carrots (8)

Ginger Root (1 thumb)

Lemon (1/2 fruit)

Orange (1)

White cabbage (4 leaves) Juice everything

Cals per serving: 157/1.5

For energy, digestion,

and lung health

In addition to the juicing, I also make treats for the dogs from the veggie and fruit pulp remaining after juicing. I add a few other healthy ingredients, like oils, oats, and flaxseed to promote healthy hearts and joints, then I bake these up in the oven. My dogs love them so much that they stand by the oven waiting for them to come out. I call them "Bo-boi treats," and they make our dogs' coats shiny, and have really helped Cassie's breath. I am not joking at all, so I went ahead and made up an info sheet on them in the hopes of bagging them up and sharing them with others.

Bo-boi treats

Energy packed, oven baked!

When you’ve spent your energy riding a bike, running, hiking, or paddling your kayak through rapids, energy bars often help to give you a boost. Our dogs want to go everywhere we go – in the water, on the trail, and through the snow. Even when they seem like they never tire, our dogs burn energy like we do. But for dogs, most treats are wheat-based, and more like a cookie than an energy bar. To keep your dogs from tiring, Bo-boi treats use steel-cut oats and flaxseed, and are packed with micronutrients and antioxidants from vegetables and fruits without adding any of the gluten or grain-based heavy starches that can lag a dog down. Bo-boi treats promote muscle, bone, joint, skin, lung, heart, and even brain and eye health. There is no better treat than Bo-boi treats for healthier digestion and energy for dogs on the go.

No wheat, corn, soy, dairy, artificial flavors or colors

Contains steel-cut oats, flaxseed meal, and grapeseed oil that provide B1, fiber, magnesium, omega-3s, iron, phosphorous, calcium, Vitamin E, and folate

Only all natural pulp and juice ingredients are used from the following fruits and vegetables:

Carrots, Apples, Celery, Oranges, Red Cabbage, Red Kale, Green Kale, White Cabbage, Pears, Pineapples, Beet roots, Lemons, Cucumbers, Spinach, Parsley, and Ginger root

These really are our dogs' favorite treats. They turn up their noses at the store-bought wheat and corn treats now. Even my Mom's Otto pug, the most finicky damn vegetarian crazy-ass dog, who turns up his nose at every meal, absolutely loves these (yes, I realize he is a pug without much of a nose at all, but still...). Bo-boi treats have helped Otto with his serious itchy skin issues too, so check out my ingredients list, and if you want me to make up a batch for your dog(s), I'd be happy to. Drop me a comment here.

On to the exercise - Today's bike route was a quick 8.6 mile loop I laid out through town to take us down the Country Club Road Bike Path here in Corvallis. The crocuses and daffodils are in full bloom along the path, so this is really a lovely ride. Here is Pedal Poppers riding toward me.

We started up by the Fairgrounds on 53rd, then down past Philomath Blvd, to Country Club, past Bruce Starker Arts Park, and up to Pioneer Park, then on to Corvallis Cyclery on 2nd street for a quick brake tune-up on my bike. The guys at Corvallis Cyclery are always very helpful and do their best to fit you in and take care of you no matter when you drop by.

 

Pedal Poppers stood over a 57 cm Trek 520 today while my brakes were getting adjusted, which looked like it fit pretty well. Pedal Poppers has now dropped 24 pounds (down to 275 from 299) since we started on January 1st, which is ahead of me by 2 pounds, and this is the first major milestone, which is also 25 pounds away from bike training weight for touring. Pedal likely needs a new bike more than I do at this point. So the Trek would be the first touring bike we'd get. This bike would need a new seat for comfortable touring (the Brooks B67 is Pedal's preferred seat - much better than that skinny thing you see in the pic below), and we'd probably switch out the handlebars to butterfly bars (see example below right), but since this bike comes with a nice rear touring rack for panniers, and disc brakes front and rear, it has a lot going for it right from the start.

Before heading back home, we had to drop by Great Harvest to buy a loaf of their very awesome gluten free, wheat free bread. It's spendy at $8.25 a loaf (but students get a 20% discount on Tuesdays at Great Harvest, so I'll plan accordingly in the future). This price is worth paying for us since one little loaf of bread lasts two whole weeks in this house now. I probably could have eaten the whole thing right when we bought it, because the fresh toasted sample we got tasted so damn good, and I was a bit low on calories for the ride (having missed breakfast today), but our bread made it back home in my pannier untouched.

The sunset was beautiful coming home, so we stopped at the little "Irish Bend" covered bridge on Campus Way to take a few photos. 

We're in week 8 now of the healthier life, and we're loving it. Tomorrow, we'll likely head back up to Bald Hill for a nice outing. Hope the weather holds out for us, and I'll post more pics of that tomorrow from the top. As a parting shot for today, I'll show you a recent artistic design I submitted for an OSU Summer Session T-shirt contest - trying to win $1000 scholarship for summer - keep crossing those fingers - doing everything I can to get any amount of funding wherever I can.

This was a 9x9 pen & ink rendering of Waldo Hall, cleaned up in Photoshop Elements, and as it was rather plain by itself, I hand-drew in the biker with my flimsy old mouse, which took forever, then I silhouetted him in orange. Obviously, this fits our lifestyle theme with school and biking. The contest had a two-color restriction, so Photoshop helped me to eliminate grayscale from my original drawing. There were bonus points for including the catch phrase shown below along with "Summer Session 2015," so I obliged. The significance of this building (often referred to as "the Harry Potter building") is that it has been my home on campus for the past three years (my office is downstairs, and my department, Applied Anthropology, is on the second floor. Quite luckily, the baseball stadium, where our champion Beavers practice and play, is immediately south of this, so I can stand outside on our old exterior south stairwell on the 2nd floor and watch baseball in the spring.

Catch you all later.

- Sprocket