Sunrise today was 4:30 AM. It seems like forever since I awoke to clear blue sky; the day graced us with such a thing this morning. It was a perfect morning for running: bright, not too warm, and only a slight breeze. I was happy to have had this morning to take breakfast on my balcony, and even more importantly, to realize that I have this full day off from work. The only thing I had scheduled for today, besides running 12 kms, was a tour this evening of the part of the course this of the Saskatoon Mogathon, for which I'm volunteering for this weekend. I'm being one of the cycle marshalls for only the half-marathon leg of the race, but I ended up riding along for the full 30 kms: the longest part of Mogathon. Next year, I'll try to be mindful to enter and participate as a racer.
As I sat out there on my balcony on this bright, cloud-free, morning, I looked at the state of my container garden. I would like to do more with the space and variety of plants out here. Perhaps this urge is coming from running around homes and neighbourhoods with the well-tended yards and more verdant areas, like Saskatchewan/Spadina Crescent. Thence are the sources of this bad case of garden-envy I seem to have. I became inspired to tour some greenhouses today with the rest of my free time in the afternoon. When it comes to tending plants, I'm more practical: my focus and experience is generally confined to growing herbs, hops, and tomatoes. I jokingly tell people that I'm a true bachelor gardener: if doesn't have any capacity to be made into pizza or beer*, I won't grow it. However, I'm becoming more open to the idea of including something more floral and sweet-smelling around my abode. The only problem to contend with is to make the space for it. I made time to explore some options.
As far as urban living goes, sure it's nice to have man-made convenience and the odd monumental attraction, but I don't consider a place truly civilized unless there are lots of trees, and decent public park or garden space around. I couldn't live in a place that didn't include any broad-lying tracts of nature or greenery. As I was biking with my volunteer group today, I ventured through places on the Westside that were so close to me, just directly across the river, but were yet unknown little areas of wonderful park space and landscaping. I'll be tracing more running routes around there in the future.
I indulged in a supper of beer, ribs and fries at my favourite pub before I went home. I didn't plan on heading out for so long or so far in the evening, and I had worked up too much of a calorie deficit to ignore; I just filled it with the wrong type of food. I met a familiar face and we chatted a while. I came home and started scribbling down some new/updated goals that I wish to reach.
Complete darkness fell at around 10:15 PM. The day ends as happily as it started. The first official day of summer continues to still be my favourite day of summer.
*- A self-sufficiency thought experiment: at my last place, hypothetically, had I removed all the lawn and grew some good quality two-row malting barley, I computed I would have had only enough of a yield for three to four 23 L carbuoys of homebrew beer. It would have been a tight squeeze for the combine though.
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