Saguaro in the Sonoran

A huge saguaro cactus in the Sonoran desert of Arizona.

Jefferson Ohio From My Window

Trees & the vines that love them

I believe that this is one of the Viburnums, probably Viburnum prunifolium a.k.a. Blackhaw. (The blooms are from a couple of weeks ago.)

Edited to add: So, not a Viburnum! I'm a rank tree-identification amateur and got it wrong. Thanks so much to the Ontario Wanderer who pointed out that this is actually a type of Dogwood. (I'm thinking it's a Silky Dogwood (Cornus amomum), but the ID requires more examination of the tree than I have time for this morning so will have to look over the weekend.

Edited for a second time to add: My husband had to call to tell me, "I told you that was a dogwood!" Now that I think about it, he did. I just wasn't paying attention to him. (He would say, "as usual".)

The flowers up close.


Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) tries to take over the world.


Often mistaken for Poison Ivy (which has three leaves instead of five).

Some tree links:

Trees of Alabama and the Southeast

100 Trees of Alabama

Some southeastern U.S. trees and woody plants
(Takes a while to load even with zippy DSL. They have other regions too.)

Key to the Gymnosperms of the Southeastern U.S.

Happy Holidays!

The Co-Habitant and I celebrate four holidays during the Festivus season! - and since one of them is already in progress, our cats urged us to send everybody some warm wishes. They even agreed to pose for these photos inside my Pashley basket.



To give you a sense of the size of the basket, our kitties are Norwegian Forest Cats, which are almost as large as Maine Coons. One is black and white, and the other is brown. They have asked that we not reveal their identities, and as you can see they are a bit camera shy.



And here is Eustacia Vye in her entirety, bedecked in a festive red bow. The holiday season has been good to us so far and we now own some better quality digital cameras - which will, hopefully, lead to nicer bike pictures on this weblog. Having read the holiday wishlists posted on some of the bicycle blogs out there, I realise that I am actually pretty satiated in the velo department and have no bicycle themed items on my list. It is good to be happy with what you have... Either that, or I better get my thinking cap on!

BikeShare: Possibilities and Limitations

As I have already mentioned, Vienna has a fairly well developed bike share programme: Citybike. And as I have already mentioned, I do not use it. Partly the reasons for that are practical.

For a tourist who wants to explore the center of Vienna by bicycle, Citybike is great. It also works for locals who both live and work in the city center. Sadly, I work in an area of Vienna that is not covered by the Citybike network and there are no stations near my office. In order to commute to work and back, I would have to rent the bicycle for the entire day, which would be financially prohibitive: The rental costs are calculated on a sliding scale, where the first hour is free, but the second hour is 1 Euro, and subsequent hours are priced increasingly higher. According to this scale, it would cost me 30 Euro per day to commute to work and back - which would of course be madness.

Even to go for a short recreational ride before or after work is not an option, because the bike's basket does not accommodate my work bag.

This is the bag I carry to work when I am in Europe. It contains my laptop and the documents I need for the day. As you can see, it does not fit in the basket - and since it's a one-shoulder bag, cycling with it in traffic is not something I want to do. This bag goes with me to official meetings, and switching to a messenger-style bag would not be appropriate in my line of work. I think that any city implementing a bike share programme must take this factor into consideration. In my view, it is a design flaw when professionals are unable to use the bicycles because the basket will not accommodate a standard laptop-sized bag. As you can see below, there is no rear rack either.

For those who want to cycle in the center of Vienna as tourists, the Citybikes are certainly well fitted for this purpose: step-through frames with adjustable saddle height; swept-back handlebars for an upright sitting position, dressguards, a chainguard,

fenders and mudflaps,

non-slip pedals,

a wide saddle with springs that is probably fine on short rides,

and the newer Citybikes have 3 speeds, which is sufficient for the central (non-hilly) parts of Vienna.

An additional reason I do not rent Citybikes is that, frankly, I do not wish to turn myself into a mobile billboard. In the photo above, you can see the juxtaposition of the Citybike moto "Vienna for free!" (this refers to the first hour of rental being free of charge - though there is still an initiation fee of 1 Euro) and the yellow adverts for Raiffeisen Bank, as well as the white and red adverts for Gewista (a local advertising agency). Personally, I would rather pay a small fee for the first hour of rental, than advertise for a company I have no connection to - though I understand that others might be perfectly fine with this practice. In the meantime, I will continue to support local bike shops by renting from them whenever I need a bike in Vienna.

Looking for spring

Update: Someone wrote me that the comments were not working... I think I've fixed it now. So please do leave a comment if you know what the mysterious grass and/or possible orchid below is/are. (Or even if you don't. I admit that I love comments.)


Odd bloom (?) on grass


Toothwort


Beechdrops with host


Spotted wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata)
The leaves are evergreen... it won't bloom til late spring.


Old foamflower leaf Tiarella cordifolia


I keep wanting to make this into the remains of an orchid of some sort. Any ideas?


Say hello to my little friend


Leftovers

More Busch Gardens

Yesterday, the guys went to Busch Gardens together. They managed to lose my cell phone while there, but beyond that I think they had fun.



Today we went back with all three of us. I only snapped a few shots while there. These are of the Ramp Jam show. It was incredible.



Pretty cool, huh? We had another great day here today. We are enjoying having so much to do while in this area. We're going to miss it when we move on.