Frost and the PALM Meeting

I mentioned that my garden was looking a little ragged because of the lack of sunlight in the fall. On Saturday we had a hard frost. It killed my basil dead. It went from a sickly yellow green to brown overnight. My tomatoes are also goners. I have lots of green tomatoes. Does anybody know of a fried green tomato recipe for Italian (ie pear shaped) tomatoes? I have dozens of them, all very green. I'm beginning to put the garden to bed. I've pulled up all the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants and put them in the compost heap. (The green beans, squash, and lettuce are already there.) My greens are still hanging in there. It takes an ice storm to kill them. If it seems like it's getting dark awfully early now, remember that daylight savings time is still in effect and it really should getting darker even sooner.

Our second PALM meeting is this Sunday. The last I heard, the schools we wanted gave us a tentative OK. This meeting our route guy will tell us if he was able to find us a suitable route between the schools, a route with low traffic, a decent paved surface, and at least a hint of a shoulder, one that is not not too long. Any long day (ie over 60 miles) needs to have short days (ie 35 miles) around it. We are still at the mercy of construction, especially road construction though. You really don't know if you have a route until a couple of weeks before the ride. Road construction: it wouldn't be summer without it.

This meeting we'll pick the patch for next year and (maybe) the color for the tshirt. You wouldn't think it, but we've had some long discussions about tshirt colors. I can't figure it out. If you look at what bikers wear when they ride, it's obvious that they have no color sense. Having bikers pick out a color is like having Detroiters pick out a City Council. (Remember, I live in Detroit. I can say that.) The last couple of years we've had neon colors. At least you could see our riders when they rode their bikes. But the PALM parade at the end of the ride, 700 bikers all wearing the same neon shirt, good God! It was blinding and I wear progressive glasses. Wish us luck.