Question for Gardening Friends

What are these?




I thought that they were carrots that seeded themselves from last fall when I cleaned my patch but if they are...


They are really weird carrots.

Any thoughts?

Running the Everglades

On Mother's Day, my father had an incident with a crocodile.  I blame my niece.

Then last Monday, I saw something.

A half marathon in the Everglades?  My chance to avenge my dad, right?

No.  Well, not really.  This is the joke I am going to make but really it is a chance to spend time with my father in Florida around Thanksgiving.  It has been years since I have had a Thanksgiving with my father  and I can look forward to this.

(The course, in Shark Valley.  Out to the observatory and back.)

Now, I have never run a half before, and apart from training for a couple of them, I have never really had the inclination to actually run one.  I am happy with the 5k as a thing. 

(Troy Turkey Trot, 2015.  The Boy looks delighted.)

A 5k is fun. It is a lark, for me at least.

This will take training.  Or more training than I am used to.

I go for a run a couple of times a week.  Some weeks it is two times.  Some weeks it is five.  Some runs are two miles.  Some runs are five.  Occasionally, I will push it to seven.  Now, I have to double it. Well, almost double it.  Through a swamp. 

I went back to Union a couple of weeks ago to get TEA and Union Lacrosse t-shirt and picked up a Union Track and Field tee.  (No one was amused when I asked if they just had a "and field" shirt.)  I was not the best athlete in college, and shot putters are rarely great runners, but I lettered and I am proud of what I did.  That was also twenty years ago, yet I am still built like a shot putter and I am stronger than I was in college.  What I am saying is that I can run as much as I want and I am still going to be a big guy.  Not fat, per se, though I am bigger through the torso than I should be, but stocky.  Keg shaped.  (Some of the younger people reading this, those who still have metabolisms that allow you to live on a diet of pizza, beer, and the fried food group and maintain abs, may not understand that it does not last forever.)

So, I do not look like the guy who can successfully run (and yes, I mean run) 13.1 miles.

But...

I am going to do it.

So...

This is still here. Who knew?