May 2016

mon may 2
Now that the motorcycle is running like new, it occurred to me that I have no idea whether I’m going to actually enjoy riding this thing. It’s one thing to take a joy ride to the nearest creemee stand on a nice day, but it’s something else to be 100 miles from home in a drizzle, facing another couple hours in the saddle to get where you’re going. What I need is to start taking some long rides to see if it’s any fun after all.
Well Fedco Seeds, up in Maine, is having their annual Spring Surplus Sale in a couple of days. It’s supposed to be quite the event. They are THE place to buy trees in the Northeast, and I just happen to have 14 empty spots staked out in the orchard. The 6 trees I planted last week arrived in an 8 pound bundle a little bigger than a tennis racket, so why not ride up to Maine, buy 14 apple trees, strap them to the back of the bike, and ride them home? Plus, it turns out the Conway Motorcycle Superstore is smack dab on the way, so if, for example I needed rain gear or some mirrors, I could kill 2 birds with 1 stone!
Great idea! But there’s a certain amount of prep work involved. I’m going to need a rack, a toolkit, a stowable satchel, and a ramp for the truck, in case I break down on the road and Mary has to drive out and rescue me.
So I grabbed one of Mary’s muddy milk crates out of the shed next door, washed it off, and tied it to the rack on the back of the bike. I rooted through my junk pile and found 2 zippered cases, and it turns out the milk crate holds a tool kit, a suitcase, a gallon of gas, and room to spare.
Then I talked to Mary about it and she was emphatic: This is a stupid and dangerous idea.
Honestly? … I knew that.

tue may 3
Today I put up all the posts on the west side of the living room. It went well, though it almost didn’t.
Mary’s right. We don’t know whether the motorcycle is road-worthy or not. And the only way to find out is to take it on the road and see if it breaks. So I did. And it didn’t.
I took Rte 15 to Hardwick, went up Rte 14, and came back thru N Wolcott.
Paved roads, 55 degrees out, 55 mph, 4000 rpm, 90 minutes. And it ran and handled perfectly. I need warmer gloves and something I can lean back on.

fri may 6
We went to Maine and brought back 17 apple trees. But not on the motorcycle, I’m afraid. We didn’t really know what to expect, and Mary thought I was being a little obsessive by insisting that we should be knocking on the door at 9:00am when they opened, but we got there at 9:10 and the lot was full and the cars were backed up to the interstate. I may not be right about much, but I was sure right about getting there early!
I still think I could have done it on the motorcycle, but, yeah, it would have been foolish to try. Mary did a good job of navigating and we took the scenic route both ways.
We stopped at the motorcycle place in Conway. I had heard it described as a superstore, and I was kind of expecting it to be closer to the size of a Home Depot, but it was just your basic good-sized store, and I actually learned a lot from talking to the guy.

sat may 7
We dropped off 26 5-gal pails of waste oil at the drop-off place and then had breakfast at the local breakfast place. It was waaay better than what we got in Maine, so I was gassed up and ready to go when I got home. I planted all 17 trees, using 18″ holes and 2 scoops of rotted horse manure per tree. Pooped, in a former life, by horses I personally buried.
I was beat when I was done but, for today, at least, I am on track in my plan for world domination in the apple cider market.
BZ is limping, favoring his right foot, and it’s not obvious why. Mary thinks he hurt it scrambling to get away from the vacuum cleaner.

tue may 10
BZ is still limping, but he’s better.
Mary’s sick. She sounds like death itself, coughing, wheezing and snorting. Whatever she’s got, the symptom is: loud. I’m lucky I can just turn myself off.
I keep urging her to get some fresh air, but she’s not having it. She seems to think that being outside is going to kill her. Honestly, if I were as sick as she is, I probably wouldn’t want to be outside either.

But it’s a beautiful day out, so I tore myself away from my computer and raked the lawn. Power raked the lawn, that is. Then I …
Mailed the box of coffin nails.
Went to the bank and got groceries.
Returned the rake.
Read for awhile.
Greased the mower and backhoe.
Pruned some trees. (I need a better saw)

And then, I put on my brand-new motorcycle jacket Mary gave me and rode up to Cajun’s for a Creemee. Except Cajun’s was closed. So I rode back thru Irasburg and got my creemee at the Mtn View.
I started with half a tank and barely made it back, so now I know how far I can go without running out of gas.
I think I drive too fast. I don’t seem to have time to admire the scenery like I do on a bicycle.
I need a wind shield.  I need a back rest and a foot rest. I need bug spray. I need to stop once in awhile and take a picture.

Kirsten came. Kirsten went. Kirsten is a good kid.

tue may 17
I left for San Diego on thursday  to visit family.
That went well.
Driving home at 1:00 am last night, A big, bright falling star exploded in the sky to my right. Never seen anything like it in my life! I made a wish.
And this morning, my wish came true when I pooped for the first time in 4 days. Sometimes, as Mary says, you just gotta be sitting in your own bathroom.

It felt good to be home, and I started off with a brand new to-do list.
I took the motorcycle into town to get some casters and then turned some junk OSB into an 8′ tall rolling platform to help with putting the beams up. Good old-fashioned cut-it-by-ear carpentry.
I staked out the line of evergreens: 13 of them at 15′ space. Laser straight.
I hauled the rototiller over from next door, but I couldn’t get it started. One thing led to another, and pretty soon, I had the carburetor and the head off and was working on the valves. This is probably overkill, but what the heck. It will end up running better – when I get it running again.
Mary made me a belated birthday dinner. When I die, I want my last meal to be beat up chicken and NY cheesecake, and that’s what she made me. Thank you, dear.

wed may 18
My winning streak is snapped.
The go-cart works good. The lawnmower works good. The motorcycle works good.
The rototiller doesn’t work.
It was filthy inside and 1 valve was .009″ too long, so I took it apart, cleaned it up, shortened the valve, put it back together and tried to start it. Nothing. The valves and the rings leak bad, and when I took it apart again, the cylinder was badly scored from a piece of grit I somehow left behind. Really bad. Not ‘just a flesh wound.’
The rototiller is dead, and I wasted the entire fucking day killing it.
So now I need another rototiller, and the first auction of the season is tomorrow…..

thu may 19
Today I went to the first auction of the season.
It was a beautiful day in North Hyde Park, and over 200 people showed up to bid on … some dead guy’s stuff. Because that’s what estate auctions boil down to. Judging from some of the stuff that some of these guys have ‘left over’ when they die, they led interesting lives, right up to the end.  A house, 2 barns, and a chicken coop, all chuck full of stuff.
A retractable knife in a silver belt buckle. Silver knives. (in case you’re beset by vampires) A 1954 bulldozer that runs. Nineteenth century, brand-name string instruments. German optics and sniper rifles. Tools, tractors, and trailers out the wazoo. Dusty 6-drawer dressers, “and contents.”
I came home with:
A brass bell from a fire truck. Because I like bells. 100 bucks.
(and I got out-bid on a brass steam whistle)
Two wooden burls, because I want, some day, to carve a wooden brain twice, as in:
This is Your brain.
And This is Your brain on drugs. 25 bucks.
A John Deere 7 foot sickle-bar mower. Weighs a ton and doesn’t fit my tractor, but ….. “Just because.” 280 bucks
Having a big estate auction when I die. Priceless.

fri may 20
That broken rototiller is driving me nuts, and I needed to “dispose of the body,” for closure, so I loaded up the truck and took it to to the dump. And on the way back, I rented a rototiller.
Last time I rented from this place, I got a pump and the starting cord broke. This time, the handle fell off, the wheel came loose, the throttle cable broke, and the clutch wouldn’t engage, but once I fixed all this, it worked really well, and I got the job done. I told the guy: I won’t charge you for the repairs if you’ll tell me how you make your engines run so well. And he basically said: oil, filters, plug, fuel. He says he never EVER touches valves or rings, and if THAT’s the case, then I’m either doing it all wrong or trying to revive something that’s already dead. In a way, that makes me feel better.
Mary came home with Company while I was humping the rototiller in the front yard, and I wasn’t sure if I was a source of pride or embarrassment.

I took a motorcycle ride and tried to return some socks, but exchanged them instead, and then went elsewhere and bought another pair. Mary says I need XXL, and they’re only XL, so there is another sock exchange in my future.
The creemee stand was closed.

sat may 21
Sunflowers: That’s the plan. Lots of them. Facing the kitchen. A 100 foot row.
A lot of fucking work.
I rototilled the row the other day. Then I took out the rocks. Cleared a furrow. Added manure. Mixed up the dirt. Planted the seeds. Ran out of seeds. Bought more seeds.  Planted the rest of the seeds. Covered them up. Cleared the clods. Tamped it down. And then ran out of gas. Whew!
This better work!

There’s an abandoned trailer on route 100 with a rusty motorcycle that’s been parked in front of it for a couple years. I went and took a look and …. It’s a 1982 Honda GL500. 58k miles. Rusty. Licensed in 2014. Abandoned on a busy road, and nobody’s stolen it. Only in Vermont.
This bike has some interesting features: It’s a V-twin, kind of like a Harley, but rotated 90 degrees, kind of like a BMW. It’s got a shaft instead of a chain, and instead of 2 rear shocks, it’s got 1 in the middle. It’s got 4 valves/cylinder and is water cooled. It’s got luggage, but no fairing. It’s got a gas tank twice the size of the Suzuki’s and a fairly low 5th gear. It’s got grass growing out of it’s carburetor. The guy across the street says the owner “just stopped coming and going one day,” and he told me where to look for … someone who knows the guy who owns the abandoned trailer.
I’m new to this whole private detective business, so bear with me…

sun may 22
I put the mower on the tractor and mowed the orchard. There’s a lot of debris and beat-up brush left over from where I hogged the area, and I want to keep it mowed until the ground grows smooth. Mary mowed the rest of the lawn, and the place looks great.

I watered the sunflowers and planted my marigold and calendula seedlings in the Ellipse and watered them, too. Then, of course, it rained. I take full credit.
I planted my giant pumpkins too, atop a handful apiece of worm poop.
They’re going to be YUUUGE !!

We went to town for Mary’s first creemee of the summer, but it was raining and we ate them in the car.

mon may 23
Today I tried and failed to fix my fucking phone. Fuhgeddaboudit. Who needs a phone anyway?

Supposedly, someone at Woody’s Plumbing, in Johnson, knows something about the abandoned motorcycle. So I went to Woody’s and asked. She gave me a blank look. I told her the wrong road, and it didn’t ring a bell. I told her about the neighbor, and it was almost like you could hear the bell ring in her head, the way the wave of recollection came over her, and suddenly she was all smiles and information. It turns out that her husband is Son-of-Woody, and his 2nd-cousin owns the bike. She called 2nd’s wife and asked her to have him text me back. “He’s a good boy,” she told me, “but he’s had a hard life.”  Stay tuned….

I came home and I felt like I needed to get dirty.
So I moved the sickle bar into the basement and started taking it apart.
Man, that sucker is heavy-duty. Farmers don’t fool around.
I got it mostly apart, and half cleaned up. Or, as they say, about 5% done.

tue may 24
This morning, Jon helped me put up the beams. It was definitely a 2-man job, but my choreography was perfection itself, and the whole thing went smoothly and took about 20 minutes per beam. I wish I’d had a time-lapse camera set up. I tellya, Jon is a soldier. He takes orders and does them right, and never questions why. Good job!

The afternoon was young, so I took my cell phones and my passwords and my authorizations and returned to the ATT store in Hardwick. And while they worked on my phone, it started raining, rained hard, and then stopped raining. So I STILL have never been caught in a rainstorm on the motorcycle.

You can’t make this stuff up: You know the guy who owns the rusty motorcycle? His name is Rusty. And he still hasn’t called me back. Pisses me off!

Kung Pao chicken and a really good movie. ‘The Highest Offer’

Mon may 30
We went to Florida for the weekend. Mary’s friend Laura’s daughter Allyson got married and we went to the wedding. We were in the same exact town last year when Allyson’s sister Sara got married, so we sort of knew our way around, but that meant we’d already done the big touristy things in town, so we killed 2 days doing the little touristy things: Toured the local college, toured a chocolate factory, went to a winery (with the worst wine in the world!) and drank and ate too much. I could not get Mary interested in doing anything tacky (Alligator farm! Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum!  Trolley tours! Come on, lighten up a little!) and we never once dipped a toe in the water.
The lucky couple did Everything out-of-the-box, and the ceremony was on a shadeless lawn in the blazing heat, facing the sun, so all my photos have dark people and bright sky. (Which, come to think of it, is the way Florida is.) The reception featured an evening breakfast buffet with unlimited bacon, and I was back for seconds, thirds, and fourths. My toes had been tenderized by the tours we’d taken, and my dress shoes were killing me, so I took them off and danced in my stocking feet.
We’d left the cat home alone with a big bucket of kibble and plenty of water, but we were worried that solitary confinement would drive him crazy. It turned out, though, that the window Mary had opened for fresh air had no screen it it, and the cat came and went as he pleased. He snacked all weekend on Vermont’s springtime buffet of mice, frogs, birds and bugs which, to the cat, is better than a bacon buffet.

While we were away, the weather was warm, and the weeds grew tall, so I put the mower on the tractor and we tidied up the yard. Everything we planted is looking good. Or, should I say, Nothing’s died yet.

We took the motorcycle to the creemee stand in Stowe and had a cold one. The diet starts tomorrow.

I’ve been diddling with c3pr, trying to decide what’s the right problem to tackle next, and I think it’s time to buy an FPGA card and work on the motor control problem. This is probably going to be just as hard as vision has been, so if you don’t like listening to my bellyaching about how confusing this computer stuff is, then you might want to find another blog to follow.

mon may 31
My truck is ready, so Mary dropped me off at the garage. The brakes are good, but Joe read me chapter and verse of the rule that says the plastic window has to go. And deep down, I kind of agree.   A year ago, my motorcycle was illegal, and now it’s my truck. What illegal thing will I be driving a year from now?

I gotta do something about being able to talk on the motorcycle and I’ve been looking at bluetooth headsets. These things have waaaay more features than I’d ever use, but I always say if you gotta solve a problem, you might as well solve it right, so I was about to buy one for myself for my birthday. Then it occurred to me to ask: how many headsets come in a box? And it turned out that a ‘set’ actually consists of 2 line items, and suddenly my $250 splurge was going to be a $500 investment. So I said fuck it. I’ll do without.

What was I thinking when I bought the sickle bar mower?
What was I thinking when I took it apart, even when it didn’t want to come apart?
Why am I surprised that it’s not going back together smoothly?

We went to Maggie’s for sophia’s birthday. She’s got tacos down cold. Sophia is in a lather over a social dilemma regarding tickets to a teeny bopper heart throb concert. Thank god you’re only young once.