Another Sunday Ride

This weekend has been the best weather of the year.  In fact, it was down right springlike on Saturday with a high near 70 degrees.  It is the duty of retired folks like Carolyn and I to stay home on weekends to help reduce congestion in the stores and roads for the working stiffs.  So we generally use weekends to get house chores done, plus we don't like being out with the masses of traffic either.  We each had a big job to do this weekend.  For Carolyn it was cleaning up the gardens and for me it was starting on replenishing our firewood supply. 

After a long winter, pathways and garden areas need to be cleared of sticks and leaves and some plants pruned to make way for spring growth.  This is Carolyn's rig for hauling stuff to the "bio mass pile". 

Raking

Lifting

Dumping.  Pile just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

While Carolyn is doing that, I'm working on some alders that had broken their tops off during a snow storm that loaded them with more weight than they could handle. 

Loading the trailer with firewood rounds  It takes a strong back and a weak mind and unfortunately I'm pretty weak in both areas. 

Full load headed for the woodshed

Yes, we each have our own quad.  I originally bought the one that Carolyn uses to work on motorcycle trails.  It was much easier to carry tools on it than a motorcycle.  Once Carolyn saw how useful it was for gardening, that was the end of the wheelbarrowing for her, and I had to get another quad for myself. 

Once I get up to the woodshed, I hook my Ipod into my speakers and get ready to bust some wood.  Rock musicians sometimes call their instrument, especially if its a guitar, an "axe".  So here I am up on the stage, playing star again.  (Bob Seger, "Turn the Page"), with my axe. 

If you think I'm acting like an old fool, well..........sue me.  Your turn may come. 

Getting down to business

The load split, ready to stack

One row done, five more to go. Four and a half cords in each side of the shed.  This half of the woodshed will be wood burned in the winter of 2013-14.  Next winter's wood is in the other half of the shed drying.  People ask me why I don't get a wood splitter and make life easier, but the actual splitting part is the part I like doing with an axe.  It's the bending, lifting and stacking that I would like to avoid and a splitter doesn't do that for you. 

Anyway, after a day and a half of this, we were both tired and sore and ready for a ride in the nice weather, so we quit and I got the bike ready for two-up riding. 

First, I swap the nice light, slim stock seat

for the heavy, ugly, high dollar comfortable custom seat

Add one full turn of preload to the rear shock spring

five clicks of rebound damping

A little chain lube, and we're good to go

We rode around the county exploring some roads we hadn't been on before, and stopped to take a few pics of the East Fork of the Lewis river, which was running at full song with winter rain and snow melt runoff.

In late afternoon we stopped in the Moulton Falls Winery to visit our friends Susan and Joe, who are in the process of getting this winery and tasting room up and running.  Here they are behind the bar:

The tasting room is a converted horse arena that they have remodeled themselves with a lot of help from Joe's brothers, one who lives in Arizona and the other in New York. 

We met other friends there and had a glass of wine and some snacks:

Notice the TV on the wall in the background?  Joe was playing a video I made when he and I and Orv went on a ride a couple of years ago

Joe has two BMWs and an Arlen Ness Harley chopper.  That's more motorcycle excess than I have seen in a long time:

The bikes obviously don't get ridden much lately due to the Winery taking all of Joe's time.  We have some plans for this summer, though. 

We got home before dark and it was nice to do some two-up riding with my long time "co-rider".