Coop's Corner: Another Friday Saturday Easter Mix

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Another Friday Saturday Easter Mix

Happy Easter 2020!!

Do you remember Easter 2019? I do.

I rolled the Big Heavy One out and visited a Minnesota State Park for breakfast.

4/19

With a twist for variety, that was my intention for Easter 2020 but Spring is still with us here in SE Minnesota. 'Bunny better let his Snowshoe cousins know!

There have been mumblings about 8 new inches of Spring, something Todd, our contractor is not at all happy about. You can only imagine how I feel. Todd's concern is valid; we are sans front door entry access right now during deck construction.

From our entryway......accumulation of snow is not in our best interests.

There are some, in fact many happy things to report!! The 1969 1/2 Honda CT90 is once again on the road.

Mirror adjustment on the go....and I've never even had a lesson.

This was bad news....I had just turned the lights on as I approached the pavement and the little bike died. Lights off and it started right up. 6 volt LED lighting is being pursued. In addition, improved silencing considered...the little bugger makes too much noise, sounding more powerful than bikes twice its size.

Last Thursday was the river's peak rise in our area, hopefully this will happen only once this year instead of a dozen times like last year.

He wanted to do it but when I asked, "Rolling start or dead stop?" he shook his head and let me go.

While I was messing about in the garage, things were happening in the kitchen.

Other things were happening on our makeshift dining room table....

Peg's gone into full-scale production of masks.

Some time later.....

Last fall, not late enough last fall, my helmet fell off the bike and snapped my Contour camera's mount off the helmet. I have really missed using it. Now the repair has been made and in the process of checking things over, I noticed that one of the pivot dowel pins in the cam-over mount was missing.

I have some and we're good to go.

Oil was changed in the rig and off we went and we went'd for almost 90 miles.

Turned onto Wabasha County 32 since I hadn't been there in awhile. And I thought our frost heaves were bad....

Approaching downtown Dumfries. I can remember dad telling about remote broadcasts they did at dances here when he worked for the radio station.

Kruger Park and coffee time....

Approaching Zumbro Bottoms Horse Campground on Township Road 115.

Good news for me....the trend continues for 2020. There will be no need to outsource our black dirt requirements!

All of you sewers in the Sewing Community have snagged all semblances of elastic. Peg had to get creative.

Something positive on Lake City's Marina Point where all of the 3 season mobile homes are.

The Guzzi was out and filled with fresh fuel.

The KLR was as well....

I'm going for gingham with hair bands.

Hope you and everyone that you know has a happy, healthy day!!

2 comments:

TroubadourApril 12, 2020 at 1:39 PM
Nice to get the little chores done out in the garage, the bikes fueled and ridden, then coming in the house to the smell of baking.
House is looking good too.
If Peg needs elastic, she can use tensor bandages from first aid kits and cut them into strips.
Stay safe.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayApril 13, 2020 at 6:28 PM
I've been getting all kinds of things done, some of them not related to getting the house squared away.

Thanks for the tensor bandage tip, I'll let Peg know.

You two stay and be well!
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)