Coop's Corner: November 2024

Saturday, November 30, 2024

The Pie And The Why - 2024/11/30

Well it's a (riding) wrap for 2024....they've salted the roads and the temperatures are low enough to be well below my "fun" range. I've said for years that above 50° F is fun, as long as it's dry. Below that 50° is the "endure" zone and I'm just not dedicated enough to be out in the wind in those temperatures.

Which means that at the end of November the machines are all in hibernation, their odometer readings were photographed and then entered into my master spreadsheet where the computational wizardry establishes the ability to graphically show the 2024 miles accumulated.

As always and I swear this is true, during the riding season I never 'check up on the miles'. My goal each year is to spread out my riding amongst the machines....this one, next weekend that one. With that as an unofficial goal, this year was a winner. Mike B. got a sneak peak a week or so ago and his first comment was...."pretty even". While that "even" was the goal, had things worked out as hoped, there would not have been nearly as much equality.

Now at first glance the drop of roughly 1300 miles from last year's total seems a worrying trend. The contributing factors were numerous....none of them were really all that bad individually.

GR3 BMW Rally - The first group event of the year....I was sick and stayed home.
Iowa Circle West trip - the long-hoped for trip through the Loess Hills down the western coast of Iowa has been on my radar for years.....this led to the trip's postponement....

Courtesy of the Des Moines Regester

A much abbreviated version of the trip was later completed as an overnight trip.

Another Iowa trip was aborted due to an obnoxiously loud Honda Helix...

Promised Peg that I'd finally go through the boxes and boxes of old photos that needed archiving...

I drove the bus for Summer School....

Then there was that pesky surgery that I promised Doc that I'd stay off the bike 6 weeks for. I was really good for 4.
I've been cleaning up a lot of trees, not only trimming and removing but doing so with my woodworking in mind. Cherry, Soft Maple, Huckleberry, Red Oak, Cedar, Basswood, Grape Vine, Box Elder, Green Ash...lots of it now slowly drying with great future(s). I can no longer walk through the woods without identifying each species......and looking for potentials....(may have its own impact on future riding miles).

And finally, probably the biggest schedule Changer/Arranger of all, the Grand Master of controlling schedule adaptation....the little guy.

He was ours at this point but he didn't know it yet.

He's very aware of where he belongs now....

So, a riding season with plenty of great riding and a year of a wide variety, so far at least of great and satisfying things. We can only hope for the opportunity for continued improvement.

The 2024 Pie....and the Why.

Thursday, November 14, 2024

A Very Novembery Day - 2024/11/10

Haven't been Posting much, busy I guess with activity containing little public interest??

Did go out for a walk (walks) over the weekend.....and it (they) was lovely!

And back home, picked the last of our carrots and Peg whipped up her delightful Carrot Soup. A splash of sour cream on top. These the remaining units for an upcoming batch.

Warm caraway rye w/real cow butter....

All of this seasonal exploring tuckers the poor pup out.....

A few of the motorcycles are in hibernation.....this weekend looking pretty good?!

That's it for now.

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)