New Project - Update

Checked in on the bike this morning and there don't seem to be any new spider webs. Best case is that I got them all, worst case is that the are now hiding everywhere, just waiting for me.

New Project

Last week I found a bike on craigslist which appeared to be in reasonable condition and also in my budget (< $200) which is a highly unprobable combination so I had to jump at the opportunity to get it. I ended up paying $150 for the bike and borrowed a car/trailer to go pick it up (what a deal!). In the listing it looked like this:

When I went to pick it up with my buddy Dave and my two nephews it appeared to be in approximately the same condition so I made the deal. We dragged it home and due to company I left it sit for a week. Last night I finally had a chance to take another look and was fairly surprised (and panicked) when I found a black widow in a full web on the bike. I crushed that one and another I found and vacuumed up as many of the males and spider webs as I could find. I think I got everybody but wonder if any escaped into the garage, doh! Apparently there was a catch after all.

I am hoping this is a summer rehab project but at the rate I get free time and depending on the state of the bike itself it could take much longer. More pictures are forthcoming but here is my current list of known issues:

• no paperwork, title, registration or anything. the bike is pretty much a ghost in the system which could cost some scratch later when it is road-worthy.
• hasn't been run in about two years
• seat not attached
• gas tank is from a different suzuki bike (the original came with it but it is rusted out and would need to be restored by someone)
• no front brakes (wtf!?!?)
• flat tires (probably dry rotted but I haven't really checked yet)
• no ignition (previous owner just taped the the wires together)
• sheared bolt fell off when I was trying to wipe off the cobwebs (not sure what this is from but drilling out the hole and re-tapping looks to be in my future)

Overall they are all addressable issues and the frame seems square so maybe this could work out after all. From what I have seen the bike itself is fairly rare since it was not a big seller in the US. It also has been mentioned as fairly advanced for 1980, easy to work on and in general a very solid bike so I'm hopeful things will work out eventually. I think ideally I will convert it to a \cafe racer with a new set of handlebars and maybe rims eventually. Getting the original gas tank restored would be awesome but seems a long time off right now. We'll see what happens. So far I have taken off the plastics, cleaned it up a little and ordered a Clymer manual from BikeBandit.com which should show up late next week.

Home improvement project

      

This is post is going to be dedicated to the closet project (more or less). The main, perhaps only, shortcoming of the house (now that we've lived here over five months) is the closet in our bedroom. It is the typical old style door to a small part of the closet and you can't ever hope to reach the stuff in back type. Kind of like this:

We had been planning on replacing the door with a bigger opening and installing a curtain for easy access for some time but visitors then the kids' birthday party kind of pushed it out a bit. Last weekend I actually made some time to work on it. In one day I got most of the demo done. I got the wall opened up and then cleaned. It took quite a while due to interruptions from the kids and not being able to make noise during nap or sleepy time.Now the whole thing looks like this:

So far, so good. Now I need to chop out the studs and put in a new header then trim it out.Maybe in another couple months, I'll get to that. But now, your pic o' the post. Two cute kids inspecting the dog trying to eat breakfast.

Garden pics

As promised here are a couple pics of what we planted last weekend.

First up are the blueberries. In the before picture (which I forgot to take) there would be 4, 8 - 10 ft tall shrubby sumac-y type things. Those are now gone and replace by the existing rose bush and the 2 new blueberries. We found out that it will probably take 3 years to produce. Since we're ideally never moving, I think we have the time.

Next is a shot of the planted beds from above. On the left (in the paritally cleared bed) are the herbs. The fully planted bed are the three rows of corn we planted a while ago and behind them to the right are the 4 tomato plants. 

Finally, a bonus pic of the new and improved climber. On the left side (sort of behind in the pic) is the stair-ramp i built a month ago and the front side is showing off a brand spanking new slide we found online for < $100. I was super easy to install and the kids love it. Mainly the love watching things go down it and Matty is constantly trying to climb up.

It rained pretty hard last night but everything seemed to make it through alright. The forecast is for nice weather starting tomorrow so maybe we'll see some serious growth soon.

Spring planting season

Back when we moved into the new house before new year's one of the things we were really excited about was the raised garden beds in the back yard. The neighbors mentioned that the previous owners once had tons of fruits and veggies coming out of the gardens so we couldn't wait to get going. There were originally 5 beds but we whacked one in order to enlarge the yard a little for the kids. That left 4 well-overgrown beds that we had to work with. Maybe a month ago we stipped the weeds off the top of one and planted 3 rows of corn plus some random wildflowers on the end. This weekend we saw the Home Depot had a buy one get one special on 3" - 5" seedlings and couldn't resist. We wanted to get some tomatoes and hot peppers but somehow ended up leaving with the following:

- 2 hybrid tomato plants

- 2 heirloom tomato plants

- 2 thyme plants
- 2 rosemary plants
- 2 parsley plants
- 2 basil plants
- 2 blueberry plants
- 1 gallon of paint

Notice the lack of peppers. Apparently tracking down nearly two year old while picking out plants has as adverse affect on remembering the list. They were really great in the store, though. They have been awesome at listening and behaving in public places and have really never let us down. Especially now that they can talk so well and have definite opinions on how things should be and what they want to do.

We actually followed through and got everything in the ground today. Having recently picked up a copy of Golden Gate Gardening, we were relieved when they say to start with a small piece of garden and don't bite off too much. That made us feel so much better about seeing our haul from the deeps only taking up the ends of a couple of beds. We'll see how it goes but hope to just keep reclaiming garden square footage and adding more veggies every month. We still have 3 beds (about 100 sq ft or so) left to transform from weed haven to functional garden, pending successful completion of Phase I. I'll let you know how it goes. Once I take a couple pics of the current setup they'll show up here as well.

As always, here's your picture of the month: