Lots of Motorcycles

The poor fellow is getting bored from having a broken leg, so to amuse himself, he buys motorcycles. I think we're up to 17. Just Tuesday we drove off to Stayton where he bought a CB900 with a dual speed differential, which you can read about here, http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/model/honda/honda_cb900c%2082.htm -I don't know how to be fancy about it. He bid on a scooter for me, but so far they're not impressed with the offer. He is hoping to be back at work before the month is out. I don't think there's room for more bikes. Maybe he'll go buy a barn next.

His mother is 90, and thanks to her ear doctor, she can hear again. He put tubes in her ears, but because he also had a motorcycle land on him after putting him in a ditch, she had to wait 6 weeks while he healed. He had so many more things broken than Himself, but is 30 years younger and heals faster. He and his assistant are quite excellent, and knew how I could help and how to communicate that to me. Just me holding her head and petting her made a huge difference, or so she said later. It was harrowing for her because she had to stay quite still and with a guy poking things in your ears, that's a hard thing to do. I was very proud of her.

Ducati Update

There are so many pictures I wanted to put here, but didn't have the time it takes with dial-up, so now with this fast internet, I can maybe make up for lost time a little bit. Above is the very beautiful Ducati 750 GT all reassembled. The owner took the tank, fenders and side covers to be painted. Aren't they lovely? Now I'll show you the engine.

As you can see, all the bits got back together. This was such a fun and exciting project! Too bad I didn't write this at the time, because Himself explained it all to me then, and now I've forgotten so much, but not the feeling of excitement through every step. You can see why, right?

What's Up?

This was new to the bike garage in November. I am lobbying for no new paint because it has a decal that wouldn't be replaced, but the front fender is missing a bit, and there's now a new front fender, and Himself is insistent that the complete front fender, which is not attached yet, needs to be painted. The colors seem to match now, but I'm sure if it was painted, then nothing would match, so the whole bike would need paint. The original owner was a fireman. Look at this.



In March we went to a show in Idaho with a couple little 50 scooters like ours only more pristine and a nice-ish 250 Sears Puch. I don't know if there's a connection, but now we have one of those, which he found on E-Bay that turned out to be surprisingly nice. We had to wait and wait for that bike to come, because it was half the continent away, bad weather, had to find a shipper, and kept missing connections to get things going.



The 250 is like the first bike Himself bought when he was a teenager. Except his had two solo seats and was only called an Allstate. I have heard the story from three sources of how he tried to do a wheelie with it, and his friend Tom tried to cover for him by telling his mom they were playing basketball. Mom was not fooled. I think there was road rash. He refers to these bikes as Allstates. Maybe I should tell you now why Himself has had so much time to entertain himself with cute little motorcycles.



On Wednesday morning in Febuary, very early in the day, himself headed off to work, as he had many times before, through a light dusting of snow. About half an hour later, he came back very slowly. He was on the 250 Ninja. He'd fallen and broken his fibula, as we found out later. He's decided it was the wrong bike. His leg is healing very slowly, and the doctor keeps saying that's normal, but he's been off work, except for a week and a half when he tried to go back in May. He's been planing to retire at the end of October. We've been seeing more movies and eating out with him slowed up like this. We're going to Midnight in Paris this afternoon.

The Rake

Recently my brothers and I sold Dad's house, including this rake. We used to ride on it, mostly because it worked better with a weight on it, and originally, Dad drove the tractor and Big Brother pulled a rope to lift the tines to dump the cut hay in long lines, which we would then rake into stacks with pitch forks.

After a few years BB was old enough to drive the tractor, and LB and I sat on the rake, but weren't as clever with the tine-lifting, so an extension was put on the rope, so it was still BB who had control of the tines. When all the hay was in rows, we pitched it into piles, then into a wagon which the tractor towed to the hay stack just outside the corral. Then we pitched the hay onto the stack, which we would feed to Trigger, our handsome horse. Most all the work was done by Big Brother, but Little Brother and I did just enough to have fun and get our pictures taken. BB had hay fever and so was red of face and eye and not photogenic. This was Not Fair, obviously.

Only my Big Brother could ride the horse, aside from Dad, because BB was smarter and more stubborn than Trigger. I rode the neighbor's horse, Colonel, which was well mannered and smaller, when he was out of town. We never put the hay in the barn, because that would have messed up our basketball court. Besides, there wasn't that much rain, and Dad and BB put a tarp over the hay for when it did. Colonel and Trigger were fast friends, and looked very handsome together, being the same color pintos, both with brown circle-spots high-lighting their tails. I like to think my brother and I looked swell riding our pretty horses down the country lane just for fun and to exercise the horses.