Oct 12 - Joyce & Dave

I had a very productive day yesterday ... sometimes it's about results vs expectations.

Bidding Jason & Lorraine farewell at 10am, I headed into Loring with three missions -- pick up the mail (there was none, but mission accomplished); unload empty wine/liquor/beer bottles at LCBO ... done; pick up large screw-eyes, cable clamps and turnbuckles at Home Hardware ... well, sort of done.

I'd have liked longer screw-eyes, but they are probably ok. They had cable clamps, so I got those even though I'm not using them right now ... because ... the turnbuckles had aluminum bodies and were only rated for 200 pounds or some such thing. I decided to put in the screw eyes and use two tie downs on each side of the gazebo crib. That should do for now, given that I'm not even sure that it has moved since I built the gazebo, and I'll replace the tie downs with steel cable in the Spring.

I finished that up just as Joyce and Dave arrived. We gave them the grand tour, Dave of course interested in some of the post & beam technology, in particular the wiring, and had lunch. They arrived just before 1pm and left around 3pm -- short visit, but their (Dave's) mission accomplished.

Before heading into town I had done some more organizing in the garage; it's basically ready for Sandy's car to spend the winter. After Joyce & Dave left, I changed the oil and filter in both cars -- 330xi and X5 -- giving myself a pat on the back as that was done. As I backed the X5 out of the barn and moved the 4-wheeler back in, a few drops of rain started to come down and not too much later we had a steady rain.

Last year, or perhaps it was the year before, Canadian Tire had some of these car ramps on sale and I bought the SUV version, figuring that stronger is better. They are great. It's a lot easier changing oil, especially with Sandy's car, when the nose is up on those ramps. Yes the X5 has more clearance and I can do it without even using the ramps but it's more comfortable this way. I can't even do Sandy's car without the ramps, or perhaps using two trolley jacks, because there's a large plastic piece that protects most of the engine that must be removed before I can get at the drain plug. There's no little access door.

The X5 used to have a large plastic piece too, with an access door ... but somewhere along the way the access door was lost and somewhere along the way so was the plastic piece. Perhaps one of the mechanics working on the car forgot to put it back ... who knows. It doesn't affect the operation and I don't care. Those things are usually worth a small fortune and I'm not likely to replace it !

Sandy made a mushroom risotto for dinner, found that the asparagus in the fridge wasn't any good, so the rice was accompanied by peas. The risotto was excellent, with a combination of porcini and other mushrooms. The porcini's, of course, were dried. The only way to recapture the flavour of Italy is to go back to Italy, and that ain't happening soon.

The day was done. Oh yes, I did organize the bike spare parts and got them ready for the trip to Florida. I've got two bins that are going to be loaded onto the hitch-rack full of tools and bike parts with one small box of parts in the trunk. Also in the trunk will be my truing stand, which is in Oakville with Aaron. I'll pick that up when we visit on the way south.

Another day begins. It's wet out ... Alex arrives mid-day ... it remains to be seen how much hunting we can do in the rain, but what the heck. Long gone are the days when we'd head out and sit in the rain.

Onward !