It’s hard to believe that the summer is winding down. No matter who you talk to around here, summer either barely happened or didn’t happen. Very unusual; we normally get better weather than Toronto … maybe next year ?
The rain in the morning gave way to hot and humid, but cloudy. I did some work outside, trimming the cedars and pines by the stairs and was soaked with the effort. I also did more cleanup in the barn and garage and found a spot for the zoe-deck-barriers up on the kayak racks. It’s hard to say if they’ll ever be used again … with Matthew ? … but for now that is their resting place.
I changed the oil in the gas generator the prior day – did I already say that ? – and gave it some exercise. I decided to call Home Depot and talk to an installer vis-à-vis a propane standby generator. They pass the lead to an installer located in North Bay who is supposed to return the call within two business days. We’ll see. I did talk to the propane guy when he was here filling up the tank and he said that I’d have no difficulty running a generator off my big tank, the only problem would be with smaller tanks. He said, in fact, all it would take is a light bulb under the tank to produce a whole lot more gas pressure if a) it was really cold and b) the tank was almost empty. Interesting. It also turns out that he’s an arborist and takes down trees. We talked about the two hemlocks in front etc. I may get him back next summer. I’ve got his card – he lives in Trout Creek.
I loaded up Sandy’s wrecked rim and one of the snow tires and took them into Arnstein; passing Jim and Bonnie on the way back as they were heading to Parry Sound. Arnstein garage will re-face the rim at the bead and reseat the snow tire and will scrap the spare tire that has about 20 miles on it along with the rim. I will go back into town today with the three other snows, leaving them to be fixed and bring back the one to put in Sandy’s car as a spare. Hopefully it will never be used. Hopefully the snow tires won’t need to be used either – the only condition under which I’d be reinstalling them is if we needed to use Sandy’s car in the winter. The garage also took a couple of old car batteries. I think that they actually get something from a recycler for the car batteries and the rim – he said that they’d gotten $18 for a similar rim – 20 pounds of aluminum ?
I haven’t quite decided on what to do about the X5 snow tires. Do I really need snow tires ? Should I simply buy new tires for the old X5 rims and have them installed, after cleaning those rims up or should I buy four new snows on rims, have them delivered to Florida and drive up with them. That would certainly be the easiest solution and isn’t a whole lot more expensive, since they come installed. The only issue with that is storage, they would take up a significant amount of space sitting in the garage in Florida. At any rate, if I decide that I’ll order new tires and rims, the garage will scrap the ones that are here. I also have, believe it or not, three more rims and snow tires that were for the 540i … yes tires ‘r us – the fourth one of that set is riding around in the trunk of the M5 as a spare tire. I’ve got a few trailer wheels and tires that I’ll also take to Arnstein … wow, that whole corner of the barn will be cleaned up !
I’ve got a 600k ride in Markham Saturday morning, so I’ll be missing a couple of blogs. Haliburton Highlands, it’s called, and I’ve got a reservation in Minden to stop and sleep for a couple of hours. It looks like there will be a group of us – Henk, Tim, Terry, Martin – Kathy was originally going to be riding but changed her mind because she’s got visits with her daughters this coming week and then school the week after. Henk and Terry will share a room; Martin and I the other. Tim plans on riding through. I’ve never met Martin …
Lorraine would appreciate Kathy’s prep for school, which is even more onerous than normal. Kathy teaches autistic kids and says that she has to set the room up so that it’s the same on day 280 as on day 1 because the kids don’t deal well with change. Kathy is quite the character. She is bowing off the Randonneurs Ontario Board and Stephen is taking over Toronto. Dick is leaving the President position (mandatory after four years), with Arthur moving “up” from Secretary. Dick is staying on the board as a Member at Large. I’m staying on, 23 years left in my stint to match Jim Griffin. Right. Luckily the Treasurer cannot also be the President, something in the charter about that. No matter, I’ll be mouthy no matter where I sit.
It looks like we’ll get approval for the Florida 1200k. Work will have to start soon.
What else … that’s about it.
Onward.
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