Falling

The calendar says it is fall. Fall sure didn't happen this year in any sort of spectacular fashion. The golden and orange/red hues were hard to find. The weather: hot, rain then cold and storms. I guess it makes the moments of what we love about fall more precious when it is hard to find? Maybe, if we can manage to take or get the time to do so.

We have been slowly building a hearth for our wood stove while it is down. Getting closer with the base welded up. The floor of the heart is elevated above the regular floor and a heavy porcelain tile laid. The walls are field stone veneer starting on concrete board attached to the walls. The veneer in held in place with heavy tile thin set mortar. Tedious. We laid out the stoned before hand to get them to fit together. Like a puzzle that never fits together. Then, once on the wall the joints needs filled with pointing mortar. The first shot at this yielded a red clay colored mortar which I had to chisel out and start over since we were trying for buff. Did I mention that it was tedious?

Puzzle pieces

Finished. Or at least the stone work is finished.

Time to ride has been hard to find. Same story, work, weather, family. I did get an afternoon off from work and rode most of the trails at Lake Hope on my monocog. Some of the storms had left the trails littered with limbs and several large blow downs. A cool mix of sun and clouds still, a great day to be out.

A birthday blast under grey and cold skies.

The sun came out for soccer though.

A little more gold before it disappeared.

Found a cool bit of nostalgia when cleaning up the basement, a cycling cap from the Athens Brick Criterium. This may be from the same year I watched Greg LeMond race?

Bring back the Brick!

Ah, election day. That one day where we say "just go vote"! Well, I am a proponent of fulfilling your civil duty and voting. But, please do so as a well informed and educated voter. Don't just vote the party line. Don't just follow your gut. Get informed with real facts. Learn how government works and how things are funded. Be responsible. Have intelligent conversations with those whom you respect. Listen to those whom you disagree with. Share your perspective with thoughtfulness and humility. Let's have a resurrection of civility.

I drink good coffee and I vote.

Final thought: look for the art around you.

A rusted electrical box or art. All about perspective.

What's spinning: U2's Zooropa. Released in July 1993 and recently remastered and pressed on vinyl. One of my favorites and underrated albums.

Random Things

Just a post of random things while I have the chance to jot them down.

What's spinning? I have been enjoying some county music recently. Not the trivial lyrics, over produced, dog-beer-and truck, hip-pop-country stuff. I am not a fan (and every genre has that kind of music out there). What I like about country music is the instrumentation. A steel guitar, maybe some banjo or mando. I also seem to gravitate towards music and artists that are songwriters and that write about meaningful things. I have enjoyed Margo Price's first two albums. Been spinning Beck's "Sea Change" in the car. Most recently though it has been Kacey Musgraves' "Golden Hour". Similar to Beck's swings toward country from the alt-hip-hop or whatever you categorize him as, Musgraves swings from the other side blending more modern sounds in with more traditional instruments.  Favorite tracks would include "Slow Burn", "Golden Hour", "Oh What A World". Her effortless singing sits right in with songs. Take a listen.



A small amount of progress on the stone surround for the new hearth. The walls will be framed with some heavy weathered timbers. I cut them down from some 4x10 hemlock. Still need to poly them.

It's what's for lunch. Wonder why we have epidemic levels of diabetes, heart disease, obesity.

The Ohio State Road Race is coming up on May 6. Turns out to be the same day as the new 6 hour race in WV that I was kind of planning to do. Instead, I will be working the registration table at Lake Hope. Want to volunteer? They need drivers and corner marshals. Find Team Athens on the Facebook for details.

Easter was another busy holiday while trying to get over being sick. Nice to live so close to so much family. Hard to live so close to so much family. Up at 5:30 am to get rolls rolled so they can rise and bake before I head to soundchecks at 8. Church at 10:30. Lunch with Shelly's grandparents and fam. Grab some coffee on the way to my folks for another meal. Home by 8. Lot of food. Lot of sitting. Good but long day.

Ankle update: about 90%. Most of the pain and swelling are gone. Still limited range of motion and discomfort. Maybe run again for the first time this week. Or maybe go for a swim?

The parking lot is once again filled with flood water. It gets better... the city just informed us that the sewer pumps are being turned off. So please hold it. 

On second thought a swim seems like a bad idea.

Cat 2

I wish this title was regarding my license upgrade to Cat 2 (well, actually I don't know that wish is the right word). Rather it is referring to the category 2 ankle sprain I received almost 2 weeks ago while playing indoor soccer. The high school has held open gym indoor soccer through the winter since I was in school. Ethan has been asking every week if I would be playing and I finally did. First time and last time for the season. While putting my left foot out to block a shot, the offender kicked and rolled my ankle pretty severely. The result is a lot of burning pain, partially torn ligaments, swelling, and some pretty purple colors. Recovery? "Should" recover within 8 weeks.

Not my foot, but it looks exactly the same. (Photo courtesy of OrthoInfo)

For anyone from this area of south eastern Ohio you know what the weather has been like. A few heavy freeze and thaws with lots of flooding rain, from 3 inches of snow in 2 hours to 82 F a couple days later. For the rural folk, this means mud. The township roads are falling apart. Our driveway is falling apart. Last week I rented a dump trailer and hauled 15 tons of crushed limestone home and spread over our driveway. Unfortunately I could not pull the hill with it loaded and had to dump in to the front bucket of my tractor and spread it that way. Worked fine and I am grateful for my tractor, but it did take a lot longer that way.

Even with 5 tons this truck tows so nice. Until you have to turn around a 22' long truck with 14' of trailer.

I got a good start on the new hearth for our wood stove. The base is still at the welder's, but I told him not to rush since I had so much more to do. We picked out the tile for the floor and the veneer fieldstone for the wall and have it on order too.

Hopefully this will look a lot different in a month.

Not riding, though I may switch to flat pedals and give it a try soon even if only on the indoor trainer. Even the thought of trying to unclip makes me want to pee myself. Running? Not even on the radar at the moment. Sad too, I was going to try and run the Hope Iron Furnace trail run this year (the 4 miler, not the half).

From 77 and 3 inches of rain to 37 and 3 inches of snow back to 82 and 3 more inches of rain.

Oh Snap

To barrow a phrase from my son, "oh snap"!

The weather was looking good.  Lots of cool/cold/rainy weather was letting go and Sunday was promising sunny skies and 80's.  Well, it's a little hot, but I'll take what I can get.  I ran in the end of the rain showers on Saturday and got in a good 4 mile run.  But, I have a new bike with 70 miles on it.  Weekends are so busy, I was really looking forward to the opportunity to take 3 hours and try to squeeze 40 miles of of it.  Got home from church and was eating lunch when Shelly says, "what are those bugs flying up from the deck"?

For anyone, termites mean trouble.  For log home dwellers, termites are down right scary!

Instead of riding, I got to rip up my back deck, pull the aluminum flashing off the 4x10 hemlock rim "joist" to inspect for termite damage.  The little suckers were hiding their damage well out of site.  I am glad Shelly saw them.  The weather was just right that they were coming out of their ground based winter home and we just happened to be home to see it.  Normally, we go to my folks for lunch after church.  This quite possibly could have gone another year without notice had that happened.  Does not look like there is any real structural damage, but it is a mess to repair/inspect and treat. Oh, snap.