Goodbye Snow, Goodbye Owl

Midday in the Great Wasteland. It's about -20F windchill right now. The "F" obviously does not stand for Fahrenheit.

How am I coping? I am coping by closing up the cottage tomorrow, coping by packing to go to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in a couple of days. We have a house sitter living in the lower level, I have a co-driver lined up because Lorna is packing for two; two trips that is. She is headed for Peru, then will rejoin me and the rest of her packed goods in Texas later.

So goodbye snow and cold, goodbye Juncos under the birdfeeders, goodbye Growlery owl peeking around the bookshelf board.

I love the sculpture of a well proportioned bicycle frame, but damn, a classic bicycle drivetrain is just a thing of beauty.

Goodbye Blood 'n Ivory. Why more Kvale pictures? Goodbye leather wraps - which were redone because the leather on the first go-round was really pretty funky and replacements were sent. The water bottles are also "new". I got them on eBay for a pittance because they were extremely grungy. It took about 10 minutes to clean them to look like new. If someone is going to go to the trouble of listing, packing and shipping something, why not wash them first. Obviously he was a busier man than I am.

I used to have a Park frame vise mounted on the bench top. It broke. I am not complaining. In a past life, among other things, I designed in-store bicycle racks for a number of chain companies to display the big box, made-in-China junk they sell. One of the last ones I did was for Target and I was exploring methods of safely clamping the bikes. Park Tool is also based in Minneapolis so they sent me a selection of bicycle stands. My point is, I cannot complain - the vise that failed was a freebie - as are the clamps on the suspended set-up I am using now.

So goodbye from Minnesota, hopefully the next posting will be some great bird shots from Texas. See you all in  a couple of weeks.