"We All Fall Down"

All our beautiful leaves are starting to fall down now. What a gorgeous autumn it has been with spectacular colors. 

Now it is time to rake and use the Billy Goat power blower to make less work in the spring. However, only one of us will be doing that work (me!) because the other one (Dave!) has torn the lateral meniscus of his right knee while getting onto the New Holland Tractor yesterday. He had to crawl to the house because he couldn't bear weight and heard a pop with excruciating pain. Now he is on crutches, but luckily no surgery is needed. The doctor said his pain will dictate how much he can do and it is hard to keep him immobile to heal anyway. In another week he has a follow up appointment and hopefully we will still be able to head south after that. Driving doesn't bother him, because it is non-weight bearing. We will wait and see how he recovers though. So we all better not fall down...especially me. I better stay upright! It felt so good to actually walk in and out of the ortho doctor's office on my own two feet, unlike a few years ago.

The Big Toy Box

We have winterized the Ticonderoga house and filled the boat barn. As you can see from the photos below, it is not just for boats, but more of a big toy box!

Although it is not heated, it is still nice to be able to have everything totally enclosed and hooked up to battery tenders. Next spring, we will be ready for more great adventures in the Adirondacks.

Dinner Guest

 

It didn't even care that we were sitting right there with the lights on. I think it was one of this year's fawns without its spots. Great dinner conversation! 😉

Power Is On

Our power was just restored a few minutes ago, after about 53 hours of being off. Gee, it was really starting to feel like the power grid in the Bahamas.😉 Our generating schedule worked well though, and we certainly were lucky to have it. Since late this afternoon, many power trucks and crew, who we have been told came from Indiana, have been going by our house and accessing the situation. Tonight, three trucks stopped at the power pole across the street and Dave went out to watch what was happening, since they had a bright search light. Apparently the trauma of a falling tree caused the huge fuses on the transformer to short out. Dave watched as one of the men worked on the fuses and after snapping the last of the three cases back together, poof, our power magically came back on. I went to the front door and yelled thank you several times and I hope they heard me! These crews are working 24 hours a day to try and get everyone back on the grid...plus it took them two days to drive from Indiana. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't head to Texas and Louisiana after Hurricane Delta passes, to help with their recovery. 

Storm Of The Decade

 A cold front was due to blast through the northeast yesterday afternoon, and although thunderstorms were a possibility, we never expected the squall line that hit us. We heard later that the storm was moving at a whopping 105 mph, although our winds weren't quite that high. We had wind from every direction, along with hail, rain, thunder and lightning. I heard a big thump and actually felt it through the floor, before we discovered a huge tree had fallen in our back yard. Luckily it didn't hit anything.

When the storm eased a bit, Dave looked up the street to see two trees had fallen across the road blocking traffic. He jumped on the New Holland and pushed them off to the side. Our neighbor sure was thankful and felt so bad that his tree fell that way.

Then someone in a car told him there was another tree down the road, but when he got there, it was too big to move. About an hour later, a tree service and the fire department came to remove it. 

Our neighbors' yards (the man was trying to cut the branches with a hatchet)...

The motorcycle shop's driveway was the easiest to clean up.

Today we worked on clearing the big tree in the yard with the chainsaw, New Holland, and its chipper.  I started cleaning up the trails in the woods too, but the chainsaw is definitely needed back there. We did find out why the tree broke in half and fell in the yard. It was old and compromised more than we first thought.

Our power has been out for 24 hours and we found out that it is off over quite a bit of the capital district with so many trees and lines down. Our electric company said that it hasn't been this bad since Hurricane Irene in 2011. We do have a gas generator that we run every few hours, except overnight we leave it off. When running it keeps the heat on, the water pumped up from the well, and the food in the fridge and freezer cold. We just now received an email from National Grid saying our power has been restored, but it hasn't! Hopefully we won't be one of the unfortunate people that may not get their power until Monday.

Vintage Motorcycle Racing

Dave and friends attended the Vintage National Motorcycle Races an the Electric City Track in Duanesburg yesterday. This was a two day event with about 150 participants and 75 spectators. It sure brought back memories of Dave's racing days.

Here are a few of the bikes that he saw:

A 1967 Suzuki 250 X-6 Hustler with custom made hardtail frame. Note that the only suspension is the springs on the seat and there are twin compression releases on the cylinder heads.

The owner shows off her stock framed Harley Sportster flat tracker.

This is a Suzuki 500 Titan Twin made into a flat tracker...

How about a Honda CL 360 stock framed flat tracker...

British Vintage Triumph flat tracker at its finest...

This is a Honda GL 1500 Gold Wing Bobber...

Not sure what this is, but it was really kewl!

This youngster is the new #31, Dave's old racing number. He was living up to his predecessor by winning both of his classes!

And here is the vintage racer himself, back in the 70's before he even grew a beard or mustache. Those were the days...

"Got Milk?"

Or how about a milk delivery truck? Well, now we do! We have always idolized these vehicles when we would go to car and truck shows. For several years now we have been trying to acquire our friend's Divco. However, he has not wanted to part with it, despite the fact that it hadn't been worked on much since he acquired it from a mutual friend. A couple of days ago, Burt and Dave came to an agreement to be partners in this classic delivery truck. We can store it here in one of our sheds and then Dave will have a project for next year. It will be made to run and drive to local shows, but they intend to keep it original to showcase the dairy lettering. My idea is to clear coat it to keep its current patina, like a rat rod, which will also help it not to rust anymore. We shall see how this project progresses! 

Today it arrived on a trailer for winter storage, and the New Holland was ready to assist as needed. As for the motorcycle in the back of our Sport Track truck? That is Dave's latest project, a Honda Trail '212' which is great story for another post.