The Squamidian Report – Oct. 20 / 12

 

Issue #543

 

Including:

The Ontarion

 

Hi All,

 

Baring some unexpected circumstance, the riding season is over. At least for me. My insurance runs out in a few days and we have definitely settled in to late fall type weather. Here on the coast that means lots and lots of rain and when it isn’t raining its cold. Cold used to didn’t bother me but in the last few years I’ve found that riding a motorcycle when it gets down into the single digit numbers just doesn’t have any appeal anymore. Guess I’m getting soft. It was a pretty good year this time around once it got started. We lost the first part of the riding season due to a winter that refused to go away but once we got into the second week of July, it turned around and was great. It never got very hot which was fine, I never even bothered to get the hot weather mesh riding jackets out. They weren’t needed at all. Never bothered to put away the cold weather riding gear either, we continued to use it off and on all summer. My nice shiny ‘09 Harley that I purchased new in the spring of 2010 now has 3 riding seasons under her belt and has 63,496 kilometers on her. So, that’s an yearly average of over 21k. Not bad at all. This season was my ‘worst’ showing with this bike with just 18,036 kilometers. Reason was, we didn’t go anywhere. I managed a couple or three runs as far as Kamloops but there were no nice long road trips at all. Bummer.

 

The bike needed a few mechanical things attended to this year and will probably need some stuff first thing next season to keep her in tip top shape but that’s the cost of running any kind of vehicle, they need some attention once the miles start to add up. Most of you (the non-riders) won’t understand the lure of riding or the sadness of putting a bike away for the winter. Unlike cars, there seems to be an attachment with bikes. They develop personalities, and there is a physical attachment that 4-wheeled vehicles don’t have. Bike must be physically stood up from their kick-stands, physically leaned through the curves, maneuvered and controlled. So, the connections to a bike is very different than to a car. A car is just a transportation appliance, a bike is part of a state of mind. There is a very real difference between you IN an car, and you ON a bike. Whole different world. When a bunch of cars are parked along a curb, its just a bunch of cars parked along a curb. When a bunch of bikes are parked along the same curb, it becomes a social event. People stop and look, they talk to each other. Heck, around here we get tourists asking if they can have their pictures taken beside our bikes. So there is a definite sadness when the bike is parked against the back wall of the garage for the winter, when the cover is pulled over and the riding gear tucked away in some back closet.

 

The riding club I belong to will continue to meet all winter for the social aspect, and some of my members will even ride all winter when the weather permits. They live in the Vancouver area and when the sun comes out, they can ride. Up here in Squamish that same sun can come out and it can get warm enough to ride during the winter but we end up with so much sand and salt on the roads that its not safe to ride and definitely not good for the bike.

 

A couple of my riding friends and I did a ride up to Whistler a couple of days ago and it was glorious. There was fresh snow on the mountain peaks, there was nice fall colours in the leaves and the scenery was world class. But we all knew it was probably our last ride to Whistler until next spring. But that’s what riding is all about, you squeeze that last ride in, and if it can be done with other riders, its that much better.

 

And yes, there is fresh snow on the peaks, right down to and including Brohm Ridge which is only at about 5 thousand feet, barely a mile up. This is actually fairly late in the season to be having our first new snow in the high country. That warm dry September and early October didn’t bring any rain or snow. The rains have definitely started, and therefore so has the snow. We needed the rain, the streams were very low. Shannon Falls was just a trickle. Swift Creek was just a trickle. Now they are roaring again. The forest fires will be going out if they are not out yet. So, bad to have to put the bike away, good to have the seasonal rains return.

 

doug

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THE ONTARION REPORT

 

Hello Everyone!

 

What an exciting day we had here at our place today!

At supper tonight we celebrated Bailey’s 70th birthday! Yup, that’s right our dog is now officially older than I am! LOL! He’s got me by 7 years in fact and he doesn’t look a day over 2 years if you ask me. He’s still got that cute puppy look about him and he still acts like a puppy most of the time.  Carole baked him a bone shaped cake with Dog Friendly ingredients in it with candles in the form of the number 10 for 10 human years! He managed to devour half of it as part of his supper. Sounds like me when I get my face into my traditional chocolate cake on MY birthdays! LOL! There are a few changes that have taken place with him over the past 6 months but nothing that has made him less of a cutie pie in our eyes! He’s become diabetic and takes a needle of insulin each evening at supper and he’s gone blind with cataracts in both eyes. He still has about 5% peripheral vision I would guess but not enough to really be able to see much at all that helps him get around or find things like his toys. He’s pretty good at finding his way around the house but still bumps into the odd wall when he’s not careful! We now have to be careful to keep the stairways blocked so he doesn’t tumble down and we have to carry him up the steps when it’s time for bed. We’re careful to set him down in familiar places each time we have lifted him so he knows that he’s in one of his usual starting spots. When I bring him down to the main floor in the morning, the first thing I do is take him out onto the patio edge where he knows if he walks forward a few steps he’s on the grass. There he does his morning business and then follows the sound of my voice so he can find the spot on the patio where I pick him up to go back inside. Then I take him to the laundry room where his toilet is that he uses all day long. I set him down there and make sure he’s clean from being outside and has no drips etc before he is turned loose in the house for the day. He knows that when I set him on the mat at that point, he’s able to walk along that hallway and turn right into the kitchen where his food and drink are for the day.

 

He gets fed 4 times a day at regular intervals to regulate his diabetes. Then from the kitchen, he’s able to find his way around the rest of the main floor all day long. His “Doggie Toilet” is the best thing I could have made for him! When he was just a puppy I looked on the Internet for a toilet for dogs but they were only available in the States. I phoned every pet shop in the region and nobody had even heard of “Doggie Toilets”. So I made one out of a wooden ¾ x ¾ “ frame with a plastic sheet glued to the underside. I then put news papers as a liner in it and placed a fitted fluorescent light fixture “egg crate” lens on top of the paper but at first the sharp edges hurt Bailey’s paws so to enable him to walk on it without being sore, I covered the “egg crate” with plastic screen door screening and duct taped the edges to keep it in place. This made it soft feeling when he walked on it and he was happy to stand on it to pee! The pee goes through the screening and is soaked up by the papers beneath. This toilet lasted him about 9 years and we were getting tired of cleaning out the wet papers a couple of times per day. One day while in Wal Mart shopping for treats for Bailey I found a “Doggie Toilet” that someone had finally marketed here in Canada (I should have done that myself! I’d have been famous for being on the “Dragon’s Den”) LOL! Not to mention RICH! Oh well, at least we’ve had dry floors in our house! I bought one of the Wal Mart toilets and modified it to suit my design. They had a plastic grass mat on top of their base urine catching  mat. Their bottom piece looks just like a boot butler for human winter boots. It’s about 2 feet by 18 inches and has sides about an inch high to contain the pee. I removed the grass mat and installed the “Egg crate screen” that was on his old toilet and then I don’t have to wash the wet shag plastic grass mat every day. I just pick up the whole device about twice a day being careful not to spill it and take it out onto the driveway and hose everything off and spray it with disinfectant/cleaner and rinse it off once again. Then all it takes is a quick shake to remove the wet droplets and back into the house it goes! It’s a bit of work to keep up with it but, what the heck, if you love your pet, that’s just part of looking after him! He even goes #2 on the toilet if he finds the need before he’s able to get our attention to go outside. It’s easier to pick the poop off the indoor toilet than it is to pick it out of the lawn outside anyway! I have yet to go through a winter with the new toilet so it’ll be a challenge to clean it in the snowy weather! I’ll likely have to use a pail of hot water rather than the hose, which is usually shut off in the winter! Guess I’ll find out just how easy it’ll be once the snow starts to fall! I don’t want to create a skating rink on the driveway! LOL!

 

Bailey not only had a nice personal cake baked for him but he was the recipient of a couple of gifts for his big day. Adam bought him a tee shirt with his favourite rock band on it and Bailey wore it with pride all evening. He’s always been a big “RUSH” fan and now he’s got the shirt to prove it! He also got a winter knitted sweater with a skull and cross bones on it. It’s a good thing he can’t see the bones or he’d be chewing the new sweater to shreds! LOL!

 

Well, that’s about all for this week folks!

Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!

Bye for now … Greg

PS: Something To Think About>

This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I’d never met herbivore!

 

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Have a good one..

the doug

http://www.thedougsite.net

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