All Chained Up...

After the "pineapple express" came through and melted all the snow, figured it was a good time to get some wood in. Andy had seen some dead spruce on the lower lot, so chained-sawed a bunch up, hauled it back to the yard and split it. Also got some birch from a tree that fell near the dog trail and an aspen that was down on the power line. Got it all stacked up just before the snow hit.

With the snow falling, removed the splitter from the tractor, hooked up the back blade, and then chained up the tractor. It was the usual circus, one chain went on fine, the other kept slipping off, wound up going on upside down, and took three tries to get it right. Now I know why Carl leaves his chains on year round!

Pineapple Express...

No, not the stoner movie, this is the weather pattern where an atmospheric river created by the polar jet stream dipping south to the tropics, then curves back north to Alaska. It can transport huge amounts of water vapor, resulting in heavy rainfall and much warmer than normal temps. (Wikipedia)

So now all the snow that's fallen this month is rapidly melting and soon we'll be back to the sloppy mud we had in late Sept.

Bleepin' George...

Posted this on another site (wildguzzi.com) as Goodbye George, a tale of woe and intrigue. Got some good feedback, so figured might as well have it here too.

George Rahn was the long time BMW dealer in Fairbanks. Not sure when he started out, but he was well established by the mid 70's when I moved here. His shop was an old barn and a collection of sheds behind his house on a side street off College Rd. The only indication it was there was an old, faded BMW sign.

In summer or winter, you'd see him putting around town on his R50 with it's flatbed sidecar. But George was a character with a heart of gold. He'd open the shop night or day to help out the BMW riders who passed through Fairbanks every summer to supply a needed part, fix a broken motor, or change a worn tire. But if you walked into his shop and said or did something he didn't like, he'd rip you a new one and send you on your way. I know cause I was on the receiving end once and kept my thoughts to myself after that.

When he got to be near 80, he had slowed down a bit, and while he'd taken on selling Royal Enfield, he decided to sell the BMW dealership to the local Harley dealer. Now the Farthest North Harley Outpost, as it was called, was originally run by a character almost as idiosyncratic as George. But when he died, his son sold the dealership to a group of local businessmen, They moved it from a small back door shop to a huge new showroom. They added Polaris and then BMW to the growing business.

So a few years after that, George had a stroke, then went downhill pretty fast. The last time I saw him was at the old College coffee shop. He didn't remember me at first, but when we got to talking, he warmed up when I mentioned the wife's Enfield, George liked the ladies, so then he remembered who I was. I said I'd stop by the shop when I was leaving, but his lady friend pulled me aside and told me no, not for awhile yet, he needed to get to feeling better. Well that didn't happen, the next time I heard about George was seeing his obit in the paper.

So then the Harley shop announced it was holding a wake for George in conjunction with the local BMW Airheads group. Now I wasn't too involved with either one, but I knew George since my wife had a bought an Enfield from him, so figured we'd both go. I called a couple of friends for moral support and we all headed over to the wake. On the way, the clutch cable on the T started to go, it was holding on by just a couple of strands, so diverted to my friend John's house and he let me take his '03 Stone.

When we got there, the place was packed, there must have been over 50 bikes, they even had guys out in the parking lot directing traffic. When we got inside, I saw a lot people who I hadn't seen in years, it was a bittersweet reunion, for sure. People were getting up telling stories about George, it went on for quite a while, until pretty much what was said was done and people started to leave.

So we went out a side door to the parking lot, saying our goodbyes to a bunch of people, when two "Men in Black" came out and hopped on a pair of Harleys they'd parked right by the door. Giving us the "stink eye" look, they fired up their Harleys and the noise was incredible. Straight pipes blasting into the side of the building and echoing into the parking lot, I remember taking a step or two back as the cacophony overwhelmed us. They sat there for what seemed like an eternity, revving their unmuffled motors, maybe they lacked proper chokes? IDN, but after several minutes and few more stink eye looks, they roared away. I think I said something like "well that was something" to the guy standing next to me, but he just shrugged, as if to say, "well what do you expect? " So that was George's final send off, getting bleeped by a couple of dirt bags.

George in happier times; after he sold the BMW dealership, he rode a Royal Enfield Bullet hitched to a Cozy Rocket sidecar. I'm sure his dog appreciated the comfort! (photo: newsminer.com)

Stumped...

After rototilling the garden, put the back hoe on the tractor and started digging stumps.

Now removing most of the stumps are unremarkable, the rotten ones fall apart and and come out easy, the green ones fight you all the way and can take some serious digging to remove. But the most interesting one was where some spruce roots had grown around the base of the tool shed stairs and jacked them up so now the door won't close.

I had cut the main root with the chainsaw, but with the limited space to dig, couldn't get the entire root out. Looks like a job for the man hoe!

Snow...

Had snow again today, the third time this fall. It snowed last week when I was driving down to Delta, but I wasn't here, so maybe that doesn't count? Then it snowed about half an inch two days ago, but again, I was in town and it melted before I got home, so today was the first snow here, for me anyway.

This one will probably melt off, like the first two. Expect we won't get the permanent snowpack for a awhile yet.
Update Sun. AM...Looks like about 4 inches of heavy, wet snow overnight. The forecast is for more next week, so maybe this is the beginning of the winter's snowpack.

Last year at this time I rode the Guzzi to the "air heads" meeting, well not this time!
Here's the NWS summary for September...
Unlike August, September 2019 returned to the summer's previous pattern of above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation. The warmest temperatures of the month occurred on the 2nd and 13th when the temperature reached 73° F. The coldest temperature was 27° on the 24th, while the 22nd was the first day below freezing. The average temperature for the month was 48.4°, which was 3.5° above normal
Rainfall totaled 1.04" for September, which was 0.06" below normal. The greatest daily rainfall was 0.35" on the 29th. Unlike many previous Septembers, there was no measurable snowfall this month.
Update 2. The Climate Center finally got around to posting their September summary.

Back to the Black Again...

It snowed some on the drive down from Fairbanks and the mountains had a fresh coating.

The survey site at Black Rapids, alway a great view.

Here's Mike by his name sake boat. Did a great job, like always. getting us around on the river.

Looking upstream at the upper survey site.

Mike programming the doppler meter before doing the survey.

A dust storm from the glacial silt blowing around in the valley; it sure was windy out there!

The clouds cleared off the second day and the Alaska Range was out in all it's glory.

Down by the river...

With the rains of August over, it's the time of year to take advantage of the decent fall weather and get out there. One frequent ride is to head down to the Chena River. The turn out at the river is often crowded on weekends, but during the week you can get the whole place to yourself.

On a stretch of road where it crosses the flats, there's a place to pull off where you occasionally can see geese, ducks or even a moose out in the marsh. But not today.

Fall has fell...

While the leaves started to change  colors a week or so ago, they really started to fall today when the wind got to blowing.

But the temps have warmed up some the last few days, so we're finally getting decent fall weather. Finished painting the trim on the garage, so at least got one thing done this month.

Rode the 850T out to the "air heads" meeting in Fox yesterday and it was a pleasant ride. Hopefully this warm spell will last for a while and make up for the crummy August weather.

Here's the NWS monthly summary...

August 2019 was slightly cooler and a lot wetter than normal. The warmest day of the month occurred on the 7th when the temperature reached 74° F. The coldest temperature was 33° on the 25th. The average temperature for the month was 55.6°, which was 0.5° below normal.

Rainfall totaled 5.58 inches, which was 3.7 inches above the normal, and occurred on 22 days in August.

Alaska Climate Research Center

Bigger footprint...

The side stand on the 850's always been a conundrum, cause while it's there to use, it's not too useful. It's hard to extend while seated cause it's so far forward. Then when you get it out, the return spring tries to retract it before you can get the bike resting on it. Then when you finally get'er down, the bike wants to fall over cause it's too short and the bottom is so small it settles into anything softer than concrete. While you can't easily fix the first two, figured I'd maybe make it a little longer and wider. So here's something that looked like it'd work.

Needed to clear the exhaust pipe, so had to make the pattern crescent shaped, then cut a metal plate from 1/4" thick flat steel; this should make it a little longer too.

Here's the plate welded onto the bottom of the side stand. While it has a bigger footprint, it's still kind of short, so will make another plate with a spacer to get it a little longer. Then I'll start doing some more stretching to make my leg long enough to extend it!
Update:  added a second plate with a spacer and while it's better, it's still kind of short. The next try will be to weld a bead on the top of the stand, where it hits the frame stop, to keep it more vertical when extended. If that doesn't work, well I can still carry the plywood spacers I made to keep it upright!

Guzzi work...

Finally getting some work done on the V65 (All Gassed up 5/25/19). Removed the gas tank and replaced the gas taps, then pulled the valve covers off and adjusted the valves. One side was fine and the other needed quite a bit of adjustment, not sure if that means anything. Then, after replacing the valve covers, added some head protectors that I'd ordered earlier this summer.

So now the question is whether to rebuild the carbs now, since the float needles probably need to be replaced, or ride it some this summer and do the rebuild this winter. Decisions, decisions!

July Summary...

Spent the last half of the month getting the backhoe ready, then did some odd jobs for the neighbors and continued to clean out the ditches along our road (Road Rage 10/23/18). Nothing exciting,  not really worth a photo, so here's the monthly weather summary. Kind of boring to some, I suppose, but that's life up here sometimes.

July 2019 was the eleventh consecutive month of above normal temperatures for Fairbanks. The warmest temperature of the month occurred on the 9th when the temperature reached 87° F; this tied a record from all the way back in 1915. The coldest temperature was 50° on the 2nd and 31st. The average temperature for the month was 66°, which was 3.5° above normal. Rainfall totaled 0.89 inches, which was 1.27 inches below normal. (National Weather Service Alaska Region)

Raining Cats and Dogs...

Well not exactly, but we're finally getting some steady rain. It's knocked down a lot of the forest fires, the smoke that hung around through most of the summer is largely gone. Since July is, on the average, one of the wettest months up here, it's about time. Read about it here:
http://www.newsminer.com/news/alaska_news/rain-slows-wildfires-along-yukon-river/article_56848f80-b245-11e9-ae4c-87c2ae66ed07.html

One of the sled dogs, Little Missy, or Pissy Missy as I call her, has been acting up lately, so we thought bringing her into the house might help socialize her. The interesting thing that's happened is that while she's the loudest, most obnoxious dog in the yard, she's pretty mellow around the cat. Jack Black was apparently raised with a dog, but it was about his size, so he's not too sure what to make of the monster dogs that we have here. But by and large he's curious enough, or maybe he's just lazy and doesn't want to move, so he stays put on the couch when she comes in. Makes for interesting visits.