W H Y ???

Oh come on now, really!

This is getting ridiculous to the extreme.  Apart from a very brief down and back to Irishtown road about 2 weeks ago on my Serow

I'm losing it!!!

... I have not ridden any of my bikes.

Today it's 2C  (That's about 34-35F) feels like -10.

I have diligently trickle charged batteries, kept bikes under cover in the heated garage, serviced them, talked to them, renewed the plates online for those that have plates, installed batteries in some and double checked documentation...

It's April 27!

It will be May by mid week.

It's F___g 2 degrees AND snowing.

I put the Polaris away 2 weeks ago but except for a few bare patches... I could still go for a run.  At this rate, there will still be snow in our woods for a month to come.

I have a very busy riding season planned and my patience is truly running out.

I mean what's a guy to do?

Surprise surprise... !

Correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't that Gomer Pyle's common expression.  I don't remember for certain, but I am pretty sure Jim Nabor's who played the character on television sit com was an excellent singer as well as popular actor.

Well I got my own little surprise this afternoon.  

I wanted to check on our summertime only PT Cruiser touring in its winter storage (temporary) garage and what do I find... dirty and damp little toe nail paw prints leading up to the roof where Anna's old mattress is stored. And what do I see atop said mattress? 

A little 'bandit' sleeping away curled up into a compact ball.  Now I know that a cornered animal can be quite aggressive and even dangerous, so I kept my distance, while snapping a few photos for the album.

I can't be certain but it looked to me like he may have had a couple of puncture marks on his/her jaw and upper neck.  A check just a few minutes ago revealed an empty mattress but what I am thinking is this little clever and adaptive creature has been living there for awhile, rent free!

We don't have a lot of predators here on the Island, so small creatures like raccoons and skunks and fox can survive quite well.  Of course our property is in a rural location, we have hills and gulleys, forest and apparently, Frank made hiding dens.  Of course the mattress would provide insulation, once the snow came down around the sides of the 10x16 enclosure, draft would have been minimal and the sun heating up the upper 'deck' would have kept the place sauna warm. 



I understand raccoons are as clever as our common fox, and this one certainly has taken advantage of what a human (myself) has provided.

Color me Happy

MANY of us out here on the 'right coast' thought this day would never come... but after getting the Classic Gentleman's Express Suzuki VX 800 running yesterday, listening to that sweet, smooth V Twin, that was so much better suited to a bike designed for running from Munich to Vienna to Tuscany to the Istrian Peninsula than a burger bar cruiser, I fired up the 23 year old owned since new Yamaha XT 225 Serow today. 

VX 800 Gentleman's Express

This was one of two Serow's I'd bought from Four Seasons Ft Mac. after using them on Motorcycle Training courses.  After many years I sold the second one to my niece Cindy who lives in the lovely Okanagan Valley, just prior to moving lock stock and cylinder barrels east.  They are well traveled 223 cc dual purpose bikes.

Still lots of snow but great to be back on board!

Although there has been substantial snow melt during the past week of above zero temperatures, most of the fields are still snow covered in fact I took my Polaris Indy Lite for a spin around locally just the other day.  I expect I will cruise the hood once more yet before parking the 340 twin on its summer pad. 

The Indy out in my back yard!

It's been a long winter. 

Ummm, I'll rephrase that... it's been a helluva long winter, record snow falls, record cold temperatures  and even today as I write this I am looking at a snow bank in front of my den window some 4 feet high!

Going to be quite the summer indeed.  I'm booked to fly to Edmonton in mid June from where I will embark on a 'nostalgia' ride to celebrate forty years since I rode across Canada.  I had contemplated doing it again, in reverse on either the VX or the newly acquired DL, but nixed that idea given the added time frame involved.  I will be riding an ancient LS 650 Japanese import Suzuki Savage that I bought years ago from Japanese import/friend Kazue.  She had ridden it across Canada herself.  My niece has kept the bike ride-able for many years now and I am going to thump thump my way several thousand kilometers across the Rockies.  Story and photo's to follow.

Kazue and I before I turned grey, heading XC, spoke about a dozen words of English!

In keeping with simplicity, the 650 cc upright four stroke single 'cruiser' with somewhere around 30 bhp and running a belt through a 4 speed gearbox, it may not be a BMW R60/5 that I rode across the country in '75 but it certainly more nostalgic than a new Gold Wing.

You see, I will be sending a lot of time in the saddle in 2015.  A helluva lot of time.

Mikey on his Sherpa

Long time old friend Mike Smith, who you've seen in this Blog numerous times and I have re-visited one of the idea's we had back in the day.  I don't want to say too much at this point as the plans are still developing but I will say that I'm looking forward to the experience and spending time riding this year is at the top of the list.

Stay tuned...

On the Lighthouse Trail

ps I just got my May issue of Canadian Biker delivered into my mailbox, now that the snow has receded.  There's a great story about riding the back-roads of PEI in search of lighthouses.  If you're not a subscriber (and you should be) then pick up an issue at any one of many locations in Canada. 

Cheers f.

Beautiful

Snowbank is actually getting smaller

Okay, I'd be the first one to admit, it's been a harsh winter.  Although we had no appreciable snowfall until late in January, Old Man Winter made up for that shortcoming in spades or in our case, truckloads!

It's been relentless.  Blizzard after blizzard seemingly every three days and cold temperatures, much cooler than the norm.  I felt like I barely dug ourselves out when we'd get yet another dump.  I counted one stretch of six days with no sign of a plow on our road.  In fact most of the winter when it was open, it was barely a lane wide.

Our backyard.

I have a snowmobile.  In fact much of my life I'd have a sled around or at the very least access to demo models from the dealerships I worked at.  I'll admit I'm not much for mountain sledding although I did some of that in the Rockies while living in Calgary.  I'm more interested in the scenery than high marking.  

Almost perfect snow conditions for the Indy Lite 340

Don't get much purdier than this!

This winter we've had such an abundance of snow that riding solo off trail was not very smart.  In fact during one of our lengthy snowed in days I fired up the Polaris so I could run out the Irishtown road and see if it was open.  I got about 100 feet from the house before I bogged down in what ultimately took me two days to extract myself from and even after digging down 4' I'd still not hit pay-dirt or at least in my case, grass.  That was no fun on top of the constant shoveling. blowing and plowing.

Well, it's now April fifth, we had another small snowfall last night, that I made short shrift of with the Big Bear.  even the two decks took barely a half hour to clear.  It's -7 officially but MSN tells me it feels like -19.

Crisp!

 By the time I had cleared the driveway the sun was out in full force and it turned into an absolutely gorgeous day.  I had planned on putting the Indy into its summer parking spot but with a hard crust covered in 6 inches of newly fallen 'fluff' I couldn't resist. 

Lots of tracks in snow other than mine.

IndyLite and myself tooled around the hood for an hour or so and I have to tell you, it put a smile back on my rosy cheeked face!  There is a reason I moved to the country from the city.  It's hard to convey the utter quiet and stillness on days like this.  Far from traffic noise, no one else about, very easy to see why I like riding my trail bike in Arizona or puttering around with the Indy on a sunny April spring day.

Local S/M shack

I checked out Hillbilly Heaven, one of many snowmobile cabins around the Island, this one just up the hill from my place and on the return saw one of our resident Bald Eagles circling overhead.  What a  magnificent bird of prey.

 

It's days like this when I am coming out of a snow covered wooded trail into bright sunshine or cresting a mountaintop in the Bradshaw mountains on my XT 350 that I truly am grateful and feel very much alive!  I wouldn't call myself a tree hugger (and certainly not a cactus hugger, Ouch!) however I am always amazed by the planet we live on.

First tracks

Makes for a nice view!

Look who I found waiting for me on the deck!

You have to wonder how this all happened, this little orb in our solar system that it barely 8000 miles across from pole to pole, somehow managed to create such a variety of life over its 4 billion year old existence and continues to sustain it. 

"Hi ya Dad. so where ya been?"

As I turned the key off for the last time today, my thought was, "I hope this beauty is still here 10,000 years from today... "