Lazy-hazy days of summer??

So it's perfect weather! 28 C, sunny with the occasional cloud, light wind... What to do,what to do??

We could admire the purtee flowuurss...



or not... lawn mower will take care of that...

Trim the bushes?? Naww... Not this one anyways...



Take the dog for a walk?? Nope! The WWF would be complaining at the ensuing chase!



I know! I know!!! Let's move a great load of gravel! What fun!



To be honest... garage # 2 needs a floor... It's about time.



New floor in, and a sad moment follows. Buddy shows up to buy the Ninja. Last night together for the Kawi boys! What have I done? I'm going to regret this in the morning!

News Flash! J.P.'s garage is bigger than mine...

Well, the long, painful Florida summer is rolling along here. Since I don't ride the bike with shorts and flip-flops, bike riding isn't tremendously fun when it gets above 90/90.

Aarghh! I'd just made up my mind to deal with the 'lack of Ninja', and buddy emails this evening to say his wife won't let him buy it! Something about needing a new kitchen... (which I am also supplying). Now I'm wondering if it is a sign.

No... Gotta go... half cleaned out the other side of the garage and there really is a need for space.

Maybe if I sell the kayak?

Smilo, your weather is on the way here for Saturday. Hurricane Art will be an annoying 'tropical storm' by the time it gets here on Saturday, but that was a possible escape day on the bike. All the hot and muggy days are tempered here because of the colder ocean temperatures. Way warmer inland. Still not Florida heat-stroke though!

not only bigger but tidier as well , have a job to walk from one end to the other in mine at the moment mine is 12' x 22' and it is full very full , what with Bugilow bits 5 bikes a stair lift a trailer and more junk than you could shake a stick at , finding any thing is getting harder by the day !! even for me that thought he was in control of his midden , oh dear how do I explain the word midden to two people from tother side ot pond ?? well in the English dictionary it says dung-heap , rubbish-heap ?? Oh I give in lets just say chaos rains supreme in my life

Hey Eddy! We are only TOO familiar with midden heaps! As a matter of fact, our current house is jokingly been built right over the grand-father's 'Toxic Waste Dump' (a.k.a. toxic midden). He spent 40 years dumping 'stuff' behind the family cottage, so when we built the new house a  little to one side, we ended up excavating everything from old oil cans, to tea kettles, to broken glass, to plumbing bits and bobs, and on, and on, and on...
Quite interesting, and a bit of a mess. We're still uncovering 'things' (most recently a perfectly good brass kitchen faucet... well, it was squashed flat, but it WAS good at one point...).
I bet these pictures are something Smilo has not seen. Garage #1 is now getting it's floor. Instead of concrete, it is being built with an insulated wood frame with a plywood floor skin. There is such a seasonal variance of temperature, that when you open the door some days the humidity in the air will condense incredibly on cooler floor surfaces. That makes it as wet as if you'd sprayed it down with a hose. It stays that way too, even if you try to overcome it with heat. That of course, makes everything rust and get mildewy...
With this insulated floor system, there is no temperature variance and it is MUCH easier to maintain a stable temperature in cooler weather. In this case, I'm not parking anything heavy in here, so the 'joists' are not very close together. This room only gets the occasional bike project, but mostly wood-working things. I'm looking forward to it being flat for the first time. Burnt out my good laser level yesterday, so it took a lot longer to get things lined up with a manual laser but it is only off by 1/4" or so over the 30' so that's close enough for the girls I go out with...

Crushed stone and 2x4 'joists'...



Vapour barrier, styrofoam, air space, and finally plywood...



Progress as I move out debris and continue from end to end...



Looks cleaner, eh?



That's because THIS is what the other end looks like!  



Give me another few days off... I might even be able to see the new floor when I'm done! ...for a while...  

looking good , I would never take a photo of my midden I would be ashamed to show it if I did Ha Ha

Well, I'm going to be learning more about building than I'd like.  The old homestead caught fire Monday (lightning strike).  We are living out of a hotel room now, but working to get back in business.

Nearly all the contents (and 99% of the important stuff) managed to survive, thanks to fast action.  I was 20 feet from the strike, and was able to call our fire department, which is right down the street, so they got on it.

That said, it was in our small attic, so they had to cut holes and run some water.  So, the house is in pretty bad shape, and nearly needs a full rebuild.

They are guessing 6 months.  I am in "the process" now with the insurance company, so my life is out of my hands for a while.

But, hey, garage is separate building!  So, it will be holding some of the household for a while.  Motorcycles are mostly off for quite a bit.

Not meaning to be a downer, happy to be here to type!  If I wasn't at home, I'd have returned from work to an empty lot.

And if the lightning had knocked me out or something, I'd have been a goner!

Still, a pain in the ass with my current job situation on top of it.

Oh, and the garage pics are cool. Nice to see stuff like that when I'm distracted by all this other crap going on.

Oh my God that's rough , can't imagine what that must be like watching your home your burn , only once in the heart of a storm and the lightning hit the draw bar of a farm trailer we were sheltering under in a field clearing bales of straw , that was frightening enough for me , but to be that close and watch your home burning ??? Fingers crossed it is not as bad as it first looks mate

We have had a lot of good luck so far (other than the initial problem of course). So, I think we will (eventually) be back on track.

The hard part right now is getting a reasonable rental to hold us for a while (6-months to a year) in Florida in the summertime. But many people are working on it for us.

LIGHTNING STRIKE!? What the hell did you do to piss off the Big Guy? When was the last time you wuz to church?

With all the hurricane and tornado stuff, I could have expected a blow down of some sort, but not 'fire from on high'!

Extremely unfortunate in one way, but lucky as hell the other way. We had a 'Zap' a few years ago on the power line that gave us a power surge and blew out all our touch sensitive controls in the house. Nothing on fire though.
Geez! That's a pain. Hope you didn't loose anything irreplaceable. I'm always threatening to back up my photo albums and the like... Some day, eh? What could go wrong?

Hope the rental search goes well. Pretty crappy living in a motel. Of course you could evict the bikes and be fairly comfortable in the garage if you figured out an air conditioner  ...

I actually thought I was relatively safe from that, just due to the tall trees around the house, but you can never predict lightning storms around here.

So far, nearly all our stuff is either perfect if a little smelly and/or dirty.

But the water damage to the house, wood floors, etc, and the firemen who had to break out a few windows to save that stuff, is pretty sad.

The garage is not going to have at least two cars in it for a while, so will now be local storage, along with a few "pods", which were delivered today. One of the pods is going to the new rental house whenever we find it, the other is going into climate controlled storage until the old house is finished.

May you live in interesting times, as they say.

Interesting ??? Frustrating, I would call it

Oh, and I SO hate moving! And now you'll have to do it twice! Once out, and then back in again. I tracked my satellite dish feed line back into the house tonight, and Lo and Behold! The ground wire is not attached to anything! Perfect line in for a blast from Zeus! We have a steel roof, too!
Hope the weather is conductive to all the walking back and forth from the house to the storage thingies...

Still hanging on here. We are in the rental house (after many tribulations). We are surrounded by boxes and many broken electronic devices (fire AND lightning strike).

So... Job future isn't looking good either. Tough times for sure. Just when you think things are settled a bit...

Still have my bikes so far (rental house will not allow bikes on property but they are safe at the old house), so that's something. We are doing things one day at a time. I'll keep you couple of stragglers updated as things develop... Just 'cause it's nice to talk to somebody.

Glad to know there is some progress, Smilo. There have been a rash of arson fires near us recently. One in particular resulted in pretty well a total loss to the house. Just heartbreaking to think of all the misery involved, but as they say 'It could always have been worse'. There have luckily been no injuries so far.

I'm considering job prospects as well for the fall. I work as a designer for Home Depot, but have always run a side business of doing complete plans for new or renovated structures. I'm going to tidy up all my loose ends and get into that side of things more seriously. Not a good idea to trust big business anymore. When you are just a number to the boss, your number can come up at any time!

In the meantime, we've had a lovely summer this past month, so I've spent most of it indoors finishing off my garage reno.      I guess I started the project thinking it was going to rain all month... I dunno...



Floor is in, insulation finished, new workbench built, still a lot of sorting and throwing out to do! Think I'll take a break for the next few weeks and see if the kayak still floats or the KLR has gas in it!

well cant imagine the feeling of loss and upevel you are going through , we are having a few days away in the Bugilow up in Jock Scotch Land on the Isle of Arran and the 4 days at Ayr at our son's on the way home , had a bit of a scare at the TT had a show of blood where you dont want blood so have been having loads of tests and thankfully all have come back clear up
to press , we wont go in to what some of the tests involve , just to say I managed it with out giveing any thing away I kept a straight face all the way , plenty of tears down the face but no smiles , how women have babys with that gass and air ?? all of a suden I have more respect for them

Hey Eddy! I'm not too sure I like this period in life when things may be falling apart. Every time some little bump or rash or zit appears, you wonder if it's something important. Never used to pay any attention to that stuff when I was young(er) and foolish(er)...

Ye know what you mean ,plod on as they say , it just takes longer to get going on a morning by the time you apply all the lotions and potions and the at the end of the day making sure you still have all you started with , its a rum old job

Stupid computer ate my post! Now I've got to start all over again.

After a few thankless chores in the morning (Driveway is 1000' long... The ATC is not going to do it...)



I was saying that I finally took a day off to do 'naught, and got in my two favorite pastimes.

First off in the morning was a kayak toot on the lake to see if the NorthWest passage was still open. (A little nod to them finding Franklin's boat this week).



Looking back at the family 'compound' from the other side of the lake. Trees are starting to come back after a vicious attack of the bark beetle.



Took a bit of time to figure out where the entrance to the passage between the islands was, but I DID obtain admittance to the inner lake eventually...

Lunch was had, and then I cleverly managed to sneak off without SWMBO noticing... I decided that I'd try to find a place to see a shipwreck from a few years ago. The local 'Save the whales' group have been hysterically ranting about getting it cleaned up because it is an 'Eyesore'.



You need to go via the back roads...



...and they got worse and worse...



...until it was time to turn around and look for another way in...



Which has some spectacular viewing points...

...and so there it was! What a disaster! There are maybe 4 houses that have any view of the thing on an empty island...



If you're not using a telephoto lens, you might not notice it at all!



Cost of the cleanup? $12,000,000 ! Even in Canadian dollars, that's a lot of money. Could have sponsored our own TT for that kind of money!

Home again to clean up and consider the next fall adventure. Seems to be the best time for me.

Well J.P., another great "travelogue". You've definitely got this thing down. At least you weren't on your Ninja this time. While I'm sure you could have made it, it seems "wrong". The KLR looks much more at home!

Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing when it came time to turn the big lug around in a very narrow, soggy road. 'At least it's not the Ninja' I muttered...
AND I don't feel bad that it came home plastered in mud and bent tree branches!

Torrential rain this morning with high winds knocking things over... Cleared a bit in the afternoon and it felt like time for an adventure!



Wiggly roads are just more interesting in warm fog...



Side roads are a bit more challenging. Glad the Ninja is at home...



Hmmm... Maybe I should have bought that KLX...



AHA! The noise at the end of the road is revealed!



Aptly named 'Wild Cove'... There is a 1700's treasure ship wrecked down there. Really there is! And a very small looking KLR if you look closely.



That splash was a little too close! Salt water all over the lens. Time to go home...



Beach on my side of the point is calm as a mill-pond. Too bad it isn't low tide to get a run along the sand beach. Pretend I'm in Daytona!

Think I'm going to enjoy this 'dual-sport' thing...

I used to think I was a bit of a traveler but after seeing your shots I feel like a couch potato , good job one of my couches is mobile in the Bugilow Mk11 , must try and get my photos sorted I lost a load that were on my phone when it crashed and some on the old laptop that crashed , just a min thats a lot of crashing makes me sound a little reckless , it was not me boss honest it was a giant bug that did it you should have see the size of it was huge

Ha! I get people in the store all the time showing me pictures on their phone of what they want built and they have, like, a ZILLION pictures on it. I always ask if they've backed them up. And they say "Wa? Why would I do that? I've got them all right here!"
I lost a crap load of pictures to a head crash on the old computer a few years ago. Now I ALWAYS back up everything...

Well... Actually not for the last three years now... But I'm GOING to real soon! Yeah... Maybe tomorrow...

Didn't go real far for those pictures, Eddie! It's only 'down the road'. I've not been very far on the bike this year, and only over to Prince Edward Island once last month. Not much of a traveling summer this year...



Big view... If you've got the time to check it out on Google Earth...



Good thing about living in the sticks. You don't have to go far to have an adventure...

The squiggly road headed north (in blue) over to the island was the first ride out to see if I could see the shipwreck. It's on the tip of the bigger island offshore (Scaterie Island).
I work in Sydney most days, so not too far to commute. Some days in my 30 minute ride I might pass about 3 cars on the back roads before I get to the highway.
No wonder I think the British Isles are crowded!