Fall's Slow Progress and a Car Show...

While some northern bloggers have ice and snow already, fall, or more precisely, fall color, has been slow to arrive in Cable, WI. I took some pictures today and when compared to last year, the brilliant reds, oranges and yellows of the maple trees just refuse to show themselves. I think we're at least 10 days behind last year...

Today..... 9-26-15.

And one year ago... 9-22-14.

Today, Nancy and I went to the 14th Annual Cable Area Fall Festival   in "downtown" Cable. It was a beautiful 74 degrees and sunny! There were a number of vendors selling their arts and craft items, vendors selling food, and a car show. I was very surprised by the quality of the cars in the show.

Here's just a few...

My first car was a '73 Riviera hat looked a lot like this one.

Catching Up and a Cable, WI Fall Color Update...

It's been three weeks since I last posted to my blog. I've been keeping busy around the house and in the garden, but I've had some fun too.

My buddy, John, and his wife, Wendie, came up for a visit for my birthday/long Labor Day weekend. He brought up his Harley and had the dealer in Rice Lake mount up a new set of tires on it on his way up. We went for a couple of rides and looked at a cabin that's for sale on a local lake.

The weather has been dry and unseasonably warm the last few weeks so Nancy and I took the kayaks out for a trip down part of the Namekagon River.

As we traveled down the river, we saw at least 2 dozen turtles out sunning themselves on rocks and logs. Check out this one... He's got his hind legs stretched out and it looks like he's warming his toes in the sun.

The foliage along the river had just started to lighten. No color yet, as of the 8th of September.

This little guy was sitting in the tree watching us at the Earl Park Landing when we were getting out of the river.

About a week ago I got an email from Doug over at Coop's Corner. He told me that he was going to be up this way and staying in Herbster at a little campground the shore of Lake Superior. On Sunday the 13th, I went north and tried to find him. I found his van, trailer and camp site, but no Doug.

Sometimes, I forget that many people are far more technologically advanced that I am. I never thought to send an email before I drove up there. I figured he was like me and limited to email at home.... not thinking that he probably has a "smart phone"...

On Monday I sent him an email and told him that I'd been there on Sunday, and that I'd try to get back up there later in the day. I left home around 3:30 and made it up to the campground by 5:00. I met up with Doug at the campground and spent an hour and a half shooting the breeze. I made it home just as it was getting dark. Of course I didn't bring my camera on Monday...


It's been very windy and in the low 80's the last couple of days. I think this has made the leaves start to turn color. When I was driving up to Herbster on Sunday and Monday, I noticed that there was very little color on the leaves. That has changed in just 2 or 3 days.
Today, there are signs of color starting everywhere.... All of these pictures are from less than a half mile from home.

The first one is from a maple tree in my yard. There is ONE red leaf today, 9-16. In 2 weeks the whole tree will be a stunning red...

Now it's a race to see what happens first... my tomatoes turn red(some are getting there) or we get a hard frost(we've come close once)!!

The Tractor Gets Teeth!!

I know this post belongs in something like 'Mother Earth News' or 'Tractor & Machinery', and it's not motorcycle related, but hey, the tractor is green and so is my bike...

Owners of compact utility tractors often suffer from the same affliction as motorcycle owners, well I do anyways, and that's the constant desire to look at farkles. I found one for my tractor in the form of a Heavy Hitch brand, bolt-on tooth bar. What's a tooth bar you ask? A tooth bar is an accessory that attaches to the front of the bucket to make digging easier. The buckets on the front of equipment, whether it's a skid-steer, or a tractor with a front end loader, or a piece of large construction equipment, come 2 ways, either with a plain straight edge, or with teeth.

My tractor, a John Deere 1025R, came with a front end loader attachment and a plain, 53" wide bucket. The straight cutting edge is fine for moving snow, scraping stuff off of concrete slabs, and digging loose material out of piles. But for digging up compacted ground it would be like using a wide, flat snow shovel in dirt instead of a narrow, curved and pointed one.

Everyone likes pictures so here they are...

This is the bucket as it originally came. Note the straight edge...

You can see another farkle I added, the bolt on hooks on top of the bucket... See, more of the same affliction as motorcycle owners!

Here's the bucket with the tooth bar bolted on...

Next, I'll be digging up some more flower beds for Nancy... And looking at more farkles... I've got my eye on a carry all frame and either a box blade or a land plane to keep the driveway in shape... It never ends, just like with motorcycles.

Oh, and just to make this post even more 'Mother Earth News' worthy, we made 7 jars of chokecherry jelly the other day. The garden is doing well. The tomatillos are going crazy and have tons of fruit, the peas are done and I think we've picked all the zucchini and given a lot of it away. I put up a little "free" sign and a table at the end of the driveway and put zucchini and some green beans on it. Everything's been taken shortly after being put out there! A few people even left us thank you notes! That makes us happy.

Nancy and I go Old School in the Kitchen.... Or...

Far out man... the colors...

I'm sorry, but there's no motorcycle related content in today's post, but I'm living an out west tour, vicariously at least, through my riding buddy's blog at Riding Retired Plus.


For the last couple of days Nancy and I have been enjoying a break from the heat and humidity, so we've spent a few hours yesterday and today taking walks along the roadsides. We've been searching for, and finding Blackberries and Chokecherries.

Tonight, we're in the middle of making a batch of Blackberry jelly. We've crushed and boiled the berries and are soon to turn the juice into jelly.... mmmmmm...

The first pictures are a couple of rags that Nancy and I decided to try our hand at tie-dying, something I haven't done since 1969. We had a little bit of juice left over, so... we got creative. I'm really trying hard to not let this blog turn into something out of Mother Earth News... LOL

Jelly pictures... Right out of the water bath canner.

MMMMMM!!!! good!

A Ride and a Tractor Show...

Today I went for a motorcycle ride. I did a 190 mile loop down to Turtle Lake, over to Camron, then up US-53 to Trego, then home. Along the way I stopped at the 31st Annual Moon Lake Threshermen's Association Threshing Bee and Gathering of the Orange, Allis-Chalmers tractor show & swap meet. It was just a few miles south of Turtle Lake, WI.

It was a very warm day in northern Wisconsin, and I debated all morning whether or not I should go. I'm glad I did, even with the temp in the high 80's, I managed to have a good time. I arrived just a few minutes too late to see the tractor parade, and most of the days events were over. I missed the opportunity to see old tractors powering belt driven items such as a rock crusher, a corn shredder, a lath maker, various saws and lumber planing displays. I missed the steam powered thresher too!

But even having missed a lot of the displays, I still enjoyed walking around rows and rows of old Allis-Chalmers tractors. Some still in original, unrestored condition, and some fixed up and looking nice enough to display in my living room!

There was a display of old cars too. Including a really nice 1936 Plymouth convertible with a rumble seat, and a 1949 Rolls Royce.

This friendly farm cat was taking a break in the shade...

I spent time talking to a few a few people, but one in particular was pretty interesting. This guy had his 1937 A-C B at the show. The 1937 B's were powered by a 113 cubic inch Waukesha engine. The Waukesha B's are rare, only 96 of them were produced in 1937. In 1938 A-C switched to their own 116 cubic inch engines. They went on to produce over 127,000 model B tractors between 1937 and 1957. I don't know how many of the Waukesha B's still exist today, but it's not all 96.

One more picture from today... A nicely restored B, of similar vintage, but much nicer condition than mine (maybe mine will look like this someday)...