Whew! What a weekend!
I had a big retreat for work on Saturday. I’d been planning it for weeks, everything from the food for breakfast and lunch, as well as the agenda. I’ll just say that it ended up being harder than I planned. We ended up having deep, emotionally charged conversations. They needed to be had, but I’m also conscious that in some ways they were harder because I didn’t do the best job facilitating the space. I’m still processing the lessons to be learned from it, and I needed a break from the blogging and photo portion of the challenge. I did still wear the dress and got the pictures… (More on that later.)
Taking care of myself
After the retreat, I stopped at the bike store to get parts I need for the restoration of the Raleigh Twenty bike I bought. Whew! Those parts ended up being pricier than expected! Normally I go to the bike shop and just buy a component or two at a time, so I wasn’t expecting that. Tires, tubes, cables, cable housing, chain, hand grips (nice leather ones, so those were a bit pricey).
But I am excited to work on this antique bike. Through a quick Google, to be an antique a bike needs to be 35 years or older. I looked up the serial number, and this bike should have been made in 1973. Therefore, it’s an antique!!
After I got home from the bike store, I ate and then took a nap. Once I woke up, I went out back and started a bonfire up. Mostly I burned branches from the curbside Christmas tree I found. But it was satisfying after a hard day.
The sky was lovely that night: the moon about half full.
Sunday
Sunday I slept in. I decided to work on the Raleigh some. I ended up working on it for a number of hours. It was a WD-40 and tin foil day. I worked on the bike in the back yard, since it’s shadier back there. And it was cool that day, which was nice. I took the back wheel off and took the tire off the wheel. I scrubbed it down, and it looked much better after WD-40 and tin foil.
For some reason I can’t get the damn front tire off to do the same. It’s still stuck even. I think I just need to bend the fork a bit and then pull, but I don’t have enough in me to do both at the same time.
After doing the back tire, I worked on a lot of the bike too. It’s going to have some pitting after I’m done, and no one will mistake it for a new bike. To me, it’ll look like a grizzled old man when I’m finished with it. But I like bikes with stories and character. I don’t completely know the story of this one. Maybe I’ll make one up. But for a bike older than me, I know it has one.
It really is satisfying to scrub away some rust and see something beautiful underneath.
And it was cool to unscrew the top of the bell to see inside. The decal on the bell says it is from 1971. Makes me wonder if the bike is too, even though I looked up the date the bike should have been made from the serial number. Obviously they could have moved the bell from another bike. The bell is a Schwinn. I wouldn’t think that would be a brand Raleigh would have partnered with. I took the opportunity to lube the gears of the bell while I had it open. And I’m glad the WD-40 and foil didn’t cause the decal to come off.
I get to learn how to work with another type of shifter too. This bike is a three-speed where the gears are self-contained in the rear wheel hub. I had to Google just to figure out how to take off the shifter cable so I could remove the tire. (I’m hoping I didn’t break anything that shouldn’t have been broke. Might need to buy a special shifter cable. Not sure yet.
I can’t remember what I did after working on the bike. Probably took a nap.
I’ve seen new-to-me birds at the feeders the past few days: house finches! The males have reddish heads, and the females are more brownish. They are cute.
And today
Today was busy too. But I did meet some new yard friends today.
The cardinals I’ve recently seen have been so vibrantly red. So pretty. The beetle is a strawberry seed beetle, according to the Seek App. Bigger than a strawberry seed, for sure: maybe 3/4 of an inch long.
The mice/rats hanging from my bird feeder may have become my nemeses today. They’ve been hanging around for a minute (they live under my porch), but they’ve been getting bolder. So I Googled non-lethal ways to deter them. Peppermint oil came up in the search. I have some essential oil, so a few days ago I rubbed the feeder poles in both the front and back yards. I haven’t seen them since, so I figured “victory!!” Saw them today, so I reapplied the oil to the poles. They were back up the feeder pole within an hour. I guess the first time was a fluke. I’ve ordered Slinkies to put on the poles to dissuade them from taking quite so much advantage of my generosity. I expect to be outsmarted… Mother Nature is a clever girl.
Closing out
Wishing you love, joy, and doing things that feed your soul.
