Staying With It

I thought this was pretty funny, especially since the U.P. pulls a coal drag past the shack at least once a day on the way to the generating station. However, the generating station is scheduled to close in a few years.  I would guess the air quality has improved noticeably in the last few weeks with all the lay-offs and travel restrictions. Since I live out in the country I haven't noticed a lot of difference in the traffic but I haven't been out much either. I just hope this virus goes away soon. The Missus and I are doing OK but it's putting the pinch on a lot of people and if things don't get back to "normal" soon it's liable to get ugly. Unfortunately, there has been a jump in cases both statewide and locally in the last few days. Not good.

While working in the shop yesterday, the radio came on with their virus update. From what I heard, looks like the social distancing will be around all summer long. And this is right after I heard from Cuzzin Ricky about another train museum out in Nevada for us to go visit. Balls!

Here's my lovely mower blade sharpening atelier. Part of my duties at the part-time gig is sharpening mower blades. There I use a professional grinding gizmo. I was planning on taking my spare set of blades to work and sharpen them there but that only works if you go to work. The set-up in the photo actually works quite well. Clamp the blade to the horse and turn the 9" hand grinder loose on it. It only takes about a minute to sharpen each end . The mower has a 48" deck under it using three blades. Since the blades are short I don't worry too much about any imbalance from taking too much off of one end. I don't own a balancer but I can always hang them on a nail if I think they're too far out.

And from the diamond in a pig's ass department, I painted the cover that holds the sprocket on. As you can see, the rear wheel is in rough shape. Between the rusty chrome and the faded silver paint and the dirt, not much hope for making this one look good. I'm going to look into buying some rims, spokes and new rubber. I can always re-lace the wheels at a later date. I'm just hoping the little Rapido is going to run when I get it back together. I certainly don't want to split the cases and put new crank seals in it. I just want a decent little bike the grandson can ride around the yard. I should have the answer before too much longer.