Dethatching the Himalayans

I bought an El-Cheapo lawn dethatcher the other day. And in the you get what you pay for department, it needs a bit of an upgrade before it can be used reliably. The tray on top is designed to hold concrete blocks but there's nothing to keep them from sliding out the end or bouncing out. I put some bolts through the holes that were punched in the end of the tray and that worked fairly well to keep the blocks from sliding out the ends but I still had to stop and reload the blocks occasionally due to them jumping ship. Also, the tines loosen up during use. The bolts holding them in have nylon stop nuts but they still loosen up. Since this is a once a year thing, I've got until next spring to figure out a solution to the Mexican jumping blocks and the tines falling off. Shouldn't be a big deal, just one more thing that'll be added to the list.

The Himalayan uses flat bars to hold the top of the panniers in place. The system works slick enough except one of the bars doesn't have quite enough clearance between the tubes on the mounting bracket. I took the flap wheel to the top of the bar and put a bit of a taper on it - it rotates around into place nicely now but the bar is plated steel meaning the part I tapered will rust since there is no longer any plating on it. I'm going to order in some aluminum flat bar and make new pieces. They'll be a bit lighter as well as not rust. I got the other two brackets for the bicycle panniers made up so they're ready to mount up if need be other than painting them or coating them with Plasti-Dip. I'll look for some of that next time I go to Menards.

I went to a real lumber yard the other day to see about some replacement windows. I swapped out some windows in my old house years back with some from Marvin and was real happy with how they performed. I went to find out exactly what I need to measure to get a quote and order them. Looks like the best way is to pull the trim off one of the windows and measure the outside of the frame. I'm going to try and get that done this weekend. The lumber yard guy says it takes 3-4 weeks to have them made up. My buddy Kevin's dad is a first rate carpenter. I'm going to talk to him about the installation.

Only two more weeks at the college. I'll be glad when that's over. I think I can work the new job for a while to keep me in travel funds. I received an e-mail about an off season trip to Spain - about the only place in Europe left that I really want to see. They have a Scotland trip also that would be nice. However, I still need to get to Nevada and Hawaii. I'd like to do Nevada at least this year, then maybe back to Europe next year. Maybe go to Bonneville this year, hop across the state line into Nevada, mark my territory and call it good.