Today’s the Day — Bike Riding Again!

July 11, 2021

Bike Riding Again

 

I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. Today I get to ride my ride again after a long month off it post-surgery. I can’t wait!!!

 

Alas, I have to for a couple more hours. We’re going around 10 a.m.

 

Lisa will get here an hour or so before we go to wipe my old PC so she can give it to a fellow co-worker who needs one. And she wants to play with the rats when we get back from bike riding. So, she’s going to drive here, instead of meeting me at Waughop Lake at 10. That’ll work!

 

I’ll pump up the bike tires and load them into the van before she gets here, probably. That will keep me busy anticipating the moment we get back on the bikes and start pedaling…  I have missed it so!   As has Lisa.  We’re riding fools these days.

 

The temperatures are going up again, so we’ll need to ride early on the days Lisa has off work. She’s quite busy these days with clients. (YAY for income, boo for biking! HA HA HA HA HA)  I can ride without her, but it isn’t as much fun.

 

And I wouldn’t go far to do it, either. I’d just stay on local streets, which is kinda boring and riskier than everywhere else we ride (on designated bike paths at Orting and Waughop Lake).

 

The materials for enclosing the ferret cage have been shipped and are en route, so hopefully when we get back, they will have arrived and I can wrap the cage and turn the rats loose to explore their much larger habitat.

 

They’ve been in it before, but it will be easier for me to get in and out of it to feed, clean and spoil them, since it will be wrapped in screening materials instead of hardware cloth.  It will also be a lot lighter, so I can take it out of the house myself to hose it down every week or so. Before, wrapped in hardware cloth, doing that was both heavy and hazardous because there were sharp edges where I cut the hardware cloth to make it fit the doors, sides, top, etc. With screening material, sharp edges won’t be an issue.  I’ll use Gorilla Tape and some cage brads to hold it in place.

 

In Other News…

 

Hmmm… what other news is there?

 

I can start playing pickleball again on the days when Lisa can’t ride

… so I can get back into the swing of things that way.  I want to stay as active as possible in ways I love, and pickleball is one of those ways. I haven’t played much this summer because Lisa has been available to ride three or more days a week, and post-surgery, I wasn’t allowed to do any major activity like that for four weeks.  But now I’m ready to hit the courts again.  I just hope everyone else isn’t so far advanced now that I feel like a newbie.  They have been playing every day for months.  I’ve played perhaps six times this year.  I’m not a bad player, but constant practice improves performance, so I know I’ll be behind.  It’s still fun and great exercise, and the gang is forgiving, so it’ll be all right.

 

The weather is heading up into the 80’s again

 

Mid-80’s (F) weather is fine for the goats. It’s when it gets to 90 degrees and above that I will need to turn the misters on and put them into their cooling coats.  Here in the Pacific NW, that is rarely necessary.

 

But with climate change, doing these additional things is going to become more frequent.  My two oldest goats are twelve and ten (estimate).  They live about 14 years usually.  My youngest two are six.  They’re the ones I’ll need to worry about longest.

 

No more goats after these are gone… unless I relocate overseas

 

Outdoor animals need to be small enough these days to bring indoors easily during horribly hot and cold weather, if I remain here in the Pac NW. (I’m still toying with the idea of moving overseas at some point. There are less expensive places to live overseas, and less politically volatile, too.  I’d like to live in peace for the rest of my life and our property value is escalating at such mind-numbing speed that we might be able to sell this place for a million dollars in the next few years, split the income in half, and go wherever we want to for the rest of our lives. I could live a long time on a half million dollars in Costa Rica, Vietnam, or some other exotic, welcoming clime, but not here in the U.S. The cost of living here is insane!)

 

It’s time for breakfast and I’m out of news, so I’ll let you go!  Enjoy your Sunday!!!

 

 

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