Another Day at the Lake

The other day we had a few of our kids together and decided to head for the lake.  That's always a good time.  Rain was predicted for later in the afternoon but we figured we could sneak in a picnic and some play before it started.

We took traditional picnic food: hot dogs and burgers, potato salad, watermelon, grapes, all yummy stuff.

We let the kids play in the water while to food cooked, then we called them over.

So there was nice chatting time for the grown-ups, along with all the outdoor fun the kids always like.

The "ice-cream man" even made a timely appearance at a good time, after the good, healthy stuff was done.  That was a bit of serendipity.

Because we had taken the kayaks, we also had the life jackets along; the kids all liked wearing them.

We also had some safety goggles, which did double duty for looking around under water.

Fun in the water is always welcome.

Then the kayaks came out.  Schwartzbeere made the first trip out on the lake by himself.

Then he came back and the kids got turns.

Each of the kids got a turn out in the kayak with either Schwatrzbeere or Brombeere.

They all liked that.

Our resident entomologist even found a friend to play with.  This one faired much better than the last one; it survived the encounter.

All in all, it was a very nice time at the lake.  Everybody was happy when it was time to go.  And we were all cleaned up, packed up, and leaving just as the rain drops began falling. It was a good time.

Another Ride with Family

It was summer again and that meant biking.  This summer, in addition to all the biking we've done here at home, we also took our bikes to visit Blaubeere and go on a ride with her and her kids. This has become a bit of a tradition each summer. 

This was kind of an experiment, too.  I got my recumbent last year, and earlier this spring we got one for Brombeere.  So this was the first time we had ever tried to load them both into our car and take them anywhere.  After all, they don't fit very well on a conventional bike rack; we had to figure out how to make them fit inside.  But at the time we bought Brombeere's and loaded it in the car I kind of "eyeballed" it and figured it could be done.  And, sure enough, we did it! So we loaded them up and made the trek to where we planned to begin this ride.  

It was a bit of a drive for both of us but we both arrived at the designated park pretty much on time.  We were starting at the Menominee Park in Oshkosh.  Parks are a good starting place since there's always enough parking to leave the cars.  This park was also a nice distance from where we wanted to ride to.  The destination was Asylum Point on the west shore of Lake Winnebago.  Asylum Point has a long and interesting history but we're not going to get into that.  What drew us was the little lighthouse there.

The ride from the park to the lighthouse, which is in another small park, was entirely city riding, very boring.  In fact, some of the "curb-outs" where downright brutal.  They'd been made back before making cities bike friendly was a thing.  But we made it.

It was just under six miles from the starting park to the ending park, all city.  Some of it was residential, some was business, all of it was plain, with one exception.  As we rode along through the business area, we passed a vacant lot that someone had seeded with wildflowers.  That was really pretty.  I don't know that anyone actually seeded it, but it had a wide variety of wildflowers and looked real nice, it was a pretty big area.  As nice as anything I've ever seen outside of the city, out in the wild. 

At last we arrived at our destination, a small park on a small peninsula that stuck out a little into the lake.

On a small island was a little undersized lighthouse.  It's not open for public tours or any such, but I think it is still operational. The lake is a big lake and gets a lot of boat traffic. But the island the lighthouse sits on is open to the public.  It's a great fishing area, there were several people there fishing while we were visiting.  There is also a small park nearby where we could have picnicked, but we didn't.

So we walked across the bridge to the island and looked over the lighthouse.

It was a fun ride, even if it was a bright, sunny day (there were a couple of sunburned people when we were done).

A tranquil setting on the lake.  It's fun to listen to water.

It's a big lake but you can see the other side, unlike the lake a little farther to the east.

While we were at the lighthouse the grandkids each wanted to try the recumbents out.  They tried mine, but I'm tall enough that riding mine was difficult for them; adjusting for size is more difficult on a recumbent that a regular bike.  But Brombeere's bike was a little smaller and they each took turns riding around the parking lot.

They both agreed that it was a bit different than riding a regular bike, but they both liked it.  Enough so that we finally had to tell them it was time to start back.

The trip back always seems to go faster, maybe because it was no longer new territory, there are "landmarks" you remember from the trip out.  At any rate, it seemed pretty quick getting back.  On the whole trip out and back I only took one wrong turn at that wasn't so bad, It only added a dozen or so yards to the trip.

Anyway, once we got back and had the bikes all loaded back in the car we drove through the park and picked a nice, shady picnic table to have lunch at.  It literally was right on the lake.

We had a good lunch, Brombeere and Blaubeere spent most of the time talking about quilts and gardening. It was a good time, picnics are always fun.

Then we let the kids play at the water's edge for a little while.  Sorry, we hadn't come prepared to swim and there was no beach where we had our picnic, so nobody got wet.

But it was a good time, the perfect way to finish off a very nice ride.

Both parks were really nice, very pretty.  We ended the day thinking we might need to get together again this summer for another ride.  Who knows, it could happen!

Another Assembly Project

When we bought the home we currently live in we learned that the people we bought it from had used a service to keep the lawn healthy and green.  That explained why the lawn was so thick and full, especially the backyard.  But it was expensive and we choose not to continue to use the service.  The lawn continued to be healthy and thick but it gradually, over the years, declined and began to thin out and get weeds in it.  So last year we decided to start using the service again.  The lawn immediately responded by having the weeds go away and get thick again.  That plus we had a pretty wet spring this year, lots of rain means lots of growth. 

Alas, that meant when we mowed it there was a lot of clippings left laying all over the grass. 

That didn't look very good.

But it would be a lot of work to rake by hand, especially if it was going to be like this after every mowing.

We talked about what to do about it.  The best thing to do would have been to get a grass catcher but our backyard is fenced and the gate is not wide enough to allow the mower through if there was a grass catcher attached.  The grass catcher attaches on the side which makes it too wide to get through the gate.  We looked into widening the gate but that's pretty expensive.  We still want to do that but not right now.  Another option was to mow the backyard with the small mower, which has a grass catcher, but that would mean I could not do it, it's not a rider.  That left getting a lawn sweeper and going over the lawn after having mowed it.  So we got a lawn sweeper.

We shopped around for a lawn sweeper and the least expensive one we found, that looked like it would do the job well, was online so that's where we bought it.  It took a few days for it to arrive and when it got here it was quickly apparent that this was going to be another something that would require some assembly.  I was hoping that it would be not as difficult as the rototiller we put together last year, that was pretty challenging.  But after looking over the parts and instructions it didn't look like it was going to be quite that hard.

There weren't as many parts and the instructions weren't as long or as complicated.  The only down side appeared to be that it was all just pictures, no text or written instructions.  My experience has been that such instructions often leaves gaps.

But the first step appeared simple enough so I got started.  

The first step was easy, this was going to be great.  I was working by myself but if it didn't get any worse than this it wasn't going to be so bad.

The next step was as simple as the first, it went quick and easy.  But it soon became a little harder.  Several steps in, it became apparent that this was a two person job, not so much to understand what to do, but to manipulate the parts and get them in place.  Someone had to hold them in place while the other someone put the pins in place or tightened the bolts.

That's when I called Brombeere out to come help.  She was good enough to come, even though she was in the house and had planned on working on other stuff.

With the two of us it went better.  A little while later we had it all put together and ready to go.  

So I hooked it up to the mower and got started.

It took a little bit to lean how best to get it to work, remember there were no written instructions on how to assemble it or use it.  But a few times around the yard and I began to get the hang of it. And the other thing that helped was that I didn't need to cover the entire lawn, just where the clippings were, which tended to be a few feet from the outside edge of the lawn. 

 It takes two people to get it through the gate, it's too wide but by lifting it (it's not super heavy), it's possible to work it through the gate and into the backyard.

The lawn sweeper worked pretty good, the yard looked much better without all that "mown hay" laying around.

Of course, the swept up lawn clippings will have to be hauled off since Brombeere doesn't want them scattered in her garden.  But it's nice to be able to clean up the clippings when they get so long.  I try to mow once a week but sometimes our schedule or the weather make that difficult.  So it's nice to be able to have an option.

Splat

When our kids were little we bought a game called "Splat".  It was a lot of fun and real easy to play, even for the little kids.

Anyway, we had one of the grandkids stay with us recently.  He wanted to do something with us so we opened up the game cupboard and let him pick one.  He picked Splat.

The original stuff to make "bugs" with was long gone so we got out the Play-Dooh and set to making several game pieces each so we could start.  

The rules say the youngest goes first, which was perfectly okay with this young man.  So he rolled the die and off we went.

We had to help him be a little less enthusiastic about rolling the die, after he had to retrieve it from the floor a few times.  But otherwise, he did really well.  He knew his numbers well enough to be able to know what he'd rolled.  He knew his colors, too. We had to help him count out his moves sometimes, he often would miss squares or forget to start counting at the right place.  But he did really well.  And the game is designed to be fairly quick, so young people don't lose interest.

His favorite part of the game, of course, was when he'd get to splat a bug.  He loved that, even when it was his own bug he had to squish.  He was a real good sport about that.

He won the first game.  Grandma won the second game.  We all had fun.  It was a good time.  We might have to get that one out again.  He really enjoyed it.

Hard at Work

We have two "shade tree mechanics" in the family, one has a place where he can do his mechanic work, the other lives in an apartment complex that does not allow working on cars.  So that one, Himbeere, when he needs to work on one of his cars, comes over to our house.  It's a nice excuse to see him at least that often.

So yesterday he needed to come work on one of his cars (he keeps his "excess" car parked here, too, because his apartment complex only allows two vehicles.)  It started out well enough, but he keeps older cars (because he's good enough that  he can usually keep them running himself) so they sometimes are not in the best condition.  That, plus, when he's not using the extra one it sits around here and doesn't get much use.  Sitting idle can be hard on cars.

So he got here, got it up on the blocks, and started tearing the wheel apart so he could replace the part that needed replacing.  Pretty soon, he was down there, right up close to the work, because it was not going as smooth and easy as he had hoped.  This is why I don't like doing my own mechanic work.

Despite a good cheering section, it got pretty hard at one point, and he was still taking things apart.  But in the end he did win, he got the old part off!  Getting the new part on went pretty well and it wasn't long at all before he had everything back together and working. Yes, at one point, tools, old parts, and words were flying all over the place but in the end he came off triumphant.  Well done, Himbeere!