Fixed Up

Amazing what a little vinyl and spray paint will do. And in regards to recovering the seat: it looked a lot easier on YouTube.

Another New Cat

You might think I'm crazy, and you might be right. Maybe it's middle age. What do they call that, Midlife Crisis?  Nah. It was just a great deal at the right time. I've been wanting something like this for years. Quiet. Slow. Easy. Big Tires.

It's an old Honda FatCat TR200.

I've never really ridden a motorcycle before other than with my dad when I was probably 7 years old. So I had a vague memory of how to shift, but that's it. I must admit the first time I hopped on I thought I'd rather ride something with a mind that wouldn't do stupid crap when I froze up. :) I've never really been any kind of bike rider

But I'm getting the hang of it and I love it! I have a couple (or more) cosmetic things to fix up, but it runs beautifully. I'm going to spray paint the front rack and replace the seat vinyl today. Fun stuff.

It might be a while before I take it out on the logging roads, and I may never want to take it on a difficult trail. It's a heavy beast. I'm hoping it will help me discover some new places to ride my horse though. I'm excited!

Short Ride, Tired Horse

I cut out the grainy grain (Omolene) and increased the Active Senior and now I have a tired old man again. We did just 3 easy miles early this morning before it got hot and he was slow. He did suggest on the downhill on the way back that maybe I'd like to walk. I'd like to get someone behind me who knows what they're looking at to tell me if it looks like he's sore in his hocks.

I'm back to wondering if I'm too heavy, if this is too much, if he's too old and should be allowed to just pack kids around. I feel bad.

On the upside, I made a new riding buddy. Her property is right on the edge of a bunch of public land, some of which I've ridden on quite a bit, and some I haven't. I was a bit nervous when she told me how green her horse was (1 ride every 9 months or so) but he was a good boy. It helps a lot to have a horse like Sawyer along.

Old Sampson, New Aslan

Sawyer and I have done some shorter rides and a couple of 11 mile climbs with his new diet, and it seems to be doing the trick. A bit too well, sometimes. He got way overly excited about a moose one day, I think because he couldn't tell what it was through the heavy trees.

We trotted a couple miles straight up, only slowing or stopping when I insisted. That was at the beginning of the ride and he was still going well the rest of it.

The forest service has it mapped as 11 miles up and back, my GPS said 12, but I'll go with the 11.

I like the history of this old trail. I don't know if there are other sections still surviving. I hope so. It makes me sad that so many of the old trails aren't continuous anymore.

We have to walk along the highway a ways to get to the trailhead. There isn't enough parking for horse trailers there. The horses do great even with log trucks speeding by. The truckers are pretty courteous, giving room and even slowing down sometimes. Everyone else seems to be in such a huge hurry.

Here's pretty juniper standing on her leadrope.

On Tuesday some kind person found this dying snotty emaciated dehydrated filthy cat in a trailer park and brought him in to our clinic. She didn't know what to do, because she couldn't afford to take care of him. I said I'd take him.

My boss was pretty sure he was going to die, but I thought he probably just needed some help. He tested negative for leukemia so I went ahead with treatment.

Here is Aslan just a couple days later:

We took him camping and he had a blast

I'm pretty sure at this point that the dogs won't kill him. But I'm still watching carefully. If I have to I will find him a safer home. But I sure do like the little guy!

I'm not sure if I'll be riding much over the next month or two. I'm going to try to spend most of my free time with my sister. But that's OK, the horses don't mind.