an siul fada.

bit of carvin, movie watchin, procrastinatin and a long walk today, which resulted in this:



feels great. i needed groceries, and exercise, and beer, so i decided to kill three birds with one stone and a 6 mile round trip walk on the bike path. i wore my trail running shoes, which decided to wear a hole in my achilles. the good news though is that carr's was having a half off sale on Bertolli olive oil, and i for some reason got an even greater than advertised discount on my already bargain basement beast ice.

there was some excitement in the yard late this morning as mom and her two brats showed up again, setting the dogs into a frenzy. only this time, i really got to see the different personalities of the two youngsters. one stayed in the tall grass at the edge of the yard, a little wary of the dogs barking in the kennel. the other, though, followed mom out onto the lawn, and while mom was snacking on raspberry leaves, kiddo started jumping around and almost playfully bluff charging the kennel. he would turn his head, look at them, then ears back, head down and stare. then jump and twirl around a bit and charge to within about 15 ft of the fence, where he would stop, stare some more, then turn and leap playfully back up toward mom. the dogs went apeshit over this. i've never seen chet barking and growling so much. i'm not sure if the moose was trying to play with the dogs or practicing being tough. eventually mom decided he'd had enough though, and off she jogged back into the tall grass, collecting the two kids on the way. no photos though, sorry.

crainn lasrach

two days in a row. better be careful i don't burn out or something... went back to crev mo on the ssstump today. did the same loop as yesterday. short, but hits all the fun log crossings. it was cloudy all morning, so i was in my cage carving when all of a sudden the sun just burst through the clouds and filled my room with light to the point that it nearly hurt my eyes. so i finished up the piece i was working on and got on the bike.



oh, i had also found a relevant user manual for my now several week old reba team, which doesn't come with one, on the interwebs. read through it and found i was adjusting the floodgate improperly. apparently you need to adjust with the compression on full lock. it was much better today while climbing locked out, but still has a tendency to dive over log crossings whether it's locked out or not.

i don't think it rained last night, but the roots were noticeably more slippery. legs felt great, as they should on such a short ride. i don't think this loop, including riding to and from the trailhead, breaks 12 miles. i had to retry the one multiple log crossing 3 times before cleaning it all the way through. it's the first one that throws me off. it's 2/3rds of the way through a turn and about 26" high. factors which i don't seem to remember causing me any grief back in nj. maybe my skills are dumbing down from lack of use? i'll have to go out and play more.

tiocfidh se...

it's getting to be about time i started thinking more seriously about my upcoming second Iditarod Trail Invitational, aka Alaska Ultrasport, aka Iditabike. yeah i said second. in my year plus long blogging hiatus i managed to barely finish my first attempt. i still intend to eventually get the writeup on this thing, once i've had a chance to fully digest it, of course....

but anyway, i need to start 'training', or at least riding/hiking on a daily basis. no more of this lollygagging i've been doing of late. time in the saddle and miles in the legs will be necessary if i don't want to repeat last years dismal, although somewhat dramatic showing.



so, with that in mind, i headed out to crevasse moraine today to play on the very few, semi-hush-hush log features in the place. not hush-hush because they're illegal, but hush-hush because alot of people up here have hard-ons for chainsaws and have decided that the perfect outlet for their love of motorized cutting is to remove all fun from trails... bastards.

crevlogs from sean grady on Vimeo.

the yellows and golds are still hanging in there, as are the understated reds. the trails are firm and grippy, despite the cover of leaves. scenery can't be beat and it was a beautiful fall day in the valley.

eanadan

i promised details on the 'cage' i'll be spending a large chunk of my winter in, and i will now deliver, though it's nowhere near as interesting as i make it sound.

the dilemma:

all summer, i've been carving outside, on the patio, directly outside my bedroom. it's a great place to carve with perfect southern exposure. the house i rent a room in has no heated 'workshop' where i could commandeer some space for carving. there's a workshop in the two car garage, but A: there are two cars parked in there all winter; B: all three of the adults in the house are outdoors gear junkies and the garage is pretty well full with our crap; and C: the garage has a heater, but generally isn't heated unless someone's going to be out there working on a car or something for any given amount of time. the house is heated all winter long, no matter what. and it can get pretty damned cold up here in the winter, as you might imagine.

the only obvious, realistic options were, A: stop carving for the winter and concentrate on some other art; B: rent a heat-able small space somewhere in the valley to carve; or C: carve in the house.

carve in the house it is! but carving makes quite a mess, and i'm sure my lessors(i originally put 'rentees' there, but it's apparently not a recognized word, and when it is used, is used to mean someone in my position, ie: a tenant... so 'lessors' it is) wouldn't appreciate wood shavings embedded in my carpet and tracked all through the house. the solution, my 'cage':



ignore the mess on the bed reflected in the mirror. all of that stuff had been neatly arranged where the 'cage' is now. it's a comfortable, roomy 5' x 3', constructed of nylon mesh and 1/4 round trim with a heavy cotton canvas 'floor'. the mesh catches all errant chips and shavings, and there are a lot of them, especially when working on cottonwood bark. the cotton canvas floor is much, much easier to sweep off of than the carpet and still comfortable to walk on.



so there you have it. the bulk of my day today was spent constructing and erecting that, and carving/painting carvings.

craolachan roimhe sibh.

as i'm sure you all noticed, i put a lot of thought and effort into yesterday's post. and since i'm sure you're all still trying to digest the intellectualism and cerebral riddling, i'll start off today with a snippet of information that proves without a doubt the superiority of new jersey, my home state. i'll post more later today, as i'm building myself a cage for the winter and i'm sure you want to know wtf i mean by that.

sent by my mother

"New Discovery

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, New York archeologists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, a California archaeologist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story in the LA Times read: "California archaeologists, finding traces of 200 year old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers."

One week later, The Jersey Journal, a local newspaper in New Jersey , reported the following:

"After digging as deep as 30 feet in his back yard, Vinny 'Bada Bing' Manziano, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Vinny has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, New Jersey had already gone wireless."

Just makes me proud to be from New Jersey!!"