snow shoveling arsenal

No wimpy shovels for me. I used to own a plastic snow shovel. It wasn't bad, it wasn't good. It was alright when the snow was light and fluffy, but when snow and ice begins to play hardball, plastic won't do.

Enter my trilogy of snow shovels. There is a common theme here. They are all old. All of them have wooden, metal or a combination of wooden and metal handles. All boast a metal blade.

For most shoveling in Indiana the long handled curved blade shovel handles the majority of it. The blade gets sharper every time I push it over the concrete of my driveway. It could probably sever a limb. Snow and even some ice gives way to it's powerful persuasion. I came by it in a strange way. We bought a home in Illinois and this shovel came with the home. It made the move to Indiana and I will never let it retire.

Next, is the classical aluminum snow shovel. This lightweight shovel has a sturdy wooden handle and is great when the snow needs to be lifted and thrown. This shovel came from my mother-in-law's house. No one else wanted it. It is easy to overlook the usefulness of a shovel like this in the fall when you're raking leaves, but when a heavy snow falls this is the baby you want.

Finally is the wonderful antique aluminum grain scoop. Some manufacturers have tried to mimic this by putting out the same basic design only in plastic. They don't measure up to this baby. If you have a drift in front of your driveway this is what you want to move a maximum amount of snow.

I don't need a snowblower with this three shovels. Why hassle with another gasoline engine to maintain? Why struggle to find a huge spot in the garage for a snowblower. They have so many limitations you can probably be done scooping the driveway by the time you get one of those things gassed up and started.

Where can you get a trilogy of shovels like mine? Try auctions because they would be pretty hard to find in your typical Lowe's or Menards. In most auctions tools like this don't sell for much. People have forgotten the power of a metal blade with a wooden handle.

Winter projects

What are your winter projects? Every year I will tell myself repeatedly, "Don't worry about 'that', save it for a winter project." Well, winter is here. Snow is drifting, cars are sliding in ditches, I have a deer in the freezer, I've hung the Christmas lights outside, and Christmas shopping is nearly done.

So what are my winter projects?

I want to put the finishing touches on two children's books that I've partway written. Don't misunderstand, no one wants to publish these books, they're just ideas that I'm working on that I'll eventually send off to publishers so I can be ignored by them. But in the meantime I will have stories I wrote for the grandkids. The titles are "Under Pawpaw's Fountain" and "The Goodbye Book."

A second winter project is a collection of projects that center around my 1975 naked Goldwing. I need to change the belts, the brake fluid, and the fork oil. I don't know how to do these things but that's part of the reason I have a motorcycle, to learn about motorcycles.

I was in the garage this morning and observed that it was extremely cold out there. Maybe I'll do the children's books first.

Don't forget the seat

One of the most important parts of riding a motorcycle is sitting. When you are riding a motocycle you spend most of your time sitting. You sit more than you shift, more than you brake...and so forth. So it stands to reason that you would want a high quality seat almost as much as you want high quality brakes. At least this is the way I see it, but I may be in the minority.

I've noticed that a lot of show bikes don't have much of a seat. I understand that they aren't going to mass produce these bikes, they're one of a kind. I understand that they are going for engineering, design, art, style and a lot of other things that appeal to the eye and the emotions. I like that, and I notice that too. But please, put a good seat on the thing. A lot of the really cool bikes that I enjoy looking at have a seat problem. Some of the seats look like nothing more than an antique shaped tractor seat. Some of the seats look like a piece of plain leather or vinyl stretched over a board and stapled with no style or artistic quality. It looks like a six year old kid did it. Some seats are so short and basic they look like a mini bike seat.

So I say, design a beautiful bike and design a beautiful seat to go with it. Build it so a person would actually be comfortable sitting on it for an hour or two at a time. Build a seat so it fits with the flow of the bike but is comfortable and attractive. It doesn't have to be a sofa, or a Lazy Boy, but it could have some comfort and still be pleasing to the eye. Use some nice stitching, chrome pieces, silk screen logos, patterns, rivets, bones, beads, braids, whatever. Just don't slap an ugly nothing seat on a frame. Some of the really beautiful custom bikes are completely predictable with the seat. It's always the thin sliver of a seat, just like all the rest.

The stock seat on an early Goldwing fits the bike. Later versions let comfort get involved too much in which case you have a sofa and a stack of luggage on wheels. Comfortable and convenient, but not as much for the eye or to get the adrenaline going.

I'll still admire the other bikes but I thankfully have something reasonable to sit on .