Sunday, April 17, 2011

Northerly pre-func

First off. And totally un-related to the barely-bike-related post to follow.

Smarties should be able to figure out what the figuring is all about in this pic:

hm?


Maddie and I went up to the river property to take stock. We came back with a solid work item.

But first, the frog:

And the junk:

My dad was a junk collector. Actually, by Ferry County standards, his junk collection is child's play. In any case, I think he's got a lot of cool junk. A forest fire fired up around his land up there a couple years ago and really did a bang up job of separating the good junk from the excellent junk. Only cast-iron-excellent junk is left. In fact, I found an old cast-iron tractor seat in the junk up there. I'd like Glen to make me a chair out of it. Perhaps he'd take some nice cast-junk in trade.

Maddie found a stack of old cast-iron pans.

So here's the bummer --
See that right-angle behind the toilet.
Blown.

The "fix" was to by-pass the hot-water heater so you could turn off the heater while providing water for the toilet. This is so not bike-related.


ugh.

This non-bikey plumbing funk is in a little shed. It's the proper toilet and shower up at the property on the river. This proper plumbing is a big reason that the river hang works for mulitple days for Liza.

There's a lot of back story here. Dad had this dialed in so that it didn't blow up during the winter freeze. Last summer, some guy "fixed it" by re-plumbinging it. He's from Seattle. Nothing wrong with that, but he clearly didn't appreciate the "freeze" part of the equation and the plumbing blew up.

This is the work item.

I get what needs to happen, and I'm going to plumb it like my dad had it: with copper and running the pipes over head so that when you shut the water off and drain them, they drain. No sharp corners with PVC. But I'm a sucky plumber.

Yow.

More non-bikey, but the headstone went in and I'm pretty sure this is where I want to be planted too.
Room with a view.
(sorry, couldn't resist the cliche there)

The bike part of this deal is that this river property is ideally located for serious fun. Great road riding -- with a two-pass perfect century out the door. And of course, great forest road, Nat'l Forest exploration also out of the back door.

And now, there's a new local brewery: Northern Ales.

This property screams for a cyclecross event...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey John,
Are you a "triple John" or maybe a John the third? More appropriatly John Speare III? Cool. I love that area. Hopefully I'll be able to tag along on one of the bike outings...damn school..for now. Wade

Anonymous said...

Also, I can tell by the pump track plans, the almonds, and the color of the truck(I can see it beyond the spray on bed liner) that Pat sprute is involved.

Patrick Sullivan said...

I bought a bottle of their IPA at Meyers Fall Market. Also there's Republic Brewing Company coming soon too.

Anonymous said...

You and Pat are about to be voted the coolest old guys by the BMX crowd.

Nate

Anonymous said...

that's kewl. I'll help organize the bike extravaganza - that sounds like a blast.
yer sis.