Bike Rack Woes

Ken noticed this morning that the bike rack looked odd. Two of the cradles that hold the bike tires were missing. We think they must have vibrated off during our trip to Grand Rapids. Always in the past, when we moved Venture, the bikes were in the rack. They're securely fastened down, so they hold the bike rack parts in place. It turns out that the missing parts are called "wheel hoops." We found some on the Internet at Hitch Source and ordered them. Expensive lesson.

On our walk this morning, we saw what we first took to be a large cat, but the ears were too long. A closer look made us think more of a skinny dog. Although we were only maybe 25 feet away, the animal didn't look alarmed. In fact, it moved somewhat in our direction. We decided that it was probably an oddly behaving fox and moved along. The images online of red fox matched what we saw. Must have been a hungry critter and probably pretty used to people.

(image from http://www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/red_fox.html)

I went to the Discount Grocery today after calling and finding that today was the day that they were getting in fresh produce. The best things I found were corn on the cob, beefsteak tomatoes, green beans, and blueberries, all grown by local Amish farmers who use no chemicals. There's nothing like fresh local fruits and vegetables.

For dinner I made beer can chicken, using some Miller Amish chicken I found at Horrocks. It turned out moist and flavorful. I'm always happy to find chicken that's not mass produced by Pilgrim's Pride and their ilk.

Following the instructions from Ekornes, the manufacturer of our new chairs, we used the cleaner wipes and protection wipes included with the chairs. We’ve never had leather furniture before, and we want to keep the leather in good condition. We’ve put cleaning and conditioning the chairs on our quarterly maintenance calendar.


We played a game of Upwords tonight. I was trying to break my losing streak, but no such luck. I was ahead until the very end. When Ken went out, I was left with three tiles (-15 points). He won by two points, 135-133. Dang!