18-19 March 2011 MC Tires and Thrift Stores

We took the dog out for a run on Friday morning.  We were on bicycles ... the dog was running!  The roads are like a maze on the wildlife management area so we took lots of side roads.  We tried to get to the river but the gournd was too swampy.  We did see lots of wildlife including road runners, rabbits, quail, dove, ducks, geese and several Brahman cows (and one bull).

Tis is one area next to a swamp.  There are duck blinds all over that are used by hunters during the duck season.

The end of the road????  Actually, the gate is open which puts it across the irrigation canal.

The dog knew what to do with the irrigation water!

Susan found a couple of palm leaves and is scraping them to see if they'll make soap like eyucca leaves will.

They're thin and tough.  It takes a lot of scraping.

These are from the leaves.  She couldn't get them to make "soap."

This is our makeshift motorcycle jack.  I backed the bike part way off the trailer then we raised the back of the trailer to raise the  back wheel of the bike off the ground.  I tied the front with straps to hold it upright.

Once I got the tire off I realized that I didn't bring the tools to bread the bead lose so I got a piece of angle iron (this goes across the back of the trailer) and my crescent wrench. I pried down on the edge of the bead and slowly worked it down off the rim.  The firewood at the front of the tire is to give it the right angle with the wrench to work the bead down.  I tightened the wrench opeing on the angle iron to help hold the wrench on the angle iron while pushing down.

I didn't have the tool I use to work the tire off the rim so I used two of the wrenches supplied in the MC's tool kit.  These have straight, rounded sides and ends that fit inside an oval pipe for leverage.  The rounded ends worked great for getting the bead over the edge of the rim.

First side done now I have to do the second bead the same way.

I rode into town part way into the process to see if the tire store there could mount/dismount the tire from the rim but they couldn't.  On the way back to camp I stopped at McDonalds for hamburgers, fries and hot fudge sundaes.  I carried them to camp on my bicycle.  It's only a couple of miles or so on level, paved roads so I poured on the steam (puff, puff, puff, pant) to get to camp before the ice cream melted and the hamburgers got cold.

After mounting the new tire on the rim we tried to seat the bead and inflate thet ire with my bicycle tire pump but just couldn't do it so I rode my bicycle back into town and bought an air-compressor.  Even with it I had to run one of the ratchet straps around the tire and put the squeeze to it to seat the bead enough it would hold air.  I got it pumped up then put everything back together.

Susan found some greasewood leaves for some experimenting of her own.  Shehas more information on her blog at http://gypsysuebugginout.blogspot.com/

I took the MC out for a test drive then Susan and I headed into Overton for a quick trip.  We filled a couple of water jugs then filled my camel-back.  I was tired and hot and so was she so we had pizza at the grocery store before heading back home.

The cat decided it wanted to watch out the back door so Susan set the stool there for the cat to perch on.

Susie's swamp cooler.  She puts a wet towel over anything that needs refrigerating.  The ater evaporating from the towel keeps things cool enough that they'll keep for a couple of days (depending pn how hot the weather gets). 

Susan bought a pasta maker at the thrift store this morning.  We'll use to tmake pasta but are also going to see if it will roll oats to make our own oatmeal.  We'll let you know how well it works.  It may be awhile.  We have some barley to try it on but no whole oats with us.