An Encounter with Woodland Spirits

Haven't taken Quzqo out on the trails alone in, O, let's say a month or so. To say the weather this Fall has been crap would be an understatement. If it's not rainy and dark, it's windy, or it's snowing. Always on the weekends...and throughout the week, come to think of it.

But gosh darn, now the clock is ticking. In 20 days or so, firearm deer season starts, so the opportunities to go out and about are dwindling down to a precious few!

The wind and rain did a job on the fall colors...it's almost like Nature has turned into Seinfeld's Soup Nazi...snatching the beautiful leaves away, shouting "NO COLORS FOR YOU!". Nearly overnight, trees have gone from being a sickly brownish-yellow to bare branches. But at this point, any color is better than nothing, and even bare grey branches are best observed from the back of a horse!

I was a little concerned, since Quz hadn't been out by himself in so long a time. I tacked him up with the most secure saddle, breast plate, bear bells, our new Myler bit, whip and spurs and plenty of peppermints, ready for just about anything!

Happily he struck out with his usual apathy and leaden trudging away from the barn. I didn't get too much of a pouting Drama Queen display as we left the property, and we made it down the road without a single exploding spook or petulent refusal to move forward!

It wasn't THAT bad out, relatively warm (well, mid-40's are what passes for "warm" these days), with plenty of mud puddles to dodge. Quzqo had his shoes pulled two weeks ago, so he wasn't sore and trotted nicely down the dirt road. It was really quite nice, outside of the dark drizzley atmosphere and a feeling of impending doom.

Well, poopy...the trail we usually take through the woods, was now gaily decorated with fresh, shiny NO TRESPASSING signs! Crap crap crap!!! It's an 80 acre piece of property that's been for sale for around 7 years, nobody lives on it, they planned to make it into a housing development before Michigan's economy really tanked. Dirt bikers used to use the trails as well, but I'm hoping it's a temporary thing for hunting season. Of course by the time that's done with, there'll be two feet of snow on the ground, making it a moot point for riding!

Not like I haven't faced this before, so we just rode along the roadside up and around the property. When the traffic cleared, we zipped up a side-trail, ignoring the older NO TRESPASSING sign on a tree, and disappeared into the trees. Huh? What? did somebody see something?

Hard to sneak on a white horse, but I was glad I didn't have any Hunter Orange on, heh heh.

We enjoyed, guiltily, wandering around the trails back there, which was about as ugly and depressing as the rest of the area, moreso since the trees never really recovered from the tent worm invasion this summer. We crossed over into the property behind the elementary school, and walked around on the nature trails (relax, concerned parents, Quz didn't poop or pee the entire time we were in there, so it was safe for the kiddies).

Specifically, I wanted to go see, and get photos of....this:


I imagine it's some kind of art project....Hey Kids, let's do casts of your face and stick it to a tree, won't that be cool!!!

The first time we found this back there, I'll admit, it freaked the hell out of me. Seems a little too pagan for a public school project, little too New Age or maybe even Japanese mythology. Little scary dead-eyed faces stuck to trees!!

But no, they didn't limit it to faces, they had fun in art class, casting all sorts of body parts!


Grasping, reaching hands, and in the lower right, a frickin' TORSO impaled on a treetrunk!

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen! (Pardon the blurriness, Quz was adamant we keep walking, no matter how I tried to stop him)

They are kind of cool, in a creepy, Blair Witch sort of way. Especially stuck out in the middle of the woods, a good 100 yards or so away from the actual school building. They've been there for years, and I've never noticed any new ones added. Maybe it was a one-time project. For good reason.

We made it back to the barn, with Quzqo saving his one major violent freak-out spook spectacular once we were back on the barn property and a few yards away from the driveway. I still don't know what he saw in the ditch, but it was pretty scaryfying, judging from his reaction.

Maybe we brought back one of those scary woodland creepies with us!

Solid!

One of the major minor annoyances I have with my horse cart, are the tires. They're basically oversized bike tires, much maligned and looked down upon by the hoi paloi of the Driving Elite, but hey, it's all I can afford, okay? But being bike tires, they tend to lose air, just sitting in the unused aisleway of the new barn, which means each time I want to drive, I have to bring in the bicycle pump and get the air pressure back up where it belongs.

Another annoyance is when I carry pretty much any passenger, the added weight causes the tires to squoosh down. Even if they're inflated to rock-hard, you add a payload of around 400#, and you're going to get squooshed tires. This makes it harder for poor Quzqo to haul us around.

And of course there's the constant fear tickling the back of my mind...what if I get a flat 4 or 5 miles from the barn? Granted I could always unhitch the horse and ride him back...what a comedy of errors THAT would be. I'd rather avoid it.

I've known for years that they make something called solid tubes for these tires. No inflation needed! And just so happens that the company where I got the cart from initially, American Cart & Harness, was having a big sale on them (partly, okay, mostly because they're going out of business, drat). I ordered a set, along with a fuzzy breast collar pad for the harness, and a little lunch hamper that hangs down under the cart seat. Who knows, SOME day I might actually go for a picnic, but hey, it was on sale!!

Unfortunately it turns out the tubes were out of stock, but the nice folks at AC&H found another source for solid rubber wheels, would I like those instead? Sure! They ordered them for me from the manufacturer, Nu-Teck, they were drop-shipped, and at long last, solid rubber wheels!

I ASSumed (and you know what happens when we assume...) that since the cart wheels were oversized bike tires, that a bike shop could install the new tires for me! I took them to a bike shop in town that I've done business with for 40 years or so (okay, so I haven't been there since 1985, but I bought a bike from them back then!), and left the wheels with the slightly skeptical repair dude in the back room.

Next day I get the call; they couldn't do it. Even with three strong men, they couldn't stretch the solid tires enough to get it up over the rim! Shoot!!! I picked the wheels up, and not ready to give up, drove across town to another bike shop. Can't hurt to try.

Well, I walked in with one wheel and one solid tire...the young guy behind the counter looks like I'd walked in with a rotten skunk, and outright says he's not even going to try, so sorry. Going to have to "decline".

I guess it's a testimony to my ignorance...I thought it was just a frickin' bike tire, but that's what I know. With our (very) brief discussion, it occurred to me that maybe I could take it to someplace that sells motorcycle tires...surely they'd have the equipment, and it's sort of like a small, thin motorcycle tire.

With renewed hope, I returned to work, but sadly, the guy I planned to ask where he gets his motorcycle tires mounted, had gone for the day. Well, crap!

Later that afternoon, with a spare moment, I did a little Googling. With that research, I found out why the guy at the second repair shop looked so crestfallen and repulsed when I walked in with solid bike tires. But happily, I also found out how I could mount those tires myself!!

My brother came by yesterday to till the garden and do some chainsaw work around the property, and since he had a web strap tightening tool, I enlisted his aid!

We ended up sticking the wheel over his trailer hitch, with the tires half-mounted on the rim and held in place with zip-ties. He ran a rope around the remaining tire, tied it to the tightening tool, and with the rim well lubricated with dish soap, managed to stretch the tire, and using a flathead screwdriver, eased the tire into the rim!

It was RIDICULOUSLY easy, the tires snapped right down into the groove, and look great! I'm half-tempted to call up both bike shops and give them a loud razzberry!

Took the tires back to the barn, put them back on the cart, and now I'm anxious to get on the road to try them out!! Of course the way the weather's been, that might not be 'til Spring 2010, but I know in the meantime, they won't go flat sitting there, waiting!