I am aware that this looks an awful lot like a 9th grade shop project; however it is the heart and soul of the soon, almost, very near, amazing technicolor textile traveling trunkshow tour, in a van (coming to a town near you). It will allow us to pack the van with rugs, to the roof, and still be able to extract the bikes without having to unpack.

pappa noel brought some studded tires. in the past, i have taken some hard spills on the snow packed gravel roads, so it takes awhile to really believe that the studs will keep one upright. however, once one leaps that hurdle, they are really a blast!

I'm slowly picking away at bike projects. the headset on my old raleigh is nearly 35 years old and it is worn enough that there is both indexing and shimmy. often times this is a job i leave for professionals, but i knew there would be some adaptations along the way so i used my crude instruments and indeed ended up with parts from 3 different headsets in order to achieve what i was looking for. i'll have to wait for spring, or at least an extended warm spell, before i can really try it out.

i'm building wheels for my touring bike. this is the rear. it came out really nicely

I have a nice old cast iron truing stand, but no dishing tool. Dishing tools are only 35 dollars or so, but they are really only worth about 5. Being cheap, I cant seem to part with the money.
Instead, I'm making one from an old jacked up level.
Dad was a little horrified when his eye caught, amongst all the clutter, a cut up level. I explained to him that it had been on a shelf in the shed for about 30 years, so it must have been off somehow or it wouldn't have been there in the first place, and it is being transformed into a new tool; he was a bit more understanding.
I have a couple sets of wheels to build. Its nice to have a diversion when the madness of Christmas trees looms.

prepping for birch deliveries

my neighborly dairy farmer friends were kind enough to rent me their plow rig. it's a fine machine and really does a nice job.
because of the rainy spring and summer, we were force to manage much of the sweet corn ground under wet conditions, which made for some soil compaction. this chisel plow does a nice job of breaking up that compacted soil.