While waiting for the new wooden dashboard and wiring harness to arrive, restoration tasks move from the electrical system to the fuel system.

I do believe I'll get it all back together again, I do, I do

That blissful period of paging through catalogs and ordering stuff is over. Time to actually get to work. With the transmission still out of the car now is the time to get ready for the dashboard replacement. It is much easier to wiggle under all those wires without that hump in the floor. And all those wires! After the first looksee I simply crawled out and went to bed.

After weeks of excavation, today I was finally able to access the car. In the glove compartment I came across a campsite receipt from Bishop, CA, dated October 1994. I'd driven, with my bike propped between the luggage rack on the trunk and the roll bar, over the Sierras (with the top down) to that town to ride my first true 100-mile century.

Sitting in our garage for ten-plus years has been a cute red 1974 Triumph TR6. Sitting there because of the need for a transmission overhaul, that I knew would require me to dig up a couple of my coffee cans of money buried in the backyard. It has also been thought of as a retirement project. Now that I'm on the cusp of that state, my fancy has been captured by the idea of building a 14-foot strip-built rowing boat called a Cosine Wherry.

Adeline Emma Thompson was born this week to John and Katie Thompson. John is the great grandson of my grandfather, John Mindling. I believe she is Ward and Barbie Thompson's first grandchild.

Dad loved messing about with his trailer. He enjoyed that as much as camping, I think. He would find excuses to "take the trailer for a ride". Perhaps it was to check out some new hitch adjustment, or work the grease in after packing the bearings. It might be around the block, or it might be to the ocean or the redwoods for a picnic.

Rainwater drips from the roof corner where the eaves come together, making a little puddle of clear water and glistening pebbles, washed clean by the constant dripping. A reminder that I should have blown the pine needles from the roof before the rain, but also triggering a memory of a winter long ago.

Our hellebore always has that effect on me. The narcissus and daffodils show themselves as they emerge along the driveway as we come and go. But the hellebore is a bit hidden away up in back among the fallen leaves, twigs, and pine needles. I come upon it about the end of February when i creep out blinking in the cold still winter early morning with my cup of coffee, muttering about the cleanup i should do, stumbling over dead branches. And there, omigosh, look at that.