24 July 2011 - Motorcycle & Boating

I was very sad early this week -- the clutch went out on my motorcycle.  When I had it inspected in June the mechanic warned me that he thought the clutch might be going and well, it went.  I looked on YouTube and found a video demonstrating how to change a clutch.  It seemed relatively easy, so I decided to take on the project myself.  Here's the bike with the oil out and side cover off the engine.

This is the old clutch, disassembled.  I also changed out the oil filter while I was in there messing around.  It really wasn't that hard to do, but that didn't stop me from having to do the job twice.  I pinched the oil filter gasket and leaked oil out all over the driveway.  It took a little tweaking, but the motorcycle is back to running like a dream.

On Wednesday, the girls and I went back out to the farm to help Farmer Dave harvest his corn.  Mommy had a doctor's appointment.  Because we helped harvest we got double corn in our share, and it was awesome -- sweet and fresh.  If Emily looks a little sad in this picture it's probably because the heat index (temperature + humidity) was over 110 degrees.  We cooled off in the hose again and went out for pineapple smoothies afterward.

On Saturday we took the youth from church boating in Ohio.  This is Emily on the tube.  It rained on the drive to the lake, but warmed up and was sunny for most of the day.

 

Madeline loved riding in the boat, that is until a sudden storm came up and abruptly ended our trip a little after five in the afternoon.  We had to make a mad dash for the marina with rain stinging us all the way there and lightning flashing all around us.  The rain came down so hard and so fast that it flooded the parking lot with several feet of water and stranded us for about 20 minutes while we waited for the run off on the roads to subside enough to allow us to drive home.  It was not the ideal way to end our boating trip, but the vast majority of our day was a blast.