How's the weather?

I think we made it to Spring, official proclamation:



Now we’re ready for some clear dry roads:

Had a great weekend here, with yards getting mowed and a break to make some noise at Rory's range.

I've been having bad luck trying to do any flying. I planned on a few flights last October, and we had a snow storm. Tried again on December 4th (temp got above 40f) and the engine on the Skyray wouldn't start. That was it for the winter. Last Thursday was the first day this spring when it would have been a good day to fly and wouldn't you know it, the !@#$% oil refinery a couple of miles from my house caught fire and everyone in a 3 mile radius (ten miles downwind) had to evacuate. Sheesh!!

MAN !!!! You're due some good stuff! Hope it finds you !!!!

First day of May............29 degrees on my back doorstep.

Bout 50f here the sun is out and going to 81 today Gosh TL hang in there brother it will get better ! Bob thats about right for the Mtns. Kim has it going on

37°f here right now, 25 mph wind off lake Superior, rain. Got a fire going in the wood stove.

Gotta love Spring in the Northland

This week in central SC; upper 80Fs to low 90Fs with moderate breeze in the am and pm. Partly cloudy most of the time. Little % of precip.

Beautiful spring here...scent of flowers and blossom in the air of 26C..I wish it last all year.

It’s been really nice here for a week now. Temperatures in the 22-27C (75-80F) range, sunny, almost too hot for me Yesterday I took my Honda out for a little spin around the back roads, a little over 100km (70 or so miles). Found some nice new roads and  places I had not seen before. You never know what you’ll find when you start off with a full tank, no map, no GPS, no plan... The days are getting longer too, this picture was taken at 8.30PM:



At 9.10 I was closer to home, this is the waterfall upstream from my house. It is one of the biggest in Southern Finland as far as the height is concerned. The picture is taken from the viewing platform at about half way point.



Across the waterfall there is the board mill and some structures for the old hydropower plant built in the early 1900’s. The new power plant is underground and much more powerful. Actually it is pretty rare to see the waterfall “running free”, as the new power plant can handle all the water coming through most of the time. But there was a lot of snow in the winter and there is way too much water so they have to let some go past the turbines. The water level is exceptionally high downstream too, this is my “dock”, usually it is about a foot or more above the water level, but in the past few days it has been partially submerged.



The waterfall is mentioned in “Kalevala”, a book of ancient folklores and legends, and it has been an important part of history. The first water-powered mills were built in the 1600s, and the board&paper industry started in late 1800s. On the viewing platform there are a couple of old mill stones that were used to mill rye, oats and barley into flour using hydro-power. Great engineering considering the time. My riding gloves are there to give some scale. The stones are not huge, but I have seen a couple that were about 6’ diameter.



This was my weather report from the past week with a glimpse to the history of my locality

KariFS wrote:Yesterday I took my Honda out for a little spin around the back roads, a little over 100km (70 or so miles). Found some nice new roads and  places I had not seen before. You never know what you’ll find when you start off with a full tank, no map, no GPS, no plan... The days are getting longer too, this picture was taken at 8.30PM:

Nice vintage Honda 350 twin there, good restoration job. You know what they say about motorcyclists - regarding where to go: younger riders set a destination; older riders set a direction.

The Fun-Light has been illuminated!

I like the above pictures so much I made this view in 7 different file types, including MsPub, html(mht), xps, PDF, BMP, Pub, and Png. Couldn't make a "Doc." If you want any of the others they can be downloaded from my Dropbox folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ia7o456ycy4n1mw/AADZEWGFqUYgjhL-EySkOcT-a?dl=0

Ignore any log-in prompt and click anywhere else outside of it to access the files.

KariFS wrote:The days are getting longer too, this picture was taken at 8.30PM:

KariFS, what's your latitude? I'm at 46° North, and the sunset is at about 8:30PM right now.

I would love to visit Finland sometime. It looks like a beautiful country.

Don't know about KariFS, but we're at  34.39 °N, a bit more south than both of you. This past season we didn't have a drop of snow at all, very odd. I take that back, we had one day with 21 inches (533mm) - 21 inches between snowflakes.

GallopingGhostler wrote:

KariFS wrote:Yesterday I took my Honda out for a little spin around the back roads, a little over 100km (70 or so miles). Found some nice new roads and  places I had not seen before. You never know what you’ll find when you start off with a full tank, no map, no GPS, no plan... The days are getting longer too, this picture was taken at 8.30PM:

Nice vintage Honda 350 twin there, good restoration job. You know what they say about motorcyclists - regarding where to go: younger riders set a destination; older riders set a direction.

Nice Bike

GallopingGhostler wrote:
Nice vintage Honda 350 twin there, good restoration job. You know what they say about motorcyclists - regarding where to go: younger riders set a destination; older riders set a direction.

Thanks George. The bike is partially restored, partially a "survivor". I don't think it has ever been completely apart, although most parts have been disassembled and put back at some point. It has about 26k miles, the previous owner had some engine work done (timing chain tensioners) and also he had all the colour parts re-painted to the original color and scheme. I have mostly just maintained it, set point gaps, changed the oil, set valve gaps, rebuilt the brakes, replaced the swing arm bushings and so on. It is registered as an "Antique" or collector vehicle, so the insurance is very cheap but the appearance needs to be kept original. So no clubman bars and reverse cone megaphones in the near future. I actually quite like this bike as it is, even though it is a bit small and the front end gets light in highway speeds. But it is the perfect toy for the back roads where the speed is max 50mph yet it never gets boring since there are no long straights. It is a bit of a people magnet too, easy to approach, and a lot less intimidating than for example a flat black Harley would be. I often get strangers coming to me at the gas station, asking stuff or telling stories of the motorcycles they or their granddads had back in the '70s

Regarding the old and young motorists, I think you got something there

akjgardner wrote: Nice Bike

Thanks man! I like it too

TLAnderson wrote:

KariFS wrote:The days are getting longer too, this picture was taken at 8.30PM:

KariFS, what's your latitude? I'm at 46° North, and the sunset is at about 8:30PM right now.

I would love to visit Finland sometime. It looks like a beautiful country.

The latitude of my place is about 61deg 30min North, about the same as Anchorage, Alaska. The climate is fortunately a lot milder than in Alaska, thanks to Gulfstream that brings warm water from the Caribbean. We have a lot of light in the summertime, for example today sunrise was at 4:38AM and it'll set at 10:05PM. The longest day is the summer solstice, this year it will be on June 21st, when the Sun stays up for almost 19.5 hours. It won't really get dark at all. I like it, but some people that have moved in from South may get insomnia

Kari , Finland looks beautiful , would love to see more of the country there but i am way to far away !LOl That Honda is very nice shape and since you work on ur on cycles i am sure its done up right . I got one part of a grindstone here in my front yard a little different than the one you show but for the same purpose . >>>>>> Its been too hot here last few days in the mid 90's and humid as crap making real nasty to bee outside .. But on a good note will bee going back to spring weather in the 80's after today for awhile T-storms coming through (that will bee OK) !

How's the weather?... Looking bad enough to cancel the rest of Joe Nall Week.
http://www.tripletreeaerodrome.com/joe-nall-week.php

That SUX!

getback wrote:Kari , Finland looks beautiful , would love to see more of the country there but i am way to far away !LOl That Honda is very nice shape and since you work on ur on cycles i am sure its done up right . I got one part of a grindstone here in my front yard a little different than the one you show but for the same purpose . >>>>>> Its been too hot here last few days in the mid 90's and humid as crap making real nasty to bee outside .. But on a good note will bee going back to spring weather in the 80's after today for awhile T-storms coming through (that will bee OK) !

Eric, thanks for the compliments on both the Honda and my country I have traveled back and forth from Finland to USA (St. Louis and HOTlanta) when my wife and I lived there for a couple of years around the millennium. Can't believe it's been almost 20 years already... Anyway, it is a long ride, the worst one took 36 hours. There was a strike somewhere and our first flight was canceled and it all went downhill from there. Instead from Atlanta to Amsterdam and then to Helsinki it was Atlanta - St. Louis - Paris - Amsterdam (6 hours wait) - Helsinki and then bus home to Tampere region. That sucked! At best it was something like 18 hours door to door.

I liked it a lot in the USA, my only complaint in the Midwest and South was the summer weather. I just could not function properly when outdoors. Other than that, it is mostly fond memories

Going green!


Out checking wheat and this is blowing in.

Great picture!

Thanks. Used an iPhone 8 with panoramic feature.

Here are some mammatus clouds after the storm.

Cool pics there Jason!

It was 94°F today, looking at 96°F tomorrow, and 98°F on Monday.

Dodged a storm yesterday, got really dark, weather radio in the garage went off, I ran around and put away the gardening crap, closed everything up...nothing. All the action was a few miles north.