Friday Pics the Mesquite Hugger

It's Friday! I thought I'd share a few pics for the faithful.

 

Never a dull sky around here!

This Benelli e-bike was parked outside the coffee today.

4 snowy egrets and a black-capped night heron in one pic!

The first new Nissan Leaf I've spotted in the wild.

 

May all the goodness appear in your path too!

Somewhat idle hands and keyboard...

Sometimes you reach a point where you're just trying to pay the bills, to keep the people around you happy, to have clean underwear to wear each day, and to keep the rain barrels mosquito free. That's been me lately.

Green stuff? Yes, I am plugging away there too, but more in a maintenance mode than a Mr.-Wizard-new-project-every-week mode.

Basil loves the olla!

The food-is-free planter is looking pretty good, but it's needing a little shady roof - have you ever seen a sun-burnt bell pepper? The front porch olla-planters are doing well with potatoes, tomatoes, and whole lotta basil. We picked up a rosemary plant to add this weekend.

Now you've seen a sun-burnt bell pepper!

Consuming less and recycling the rest? I'd give our household a C+. We have been taking reusable cups and shopping bags with us more consistently, but we've been eating out a lot and there's a lot of waste in the restaurant world.

A successful work commute to and fro yesterday

I'm riding the bike for most of my under-4-mile trips and I'm riding the work-in-progress-e-bike to work a few times per week. I am wishing I had bought a quality e-bike a year or two ago rather than spending so much time, money, and precious garage time piecing the current e-bike together, but it has been a fun project. The coolest part of the project has been learning to build (and rebuild twice) a lithium battery pack.

Even though lots of tempting stuff has popped up lately, I have been successful in not bringing any new projects home.

As a matter of fact, a few projects have even left this year. I don't have the nerve to call myself a minimalist, but I have been doing some minimizing, and that feels good.

The nicest green(er) upgrade has been retiring Rambo, the old Dodge pickup and replacing it with an eight-year-old Ford Escape Hybrid - by far the nicest vehicle I've driven in years. I feel pretty darned good when I'm able to keep it in electric-only mode while running about. Not a perfect solution to burning less gas, but a definite step up.

Life is good. The blogging is slow.

May all your greenliness roll smoothly along!

In Case You're Missing the Wheels (Shameless 2WheelsMaybe Plug)

Head over to 2WheelsMaybe and see some of what you've been missing!

2WheelsMaybe site link

Just look at the fun stuff you've been missing:

Okay, I'll quit bugging you about it! May you have a wonderful, carbon-neutral day!

Scott Pruitt is out!

My heart leapt a little as I read the news.

No, I don't think the world is an instantly better place, but once in a while it's nice to see the obviously corrupt being deposed by their own actions.

But it wasn't his blatant attacks on the health of our planet and all of those who live here that brought him down. It was his lifestyle of graft and deception that did it.

Actually, the president lauded the fine work he's done in his short time in office. Ugh!

So, no, I don't think we'll see any EPA improvement.  I just think the next guy will be a little smarter and show a little more discretion.

But it's still nice to see a really bad guy take himself down.

May we live in a healthier world we work together to create.

I rode the bike today...

(Shots from several commutes over the last few weeks)

It was a beautiful morning! Very little traffic. A cool (but light) breeze. The bike was working well. My knees were working well. I rode a few miles on Sunday. I rode to work on Monday. I hope to ride tomorrow.

My wife and I saw an OmniMax movie last night - part of the BBC Blue Planet series. And it had astounding footage of all kinds of creatures. And it offered up some optimism for the future; however, like all modern nature documentaries, the ever-present villain was man-made environmental destruction.

They're too small to see here, but there's a cow bird,

a snowy egret, and a green heron in this one.

And that makes the bike rides even better. Every time a person chooses to travel by bike (in place of a single-occupant car) we all breathe a little better. I know it's very simplistic, but my greatest hope in all of this is to have thousands of people making incrementally better choices about petroleum and plastics and pollution. I know that would have a massively greater impact than just this one dork joyfully riding a bike as often as possible.

The view over the handlebars this morning

 

May you joyfully make a positive impact!

That Cargo Bike Thing (With pics and questions)

[Dual-posted on Mesquite Hugger and 2Wheels Maybe]

Cargo bike obsession - normally, I figure it's just me being an eco-dork. But lately it seems so much bigger than that.

A homebuilt longtail cargo bike

Cargo bikes siren sing to me for a lot of practical and impractical reasons.

The biggest three are

1. I want to do my best to go car-free/petroleum free
2. I want to spread the word (and a cargo bike would invite a lot of questions!)
3. I want to live healthier - both physically and financially.

and a cargo bike should help with all three.

A snippet of the most recent runaway post (by MH standards) post

Number 3 with a bullet! (by MH standards)

Recently, though, a lot of you have been stopping by to check out cargo bike posts. Back in October, I wrote a post about a pretty simple way to build your own cargo bike. Most posts around here have an initial response of twenty to thirty clicks and then quickly die down to a click or two per week or month. And then they fizzle out. But not this one!

A long john / bakfeits / box bike from DIYBiking

 

Nope, that's not the case with this DIY cargo bike post. It's been visited more than 100 times in the last month. For a low-rent blog like this one, that's pretty darned impressive!

A midtail from Benno Bikes

So, what's the deal? Why do you keep looking at cargo bike posts? What's the attraction? No, really - what is it? I would really like to know. And it seems the same for y'all.

A trio of lovely Yuba longtails

So, (Yes, I know - I'm a glutton for punishment.) I put together a little survey so maybe we can a better idea of where this thing is going.

A Schwinn trike from this week's Craigslist

(Not a lot of cargo bike action here in Lubbock)

It's just a few questions on a Google Form. It's nothing personal - no names or emails. I'll leave it open for about 6 moths with a monthly update (on the 2Wheels Maybe blog).

A reverse trike from Urban Tribe (Straight outta Denton, TX)

  

A cycle truck by Virtue Cycle

The Tern (+Xtracycle) Cargo Node folding cargo bike

Turn-key and DIY cargo bikes from Xtracycle

 

So here it is. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts on bikes that haul!

 

The Short Survey about Long Bikes

 

As always, thank you for reading (and for filling out the survey)! May your bike haul you to a better life!

 

PS. Would you like to have your cargo bike stories or photos featured on 2WheelsMaybe? If so, please shoot us an email through the contact box on either blog.



More Mansfield, Texas Pics - Linear Park and Nature Park

We'll Start with the Walnut Creek Linear Park:

Click here for a little birdsong 

Lots of great bridges

Loads of cool fungi

Next up is the Elmer W. Oliver Nature Park

A trail to a beautiful place

Click below to see this hawk flying away with breakfast

Hey, it's Mesquite Hugger - I had to include it!

Dragonfly

If you find yourself in Mansfield, they have some great places to get away without even leaving town. May you find yourself surrounded with natural beauty!