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As you can see here, Tal and I went on a grocery run, to Dollar Tree and Mal Wart. This is probably the maximum amount I can carry with his 30+ pounds on the back. I had to put him on first, then load the groceries around him. I have a special bungie cord I carry along now to keep the front wheel straight while I load the front rack. 
This is the load. Those are 3 litre bottles, a little heavier than I am used-to. The bird seed will be mixed with scratch feed for the chickies.
It feels a little strange, pulling out onto Crawfordville Highway with a bicycle loaded to bear with groceries and my son, with huge pickup trucks and SUV’s all around us. We aren’t the only ones here that use alternative transportation means, but there certainly aren’t many. One elderly lady has an electric-powered three-wheel bicycle, and rides all over the county with it. That thing can book! I don’t think I could keep-up with her if I were to try. She appears to cruise along at about 20mph. I can attain 21mph, but with a good tailwind in third gear. I have seen one family walk to the store with their wagon and park it at the bike rack. Otherwise, it’s just the odd person on foot.
I know that attitudes are changing in this country about our fuel usage and folks are wising up to alternative transportation, but being in a small town in Northern Florida, it’s hard to tell by looking around. I know that auto and truck traffic on Crawfordville Highway hasn’t lessened any that I can see. People will tell us that it’s so good that we ride our bikes everywhere, but they don’t want to try it themselves. Since when did people get so lazy?
This is my new barbeque setup: a 35 gallon drum with holes in the bottum for the burn chamber and set up on concrete blocks, and an egg smoker to put on top of it. Both were rescued from the landfill.
The ashbowl in the egg smoker is the best part of this setup. It keeps the flames from directly affecting the meat yet still allows smoke and heat through. I have placed a couple bricks and a stick of hickory in the bowl, and filled it with water. I will stoke up a good fire in the barrel, put a grate over it, then place this smoker on top. There is just enough room so that some heat and smoke can escape all the way around the smoker.
I have already tried the setup with hot dogs, and it went well, but the real test is with or favorite grill-out food, bacon wrapped shrimp. My wife slathers them in bbq sauce and pokes toothpicks through to keep the bacon in place.
I just placed some of them on. I could immediately tell a difference, as the bacon was cooking without blackening too soon.
I put the cover on, and could check the temp on the built-in indicator. It still got too hot a few times, but that was easy to control with a few squirts to the burn can from the garden hose. 
The shrimp turned-out excellent; golden brown instead of black, and dee-licious! I also noticed that the toothpicks were not burned-off like they would’ve been with the previous setup, which was just a grate over a 25 gallon burn barrel.
I like to grill out using real wood instead of charcoal. Not only is it cheaper that way, as I can almost always find wood for free, but I think the food tastes better, and cooking with wood appeals to my outdoorsy side. I really don’t have the money for a dedicated wood splitter, so I use an old axe head and a large hammer.
I first tap the head in just enough to stay, making sure I go with the grain.
I then begin hammering in earnest. Wish I had a bigger hammer, but this one does a respectable job. First time I did this, it did not appear I was making progress, but then I heard crackling deep inside the wood, and before I knew it, there was two pieces on the ground and the axe head between them.
This piece decided to be stubborn,
so, I used the handle from the broken axe to drive the head further in.
I got it far enough down to pull the pieces apart by hand and retrieve the axe head. This method works for as many times as you want to split the same pieces, although the smaller you get them, the harder it is for them to stand up on their own.
This is the headlamp I am currently using on the Beast. A little aggravating to attach and aim, but definitely bright enough to see by.
This lamp came with a Rigid 18v drill and sawzall set I purchased from Home Depot back when I was doing alot of A/C installs and duct work. It has been very handy, especially for home projects that go longer than expected and are finished in the dark. The hand towel keeps the light from moving around over bumps and also aims it. I put more folds in the back than front to get the beam on the ground several yards in front of me. The battery has a 2 hour run time, and charges within 30 or so minutes. One thing I don’t like about this lamp is that the batteries have to be run down in order to recharge, and the quality of light is good right up until it peters-out, so I have to carry a spare battery with me if I go out at night. There is a Lithium Ion battery available now, but I have other things needing purchase right now, so it’s on my to-buy list.
I decided to go to Mal Wart this evening to purchase some groceries, so I thought I would show a typical haul. I hadn’t anticipated it, but this photo also shows the reflective signal arrows I sewed to the backs of my riding gloves. Those are kevlar work gloves, normally used by meat cutters and sheetmetal workers. They have rubber nubs that are grippy, breath well, have all the abrasion resistance I could need, and are durable, going on their second season (first season was commuting on the scooter). I have tried a number of cycling and motorcycling-specific gloves over the years, and have found most of them wanting in the area of durability. Such gloves just seem to be made of too thin materials and thread. 
Two gallons of milk, chips, banannas, and a half-gallon of ice cream. This is typical for me. We generally get small quantities at a time. After looking at this picture, I realized that I really should purchase some reusable shopping bags. Sure, we use the plastic bags for all kinds of things and also bring them back to the store for recycling, but it would be better to not use them in the first place. Also on my to-purchase list…
This is my BBQ grill. It is an old 25 gallon gear oil drum. I burn hardwood cut from our property or procured through my work as a county road worker. The grate was actually dug-up from our back yard near the A/C condenser. It takes a little more skill to cook out this way, as temperature control can be challenging, but it is well worth it for the taste of wood-fired BBQ and not having to run the stove or microwave so much. What you see here is one of our roosters, Pavarotti, who got too big for his britches, defrosting. I had put him in the fridge overnight, but he was still too frozen to insert the soda can.
Yes, we do eat our chickens occasionally, especially roosters. Your rooster-to-hen ratio should be 1 in 10, but sometimes even that is too many if you have one or two who have testosterone overdrive. Overzealous roosters harrass hens too much, sometimes knocking them out of their laying cycle, pulling feathers, and barebacking hens where they mount them. 
Here, you see the cans of RC Cola, some honey bbq sauce, and utensils. I take my cooking out seriously, and try to be as prepared ahead of time as possible. I eventually just stuck the chicken in the microwave to defrost it enough to insert the can. Beer is often used for this, but beer is a luxury I really cannot afford right now, so I decided to try RC Cola, a favorite soda of mine since I was a kid. 
Here is the bird on the grill, stuffed with a soda can and slathered in bbq sauce. Here’s where I got off track a little with the temperature control. The meat near the bottumof the legs and the tail ended-up pretty blackened and tough, but overall, the meat turned out tender and tasty. What I need is to make myself a better grill, using separate burn and cook chambers. I know where I can get another 25gal drum, so I may start looking into that…
cyclingchicken
dadabean