Steel Toe Tour - Harley-Davidson Plant, York, Pennsylvania

     You can take a free tour at the Harley-Davidson plant in York, Pennsylvania or you can pay $35.00 for the Steel Toe Tour.  Take the $35.00 tour.  You'll be outfitted with steel toe shoe covers, safety glasses, and a bright orange vest.  You'll see a short film, then spend a couple of hours walking around the super clean factory floor with a guide who explains every step of the process of motorcycle manufacturing.  Since photography inside the plant is prohibited, the Harley people give you a souvenir photo of your group at the end of the tour - so you can prove you were there.  Like all factory tours, this one ends at the gift shop where you can use the $5.00 discount coupon that accompanied your entry ticket.
   

Here are my steel toe shoe covers.

This is the closest I'll be getting to riding on a motorcycle.

 
     Since I couldn't take any pictures inside the plant, here's a video I found on YouTube.  Take notice of the fender stamping process.  They cut fenders and gas tanks from steel sheets.  Those sheets come from huge rolls of steel.  Our guide emphasized that Harley recycles all steel left over from the manufacturing process.  You'll also see the powder coating of gas tanks.  Powder coating is superior to painting because it is more durable.  Our guide explained that black is the most popular color.  That electric green bike that I am sitting on in the picture sports a 2015 custom color.  Also, check out the pinstriping.  Harley paints the stripes.  They don't use vinyl appliques.  Those orange carts seen in the video are run by computer.  Once a frame is assembled and painted, it is attached to the cart.  The cart weaves its way around the plant, and employees have about 80 seconds to complete their part of the process.  The plant produces 800 bikes per day, 400 bikes on each 10 hour shift.        


   
     Here's our tour group photo -

Hershey Chocolate World

     Mike and I like the TV show "How It's Made."  We have watched the manufacturing process for paper umbrellas, mascot costumes, crayons, and more.  Our idea of a fun time is taking a factory tour.  We recently heard about a self directed tour at Hershey Chocolate World.  We were in the car and on the way before you could say, "Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar."
     The Hershey complex is huge.  There are restaurants, indoor and outdoor stadiums, an amusement park, and places to shop, but there is no real factory tour.  There hasn't been a true factory tour since 1973.  What the Hershey people offer now is an amusement park ride that operates inside the Hershey Chocolate World building (think "It's a Small World" at Disney).  The ride begins in a farm setting where three singing cows warble about the tastiness of Hershey's chocolate, and it dumps you out above a store where you can buy Hershey products.  I might have given the "tour" a C-minus if I had been able to hear the narration about the production process, but the singing cows (who never stopped) drowned out the speaking sound track.
     So, unless you want to enjoy the other things that Hershey offers, don't make a special trip for the "tour."  Our bad for not doing our homework!

The Entrance to Chocolate World

And the Tour Begins

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♪

Even though we couldn't hear the narration, it was obvious that Hershey puts milk in their chocolate.  You'll get 8% of your minimum daily requirement of calcium from a 1.55 oz. Hershey bar.
http://www.hersheys.com/pure-products/details.aspx?id=3480

We helped ourselves to a Kit Kat at the end of the tour.

The real reason to come to Chocolate World - to stock up on candy.

  

The Most Wonderful Summer

     Could it have been a better summer?  Not to many sweltering hot days.  Just enough rain to keep the grass green.  The summer of 2014 was as perfect weatherwise as you can get.  So, on this last day of the season, this tune popped into my head -



     Robin Ward (Jaqueline "Jackie" McDonell Ward) was born in 1941.  After she and her two sisters won a talent contest, the family moved to Los Angeles to find work in the music business. When Jackie was 13 she became a regular singer for KTLA radio.  After leaving KTLA, she recorded demo records for songwriters and did session singing for recording studios.
    In 1963, she made a demo of "Wonderful Summer" for Perry Botkin.  Botkin decided to experiment with the sound by speeding it up.  The result sounded like a teenage singer rather than a 21 year old married lady who had a baby daughter.  Botkin decided to release the demo as a 45 rpm single.  Jackie's daughter's name appeared on the record label since the name Robin sounded more youthful.  "Wonderful Summer" went to #14 on the charts.
     Jackie Ward went back to session singing after her one hit wonder.  She was a vocalist on The Danny Kaye Show, The Carol Burnett Show, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and The Partridge Family.  She sang theme songs for Flipper, Love American Style, and other TV shows. She also sang jingles for commercials, the Rice-a-Roni theme song probably being the most well known.  She was also a ghost singer in the movies.
     If you want to know more about Jackie Ward, here's a link to an interview she did in 2000 -
http://www.cmongethappy.com/interviews/jw/ 

Git 'Er Done

     Some jobs are big jobs.  When it comes to those jobs, you have to put your nose to the grindstone, put your shoulder to the wheel, put your back into it.  You have to git 'er done.
     I managed to get one done recently - for the last time.  I pulled all the crabgrass out of the lawn, then fertilized and overseeded.

My nemisis.

     For me, eliminating crabgrass is like trying to make a decent cup of coffee.  I just can't do it.  Other people make terrific coffee that tastes just like restaurant coffee.  I have bought every brand of java out there and used filtered water.  I have tried various brewing methods from Keurig, to drip coffee makers, to a french coffee press.  My coffee tastes like swill.  Other people have lush, weed free lawns that rival the greens on the finest golf courses.  I apply lime, weed 'n' feed, and crabgrass preventer.  By August, my lawn is full of clover, crabgrass, and other plants I can't name.  If I want a decent cup of joe, I have to go to Dunkin' Donuts.  I am beginning to think I'll have to go to Grass Masters to get a decent lawn.
     There's lots of advice out there on how to eliminate crabgrass.  Of course, you should apply crabgrass preventer in the early spring.  The problem is that it's difficult to know the best time to spread the chemical.  Folk wisdom says it should be dropped when forsythia is in bloom. Scientists say it should be applied when the soil temperature reaches 57-64 degrees Fahrenheit. Evidently every homeowner needs a soil thermometer to get it right.  Since the chemical looses effectiveness over time, an early spring application will not prevent late germinating crabgrass from thriving at the end of the summer.  Some lawn services lay the pre-emergent chemical down twice per season.  Here's an article that explains just what a buggar crabgrass is: http://www.townpridelawnservice.com/blog/bid/376088/6-Myths-about-Crabgrass-Preventer-in-New-Jersey
     This article outlines plan of attack against crabgrass: http://www.familyhandyman.com/landscaping/how-to-get-rid-of-crabgrass/view-all
     This is a good video: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/video/0,,1639399,00.html
     As I said, this is the last time I do battle with this weed.  I crawled around the lawn for a couple of hours each day for 3 weeks.  I pulled out all the weeds. I loosened the soil on the bare spots, and I broadcast grass seeds everywhere.  Then I spread a thin layer of peat, followed by lime and starter fertilizer.

You can see all the brown areas are where I yanked out crabgrass and replanted grass.

It's looking pretty good right now.

     This was way too much labor for an old lady.  Staring in the early spring of 2015, I will diligently follow a program of fertilization and weed killing and prevention.  I will apply a crabgrass pre-emergent when the soil temperature reaches 57°-64°.  I will apply it again in 4-6 weeks to keep effectiveness high and to prevent late germinating seeds from sprouting.  I'll use insect control to keep my grass healthy.  And if I end up with another crop of crabgrass next August, I'm going to sit back drinking my cup of Wawa coffee while I watch the lawn service git 'er done in the future.

Slang

     I love slang.  It's proof to me that language is alive.  Slang adds color to speech, and as anyone who reads Happy in Hainesport knows, I like colorful language.  I like the wit and cleverness of slang.
     I was watching the Hainesport turkeys the other day, and I thought about how no one ever uses the term jive turkey any more.  Likewise, no one ever bets their bippies, nor do they keep on trucking.  These days I would just call someone an idiot, say you bet your sweet ass, or encourage someone to keep up the good work.
     My mother had a vernacular all her own.  When she grew tired of our chatter, she would tell us to dry up.  If we were wrong about something, she told us we were all wet.  When she lectured, we got an earful.  When I complained about the way a neighborhood boy treated me, she said he was just razzing me.  Most of Mom's slang vocabulary came from the 1920's.  That makes sense since she was born in 1923.  However, I was a kid in the 50's and 60's.  I wish I had a mother who kept up with the times and assured me that the kid next door was only trying to bug me.
     Some expressions that started out as slang were so perfect that they went into general usage.  Attaboy was first used in the early 1900's, and you won't be mistaken for a time traveler if you use attaboy today.  Blind date and Bible belt originated in the 1920's.  Brainchild, slang for a creative idea, originated in the 1940's.  Raggedy (though I prefer raggedy-ass) originated in the 1890's.  The term to rattle someone (to make someone nervous or uneasy) was first used in the 1780's.
     Some slang doesn't enter polite conversation, but it remains in use with a new meaning when adopted by a new generation.  Ripped meant drunk in the 1950's, but it means having well defined muscles today.  
     Some slang can enjoy a revival.  Millennials might think that Michael Jackson invented beat it or killer diller, but beat it comes from the 1920's and killer diller comes from the 1930's.  I thought the Four Seasons were oh-so-original when they sang, "I'd change her sad rags into glad rags if I could," but the term glad rags, meaning one's Sunday best, also comes from the 1920's.
     Cool is probably the only slang word used by everyone from 18 to 80.  Everything else runs it's course, then falls into obscurity.  Slang makes you part of the group until it goes out of style, then it date stamps its user.  When Mom said you slay me she might as well have worn a t-shirt that said "born in 1923."
     I was sitting on the patio a few weeks back.  The little girl from next door came over for a visit. After the usual inquiries about school and bicycle riding, her father interrupted by calling out to her.  "I'm just chillin' with the neighbor," she hollered back.  My mother would have said we were shooting the bull.  I thought we were hanging out.
       
     

Cast Iron Tree Bench

   
     Mike and I went into the woods on a friend's property and salvaged an old iron tree bench (or tree surround).  It wasn't a job for a dainty type, but I ain't no dainty type.  I would like to say the finished product was all my doing, but I had to cry "uncle" and call in the professionals.

Here it is, neglected for who knows how long?

My arsenal - insecticide for spraying the work area, Deep Woods Off for spraying the two of us, penetrating oil for loosening rusted bolts, and seltzer for rehydration.

The legs were buried in leaves and dirt.

Really rusty.

Real men know how to use vise grips.  Check out Mike's wellies.  When we first scoped out the bench, we ended up throwing away our socks because of all the deer ticks embedded in them.  Rubber boots up to the knees solved that problem. 

The bench has six seat/back sections or twelve pieces.

I thought a soaking with penetrating oil would allow me to break the nuts and bolts loose; however, I had to hack saw most of the bolts.

Each seat had a support attached to the leg.  This one was rusted off.  The others were so fragile that removing the bolts would have broken every support.  I decided to leave well enough alone.  

     This is where the project took a turn.  I took one seat/back section and tried to remove the rust with a power drill and wire brush attachment.  All those curlicues made it a difficult task.  I wire brushed, chiseled, and scraped, creating piles of red powder.  Still, I never seemed to get past the layer of scales that had formed over the years.  I settled for what I had wrought after a couple of hours of hard labor.  Then I sprayed with a Rustoleum product called Rust Reformer.  When that dried, I spray painted with white enamel,  The results were disappointing.  Mike saved the day by deciding we should sandblast and powder coat the bench.
     We found a great local business, Mt. Holly Powder Coating.  They sandblasted the bench removing every trace of rust.  Then they applied a white powder coat finish.  Check out their website:
http://www.mthollypowdercoating.com/  

Each piece has a perfect finish.

The fragile led supports survived the sandblasting.  The powder coat finish sealed the cracks, so rust should not be a big problem around the old nuts and bolts.

We selected a tree and prepared the ground around it.

Here's our bench.