Scooting Off
When we lived in San Francisco, I got around the city mainly by scooter. My first scooter was a little Aprilla 50cc, but after a…
Tag: Vehicles
There Be Race Cars, Part Eight: Kitty
During the height of the pandemic, Agent Smith set about planning out another race car. He picked up a former BMW team car with rather…
New Trailer
In addition to the Radical mentioned a while back, we also took ownership of a big enclosed trailer during the pandemic. We bought a small…
There Be Race Cars, Part Five: Pegamoose (BDR6)
When the Bus was totaled up at Sonoma in 2018, the team set about building a new car. They wanted to keep to the same…
There be Race Cars, Part Four: The Bus (BDR4)
In 2015 work began on BDR4. It was going to be the replacement for the long-serving Whale. After much work, a BMW E36 engine was…
There be Race Cars, Part Two: The 002
What follows is a bit of a weird tale, even for here. Before the Porsche 914 was purchased, and back when we were living in…
Midge V2.0
Back in January of this year our beloved Midge was stolen from the service yard of our mechanic. She hasn’t been seen since. Insurance wrote…
Mini Addendum
The wee poem I wrote about the Mini Cooper came about because the BMW Car Club sent an email asking members for stories from members…
The Mini
Oh little Mini, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. You do not go fast like BDR5— a Volvo wagon with an…
Midge Was Stolen
I’m taking a break from writing about bathroom windows to type out this short post. Midge was stolen last night/early this morning from the yard…
Sunday Panorama
Inside the trailer
Midge and the SCU Lightning Complex
As most of the world knows, much of California is currently on fire. Right now, the Purgatory area is currently beset with wildfires started by…
No more static
In addition to the race cars built at Purgatory Auto Works and Dinosaur Farm, we–well, Agent Smith really–work on our daily drivers as well. While…
The Small Idiocies
Since tackling the creek embankment that was used as an illegal dump site by people who don’t live along our road, Agent Smith and I…
Everyone needs a green Ferrari
A short video of little tractor Dino. And yep, he’s a diesel.
Tree Removal
In August I started interviewing arborists, as we want to have a certified company come yearly to see to our trees. After meeting with a handful…
Meet Chompy Jack and Dumpy McDumpface
Our little fleet of useful vehicles grew this summer. In addition to Bambi, we acquired a nice little gas-powered trencher which we have named Chompy…
Now Open: Purgatory Heavy Equipment School
One of the more fun but less-mentioned facets of life at the ranch is that we often get visitors, and said visitors often get to…
Why excavator?
Because dig. Because push or drag. Because lift and carry. Just don’t ask too many questions about how floppy everything is. You buy an ex-rental,…
Houseaversary (Bonus Post)
Yesterday was our Houseaversary–the anniversary of first discovering this house. I posted about it here last year and remembered to post on Facebook about it, but…
Learning to work with Tony
Our new tractor arrived a while back and Agent Smith has slowly been getting the hang of things. Tony is much larger than little Dino,…
Tony Arrived This Week
Several notes about this video: just after the second cut Agent Smith accidentally ran over one of our neighbor’s dogs. The dog, named Happy, is…
The Auto Works
As many people know, we spent about two years looking for the right “house.” By “house,” what I really mean is a large garage with…
A peek inside
I’m currently working on a bunch of posts covering things from the last two weeks, but those won’t be up until later today and tomorrow.…
A man’s got to know his trucks’ limitations.
Having a handle on the various uses of the apostrophe doesn’t hurt either. With the MiniTruck (Truckster/Truckette/Truckling…we need a name for this thing) acquired, it…
Vehicles and such
Great news this week: our 2012 Mini Cooper Clubman (which was heavily modified to make it even more fun than your standard Mini) sold. We used Shift,…
We has a truck!
Today we got up early to head all the way out to Fairfax, where there was a truck for sale that we deemed suitable for…