Some baking to start the year. Jonie gave us some pre-mixed home made bran muffin mix stuff, so I tossed some chocolate chips in it and made a test batch. Cam out OK, plenty good for me to have with coffee in the mornings.

The other test was making the no-kneed bread, but doing it in the mixer and starting with the water and adding flour until it "looks right". Instead of a (usually overly) soggy dough that is hard to work with unless it's very cold I got something that looked more solid. Not sure if that means the yeast will make it puff up because it will hold the gas easier or what, but we'll know here shortly (having it with carrot soup for dinner).

Noticeable improvement. Now I have to do it every time.

The woman tried something new, butternut squash pockets. Goat cheese and some other stuff, can't say I was a fan.

Made a 2nd attempt at french bread today, we'll see how it tastes but it seems to look correct. Last time I did a half recipe and made 1 loaf and it was too big, this time I took that half recipe and made two loaves, and they still got kinda big. Strange.

Slacker and his woman came over last weekend, I made some cheezits.

Takes two days (have to make the starter day 1) but the woman gets her baguettes for real this time. Obviously lots of work still needed on the forming and cutting, but if they taste any different than the non-starter rolls then I'll keep trying.

Tiny amount of snow, but it's officially the first of the year.

Another haircut, more aggressive this time... and I sorta screwed up a lot. Look man, I'm no stylist.

Got the 1/2" 20MOA adapter base for the Tavor optic, now the whole thing is at 1/3 co-witness height, for only $14. If it works, I can think about a proper high mount.... but probably won't. This is a 20MOA base which I don't need per se, and it's actually on their backwards now on purpose. With the height over bore on this thing, I might need more "down" adjustment than "up". If that's wrong, I can flip it around.

Instead of trying to make 6 correct length hotdog buns for tonight, I just made 2 long ones and we can cut them to the correct length for the bratwursts. Smart eh?

On one of the van youtube channels the dude was demoing a kinda oven thing that goes onto a camp stove so you can bake things sorta like a dutch oven in a fire with coals on top. Anyway, his big 'comfort food' that he wanted to bake was fish sticks. I've not had fish in a long time, so I thought... huh.

The woman had me go to the store this week, which she hates because I get extra stuff. Sometimes random soup, sometimes too much cheese, whatever. This time, I got some fish fillets. Today's lunch was fish fillets with some of that Thai sauce on them. I gotta say, they turned out pretty good. It says for crunchier sticks just leave them in longer, and I'll do that next time. They were fine, like you might get at a fish fast food joint, but if they were just a little crispier they would be like you get at a good fish fast food joint.

Today's trip outside was to go to Home Depot and get fencing supplies to work on the goat separator paddock changes tomorrow. Tractor Supply had the same 2x4 welded wire rolls as Agri Supply at the same price and did curbside and were way closer, so that was an easy choice and I grabbed it on the way home.

The saga of the goats fighting continues. Now they have to be separated at night or they fight, so I built this easily removable divider. It just slides into place, and has a metal L on one side that locks into a slot and a wooden 'tab' on the other than locks over the other wall. The long slots on the end keep it from rotating. Hokey, but it works and was fast to build. Hopefully the fighting will end some day...

... but since it probably won't be the last time a goat or something needs to be isolated the woman had me build another paddock inside the main one. Done in one day, kinda rushed the concrete setup but the posts didn't move too much after I got them leveled and set and braced. She said she only wanted it 1/2 height, but I put in full height posts just in case she changes her mind. If she doesn't it's easy to cut them down to size.

Oh, and wood is crazy expensive, even higher than last time. A single 2x4 stud is $5.50 and those pressure treated 2x6s were $12.50 each. With the wire and concrete that's a $200 enclosure not including the gate. That's nuts.

Put the 20MOA 1/2" high base on the Tavor before, and today I got to test it out. It actually works. 3" low at 25 yards, dead on at 150 yards, and for 200 you just use the first hash mark on the reticle. That's pretty good compared to before with the weird ass hold unders.

The woman wanted me to make this "jumbo lemon cookie" recipe, and they did turn out jumbo. They grew to about 3x the size they started, guess that's why they warn you to space them 6" apart on the sheet. Taste good though, will make them again.

The quest for the vehicles for Montana is over. For now. TBD. Whatever, I've spent money and now I have to see if it's really going to work.

At first, I was just planning to take the truck. That would let me either trailer Sneaky's quad easily, or drive it up into the bed with the ramps I got from Michael. Trailering would leave me the bed to sleep in (camper shell, or tent or something) but would require dragging that trailer 4200 miles. Probably fine, it's top quality and I doubt the truck would notice the 1000 pounds of trailer+quad back there, but still not ideal. Driving the quad into the bed I liked, no trailer, and I could remove the back seat of the truck and build a little platform there and now I've got a sleeping spot. Cramped and not as nicely setup as the van, but it would work. Also, cost of gas for the truck, and putting miles on the truck I would rather not. Still, a workable solution.

Then I started trying to figure out how to get the van to be the vehicle of choice. It's not rated to tow at all, so... I could have gotten a tiny trailer and tried it anyway as long as it wasn't with the quad, or across country. I looked into rentals of bikes/quads at the destination and they are available. So maybe just tow with it anyway but only 100 miles? People do it, it can be done, but then I'm renting something unseen and that I won't get to practice on at all.

So, what could I trailer, that's light? That would mean some small dual sport or dirt bike. After much researching, it looked like I was going to be spending $2-4k on a bike and trailer setup, possibly more if I went with the new Honda CT125 like this since the bike itself would be $4k with tax. It's pretty awesome, dual sport ish but still small and light enough for me to poke along on the trails and actually drag over stuff if necessary. KLR250 hasn't existed forever and not available used, XT225 also is defunct but found a 2006 model with 16k on it for... $3700. Sigh. Any of the new lightweight dirt bikes with plates were $6k+, and finding an actual old dirt bike that was converted to street legal with a 'Baja kit' is pretty much a dead idea since the 90s. I hated the idea of buying a dirt bike only, because I don't think I'll go dirt bike riding all that much except on this trip, so at least the dual sport meant I could sell the Vstrom and use whatever new thing I got as my only bike.

After more research, I found these guys, the Amigo Rocky 125. It's a clone of the old 1970s CT90, but with a 125. It's smaller and lighter than the new CT125, but not by much. It is however about 1/3 the price, so that would be a win. The downside is it's an unknown Chinese knock-off and I can't find any reviews online, or youtube videos or anything. So... yea. 100% risk. I would have a 'zip around the neighborhood' capable scooter/bike thing when I was done though.

Continuing on, I thought, what about getting a hitch and a hitch carrier and getting an e-bike? They make mountain bike versions and they look fairly off-roadable. Pricing for a good enough one is like $1k, probably, and a long wait time. Then there is the very real possibility that the battery will die on the climb somewhere and I'll be left with a heavy awkward mountain bike with 7 gears. Not ideal. Easy to ride back down the mountain though! You can spend from $500-13000 on one, and get amazing levels of performance, but... lotta money for an unknown.

So what else would work on a carrier, a regular mountain bike? Yea, but come on, boring. Kids dirt bike? Possible.Again though, I'm stuck with a dirt bike until I can sell it. Then, I wandered into the mini bike area. Light, 150 pounds or less, reasonably cheap even new, lots of mods if I wanted to go 50 MPH on a tiny ass bike for some reason, easy to ride at slow speeds, lots of reviews, service videos, parts suppliers (OEM and aftermarket)... it just kept looking better and better.

Without going through all the details of how I came to the conclusion, the answer is now this:

Could have ordered through Walmart, but I ended up paying $30 more locally for basically two reasons. First, I have it now, no wondering if it's really shipping or what's going on with today's lack of shipment issues, and second I could make sure I don't get a dumb color. You can't pick when you order, you get either black (fine), gray (good) or... ugly ass orange with white fenders. The orange/white is the newest one, so the most likely to be in stock when things return to normal (old stock being gone already obviously). So... seemed like a no-brainer to just drive on down to RV world and get one.

They had them already assembled for more money, but I want to do it myself so I know it's done right. I've ordered an aftermarket hour meter to install when I put it together, all the service is based on engine hours so now I'll know when it's due. The rear racks are not available anywhere, sold out, but if something doesn't come back in stock in the next few months I'll just come up with another way of securing cargo to it. With my design skills and Sean's welding skills, we can just make a cargo rack.

Also plan to swap the 35w headlight for dual 19w LED driving lights, it's a popular mod.

It lives!

A potential solution to the extra gas on the minibike problem. 1.5L (clone) MSR bottle being held to the inside of the frame tube by a 5lb fire extinguisher roll bar mount thingy. Needs a slightly longer velcro strap on the last one, but I think I'll get two more and just wrap the whole thing to be sure. It seems like it might be a bad idea hanging directly over the engine, but it's actually hanging directly over the OEM gas tank. So... the gas tank is shielding the gas bottle? Seems legit.

It was warm enough to grill yesterday so we did some flat iron steak and I did a few quail. The woman won't eat the quail obviously but with the grill already heated it wasn't a big deal to just add a few on. Came out pretty good, a little over but I was trying to balance cooking 3 things at once and deal with the lower outside temp, so something had to give.

First attempt at making bagel dogs. I kinda rushed the rise on the dough which is why I think it's so fluffy. That, or because I used rapid rise yeast I didn't proof it first and maybe it wants slow yeast with a long (15 min) proof to get rid of some of the rise. Many things to try on the next attempt.

They turned out totally edible though... given that they're chicken hot dogs. I missed that little tidbit on the package. Taste mostly the same really, so hot dogs must mostly be chemicals and the 'meat' is only there for texture?

Finally put my money where my mouth is, got one of those 12.5" barrels with the permanently attached thingies on it that you slide your can into. Gives you a 16.5" barrel with the can on, so it's SBR like without being an SBR. Also supposed to be more accurate since it's a quality barrel, but that's yet to be seen. Haven't made it to the range, been busy with chores and work.

Borrowed Sean's heat gun and reshaped my old XDs holster to fit the G43x. Not to bad of a job, should let me carry it a while and see if I like it well enough to get a real holster for it.

Got the license plate mounted on the trailer finally. Couldn't find the dome-head hex bolts I wanted, but then realized that the regular bolt heads were just not that big compared to anything that would roll up the ramp, so I went the easy way. It's now on there nice and solid and won't get ripped off every time the trailer is moved and the formerly low mounted plate gets caught on everything.

Some minibike electrical testing, the converters work, I get a stable 13v (or whatever I set it to) DC output. 13.7v is the 'automotive standard' so I'll likely go there, or maybe just 13v... how well do we trust these Chinese LEDs?

With the governor set to 4k RPM, I'm maxing out at just under 24mph. Plenty fast, and that's up hill too. Engine has enough torque that it doesn't care about up or down hill so much, it's just the governor that's keeping it in check, not a lack of power to go faster.