Oil boom

We've been in the Bakken oil field on a couple of trips. You have the feeling of history in the making as folk rush to get a slice of this North Dakota, Montana, Manitoba, Saskatchewan phenomenon. We scored this old mug for a spendy $4 in an antique store in Valley City, ND. Riding along in the early morning when headed for Williston, ND, you are suddenly aware of these fireballs in the distance where they are flaring off gas from the wells.

Pics by RLT and Annette.

Eureka patina

Lots of old stuff has turned up lately. The auction preview where we spotted the vintage tractor was followed two weeks later, on Rogers Road, by a sale of old machine tools, NOS parts, oil cans, old signs and assorted junk. I managed to grab a picture of this old Eureka Radiator Cores sign, "since 1915," before it was knocked down to a collector and wrenched off the wall.

Pic by RLT.

Flathead tractor curiosity

We went to an auction preview on Rogers Road in Toronto where they were selling off the remains of an old garage. This tractor with 21-stud Flathead Ford V8 caught my eye. What could it possibly be? Maybe an old Funk conversion? The Massey Harris tank further muddied the water:

It has been a while since somebody sat here for work:

I hope it goes to a good home.
Pics by RLT.

Lakeshore loses lodges, gains cranes and condos

The changing face of Hogtown is nowhere more apparent than with the loss of the Lakeshore motel strip. We took these pictures before the motels are all gone.

Pics by Annette and RLT.

Raleigh wrenches remain nameless

These two Raleigh wrenches or spanners, similar but not the same, were made in quantity to fit the old Raleigh steel bicycles of our youth. Doubtless thousands of them have been discarded by folk puzzled by their function and having no further use for the strange sizes (in a metric world gone mad). Typically they have no branding to link them to Raleigh from an era lacking in marketing savvy.

Today they are a delightful reminder of when Nottingham boasted the biggest bicycle factory in the world and a Sturmey-Archer four-speed took this schoolboy to school.

Pic by RLT.