Gosh...it's hard to believe I haven't made an entry in 6 weeks.  But then lots has happened.


We had an arrival who's caused us to pretty much re-order everything in our lives.  Travis was described on Petfinder.com as "Urgent!"   Turns out he was in a high-kill animal shelter in eastern Washington.  Now he's home safe with us.  He's about 16 months old, half German Shepherd, half Australian Cattle Dog, the most incredibly loving dog, eager to please, always ready to play, constantly in search of something or someone to herd or a ball to fetch, and totally unwilling to believe that Gomez, our large black Maine Coon cat, might think of anything better to do than play with him.  Unfortunately what's tops on Travis' list is bottom on Gomez'.

Of course we can't leave Travis home on the days we're out riding, so now we this residing in our kitchen...without its wheels and tow bar.  We're hoping he'll just take to it like one more part of his domain, will be comfortable climbing in and out, and so putting the wheels on and towing it won't be any big deal for him.  So far so good.  We've fed him in it a couple of times and he's happy in it searching for the treats we've hidden inside.  Maybe this weekend I'll put the wheels on it, and in a couple of days then it'll go outside and I'll hook it to the trike.  I've got a funny feeling he'll ride in it just fine, but only after he's run along with the trikes until he's totally exhausted.

And then there's Penni's birthday present.  What do you do when work's slow-to-non-existent and money's tight?  Well I briefly subscribed to the theory that if I gave a chunk away of the little I have then I'd simply make room for more.  So when this brand new Greenspeed GT3 II showed up on BROL at a great price...and only about 20 miles away, I grabbed it.  It folds, has the perfect seat angle for her, has neat little 16" wheels, and best of all according to Penni, it's purple.  So most likely she'll get to tow the BOB and I get to tow you-know-who.


The really sad news is that shortly after Travis arrived, Penni put Frankie down.  He was our 20 old orange tabby retired barn cat.  The past year he'd settled into a life of mostly sleeping days away.  But finally he was in so much pain it became really awful just watching him trying to get around.  Neither Pen nor I can feel his presence so we figure his spirit has gone back to his cozy spot in that barn south of here where he spent so much of his life.


Then there's been a brief thaw in the governor's freeze on state personal service contracts.  So all of a sudden I got five really interesting consulting contracts...real work after I was thinking I was retired.  It feels great to be wanted and even better to be earning a living, but of course everyone has wanted everything done right away.  Its gone from famine to feast.  And that's meant that I've had to let The finer recliner gear, TOT gear and the neck rests just sit in idle for a bit.   With Zubin laid up after knee surgery and Cara from embroidery central command traveling for a while, my work distractions weren't the only things putting sand into our production gears.

So...some good news.  Zubin has done a great job with the covers for the new CURVE model neck rests and  they're starting to sell.  Same cover material, latex fill, but with a velco closure instead of the poly cord  on the ROLL model.  It makes for a nice tailored finish.   So I'll be using it on Msafiri for a while, but first impressions are that I like it a lot.  Is it better than the ROLL model?  In the end I honestly think it's a matter of personal preference.  The ROLL easily conforms to the shape of our necks.  And the choice of open pore foam or latex fill should satisfy anyone.  The CURVE, filled with latex, also conforms nicely, and it offers some side to side support as well.  In truth I really like them both.
Isn't it nice to have a choice?

Something else exciting is this neck rest, shown without the cover.  It'll fit on a horizontal tube like the older Catrike model.  I have different diameter brackets to accommodate different size horizontal tubes.

Here's an inexpensive neck rest assembly for any Catrikes without the towers or any other trike with a horizontal seat top tube.

Can I make any one of these for you?