A lot's been going on.  I finally found a good spot for my latest gate.  Turns out that finding a place to put them is actually more fun than making one to fill an existing opening.  Hanging this tree gate meant planting a 30' hedge row and sinking posts...kinda backwards I know, but with no location constraints it's definitely more fun.

Because we all needed a break, the three of us, P, T, and me, drove down to Cannon Beach for 4 days.  Last year when we were there the weather was wild.  Day and night - high winds, freezing temps, sleet and rain.  The weather didn't keep us off the beach, we just bundled up in all our rain gear and went out.  Travis could have cared less...regardless of the weather he just wanted to play ball.  It was funny...facing south on the beach I could throw the ball about 20' when I really tried.  Facing north and using the same effort, I could throw it about 20 miles!  
 

All the required gear - ball, thrower, poop bag.

 This time, though, the autumn weather couldn't have been more beautiful.  Each day was warmer and sunnier than the one before.  The Hallmark Inn is beyond dog-friendly...when we arrived in our room there was a basket of goodies just for Travis - treats, a frisby, special towel and a water bottle with fold-out drinking trough.  We had a great time - long walks on the beach, exploring tide pools, spectacular sunsets, lots of ball-chasing exercise for Travis, good food and fun wandering around Cannon Beach, the best company, cozy evenings by the fire...

Truly a dog with a one-track mind

Is it possible to love a dog too much?

The only thing wrong with our time away was that it was just too brief.  But we came back to some other bits of good news...3 dozen mtb stems that'd been back-ordered for 6 weeks finally arrived, and I finalized an agreement with a new embroiderer, The Salem Emblem Shop in Salem, Oregon.  Turns out they did our great-looking TOT patches the past two years and are willing to take on the neck rest embroidery.  They do really wonderful work, so I'm excited to see the first batch of covers that'll be arriving soon from Zubin.  

One of those first covers will be this one.  It'll be fitted to the first TerraTrike CURVE kit, and should soon be on its way to Las Vegas and a new orange TerraTrike Rambler.  I sure hope Renie loves it.

It's true...I Photoshopped the extra length of the "T" tube to make it shorter.

And speaking of the TerraTrike CURVE kit, I recently fitted the powdercoated prototype on a Rover Dale has at Angle Lake Cycles.  The "T" tower was too long (I Photoshopped it shorter in the first picture,) and I'm changing out the 75mm mtb stem for one of the new shorter 60mm stems.  I just finished the first batch of 8 adapter brackets that are now at John's to have the tubes TIG welded on; then they're off for powdercoating, and as soon as they return they're ready to ship.

Even without posting on BROL that the kits are in production (ha...that's a fancy over-stated way of saying that I'm making them,) I've already got orders for half the first batch.  I've tried hard to make the adapter bracket as simple as possible in part to make producing them relatively straightforward, and also to keep the kit price low.  If you see one of the adapter brackets you might reasonably ask what took me so long to make them.  And the truth is I've procrastinated...I didn't believe it was fair to have to charge more for the TerraTrike kits than for the kits that fit Catrikes, ICE, HP and  others.  In the end I just decided that I didn't design the double-tube seat braces on the TerraTrikes that require the adapter, so I'll just make the kits and let the market decide.  The bracket adds about $20 to the cost of the kit, so the TerraTrike CURVE kit (adapter bracket, "T" tower, CURVE neck rest, mtb stem and end caps) will be about $110.

Now I'm hoping I can find a fabricator to produce the brackets inexpensively so I can stop making them myself, and I can get on to a couple of other projects about which I'm really excited.  But that's a story for another time.