An Old Vespa in a New Neighborhood
Prior to the weekend, Liz spotted a posting on Craigslist from someone who wanted to sell a Vespa Primavera (circa 1981). Liz has had her eye out for a classic/vintage Vespa for some time, and is currently in the process of trying to sell her 2007 Vespa.
We headed out to Uptown, to check out the scooter and give it the onceover.
Since it’s an older model, it’s a manual (neither one of us had ridden a manual scooter before). Also, again, due to the age/model… it’s wasn’t something that had an automatic started. In order to get the thing going, you needed to kickstart it.
Closeup near the back. The whole scooter was a little worn down, but we went in expecting some degree of wear/rust/damage.
Liz, getting a quick tutorial on how to change out the spark plugs. According to the owner (Mel), the scooter had some issues on occassion, starting up. He typically was able to get around this by replacing the spark plug, and showed us how he went about it.
On the down side, while he was able to start up the Vespa and ride it up and down the alley… when we tried to start it up, it wouldn’t. In fact, outside of the first start, none of us were able to get it going again a second time.
There were a few other folks interested in the scooter, and we settled on a compromise. If it was still available as of Tuesday, we’d arrange to meet with Mel at Scooterworks to have the scooter assessed. We’d pay for the assessment (about $100), and if we didn’t end up buying it at that point… we might sell the assessment to Mel.
While the Vespa fits what Liz is after (a vintage model, and also slightly shorter than her current scooter), any older scooter is going to require a certain amount of custom work. Before we purchase anything, we’d need to know exactly what condition it’s in, and whether or not we can (or want) to put in that extra work.
Earlier, as we were looking for a place to park, we noticed that Clark was shut down to local traffic. On walking nearer, we figured out why – a neighborhood festival!
This is totally one of those great things about summer in Chicago: turn around, and you’ll likely see some kind of local neighborhood party/festival going on. We decided to walk around, and extend our afternoon a bit with some gelato.
Mount Avalanche!
Liz walked near this booth and yelled out “Chickens!” I found out that she used to have chickens when she was growing up, and is still really fond of them.
The folks in this booth were from a nearby church, and were advocating ways in which people could live a little “greener,” offering up tips on composting, conservation, and even raising chickens in the backyard (for eggs only).
Fresh eggs and fun! I was surprised to learn that the city allowed for folks to raise chickens. But the one catch was that you couldn’t raise them for slaughter – it could only be for eggs.
There was also an example of worm composting, and we were encouraged to smell the container (to see that, in fact, there really wasn’t much of a smell at all).
Before we left, we took a few pamphlets and were given a few CFL light bulbs for free. Sweet!
We’ve only been around Uptown a handful of times, so it was nice to walk around and explore a newer neighborhood for a bit. A fun way to spend a Saturday summer afternoon.
next time, can you get a clearer shot of potentially cute vespa owner? for scientific purposes of course.it’s nice to hear someone else grew up with chickens. they normally have such a calming sound as they go about, talking to each other. they had see every color in the spectrum, i believe, and get spooked by colors that are different than they are used to.that might not be true….i think it is though. :) if not, you haven’t really tasted eggs until you have had really fresh eggs. that is true.
g (June 16, 2008 at 7:53 pm)I grew up with chickens in the backyard/barn and I LOVE chickens. They thought they were barn cats and would run into the barn and eat catfood with the cats at dinnertime. The eggs were great and VERY plentiful – my mom couldn’t find enough people to give them to most months.
jen (June 18, 2008 at 8:09 am)For Easter one year, my mom got my sister and I two baby chicks from a local farm. We raised them on the condition that we return them when they were fully grown. I think we had them till the end of the summer or something. We did this a few years.I’ve never had fresh eggs or anything before though. How many eggs do they produce a week/month?
Liz (June 18, 2008 at 2:11 pm)Liz, that depends on the breed, the age and the conditions. On average, a healthy young chicken would give 1-3 eggs a day. We supplied our neighborhood. Several times, customers would write my dad (who did most of the work) a little note, a story or send homemade jam or cake or something yummy! My brother had an egg route, instead of a paper route. The eggs were far better and priced the same as a supermarket….if I was just a little older, I could have leveraged the limited supply and limitless demand, raised prices, taken over the world! MWAHAAHAHAH.:ahem: yes, 1-3 per chicken per day. that’s about right.
g (June 27, 2008 at 1:12 pm)