2 of 3 Days thus far this Week

Today's Mail Ride Tracking
Tink, the Travel Dog, and I went for another ride today.  We didn't have time to take a long ride and I had received notice that I had a package at the Post Office so that's where we rode.  Not very far mileage wise but 'up there' exertion-wise.  "Issues" arise every time I ride this home-built recumbent:
-I've had repeated shifting problems and cannot access more than 10 or so of my supposedly available "21 gears" (3 up front and 7 in the rear cassette)
-Since I put on the milk crate dog carrier and side-mount the pannier containing all my "Stuff", the bike is hard to stand up even with it's 2-legged Kickstand.  Today while I was inside the Post Office, it fell over when Tinkerbell shifted her weight (she's strapped in with a harness).  Tink and most of the bike were OK, but it shattered my handlebar mounted rear-view mirror.

The shifting problems really started to flare up when we started back up the steep goat-path hill to the house.  I had to stop and dismount to see if I could figure out why it was so unreliable in the lower "Grandma Gears" needed to climb hills with my weak legs.  The derailleur bracket was a little out of line so I took out my wrench and adjusted that.  I noticed the chain was sagging, with a lot of slack, in these lower gears.  I wondered if the chain might be too long, and shifted everything to the widest ring gear, and the chain looked fairly tight.  But when I pulled on it to see if there was any slack, I found I could stretch it several inches.... the derailleur still had enough range left.  So I've decided to remove 2 or 3 links and see if that helps the shifting situation any.  I walked the bike to the top of the first hill and was able to resume riding under less stress, and parked the bike on my work-slab at home so I'll hopefully remember to shorten the chain before I take off on another ride.
Beginning Battery Voltage:  12.9        Ending Voltage: 12.7
Lowest Temp  48 F      Highest Temp:  63 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles:  5.49
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  3.9 MPH                                7.2 MPH                    25.5 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
1 hour 24 minutes                  45 mins  33 secs         38 mins 28 secs