September 2022

What can go wrong? I’ll tell you what can go wrong.

Take, for example, the lawn. Mary is very particular about the lawn, and I’d promised to take good care of it while she was away.
Well.
Even before she left, the mower was acting up. She told me the mower squealed when she mowed the lawn. But I couldn’t hear it, and the fixes I tried — didn’t fix it. And when Mary left, I started mowing the lawn, and … I could see what she meant.
After a little too long, I finally figured out that the hose to the loader was leaking oil onto the mower deck, belt and all, where lube is not a good thing. Plus, the gearbox was missing a few bolts, and most of the rest were loose.
Easy fix. I replaced the leaky hose, tightened the loose bolts, and topped off the gearbox oil to boot.  I even spot-welded the bolts, so they’ll never jiggle loose again.
“That’ll fix it,” I said.
So Mary gets home and she’s unhappy with the condition of the lawn, and on Day 1, there is no stopping her. She’s gotta mow.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s fixed,” I said. Enjoy the sunshine.”
She did two passes, and she flagged me down. It’s bogging down and squealing, she says, and the mower deck is covered with oil. WTF?
I took the mower off the tractor. I took the gearbox off the mower. I took the sheave off the gearbox. A bolt had jiggled loose. Bad sign.
The gearbox was running hot and dry. All the oil I’d added had leaked all over the mower deck and trashed the belt. Again. Sigh.
I took the gearbox apart and decided it couldn’t be fixed.
Nope. Nosirree. Can’t be done. Which is a mouthful, for me.
(Meanwhile, as Mary was quick to remind me, the grass was still growing. But no pressure!)
What to do? If the mower were a car, I’d replace it.  And a shiny new zero-turn mower would really spice up my toy collection, but all the mower really needs is a gearbox, a belt,  and a sheave. So I bought a gearbox on ebay and a belt online, but I could not find a sheave anywhere.
What are you gonna do? I put the old, cracked sheave on the new, used gearbox, and I crossed my fingers.
And so far, so good.

When I rode across the USA, I took along a pretty good toolkit, but if I’d’a had a flat tire, I’d’a been screwed.
And that’s always bothered me. It seems absurd that, of all the things that can break in a motorcycle, the only thing I can’t fix is a flat tire.
So when both motorcycles had flat tires recently, I turned it into a teachable moment, and I bought myself a pair of top-of-the-line tire irons. I figured I’d watch some videos, replace my own tires, and save a few bucks.
Well.
Lesson number one: Don’t buy two tire irons: buy three.
After four hours of wrestling, I can confirm that it is probably possible to change a tire with tire irons alone. But it is mighty difficult.
I got both the old tires off, and one of the new ones on, before I gave up, tired and dirty, and took ’em into town to get ’em done like I shoulda’ done in the first place.
It cost me $43.

I went downstairs, and there was a puddle on the floor and a wet spot on the ceiling.
This happened right beneath the washer and 2 sinks, so I didn’t figure finding the leak was going to be too hard. But I Could Not Find a problem with the plumbing. No leaks or wet spots anywhere.
Meanwhile, the ceiling kept dripping, and it was the tube for the radiant heat that was wet.
That’s as bad as it gets, because you can’t even inspect those tubes without a hammer and chisel. Shit oh dear.
Thinking I might get lucky,  I chiseled away a joist’s worth of subfloor, from below, exposing the leaking tube. And wouldn’t you know it? It stopped leaking.
Lots of detective work followed. It turns out that a gallon jug with a pinhole half way up had been shoved against the wall, and it dribbled, straight down the wall, directly onto the wet tube. It left no trace, and never touched the counter or the floor.
And by the time I finished chiseling, the jug was half empty, and the leak had stopped.
I shoulda’ been FBI.

All of a sudden, cider season was upon us, and I was having trouble getting motivated.
Because there’s no such thing as a little bit of cidering.
If you want to cider at all, you’ve got to pick, crush, press, bottle, and store it. It’s a lot, and  4 out of 5 doesn’t cut it. And once you get it set up, you might as well make 2 or 3 batches. It’s really all or nothing.
So I picked 5 trees, made 6 kinds of cider, and put a cooler at the foot of the driveway with a ‘buckabottle’ sign on it. I put a blurb on the town forum, and I made $57 bucks before I ran out. Not bad for a bad year, but not worth it, either. Hobbies never are.