Feb 16: Very Productive Day

Very productive.

Let's see. What I did today: I re-baited the trap to try to catch another blankety-blank groundhog. I poured the bucket of used kitty litter down the last remaining known groundhog hole. I swept my garage to get out the billions of leaves that had blown in under the door -- apparently in the last windstorm. I went around the yard and the lower 40 picking up all the dozens of tree limbs that came down in the ice storm and the windstorm. Then, the real work began.

I fixed the snowblower, replacing the shear pins that broke off on Daddy Bill's driveway last month (see post from January 17 below). I next fixed the self-propelled push mower, replacing the recoil starter cord system and spring mechanism that broke last fall. I changed the air filter in the lawn tractor and charged its battery. I tried to run all the gas engines to warm them up, got a blister from the pull cord on the weedwhacker and threw out my back pulling the cord on the generator. I ended up having to dismantle the weedwhacker and the generator carburetors to clean the orifices before they would start.

I finally got everything started, and let the engines run a while, then changed all the oil in *everything*. Being a gray-haired potbellied old man, it was really hard, lying on my belly, sideways, on my back, reaching under stuff, banging my knuckles when the pliers slip, having to hammer the wrenches to get stuck nuts and drain plugs and broken shear pins loose, skinning my hands when the screwdriver slips, slicing my knuckles on sharp snowblower augers, tilting the heavy tractor and generator to get the oil to run out properly, getting hot oil all over the cuts and skinned places on my hands, etc.

Aar, aar, aar. This is 'Real Man' stuff, not that pansy accounting stuff that I'm used to.

After getting all the repairs made and the oil changed, I made a quick trip over to the farm Co-op to get something called Sta-Bil to keep the snowblower carburetor from gunking up, and I'll use it in the generator gas again, even though it apparently didn't help last time.


I lugged out the heavy car ramps, and changed the oil and filter on the Camry. I refilled the washer reservoir, topped off the power steering fluid, and checked the coolant, brake fluid, and transmission fluid. The battery was low on liquid, so I made another quick trip, this time to the Super-Save, to get some distilled water, and topped off the battery. Did the same on the Caravan --oil and filter change, fluid checks, washer fluid and battery top-off, etc. except that the van needed a little transmission fluid. There is a leaky gasket on the van transmission, so I'll have to keep an eye on that).

Why can't Chrysler design their engines so you can get to the oil filter from the top, like the Toyotas? I hate it when I'm on my back under the car, and the hot oil runs down my arm while I'm unscrewing the darn oil filter on the Caravan....

Cleaned the tools, put them away (this took a lot longer than you'd think!), cut my hand one final time on a sharp edge of one of the ramps while putting it away, and poured all the used oil back into old oil jugs to take to Van's Garage next week.

Crawling around under cars gets harder and harder the older I get, and when I bang my head, it seems to hurt more. For some reason, the gritty lava hand soap wouldn't work, so I went to stake conference tonight with dirty nails and lots of band-aids, but I'm not sure anyone noticed.

I was going to change the oil in Allen's truck, but didn't have time, and I have no idea whether it needs it or not. I don't have a filter for his truck, anyway. I also didn't get around to replacing the chain on the chain saw, which was also on the to-do list for today.

Okay, so who are these people? Their heights, left to right, are: five foot eleven, six foot three, five foot five, and six foot seven and still growing... (he has to duck to get in through the front door.) Hint: Photo taken November 2007 and yes, the geraniums were still blooming in November because of the location.
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