My warm weather schedule of yard work first thing after breakfast continued. Between eight and ten I finished mowing the north bank with the push mower, then fired up the tractor and mowed the north roadside and the lawn in front and east of the house. This week I've been shooting some pictures of my work on film, and made a little Facebook album about it. Next came a trip to town to get bananas and pay a couple of bills. In the afternoon I got back to the tree puller, welding on a "pedal" to keep the business end of the thing down on the ground until the jaws close. I tried the gadget and it worked pretty well. It drags the trees right out of the ground if they aren't too big. For the bigger ones I'll have to fix the big tractor with the loader and use hydraulic power to lift them out of the ground. Tonight I celebrated the puller with another tasty treat, a big fried onion. That's another old favorite.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
This is my customary night for a restaurant meal, but with restaurant dining presently closed it's tostada night at home. I start with a couple of fish tostadas, alternating between sardines and tuna. This week it was sardines. I mash them with a lttle mayo as a binder, mix in the chopped onion, spread the mix on the tostada, and put the jalapeño slices on top. Then come the beans. I put the chopped onions on the tostada, put on the hot frijoles refritos to keep the onions in place, grate on the jalapeño cheese, and lay on the jalapeño slices. One can of frijoles makes three tostadas. After five tostadas I'm stuffed enough to let it all settle for a couple of hours before I have dessert. Most nights that's a banana and four fig bars, but on Saturday I have a small box of toffee Crunch & Munch. All this adds up to more calories than I'll burn in a day, but it doesn't cancel out the lower cal meals the rest of the week.
Sunday, May 3, 2020
Today I put my new tool to work, pulling some small trees behind the house. The puller is faster than cutting them off and poisoning the stumps with Tordon. It also doesn't affect nearby plants. The Tordon is supposed to break down in soil, but I've found that where I use it to kill a lot of little trees it can damage nearby trees and shrubs. I also attacked Virgina creeper on the house. The notion of a picturesque vine-covered cottage is a romantic cliché, but vines will damage a building and even destroy it eventually. So today I cut the vines at the ground and poisoned the stumps. I'll wait a few days to see if I missed any, get the survivors, and pull them all down.
Monday, May 4, 2020
Squirt has been around longer than I have, since 1938, and I have been partial to it since I was a wee tyke. In 1971 I discovered Diet Squirt while traveling, but was never able to buy it at home. Then last year I did an internet search and found that some of the Dillons stores around Wichita carry it. This afternoon I was cutting up dead branches in the yard when the threat of rain blew in from the northwest, so I put away the chain saw and made a Squirt run to a Dillons in Derby and stocked up with six cases. That will last me several weeks, well into June.
Martes, Cinco de Mayo, 2020
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Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Never went off the place today. The weather was perfect and I spent the day outdoors, clearing vegetation from the road to my north brush piles. That included cutting off little trees with the clippers and poisoning the stumps with Tordon, trimming some protruding branches with the clippers, removing some trees with the chain saw, and sawing up some fallen branches. The job is almost done, and I should be able to finsh it Friday (rain is forecast tomrrow).
Thursday, May 7, 2020
With rain in the forecast and a sprinkle about nine, I spent the day inside. The centerpiece of today's activity was a leakdown test on the runabout. The idea is to shoot compressed air into each cylinder and listen for leaks. I found leaks at several valves and at the piston rings in every cylinder, so I have a lot of work to do on that engine. The rain finally arrived for real late at night, and in the morning the gauge held about .95".
 Tissue hanging over the ports
shows air leaking out past the valves.
You can see the tissue on exhaust #3 blowing in the wind. |
 With a hose into the oil filler
you can hear air leaking past the rings into the crankcase.
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Friday, May 8, 2020
My depleted supply of clean sox determined that this would be laundry day. I spent the morning doing that and mowing the lawn under the clothesline. That little bit of mowing turned out to be my only yard work of the day. In the afternoon I had to make a run to town for medicine and groceries, and somehow that used up well over an hour. By the time I put away the groceries, brought in the clothes off the line, and laid a fire in the kitchen stove, the day was pretty well spent. A fire in the kitchen stove? Yep, it was chilly enough in the room to warm it up a bit. I don't usually have to do that in May. Normally I open the windows early in May and leave them open until October except during storms, but this year we're getting a few chilly days.
Saturday, May 9, 2020
It was another chilly day, but I did get out and do a bit of yard work. For tosatada night it was time for tuna on the first two, and then the usual frijoles refritos on the last three. Before dinner I put a little tuna and juice on Shorty's heartworm pill so she would eat it. If I don't do that she will spit it out.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
For the usual lazy Sunday morning I mostly netsurfed. By noon the outside warmed up to the fifties, and after a run to the market for groceries I spent the rest of the day pulling weeds, trimming branches, picking up trash along the road, and then enjoyed some tractor therapy with a bit of mowing.
Monday, May 11, 2020
This is not nice. As I was laying the evening fire in the kitchen stove at noon today the thermometer outside read 40º F. It's more like February than May. I'm back to turning on the electric blanket at night. On a cold and rainy day I stayed in the shop and worked on the runabout—draining the oil, removing the inspection cover, head, valves, etc. I hope to have the car ready to drive in time to enjoy some cruising in perfect June weather.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
In the morning I worked on the runabout some more, but ran into a roadblock. I didn't have a six point socket to fit my breaker bar to loosen rod nuts. So when I went to town later I bought an adapter that will let me use one of the sockets I do have. I spent most of the afternoon chasing back and forth between here and the computer shop in Winfield, trying to get a Dell laptop set up for me to use. I bought the thing because the software for my ECCT coil tester works only on a Windows machine. I'll use it for the coil tester, but I don't have to use it for anything else.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Again I had to go to Winfield. I couldn't get that stupid laptop to work, so I left it at the computer shop to see if they can fix it. I despise Windows machines. In the shop I finally got one of the pistons out of the runabout to check the rings. They were fine. But I found rust spots in cylinders #3 and #4, and several of the valves and seats did not look nice. I posted pictures on the Model T forum, so maybe tomorrow I'll have some advice from the experts. I think I know what to do, but it's good to get some direction from folks who have a lot more mechanical experience than I do.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
All morning and into the afternoon I worked on the runabout. I measured wear, took pictures of various engine parts, and posted them on the Model T forum for suggestions. Eventually I phoned Mike Bender and told him I lack three things: 1 Sufficient mechanical knowledgte and experience; 2 Talent; 3 Confidence that I won't miss something and screw everything up. He has a full plate now, so I will call him in a couple of weeks and make a date to haul this engine to Tulsa and get help from somebody who knows what he's doing. Meanwhile, the car has other things that need to be done and that I can handle myself. Of course the touring car has work that needs to be done too.
Friday, May 15, 2020
This morning I had some fun making a meme and posting it on Facebook. Of course I was inspired by the ridiculous baloney I see there every day. The gullibility of folks who swallow online twaddle without question is a perpetual source of amazement. My main project of the day was removing and beginning repairs on my broken windshield frame. I thought it would be a simple job of making a new upright from a single piece of steel, but it turned out to not be so simple after all. Pictures are on the Model T forum. Sunday, May 17, 2020 One thing leads to another. Yesterday I mowed the area east of the barn where I do my sandblasting. But this morning I remembered that I can't blast there because the compressor in the barn has gone belly up. I would have to bring the blasting equipment to the shop to use the air here. So I would need to unload the truck so I could use it to fetch the blasting stuff. I took a walk to the better of the two north brush piles, and the ground seemed solid enough for me to drive there without getting stuck. Nope. Stuck again. At least this time I stopped spinning the wheels before sinking clear to the axles. |
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I tried pulling the truck out with the tractor, but it was too well stuck to move. I'll wait a few days for the ground to dry a little, then fetch the hi-lift jack to raise the truck and get some boards under the wheels, and try again. There's plenty of other stuff for me to do while I wait.
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Monday, May 18, 2020 After breakfast and bathing and donning fresh duds it was time to head for Wichita. I had an appointment with the eye doc to see how I'm doing. She found that the glaucoma is no worse than it was six months ago. Good news. The medicine is working. The not-so-good news was not a surprise. The cataract in my right eye is getting worse. Eventually I'll have surgery for it, as I did for the left eye several years ago, probably next year. While I was in Wichita I picked up a couple of twelve-packs of Diet Squirt, a product unknown down here in Podunk. This evening after dinner I made new axles for the casters on my Woods mower. All I had to do was drill grease channels and install zerks. I got into the casters because I need to adjust the mower a little higher because it's been skinning the grass off practically at ground level. |
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Everything takes longer than you think it will. In this case, the thing was adjusting the Woods mower a little higher. That turned out to involve removing the casters to clean them up, grease them, and air up the tires. The tire on one was defunct, and the tire shop wont't have a new one until tomorrow. Meanwhile, I've taken the wheels apart and painted them. They will bake overnight and I'll assemble and install them tomorrow, one with a new tire and tube. While I was in town to order the new tire and get some bananas, I stopped at La Fiesta and picked up a dozen tamales. Those are in the freezer, and I'll have a couple for my Saturday treat night.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2020
With the forecast showing a rainy spell of ten days starting tomorrow, this was the day to extricate my stuck truck before the ground gets any soggier. With the hi-lift jack I raised the rear wheels and put 2 x 12 boards under them. The dry days since the truck got stuck had made the ground a little more solid, and I was able to drive it out. I expect the coming wet weather will make me use the brush pile on higher ground behind the shop until this road is solid enough to use again. With the truck situation resolved, I got back to the mower. I went to town and got the new caster tire and tube, assembled the caster wheels, and put the casters on the mower. I did some mowing and was glad to see that the adjustment put it at the right height to cut the grass an inch or two above the ground. |
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Running-around day. The main run was to Winfield to pick up my repaired Dell laptop. Now I have to figure out where I left the power supply so I can keep the battery charged. While I was in Winfield I picked up a six foot piece of square tubing to make a better tree puller. The first one was clumsy but sort of worked for awhile, but has got more and more troublesome, so I'll see if I can come up with a better one.
Friday, May 22, 2020
Today was supposed to be mowing day. The new tire installed the other day was flat, and I found that the tube had a split in it. I went to town and got a new tube and set about reinstalling the tire. I forgot to turn down the regulator on the air supply, and it took me only two or three seconds to pop the thing like a balloon. Of course the tire shop didn't have another of the same size in stock, so I have to wait until next week for another tire.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Busy, busy. First I unpacked the seedlings that came in yesterday's mail from the Arbor Day Foundation and put them in a pail to soak. The planting instructions say they should sit in water for three to six hours before planting. While the trees were soaking I did laundry, then spent the afternoon planting two American sweetgum, three forsythias, a red maple, and a couple of redbuds.
Sunday, May 24, 2020
Tree planting continued. Renewing membership brings a bunch of free seedlings, and today I planted a dogwood, another red maple, a silver maple, a sugar maple, and a few others. I also loaded some firewood for next winter in the truck and took it to the garage to stay dry.
Monday, May 25, 2020
Not much accomplished today. In the morning I marked satellite views of the farm to show property lines, drives, and roads. The first shows property lines for the whole place. The second shows buildings, drives, and roads on the north part, and the third shows roads on the south part. In the afternoon I took a Memorial Day walk up to the cemetery for a visit with the old timers I miss. At chow time I realized that I had forgotten to go to town for groceries, so instead of the usual tomato and cucumber I had broccoli and fried most of an onion left over from Saturday night. Those are both tasty treats. |
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Tuesday, May 26, 2020
Back to work. Today's first job was spreading 39 pounds of Weed & Feed on the east lawn. If there were only a few weeds I'd pull them, but a lot of this lawn has become too much of a weed forest for pulling. I went to town for grocery shopping and picked up a new tire and tube for the mower. After I got home and put away the groceries I set about reassembling the mower caster with its new tire, but I didn't get very far. The tube was the wrong size. So I had to go back to town and trade for the right size. That brought me to quitting time, so I reassembled the caster and installed it on the mower after dinner. The forecast says I may be able to get a bit of mowing done tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Plans change. I was going to mow along the road to the east. But walking east to pick up trash before mowing I found so many weeds among the grass that I decided to wait until after I spread some broadleaf killer and give it some time to get to the roots. The forecast says Friday morning will be a good time for that. I'll also mix my first batch of MED (magic elixir of death) for this year and spray johnson grass and other weed patches. So instead of mowing I spent the rest of the day on the east side of the house pulling and digging up weeds and grass and realigning the rock borders. When that's done I aim to plant nasturtiums and zinnias there.
Thursday, May 28, 2020
This was the last of the recent run of wet days. I stayed inside and went to work on my second attempt at making a tree puller. I'm designing this one like the pullers sold commercially, instead of the complex design of the first one. It was too complicated to work.
Friday, May 29, 2020
That's better. This evening the humidity was low enough for salt to come out of the shaker. I get tired of high humidity. Last night's moisture left the grass and weeds sopping wet this morning, which was perfect for the first job of the day—spreading Weed & Feed. I used up another 39 pound sack of the stuff, mostly along both sides of the road with a little left over for a small part of the lawn. The rest of the day I worked on that new tree puller. I would have finished it today, but ran out of oxygen and had to go to the welding supply for another tank. The puller is almost done, so I should be able to finish it in the morning and try it out.
Saturday, May 30, 2020
It was noon when I finished welding the last piece on the new tree puller. But when I took the thing out and tried it I found that wasn't the last piece. I needed a "pedal" to keep the front end down at ground level while the jaws close. In an hour I had the pedal added and made another test run. The puller worked well and it didn't. It pulled some trees easily. Others were more stubborn, and the jaws slipped up the trunk instead of gripping and pulling. I need to figure a way for the jaws to get a better grip.
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Using the puller a little more confirmed that I need to make a couple of changes. I'm not going to waste daylight on it when I should be out taking advantage of good weather for yard work. Puller improvements will be a project for evenings in the shop. Instead of tree pulling I did grass and weed pulling east of the house, and took down the Virginia creeper that had threatened to cover the whole east wall. The picturesque vine covered cottage is a romantic cliche, but vines will damage and even destroy a building. The day ended with weed pulling in the back yard.