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| Jueves, Cinco de Mayo,
2022 Contrary to what
some people think, this Mexican holiday is not
Independence Day. That's September 16. This is the
day in 1862 when a badly outnumbered Mexican army
defeated French forces sent by Napoleon III to
impose a relative, Maximilian, as Emperor. The
unfortunate Maximilian ended up not as Emperor of
Mexico, but as the target of a firing squad.
I'm not an experienced body man, but I spent another rainy day inside, pounding on a bent fender. I got it straight so it doesn't pop back to bent. Next will be to finish sandblasting it, then applying body solder. My other Model T job was straightening out the dings on a front wheel rim. Said dings were the result of throwing a tire and running on gravel for a couple of hundred feet last September in Chautauqua County. The lesson: check your tire pressure and keep it up. |
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Friday,
May 6, 2022
Two days of rain left 4.35" in the gauge. With
the ground nice and soft I spent a good part of
the day pulling weeds, especially western
salsify. I wanted to get it out before it had a
chance to go to seed. I devastated a patch
of the stuff in the back yard, in the front
lawn, and in the lawn along the road to the
east. I took a walk down in the wood lot and
found water in the bottom of the draw, but not
enough to be flowing from pool to pool. The
usual boggy parts of the road looked wet enough
that I won't be driving down there anytime soon.
After weeding the lawn, I pulled weeds in front
of the front porch, cultivated there, and
planted four packets of flower seeds. There was
one packet of mixed flowers, two of zinnias, and
one of nasturtiums. They were all a year or two
old, so I hope the seeds are still good. My last
job of the day was washing road dust off that
wheel I fixed yesterday. I set it on the garage
roof to dry in the sun, then after chow this
evening I brought it in the shop, wiped it with
lacquer thinner, and painted it. Today I am able
to post on Facebook again. Yesterday I was
exiled for 24 hours because the automatic
screening software deemed my silly meme to be
"in praise or support of terrorism". Apparently
computers can't be programmed to recognize
irony, satire, or humor.
Saturday, May 7, 2022 Since January, most mornings I've been doing one third of the Marine fitness test: crunches (sit-ups). The passing score for men over 46 is 40, and I usually get up to the low forties. I quit running because of a hip starting to go south, so that third of the test is out. The minimum for the last third, pull-ups, is three. I can't do even one anymore, so I've been doing 100 curls with a seven pound window weight in each hand, hoping to regain some of my lost upper body strength. I believe I'll start doing those 100 curls two or three times a day and see if I can get back enough strength to do a pull-up. After exercises and breakfast, up first today was a drive to Winfield to check out the Defore and Patterson auctions. Neither one had anything that persuaded me to stay. At home I did a bit of spraying to murder unauthorized vegetation, shopped online for grass seed, and decided I'll wait for the next credit card cycle before I buy any. I spent the afternoon sandblasting. I got that front fender nearly done. One more session should finish the job, then I'll weld up a split, apply body solder, and begin painting. |
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| Friday, May 13, 2022 My morning job
was trash. Namely, picking up debris along both
sides of the road to the east. A lot of it is
provided by some unidentified lush who throws away
his Heineken bottles there. He manages to break some
of them, so I spend time picking up pieces. Maybe I
should set up a game camera to catch him in the act
and turn over the video to the sheriff's department.
I finished that about 11:30 and went to shadier
work. That included cutting the shredded belt off
the Dixon mower, getting measurements, and ordering
a replacement by phone. I knew from experience with
another belt that going from store to store locally
would be a waste of time. This evening there was a
Facebook gripe about poor service, including the
wait person's poor grasp of English, at a favorite
local restaurant. The OP got enough blowback that
she shut off the comments, so I wrote my own
post: I see comments are
turned off in the post about La Fiesta, so I'll
make my own post. I have been going there for
years, since the place opened. In all those
years I can think of two occasions when the
service was less than adequate. Did La Fiesta
provide poor service on those occasions? No. Two
individuals did. I have no complaints about the
dozens (hundreds?) of other times I have eaten
there. I can't testify about any of the staff's
English skills because I order en español unless
the wait person is a Gringo. I can testify about
the food. I like some dishes more than others,
but over all it is excellent. The only other
local Mexican place I consider worth my time is
Juquilla Tacos, where actual Mexicans go to eat.
La Fiesta and Juquilla are the real deal,
certainly far better than the place up the
street which is voted "best" every year. That is
a crock of tonterías. I may have missed a
Mexican place or two in this county, but I have
tried most. So far La Fiesta and Juquilla are
the ones which have passed the taste test.
|
 My usual policy on
wild rose is live and let live.
If it's in a place where it won't snag me or be in my way, I leave it alone. It doesn't abuse the privilege by trying to spread everywhere. It smells nice too. |
 Invasive Asian
honeysuckle is another story.
It smells nice when it blooms too, but its ultimate goal is to cover everything aggressively, so I spray it wherever it comes up. |
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Saturday, May 14, 2022 A week after the last rain, the ground is too hard for easy weed pulling. This morning I used a spading fork to loosen more salsify plants enough to get them out of the front lawn. By the time I finished that the sun persuaded me it was time to retreat to less sweaty pursuits. One of those was more pounding on my bent fender to improve the straightening. Another was welding up a split. I was able to do a decent job of it with acetylene welding and a 000 tip. I also rewatched a video on body solder, twice. I think I'm ready to give that a go tomorrow. |
| Tuesday, May 17, 2022 Today's main feature was more body work fixing up that bent fender. This was my first attempt at real body solder work. I filled the little dents and filed the solder reasonably straight, but I think I need to make a trip to The Big Tool Store in Derby for an actual body file to finish up. This afternoon I got around to "fixing" that tree saw. I took out the switch and tested it, found it OK, wrapped new electrical tape on the wires, and reinstalled it. I don't know what I did that actually fixed anything, but the saw now works again. After chow this evening I took advantage of ground softened by .31" of rain during the night and pulled weeds in the back yard until dark. There were fewer of them to pull this year, probably because I attacked last years crop before they could go to seed. Wednesday, May 18, 2022 Out of clean sox, I started the day with laundry. While the clothes were washing and rinsing I pulled weeds in the back yard and mowed under and around the clotheslines. In the afternoon I made that trip to Derby for a body file. I knew better than to try to find anything like that around here, and I didn't want to buy online and wait for shipping. When we got home (Shorty always likes to ride) there was a package on the front porch. It was the new mower belt for the Dixon. I'll install it tomorrow. Then I'll have a full complement of mowers: Allis mowing tractor, Dixon riding mower, and a push mower. I just need to get the runabout back together so I can take time for all the mowing that needs to be done. Thursday, May 19, 2022 Being very dissatisfied with my body solder attempt, I realized that learning to do it well will take more time than I have. So I bought a can of Fiberglass Bondo, did some more hammering to get the fender as straight as possible, and spent the afternoon sandblasting it to get it really clean. After chow this evening I drilled a light switch hole in the new firewall and painted the front side. The first 1915 Fords had gas headlights, not electric, so if you have a car with electric lights you have to add the hole for the switch. |
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 Hood former: Fill & sand, prime
& sand, prime & sand, prime & sand, etc.,
etc.
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Saturday,
May 21, 2022 Drat! I found a pretty large patch of salsify coming up in the east lawn by the road. Significant rain is forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'll wait for that to soften the ground for me before I start pulling weeds again. Today I worked on the hood former some more, sanding, priming, and sanding. I also painted the front side of the new firewall. My last job of the day was planting an American sweet gum to replace one that died. For Saturday treat night I dined in, cutting up and frying an onion in olive oil, then mixing in mashed potatoes. Pretty tasty stuff. I think next time I'll add jalapeños and see how that is. Tonight's movie was Downton Abbey, a New Era. I never was willing to spend the time to get into the TV series, but I enjoyed this movie. The cast is great, with good performances all around. Maggie Smith is always great, of course, and in this I particularly liked Laura Haddock and Dominic West as movie stars facing the death of silent movies which made them stars. Sunday, May22, 2022 Body work continued, namely more priming and sanding on the badly pitted hood former. I also planted the red maple that comes free with every tree order. Inspecting the two American sweet gum seedlings I planted last month. One is leafing out, but the other shows no signs of life. If I don't see any by the ordering deadline next week I'll call for a replacement. Monday, May 23, 2022 And the body work goes on. I primed and sanded the hood former one last time, then gave it a couple of finish coats. It looks fair, not great, but I can't spend any more time on it now. Maybe I'll work on it some more later when I have the time. I put the correct right front wheel back on the runabout in place of the temporary replacement the car has been wearing, then took some time to move a lot of tools and equipment under shelter before tonight's rain arrives. I thought wood burning season was over, but the kitchen was cool enough this evening to inspire me to light a fire in the stove. From the looks of the forecast, I may do the same tomorrow and Wednesday night too. |
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Sunday,
May 29, 2022 Deadline
day. All that remained to do on the car was
reinstalling the left front fender. That was a
bit more complicated than I expected. It seems
that heat from my attempt at body solder warped
the thing so it would no longer fit. So I laid
the fender on the floor bottom side up, jacked
up the left front wheel, put the fender under
it, and lowered the wheel onto the fender to
hold it down while I lifted the rear end of the
fender to bend it back into shape. That did the
trick and I was able to get the fender back onto
the car looking about the way it should. I
didn't have time to finish the body work
completely and it's still in black primer, but
nobody seemed to notice. In the afternoon I
drove to town to fill the tank and buy
groceries, and it felt great to be driving a
Model T again. After chow it was show time. I
drove to town and picked up "Sister Aimee" and
drove her to Wilson Park. On May 29, 1922, Aimee
Semple McPherson preached to a crowd of 5000 in
the rotunda at the park. One hundred years
later, to the day, "Sister Aimee" returned in
this evening's reenactment. When we arrived at
the park the other reenactors were still going,
and we waited behind the rotunda. The car idled
for about twenty minutes while we waited. No
water pump, no overheating. Good radiator. When
the time came I drove the car right into the
rotunda for Sister Aimee's grand entrance. I
would give her credit by name, but I didn't ask.
She stayed in character the whole time.
Monday, May 30, 2022 The other day I noticed a serious infestation of western salsify, an exotic invader from Eurasia and Africa, in the east lawn by the road. Today I spent a couple of hours pulling all I could find, and filled two 44-pound cat food bags. The pulled weeds will spend the summer drying out, and next fall and winter they will go into the fireplace to provide a little heat. After pulling weeds I spent about a half hour trimming inconvenient branches, then went to the barn to disentangle the mowing tractor. The last time I mowed with it I accidentally ran over a hundred-foot extension cord that ended up wrapped around one of the blades. It took me well over an hour to unwind that cord. Once I got it out I found that only about six feet of it is so damaged I'll have to cut it out. Next was supposed to be a drive to town for groceries, but an unexpected adventure intervened. I forgot to chock the wheels, and apparently the parking brake is out of adjustment, so when I pulled the crank and started the car it started rolling forward. I ended up on the ground outside the shop with the left front wheel between my legs. I was totally unhurt, and in no danger, but my overalls were pinched under the wheel and the running car was pushing against me so I couldn't pull loose. I phoned 911 and asked the dispatcher to send a deputy to shut off the car so I could get up. I was very clear about being unhurt and in no danger, and that one person to shut off the car was all I needed. In a few minutes a sheriff's car, an ambulance, and a fire truck arrived. I told the deputy how to release the parking brake, but he let the lever go all the way forward and that killed the engine. I told the deputy how to put the car in neutral, and he and one of the fire guys rolled the car back and I was free. From now on I will definitely remember the chocks, and I will definitely tighten that parking brake. |