Snowblower, Facebook & Heat

 

What's on my mind, Mr. Zuckerberg, is that Facebook Marketplace and the 102 degree heat messed up my day.

 

The ad looked interesting. The lightly used 8 HP snowblower was $100 and only a couple miles from home. My thirty year old Simplicity is tired and the eighteen year old Yard King could use a backup. As listed, the owner was moving to a climate that did not have snow. June seems like a good time to buy used snowblowers.

As I emptied out the pickup to make room for this 'maybe' but 'good deal' purchase I thought it was a bit warm but it was only ninety-six. Throwing the metal ramps into the box was a commitment that it would be coming home with me.

 

Trading texts with the seller I arrived cautious but enthused. It was an electric start so I brought a thirty foot extension cord, not willing to take 'It ran the last time I used it' answer to "How does it run?" As it turns out it was more or lest identical to our existing Yard King. The seller knew nothing about the machine and said it was her father's and that he was old (older than me?) and then added that he'd not used it in five years.

 

After finding an outlet in the garage and verifying gas in the tank...or it used to be gas, the starting process failed to get it running. There was compression and a cough or two but no opportunity to test all six gears, etc. My guess was that a new $25 carb would get it running. OK, $125 is still a pretty good deal. The plan was to get it running and drive it up the ramp into the pickup. Plan B was incomplete: how would I get a 300 pound non-running snowblower up six feet of ramp at forty-five degrees. Perhaps the seller could help push. Given her 4' 8' height and seventy pounds this did not seem likely.

 

So, I said "No thanks" and drove away. As I drove home I thought "Renting a trailer would be $40 and would take 2-3 hours of messing around. The carb would be $25 and at least an hour of time. If my time is worth McDonald's wages of about $20 an hour, I'm at $100 for the blower, $25 for the carb, $40 for the trailer and four hours at $25....that's $245 and no guarantee that it will run."

 

At home the names of two other people were added to the conversation. One had a trailer and the other might want to put the new carb in. That would the cost up at least another $100; each of those people like to chew the fat. By that time it was one hundred and two degrees. 

 

It it had not been for Facebook Marketplace and the hundred plus degree day, better decisions would have been made and something, actually anything, might have been accomplished.

 

But the weather will be cooler TUE and WED and I really don't need a third snowblower; I'm already thinking more clearly. That, Mr. Zuckerberg, is what's on my mind.

Air. Fuel. Water.

 

Air. Fuel. Spark.

 

This past summer my 1951 Ford 8N tractor would not start. Unencumbered by modern electronics which control air, fuel and spark in the internal combustion process, starting has not been an issue for seventy years. The conclusion was a failure of 'spark' in the right place at the right time. The diagnostic process involves tracing the path of current, much simpler with a few pieces of wire with alligator clips, commonly called 'leads.' At some point a handful were purchased and put in a logical location where I could find them.

 

The tractor issue has not been addressed, yet. This week the furnace failure can be attributed to gap in the triad of air, fuel and spark. OK. With the tractor you climb up, open the tank and look inside. The propane tank for the furnace has a gauge. At -13F you tap it a few times to ensure its' mobility. The high-efficiency furnace is really sensitive in the balance of fuel intake, exhaust and air pressures likewise. 'Efficiency' can only be achieve by complex electronics beyond my 'lack of skills' level. Believing the problem to be a failed thermostat I knew I could jumper the 'power' and 'heat' wires at the thermostat location (or on the furnace). That would send the message 'send heat' to the furnace and my <55F existence would end. 

 

Where was the 'logical location' that I had put the new leads? Perhaps logically out in the tractor shed, well-blocked with snowdrifts, perhaps in the the every growing box of 'electrical misc' not to be confused with the box of 'plumbing misc' or 'hardware misc' or the uncategorized box of 'misc misc.'

After looking I gave up. Owning a tractor allows one to proceed with 'farmer fixes,' rarely of good style or permanence but which allow you to proceed. At the simplest level that meant finding some wire and to avoid excessively long expediency, something to cut the wire and maybe strip the insulation. Of course I could not find my designated wire cutter & stripper but found a cutter that 'would do.' The first wire found lacked insulation but I'm only dealing with 24 volts and 'caution' would do. After further analysis which translated to "it's too thick" I decided to sacrifice the wire from a temporary light fixture. I've had temporary light fixtures in place for fifteen years...another story.

 

As I headed to 'the shop' to retrieve a temporary light fixture I glanced at a box at the top of the stairs. The package of leads was sitting in the box known as the 'misc to be put in the correct misc box' box.

It didn't matter. The furnace is shot.

 

 I'm looking forward to getting the tractor started in the spring.

Today Blows (Oil)

 

Oil changes are pretty straightforward. Drain the oil. Remove and replace the oil filter. Put the drain plug back in. Remove the oil fill cap and add the appropriate five quarts of oil. If you are having your neighborhood service guy doing the oil change this is the point where he backs the truck out of the garage.

Then you see the service guy put the truck back in the garage and get the assistant manager out in the shop. They open the hood and walk around the shop looking for something while you peer through the window of the "No Customers Beyond This Point" door.

The service guy disappears and the assistant manager asks you to come look at the engine which is now covered with oil. His explanation is that the seal on the filler cap blew and he's never seen anything like that before.

It's clear that when the service guy started to back the truck out the engine attempted pressurize and the oil light came on after blowing oil all over the engine. The important last step of the oil change is to replace the filler cap.

So I drove home in a 'loner car.' Tomorrow they will clean up the engine. I'm placing a bets between "Sorry, the mechanic left the oil cap off" or "The seal on the filler cap blew and we had to replace it at $nn.nn." My guess is that the manager will force the assistant manager to speak very creatively with much emphasis on "We've never seen this before." Perhaps the oil filler cap should be tethered to the appropriate location, like the gas tank cap.

Of course I dropped the truck off at 8:15 AM for a 10:00 AM appointment. The "I've never seen this before" explanation was at 6 PM....and now we move into Day #2. Good grief.

Woodlot Management & Pearl Harbor

 

Woodlot Management & Pearl Harbor

 

Along with planting trees, proper woodlot management includes selective cutting

and pruning. My neighbor, Dave, knows that I'm adverse to cutting live trees, hence the canopy that blocks sunlight and keeps our driveway wet. This past summer the cabin had a lot of use. Each time I'd walk the driveway my concern increased. There's a small stand of giant poplar on the west side of the driveway; the tend to snap off about 25-30' in the air. Two large dead oaks were dropping limbs all summer. Most of our large white birch fell to the birch borer infestation in the early 1990s; the survivors are near there life maximum and likewise are dropping limbs. It's just time to do some work.

 

We do burn firewood and joke when we see the bundles of six or seven pieces at the convenience stores for $7.95. A quick check of

WalMart indicates that you can buy a 12"x12"x18" box of oak for $49.95 plus shipping; a cord of wood is 148 cubic feet. Typically we go through two or three cords. At Walmart prices that would be approximately $15,000. You want the moisture low so we split, stack and cover and let the firewood dry for two years. You do wear out your chainsaws and your vehicles and your clothes but it is time in the woods. It's an opportunity, a gift, to hear the flock of late migrating swans and the lone bald eagle.

 

A split trunk oak along the driveway was on the 'cut' list. Good woodlot managers would have culled this years ago but I like the way it looked. Like many trees, they die from the top down and the western trunk was ready to take. 

 

Along with the standard thoughts of safety, where is this going to fall, where should I stack it and how small should I cut and split, taking time to look at the growth rings is part of the process. Eighty years ago this oak emerged from an acorn. This area was part of the Great Hinckley Fire where all the trees were white pine. A few generations of squirrels contributed to this oak in this place.

 

Eighty years ago today Japan attacked Pearl Harbor with the loss of several

thousand lives. It was a failure of international diplomacy. America, fatigued from WWI, was reluctant to enter the war against Germany in Europe. FDR committed us to war with Japan and Germany shortly declared war on the U.S. The politics of the Allies took us first to Europe and more slowly to the Pacific. The industrial might of the the nation, unimaginable in depth, produced the goods for most nations fighting Germany and Japan. 

 

The five years of America's involvement in WWII is a moment in the life of an oak tree. As I counted rings the other benchmarks stood out...Viet Nam, Presidents strong and weak, our children being born, our purchase of the land shared with this oak. That might have been about the time the swans flew overhead which gave another pause to a pause. So many did not survive. Between the two wars Europe and the U.S. languished with their populations focused on their own indulgences; it was a weakness of character and democracy. We are there again.

Tire & Tired

If this was an ad for a political candidate (oddly a tire) stating "Candidate Tire Has Never Been Flat And Never Will Be Flat And When I Am President No American Will Ever Have A Flat" we would have a controversy.

Twitter would not run the ad because they have decided to not run political ads, and that may extend to political commentary.

Facebook would run the ad because they believe viewers need to discern the accuracy of ads...even though the tire is obviously flat. 

• Some people would see the tire as flat and go 'ah.' 
• Others would say the tire is not flat, no one ever has a flat and government should never be responsible for flats (it's not in the constitution). 
• Some would not know a flat tire even if it was going 'whop whop whop' down the road and they would vote based on some other groundless opinion.

The real story...

There was a time when changing a tire was a simple deal. Take the jack and spare out of the trunk, lift the car, take off the lug nuts and swap tires. You could do it standing up and did not even get dirty.

With today's cars there are a lot of issues; try to find the jack, the spare is like a kids toy, the spare is hidden under the car which requires you to lay on the ground, there is at least one lug nut that is 'secure' and requires another gizmo, the 'jack points' are unclear and you have to lay on the ground to find them, the lug wrench is about 10" long which is a challenge for loosening the lug nuts...honestly I think the emergency vehicle services companies pay the manufacturers to make this difficult. I can seen a business meeting where the execs say "Some people can actually change a tire with this cocked up system. We need to make it more cocked up."

It's unlikely that anyone has read this far so lets talk about candidates changing tires...

Trump: Always changes his own tires.
 
Warren: If there is a flat the billionaires will pay for it.
 
Klobucher: I'm a midwestern woman. I've changed my tires and the flat tires of some wimpy men.
 
Sanders: We need mass transit. I'd recycle any car with a flat tire.
 
Buttigieg: You think I can't change a tire?
 
Biden: This is America. Your neighbor will change it.
 
Booker: In my neighborhood someone will just steal a tire that is not flat.
 
Beto: I don't know...have a roadie do it.
 
Yang: With my gift everyone can hire someone to change it.
 
Harris: Government should take care of it and my campaign would do it up until last week in New Hampshire.

OK...enough about tires. I'm going to warm up in anticipation of laying on the ground again later today when replacing the tire when repaired. At least it's not January.

Giving bad advice...

Earlier this year my son called and asked for 'parental advice.'  That was concerning.  He's a bright talented man in his early 30s.  The opportunity presented was for a career shift at a very large software company.  His current position was at a pretigious organization.  My first comments were lukewarm on taking the new gig.  I was wrong.

A review of my long history of Facebook posts gave the advice I should have given.

"It's rare that I re-post other people's contributions. Honestly, every 'healthy living' guideline has been totally ignored. Of course he says he's only had one job and it's been the best job in the world. How cool would that be if we could look back on our own working career like that. So the advice for our children should be "1. Don't do anything Keith Richards did. 2. Do everything Keith Richards did. 3. Create some music and joy that will last forever.""

Uphill might be the better view

We did farmer's markets for twenty years. It all started with a bumper crop of local honey (50+ year beekeeper here). Adding a focus on heirloom vegetables we learned that you need 8' fences to keep the deer out and three feet of wire mesh at the bottom of the fence to keep small animals out.

You collect a lot of stuff...more fencing, weed mat, containers, tools, hoses, all sorts of watering contraptions and a lot of things you might need. We kept all of that in half of a garage and the first floor of a barn (the cows left 30 years ago but there are still remnants of that effort). Never in the last ten years had we locked either of those storage spaces. It was primarily due to convenience, just like leaving the key in the tractor.

Earlier this summer I noticed something. Items sitting in the same place for a decade seem to have moved. Once in a while a light was left on. After I found evidence of smoking in the barn I installed locks on all the doors. There are two rules in rural when it comes to locks. The rules are extremes. Make it like Fort Knox or make the locks a nominal inconvenience. The good rural thieves have bolt cutters. The meth heads have a screwdriver, maybe.

A week ago someone had taken a lock bracket off.

These are things I eyeball daily. It was reinstalled and a game camera was hidden inside the buiding. Two days later there was a call from the sheriff in

response to a burglary. If you don't have a bolt cutter or a screwdriver you just kick the door in.

To make a long story short the perp stole a pressure washer and the game camera. The next day the perp's friend turned him in and now the guy is in jail.

So one day you shake hands with the youth of America and a few months later they steal from you. You get your stuff back but you drive all over the planet, repair a door that was previously undamaged since 1946 and lose a couple of days of billable time. Law enforcement and neighbors wonder along with you what will come of the youth of America and especially the youth of rural America.

Growing up on the southern MN prairie I am comfortable with more or less flat vistas and the distant horizon. It's getting to the point where I want to move to a place where everyone else is downhill.