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New stove is in!

/ Re-Farmer / 8 Comments

Okay, I am beyond excited right now!

The new stove is in, and it’s absolutely fabulous!!

Yes, it did also take a couple of hours to get it done, but not for why you might think.

First off, moving the counter turned out to be a lot easier than I feared. Once I moved the dining table as far into the corner as I could, I had enough space that I would not have to move any other shelves.

Once the drawers, which held most of the weight (especially the cutlery drawer!) were removed, I also found I didn’t need to empty the cupboards, either. Once I got the counter unstuck from where it has been sitting for so many years, there were no issues.

I admit, it was a lot less disgusting back there than I feared.

Also, yes. That’s a piece of toast on the floor.

Oh, dear God. I just realized.

There’s another piece of toast stuck to the back of the counter.

I have just returned from pulling the counter away from the wall and cleaning it out.

Those would predate our moving here. In fact, they probably go back to before my dad had to move to the nursing home. Which means they’ve been there for probably more than 5 years.

And yeah… it’s still actually less disgusting than I feared.

There were a couple of things I expected to find, since I was there when they fell behind the counter. I did not expect to find a new jelly bag.

I was wondering what happened to the second one from the package…

Then there was this.

This would go back to before my mom moved to the senior’s apartment she lives in now, so it’s probably been there for more than 6 years.

The counter itself turned out to be remarkably easy to move. It didn’t even catch on anything in the process.

Then it was time to shut off the breaker and move the old stove.

What the flash in the photo picks up, that I couldn’t see when I went to move the power cord, is that grease had dripped behind the stove, onto the cord.

That was really gross to handle. I couldn’t even put on the disposable gloves we would normally use. It’s so hot and sticky, I wouldn’t be able to pull them on. So I used paper towel to handle things.

Things were so sticky back there, it took more effort than it should have, to unplug the old stove.

*shudder*

Once the stove was clear, I peeled off the self-adhesive shelf liner that was used as a backsplash.

Then I was done. It may not have been a lot of actual physical labor to most things around – I easily did it by myself – but by this point, I was absolutely dripping with sweat.

The girls then took over and did the hard part.

Cleaning.

Those two are absolute saints.

That floor is just … wow. The difference between the part worn out from decades of feet, and the part under the counter, could not be more dramatic!

Clean up done, the girls got to use the time needed for everything to dry, to cool down and stop sweating. Then they put up the self-adhesive backsplash.

Then we finally unpacked the new stove from it’s box. After measuring the other counter, we found we did not need to adjust the legs – at least not before we put it in place. The daughter that was trapped in the kitchen used a level on the floor, and it definitely sloped downwards, away from the wall.

The height of the stove, without adjusting the legs, was exactly the same as the height of the counter, but a sloping floor would have to be accounted for. First, we had to plug it in and get it in place.

Here, you can see how the 4 pieces of self-adhesive tiles were placed for the backsplash. We will get a couple more and fill in the gaps, later.

Then one of my daughters was an angel and sprawled on the floor while her sister and I tipped the stove flat against the wall.

Which made it perfectly level!

I guess it’s good to know our walls are straight, if not our floors… :-D

That made it a lot easier for my daughter to adjust the leveling legs.

No more food sloshing to one side of the pot or pan when we cook, now!

Once everything was in place, back went the counter.

The new stove is the same width as the old one, but deeper, so it sticks out further than the other one did.

It also has a much larger oven, so we’re very good with this!

It’s going to take some getting used to having the controls in front.

Once the breaker was turned back on, the girls figured out how to set the time, using the 24 hour clock setting. Then they tested out the cooktop.

We are just entranced. I don’t think we’ve ever had anything so nice and new before. It heats up so quickly, it’s mind blowing! The larger front cook surfaces have two sides to their controllers. Use one side, it heats the full circle. Us the other, and it heats a smaller circle.

It also has no element in the oven, and the self-cleaning function is a safer, less power consuming, technological upgrade. We’ve had self cleaning ovens before, and never used them. This one, I actually will!

Best of all – no more sparks!

I am so glad this is finally done, and so thrilled with the stove itself.

Next thing on the list: replacing the taps and faucet in the kitchen sink. :-)

I’m really, really hoping someone installed shut off valves under the sink at some point. I’d really prefer not to have to shut off water to the entire house, just to work on the kitchen sink! :-D Not that I’ll have anything to do with replacing that. A much more able-bodied daughter is going to have to crawl under the sink. :-D I actually went back to pictures I took from the last time we had to go under there, when the drain on one of the sinks broke apart. None of them show enough that I can actually say for sure, and we can’t remember. We don’t really use the cupboards under the counter the sink is in. Only one drawer and one cupboard at the end is actually positioned in a usable space.

Well, we’ll find out soon enough.

Until then, we’re just going to try not to melt away.

The Re-Farmer

Coping with the heat: building a screen “door”

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Our current heat wave continues.

At 5pm, we reached 28C/82F with a humidex of 34C/93F, and we continue to get warnings for heat, flash floods and high water. Looking at the weather radar, however, it doesn’t look like the storms will hit us. We’ll be lucky to get rain. Usually, these systems come in from the North West, dip to the South of us, then get pushed back north to the East of us. Sometimes, they pass to the West of us. This time, there seems to be strong enough winds coming from the Southeast to actually push the system back to the Northwest of us!

The long range forecasts are not showing much relief, either. We’re looking to stay in the mid to high 20’s for the next two weeks. The only relief is that the lows are finally dropping to the mid to high teens, instead of staying in the 20’s, as they have been lately.

With this house, typically the basements stay cool, the main floor gets warm, while the second floor gets insanely hot. With the temperatures being so consistently hot, even the basements are starting to get warmer, though they are still significantly better than the rest of the house. The upstairs is getting unbearable. My daughter just had to stop working and shut down her computer, because it was over heating.

Normally, to help keep the house cool, the basement doors would be left open. With needing to keep the cats out of the old part basement completely, and keep the kittens in the new part basement, we have not been able to do this.

Last year, we used my daughter’s grid wall to act as a barrier in front of the old part basement door. The doorway is wider than a panel of grid wall, so we had two of them hooked together, at an angle. It did the job, but was very much in the way.

Today, I decided to do something about that.

After finishing my rounds this morning, I went into a shed not far from the barn, where I’d found some wood that was still in good shape. Some of them had 3″ deck screws in them, so I left those behind (though I did end up with a couple that had a screw at one end that I’d missed). The little wagon was great for bringing the pile over. :-)

Earlier, I’d also cleared away and hosed down the patio blocks in front of our kitchen window.

One of the things we need to do is build some sort of bin for our garbage bags, because the skunks are tearing them apart when we put them outside. Normally, there is a bench against the wall, and some other stuff, but when I cleaned up the mess and saw the gunk from however many times this has happened, left behind, I just had to hose it all down.

This meant we had access to the basement window.

It was much easier to pass the wood through the window, rather than trying to get it in through the main doors, then the basement door, then down the stairs.

All while dodging cats and kittens.

So this worked out very well.

I had enough of the wire mesh we’d used to make a divider between the basements, to make wire mesh door.

The kittens were very … helpful. Yeah. That’s it. :-D

I measured the basement door and sized it to match that. We were considering taking the door off its hinges and putting in the screen instead.

Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way.

I had also considered putting it on hinges on the inside of the door frame, but it turns out the frame is narrower on the basement side of the door jam than on the door side.

Which makes no sense, but at this point, we’re pretty used to things not making sense in this house! :-D

For now, we’ve got it rigged up with hooks and Bungee cords. I will be going into town tomorrow, and am thinking of stopping at a hardware store and seeing what they’ve got that would work.

Personally, standing in front of it, I felt nothing. We have the big blower fan going constantly in this basement, trying to keep the floor relatively dry, but I felt no air movement at all. Later, my husband went by and said he could feel a cool breeze, so I’m hoping it was just me.

If we can work out how to secure this, so that cats can’t push their way through, I have enough of the wire mesh left to make another one for the other basement door. We could even hinge it to open into the entryway, instead of over the basement stairs. Which would be so much better!

It isn’t much, but every little bit helps to cope with this heat!

One of these years, I hope to get an actual air conditioner installed.

The Re-Farmer

Wood carving: lilac wood hair pin

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I am actually not sure I would even call making this hair pin “carving”! I used the natural shape of the piece of wood, and just sort of whittled away a bit. The wood was already very close to the size needed.

I didn’t take a “before” picture, but you can see what the branch I’d cut the piece from in this photo.

It’s being grasped by Nicco. :-)

Though the wood is from a branch that broke off in a storm more than 6 months ago, the bark was surprisingly green as I whittled it off. I think the humidity in the basement might actually have something to do with that.

Here is the finished hair pin, before oiling.

I cut the piece above where it branched off, to take advantage of the angled shape. You can see near the point, where there had been another bit of twig growing out.

I used the Dremel and the engraving tip to create the holes, so my daughter can use them to hang dangle-y bits. The natural hole at the end was where another twig had been growing out, and I included it, without trying to sand out the roughness, just for interest.

The tiny knots from the twigs where the only thing that made it more difficult to work on.

After general shaping with a carving knife, I used the tiny engraving tip on the Dremel to make the holes, and a small drum sander tip to get into the bends, where it was more difficult to safely get into with a knife. After that, it was must a matter of sanding it smooth.

Here is how it looked after oiling.

I love how the oil brings out the details in the rings.

The whole thing, including time spent playing with kittens instead, took about 2 hours.

My daughter loves it!

I’m really happy with how this turned out, and how quick it was to make! I hadn’t thought of making hair pins (which can also be used as shawl pins), but they are prefect for some of the smaller pieces of branches. I think I’ll be making more of these!

The Re-Farmer

Almost there!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

I am happy to say that, thanks to my awesome, awesome daughter (and an amazing sale at Ikea), we have a new stove!

Still in it’s box, but we’ve got it! :-D

Before heading out this morning, I measured the old stove. We’re not too concerned about the dimensions, as the counters along that wall can be moved, if necessary. The main issue is actually the space between one counter along the wall, and the island counter the sink is part of.

I also emptied the drawer under the oven – something I have been avoiding since we moved here – and took it out to see what was there.

Besides a couple of toy mice, and the missing tube of After Bite.

And Cheddar. I had to sweep Cheddar out of the space! LOL

I missed a couple of things.

Also, that’s a tiny walrus that used to be among the many critters I had decorating the dash of our previous van. I don’t know how the cats got it under there!

Once we got the measurements, my younger daughter and I headed into the city, with Ikea being our first stop. We’d checked online the night before, and according to their listed inventory, we had two options, and the one we preferred had only 2 left in stock.

By the time we got there, found the displays and talked to a salesperson to check, there was only one left!

My daughter snagged it.

Now, on its own, the stove would have fit in our van, no problem. In its box, however, it was too tall, so it had to be loaded in on a side. Which is fine. The installation instructions that were available online included doing things like laying it down to remove the packaging on the bottom, and to adjust the leveling legs, so we knew that would be okay.

After that was loaded up and we went for breakfast… er… lunch… we headed to a hardware store. The new stove has the controls in the front, not the back, so my daughter wanted to pick up a self-adhesive backsplash. While we were there, I also found a new taps and faucet set for our kitchen sink. What was merely a drip when we first moved here is almost a constant stream. My daughters had opened it up, but could not see why it was dripping. The faucet is one that tends to get in the way when we want to wash our bigger pots, so I made sure to get one with a faucet of a different design.

That done, we made a quick stop at the pet store so I could get some more plants for our fish tank, then hit the grocery store, to get the last items we didn’t get after our big Costco trip, yesterday.

After several hours of running around the city, we could finally start home, with only a stop at the gas station, so I could fill a jerry can for our lawn mowers.

Once at home and all the groceries were in, we had to get that stove inside. My daughter and I managed to wrestle it out of the van and up the 2 steps in front of the main door, but then we had a problem.

The box was just narrow enough to fit through the doorway. Perfect, right?

Well. Except for the arm bar.

My other daughter put me on cat duty with the spray bottle, then the two of them tipped it on its side again, the wrestled it through. It was a really tight fit, but the hardest part was squeezing it through the door, while also lifting it over the bottom of the door frame, at the same time.

So here it is!

So excited!

We are not, however, installing it today.

It is about 3 inches too wide to fit into the kitchen. We are going to have to move the counter out and into the dining room.

Which will require moving the dining table into a corner, move shelves we have under the dining room window, pull the counter out (which will give me a chance to finally clean back there, and reclaim some stuff that has fallen behind it), take out the old stove, clean under that, put in the new stove, put the counter back again, then haul the old stove to the pile of stuff that we’ll most likely have to hire someone to haul to the dump for us.

This is going to be a huge job.

Until then, we can use the old stove to make supper! :-)

Oh, and the new faucet and taps will be installed tomorrow, too!

It’s going to be a huge job, but I am so looking forward to not having to use the old busted up stuff anymore!!!

My daughters are awesome.

The Re-Farmer

Carving progress: it’s finished!

/ Re-Farmer / 12 Comments

I am happy to say that I have finally finished my first attempt at carving!

Yay!

My trip into town was successful, in that I found a teeny tiny tip for my Dremel.

Saffron made sure to check it out, too!

I discovered something when I went to put it on my Dremel, though.

It didn’t fit.

The shaft is too small. By maybe a millimeter!

Well, it’s an engraving tip, and I have an engraving tool, so I got that out.

That one was even worse!

What to do? I wasn’t going to take it back. Not only did I have to destroy the packaging just to open it, it was the ONLY tip they had that was small enough for what I needed.

Painters tape to the rescue!

I got it on, and it was secure. Perfect!

After making a few practice passes on the piece of lilac I’d practiced the carving knives on, I started using it on the morel.

This is how it looked, immediately after I finished (and you can see the tape that allowed the tip to fit). I was really happy with this tip. It was exactly what I needed for the job. If anything, I would have gone even smaller, if I could!

While certainly better than the carving knives, it was still rather messy. Sanding it did take care of some of that.

I have sandpaper only up to 220 grit, which is adequate for the job. No way to get into the holes, though, which is okay. I wasn’t done with it.

The next step was to break out the wood burning kit. The kit has a very fine pointed tip that I used to burn inside each hole in the morel. This allowed me to also burn away any ragged bits.

Once the insides of the holes were done, I could use the side of the tool to burn the flat surfaces.

Here is how it looked, once done.

The only thing to do after this is to oil it!

Two Face decided to “help”. :-D

Here is the completed spoon.

For the mushroom, I basically poured the mineral oil over it, to get into all the crevices, then used a paper towel to apply oil to the rest. At this point, I will let it sit for a day or two, then see if it needs more oil. I’ve seen sites that recommend putting small things like spoons into a slide-lock bag with oil, making sure the air is all squeezed out, and the item is in contact with oil all over, then leaving it for several days. I might try that with future projects, but I think just a light coating of oil is adequate for this one.

I am really happy with how this turned out!

I feel much more encouraged about tackling some of the wood I’ve salvaged lately. :-) I think my next projects, though, will be spreaders.

No bowls to hollow out! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Spoon carving progress

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Today, I got some really good progress on my practice carving, using the spoon blank that came with my carving kit.

Also, the basement is nice and cool. :-)

I was down to cutting the last few divots out of the morel mushroom on the end of the spoon, so that didn’t take long. I also tried to deepen the bowl of the spoon itself.

Working on the inside of the spoon is a challenge. The tip of the sloyd knife kept gouging areas I wasn’t working on. The direction the wood grain is also means that, in two spots opposite each other, the wood did not cut as well or as smoothly, leaving more gouges, no matter how carefully I tried to follow the instructions from the various videos I’d looked up for beginner carvers.

The rough shaping of the outside of the bowl and handle are… well… rough. LOL

Here is how it looked, after I finished with the carving tools. The next step, was to “cheat” and use my Dremel.

I have a Dremel engraver, which I tested out on the divots of the morel. That did not work at all, which is really what I expected. I figured it was worth a try, though.

Also, that thing is incredibly loud, and scare the crap out of the kittens and Beep Beep!!

The other Dremel I have is a basic low end rotating tool. (The engraver doesn’t rotate, so there is nothing interchangeable about them.) I used a drum sander to smooth out and shape the bowl and handle.

This also took off more of the excess wood to add more shaping.

For the details in the morel, I’m going to have to pick up a fine, abrasive tip. None of the tips that came with my kit are remotely close to being usable for this.

I decided on a swoopy handle, just for effect, but it has turned out to be a great thumb rest. It fits remarkably comfortably in the hand.

This is after sanding the spoon with three grades of sandpaper. Unfortunately, even the edges of the sandpaper tends to leave little gouges inside the spoon’s bowl.

I also had an unexpected issue to deal with, though not a surprising one. The humidity is so high in the basement, both the sandpaper and the wood itself was affected. The wood dust had a tendency to clump up. It wasn’t too much of a problem, but I think it affected how well the sandpaper was able to do the job. Some things actually work better with wet sandpaper. This is not one of them! :-D

This is now it looks after I stopped for the day. After I get a new Dremel tip to finish detailing the morel, I’ll continue to sand with finer grades of sandpaper, singe the morel to add colour, then finish with mineral oil. I did some searches on food grade oils for wood, and it basically came down to mineral oil. Other oils recommended are derived from nuts or seeds, and they go rancid over time. Beeswax is something else that can be used, but it can start cracking and flaking and, of course, you couldn’t use it with anything hot (among the things I hope to carve are cups and small bowls).

Once finished, I plan to offer it to my mother, since she requested I carve her a mushroom. Talking to her since then, it turns out she wants a Portebello (she didn’t know the English name for it), but I hope she’ll be happy with a morel for now. I know she likes morels, too. Most likely, she’ll reject it, but you never know. I might get her on one of her good days.

The Re-Farmer

ps: after finishing this, I checked the weather before heading outside. Turns out the temperatures are still going up, and we’re even hotter now, in the early evening, than before!

Clean up progress

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I had originally been thinking of working in a different area today, to remove more dead and damaged trees in the West yard. That pile of apple branches, however, was bothering me.

So I started breaking that down, instead. Here are the before and after pictures.

This is as far as I got, before it started to rain.

I’ve been breaking it down to firepit sized pieces, to make it easier later on. I have to admit, as I cut some of the larger pieces, I find myself thinking that … some of them look pretty good … maybe I could salvage some of them… It seems like such a waste to burn this beautiful apple wood! I wouldn’t even want to use it for a cookout, since I don’t know how the fungal disease would affect the smoke. But gosh, apple is a beautiful wood!

I made very good use of the new long handled pruners I got not long ago. It was going through nice thick branches like nothing! I used to have to use a saw for a lot of these. I noticed, however, there was a rattling noise that seemed to increase. And was that anvil supposed to rotate with the cutting blade like that?

Nope.

At some point, we lost a bolt. There is no nut at the other side. It looks like a proprietary shape, too. Or at least not something I have seen when perusing the section at the hardware store.

It has a lifetime warranty, though, so I looked up the website and sent an email with the above photo and another of the bar code (because, of course I don’t have the receipt anymore… LOL) as proof of purchase. We’ll see how that goes. I might just zip tie it in place for now.

Hmmm… It looks like the rain has already passed. I might be able to finish breaking down the pile today, after all. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Found the problem!

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While putting away the push mower yesterday, I was going to take the time to start up the riding mower and see what I could see. I always push the mower out of the garage before starting it, but I never got it all the way out. I could hear a different sound, like something was dragging underneath. I pushed it forward again, and it was still there.

I did not notice the sound when I pushed the mower to the garage, but there were plenty of other noises that would have drowned it out.

So I let it be for now.

This morning, I found an email from my brother. He had emailed me an electronic copy of the user’s manual. Having looked over it first, he wrote that – based on my description of what happened – he figured the drive chain either broke or fell off, then asked if I could get photos from above and below.

As soon as I read “drive chain”, I knew that was what I was hearing.

When I finished my rounds, I went in to try and get some photos. There’s nothing to see from above, and from below, it was a matter of sticking my phone under, and various angles, and using voice commands to take pictures. I’m not able bodied enough to get onto the ground to see. After the first few pictures, though, I could figure out where I needed to concentrate on.

Yup. There it was.

The manual had information about how the chain can become loose over time, and how to tighten it.

Which we have no way of doing.

I mean, theoretically, someone could get down on the ground and do it by feel, but if I’m going to do something like that, I want to be able to see. Not just the chain, but to know if there are other potential problems under there.

One of the things we’re going to need to build is a platform we can roll the mower up onto, so we can get under to work on it. We could certainly use various things we have to lift it, but there’s safety to take into account, too. Whatever we use has to be able to hold the weight and keep things from rolling around. We do have jack stands that could be used, but… well, my late brother was killed when the car he was working under, fell on him after a jack stand failed. So, I’m a little more paranoid about such things these days. :-/

I’ve already told my brother he’s not allowed to come fix it. LOL He’s got so much going on, I don’t want to be another burden for him.

So it will wait until we can take it in to the shop as I was already planning to do, later in the month.

At least the chain does not look broken, and it seems like it will be a relatively easy fix.

The Re-Farmer

A wild morning – but I have my new “toy”!

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Wouldn’t you know it, since I was planning on heading out early, I ended up not being able to sleep at all last night.

Which is why I was awake when the edges of the predicted storms passed us by. At about 5am, the winds picked up like crazy, there was some rain and quite a light show, but that was it. We did lose internet a few times, too.

In the end, I managed about an hour of sleep before I quickly did my morning rounds. No time for kitty pictures. Sorry!

The first thing I saw when I stepped outside was this…

One of the dead branches from an elm finally came down.

Aside from the usual small, mostly willow, branches scattered about the yard, there was only one other larger branch that came down.

This is such a huge improvement from our first summer out here!

My mothers flowers seemed to really like the rain. The patch of lilies is starting to open up now. :-)

Such a cheerful colour!

After I rushed through the morning routine, I headed out to a small city, somewhat closer than the city we usually go to, for our monthly shopping. After doing some searching online of the several hardware stores we could go to, including the local ones, I ended up settling on Canadian Tire. Thanks to Father’s Day sales and the incredible generosity of a friend (you know who you are! You’re the best!!), I was able to afford a higher end machine that we otherwise would have.

I made a point of getting a photo of my screen, so I could show an employee exactly what I was after, if needed. It was needed! There was no display model I was after, so the employee went to their storage area to bring it out for me on a flat cart.

When I bought our electric snow blower, I got their last one in stock, and just wheeled it out of the store. Somehow, I expected to do that same today, but nope! It was in a rather large box. :-D

While checking out, the cashier said she would call someone to help me load it into the van. She ended up paging someone several times. The box wasn’t really that heavy, so I was considering just letting her know I’d do it myself, when a guy showed up. As he was loading it into the van, he asked if I had oil.

I did, but I asked if there was a specific kind of oil I should have.

It turns out, I don’t have it. So I was really glad I ended up with this guy helping out. He also just happened to be a mechanic, and was soon telling me about which oils I could use, and which was the one he used and recommended himself. All my other machines, including the van, use 5W30, which he said would be a bit thin. For this machine, he recommended 30. Which I didn’t even realize was a thing. I ended up going back into the store after him and he found some for me. Once again, I was glad, because 1) it was at the opposite end of the store from the lawnmower sections and 2) I’m short. He was able to reach it more me. :-D

Once at home, it was assembly time!

Here are all the parts and pieces. :-D

All done, and filled with oil and fuel!

Among the things I discovered as I went through the owners manual before starting it, was that it has no prime pump, which is awesome. When I was ready to test it out, I discovered it is also raised and lowered by a lever at one wheel, instead of a lever at each wheel. So much easier!

The mower started with the first pull, and I barely even had to strain! With the heat (it’s currently 30C/89F, feeling like 36C/96F) right now, I did just a quick couple of passes.

It runs like a dream!!! I am so happy!

Then I put it away, because while it’s already 30C right now, we haven’t reached the high of the day, yet!

We have more thunderstorms predicted tonight, but I’m hoping to have a cooler break this evening, where I can put the new mower through it’s paces.

I am so looking forward to using this thing!!!

The Re-Farmer

That’s it. I’m done.

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Well, for tonight, at least.

Tired Clip Art - Cliparts.co

It happened again.

When things cooled down enough, I took advantage of the temperatures to break out the riding mower and try and get at least the lawn around the house done, before the predicted rains. Thanks to my brother, it was running fine.

And then it wasn’t.

This time, it happened while I was in the middle of mowing. I’d gotten the South yards done, and was working on the West yard, when it simply coasted to a stop. The engine was running fine, like before. I checked, and the tire pins were fine. I could see nothing to cause this to happen again.

It had already started to rain a bit while I was out there, so I quickly pushed it into the garage and brought out the push mower.

Now, the push mower has issues, too. The control for the governor seized up, so my brother rigged up a manual control directly to the governor. It has one speed only. The prime pump doesn’t work, so in order to start it, I have to open the filter cover on the side and splash a bit of fuel directly into the opening under the filter. Once it has been started, as long as I refill the gas tank before actually running out of fuel, I don’t have to do this again. It’s also difficult to start in general. If it’s been used for a long time, it eventually just won’t restart at all for several minutes. But it does the job.

Until now.

Yeah. The push mower, too.

Did I mentioned there’s only one speed? That is supposed to be “high”. Today, it seemed rather sluggish, though.

Then it stalled, at almost the exact same spot the riding mower stopped moving.

Thankfully, I was able to get it going, and keep it going. until the West yard was finished. I was just starting to work on the North side when it stalled again.

This time, it wouldn’t start again. I was not about to re-injure my wrist trying, either.

So that got put away, too.

I gave the riding mower another once over while I was in the garage, and noticed the one tire that turned out to be the cause of the problem last time, seemed low on air. I tried to see if there was something on the tire to tell me what the max pressure was, and found nothing – but the tire looks like it’s starting to crack on the sides. I pumped it up a bit, anyhow, then checked the other tire, which didn’t seem to need any air, and also didn’t have the cracks the first one did, though it does have the beginnings of them.

So while I was already planning to take it in for basic maintenance and to get the blades sharpened, it might need a new back tire, too.

And if it needs that, what else will they find when they check it out? While I’ve tried to be careful of the mower, there were still times when I hit hidden rough spots, and let’s face it; I’ve really worked that thing over the past two years! It may have been completely refurbished, but it’s still older, and a lot more delicate than newer lawn tractors.

Since I also need to make another deposit at the garage to get my mother’s car fixed, there isn’t a lot of room in the budget for much more. I didn’t try it again after pumping the tire, though, with the weather starting to turn.

I’m just tired.

Tired.

Drained.

Wasted.

I’m tired of having to make do with old and breaking equipment. I’m tired of even the good stuff breaking down so weirdly like this. I’m tired of finally being able to set some funds aside to go towards replacing the roof, only to have to dip into it because something else has broken down. I’m tired of having to pick and choose what we can fix, what we can replace, and what we have to make do with. It just doesn’t seem to end, and in the back of my mind, there’s always that touch of resentment.

It didn’t need to be this way.

My parents had a fully equipped and operational farm. They had tools. They had all sorts of supplies and parts and so many other things. Things that would have been very useful in maintaining the place. Things that were in good shape and working, only to either grow legs and walk away while this place was empty, or get broken through misuse.

Usually, I have no problem letting go of this. I tend to be the sort that recognizes that things like this happen, but I don’t waste my time or energy fussing over them. I don’t have the spoons to waste on that sort of thing. It isn’t worth it.

But every now and then, things like this happen, and it just feels so frustrating and tiring. It’s hard not to feel defeated.

I know I’ll be feeling better after a while. My daughters are making supper, and a good meal followed by a shower and good night’s sleep are just what the doctor ordered.

But for now, I’m just so tired.

Tomorrow, I am going to dip into our contingency fund and buy a new push mower.

Until then, I’m going to borrow my husband’s bath chair and shower off the layer of bug spray that kept me from being eaten alive while I was mowing! :-D

Tomorrow, it will be better.

The Re-Farmer