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More Lilac Wood, in progress

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Our windy day continues! While we have a few millimeters of rain predicted for this evening, as I type this, I am hearing thunder rolling, and just saw a flash of lightning out my window!

Here’s hoping we don’t loose power while I’m working on this post! :-D

I have continued working on the section of lilac wood I’d experimented on earlier. I decided to try using the cutting tool on my Dremel to make the job go faster – if the Dremel was quiet enough not to disturb Beep Beep and her babies too much.

It was quiet enough, but… there were other issues.

The Dremel I have is not a particularly powerful one. Just a Walmart cheepie, really. Lilac is a surprisingly hard wood, and it was just too much for it!

I ended up stopping part way through my attempt to cut through the wood and finished with a hand saw.

You can see where the friction actually “burned” the wood as the blade ground to a halt!

So I did the rest using a carpenter’s saw, cutting the piece into slices. It took a while, but I eventually got into the rhythm of it, and things went fairly quickly. I cut slices off until I had exactly 3 1/2 inches left – the width of my miter box – to try something different.

It fit just right, and I was able to cut the piece into 4 lengthwise sections. Not as evenly as I would have liked, since it kept trying to roll on me, but that just adds to the interest!

Here are all the pieces I got out of the section of lilac wood.

I really like how the length wise cuts look.

Also… do you notice something about the pieces?

The next step was to take a wire brush to the edges to remove loose bits of bark and clean off any debris. As I worked, I kept noticing a soft spot in the middle of the slices. I finally stopped to take a closer look, and it turned out every round piece had it, as did the centre lengthwise cut.

I used a non-metal brush on them, and eventually decided to just poke at it with a very small screwdriver.

It was basically just wood dust and came right out.

So I cleaned out every disk. Some were small enough that I had to use a wire to clear them out, but every single disk now has a hole in the centre!

I was even able to use the wire to push through the centre cut piece, then use a brush to clean up the open section.

Oh! That was a quick little storm, and I noticed some crazy orange light outside. I just dashed out to see a gorgeous double rainbow!

Also, I got rained on. *shiver*

Now, where was I?

Oh, yes.

Tomorrow, I hope to be able to get back to these and start sanding them smooth and giving them a light coat of oil.

I’m still not sure what I’ll be doing with them, but they’re going to look very pretty when they’re done.

Since all of these had the holes in them, I double checked the first two I’d done, so see if they had that soft spot, too. They did. Barely big enough to use a sewing needle to clean them out. So those two pieces now have tiny holes through them, too. The colourful rings in one of them looks very much like an eye, and now the “pupil” has a tiny hole you can see though. It’s kinda like those “fairy stones” you find at the beach, with natural holes in them. :-)

I like it!

For the size if these, I’m thinking they might make nice pendants. The rings of colour are so dramatic, I feel doing anything more than sanding and oiling them is unnecessary. A possible exception would be to perhaps put a glass bead or something like that into the ones with the larger holes.

What do you think?

The Re-Farmer

Lilac wood

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A storm last year damaged a lot of trees and bushes around the yard, including breaking off a large piece of a double lilac my mother planted in the little garden by the old kitchen. Noticing the beautiful pattern in the wood, I set the pieces aside for later.

Today was “later.” :-D

I brought one of the branches into the basement to work on it (I am really enjoying having this work space!!!) and started by cutting various sections off, then working on the thickest “trunk” part of it.

What striking colours!

The photo on the left is the base, where it had broken off in the storm, and I had cut off the split part. The one on the right is where I’d cut a pair of branches off.

That’s the end I decided to cut a couple of slices off.

With Beep Beep and the kittens nearby, I didn’t want to use any power tools, even though I now have a Dremel with steel cutting blades that would be perfect for the job. It’s way too loud.

Lilac wood, I am discovering, is a surprisingly hard wood! It may have been quieter, but it was a lot longer to do it by hand.

Since I’m just experimenting right now, I only cut two slices, then used a brush on the edges to take off any dirt or loose bits of bark.

Then I sanded them smooth. Here’s how they looked, after I finished with the finest grit of sandpaper I have.

Then I applied a light coat of mineral oil.

I am really happy with how these look! Those purple rings are really something.

The next question is, what do I make with them?

The Re-Farmer

Hanging rig, finished

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So… I’m a suck. Especially when it comes to the cats.

But if you have been following this blog for a while, you knew that already. ;-)

While our basement maternity ward is certainly warmer than outside, when I checked on the mamas and babies earlier today, I noticed that the babies felt a bit chilly.

Therefore, on the principle of “put on a sweater, Mom is cold”, I decided to borrow and set up the upstairs heater at the end of the basement where the newborns are. Then, I had to stay in the basement, since it’s not supposed to be left on unattended.

Which gave me the opportunity to finish the hanging rig I’d whipped together when making cheese.

I had already done some basic sanding, as well as a bit of damage repair, a couple of days ago. Having picked up some more sandpaper yesterday, I could now finish the job.

The piece with the crack I’d glued was rough enough that I actually used a rasp we found while cleaning the basement, to get the roughest parts a bit smoother. I then spent the next couple of hours working my way through sandpaper grades until all the pieces were silky smooth.

The basement got nice and warm while I was doing that. The mamas and kitties seemed to be quite content with this. :-)

Then, because I had some, I rubbed the wood with mineral oil.

If I hadn’t had any, I would have eventually picked up some type of varnish, or maybe paint, to finish it with later.

In my rush to make the rig, I’d drilled a pilot hole in the cross piece a bit off. I was going to drill a new hole, lined up with the other side, but when I measured it, the new hole would have been just too close to the existing one. So I left it. I’ll just have one leg a bit off from the other.

The final step was to reassemble it, using wood glue at the ends of the side pieces to stabilize it.

Here are the before and after pictures.

It really doesn’t look a lot different, but trust me. It is! No possibility of getting splinters anymore, for starters. :-D I’m glad I happened to have the mineral oil to treat the wood. Once the glue has cured, it will be nice and solid, too.

We’re now all set for any future preserving we do that requires hanging a bag to drain. Plus, if we had to, we could even add a couple more cup hooks to hang up to three jelly bags or something, if needed.

I’m rather pleased with how it turned out.

It doesn’t take much to make me happy. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Found it!

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No, we didn’t find the source of the knocking in the van.

We picked up the van, dropping off my mom’s car at the same time, then did a quick trip to the grocery store before we had to pick Two-Face up from the vet. My daughter also made an appointment to get our original Mama, who showed up as a stray on our balcony, years ago, and brought us her baby. She has been acting very ornery lately, growling and hissing at the other cats, and sometimes nothing at all. So she will be brought in for a check up on Monday.

Then we headed home, and…

The van is running smooth as butter.

We had talked to the mechanic for a while, and we still can’t figure out what caused the knocking and shuddering. If it had been the CV joint, it would have made a different noise. Still, I’m glad that in the process of trying to track down the noise, we were able to find and fix another problem before it became a bigger problem in the future.

Two-Face, meanwhile, seems to be doing okay. She’s found a place to sleep things off, and I haven’t even seen the surgical site yet.

No, what I found today was the source of an odd pain I would get in my foot, when I wore my runners. One of those little stabbing pains that I couldn’t quite tell if something was stuck in my shoe, or stuck in my sock. Then, while I was moving things we’d taken from the basement to the barn, I happened to step on an edge of concrete, and something stabbed me in the foot again. Hard.

So I took my shoe off right there in the barn and this time, I could feel something inside my shoe. It took some hunting on the sole, but I finally found what stepping on the concrete had pushed into my foot.

Thankfully, among the things we brought to the barn from the basement was a tray full of odds and ends, including the remains of a small standard tip screwdriver. I was able to use it to pry the nail loose from my shoe. It had to be pushed in really deep before I could finally find it from the inside! I have no idea when I stepped on this but, thankfully, it went in at an angle, or it would have gone right into my foot.

Meanwhile, the girls and I were able to clear most of the stuff away from the front of the house, either to the barn, the burn pile or the junk pile that we’ll need to get hauled away with a trailer. What’s left needs to go to the dump. The van has already been filled, ready for tomorrow. We’ll have to make sure to take multiple trips this week, to catch up on all the trash and recycling we normally would have taken to the dump earlier in the week.

It feels so much better not to have all that stuff in front of the house!!!

My other project of the day meant I got to spend some time with the (still pregnant) mamas in the basement. I dismantled the hanging frame I made for the cheese and started cleaning up and sanding the wood.

Some of the wood needed to be shaved and smoothed with a knife, first. One of the side pieces had a bit of a crack in it, so I glued and clamped it. I’ll need to pick up some coarser sandpaper before I can continue working on that one. I was able to get some progress with the rest of the pieces, though.

Here’s a before and after, so far. I was able to whip the rig together in about half an hour, and it did the job. I just want to get it finished properly, now that there is no rush. My daughter has a shift tomorrow, so I should be able to swing by the hardware store and pick up more sandpaper and be able to continue.

Well. Not right away. With the van already packed for the dump, I’ll have to do that first. I’ll just have to remember to go back into town to pick up my daughter early enough to catch the hardware store before it closes.

I am so happy to have our van back.

The Re-Farmer

Van update

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I just got a call from the garage about our van. Apparently, he’s been trying to call me since yesterday, on both the land line and my cell phone, and couldn’t get through. I have no idea why; my mother phoned earlier, and got through no problem. I had just got off the phone with her when my cell phone started ringing. There wasn’t enough of a connection and the call got dropped, but I could see that it was the garage and called back on the land line. Weird, but not too unexpected out here, really.

Anyhow.

He gave me estimate for 2 options. One was to fix the boot, the other was to replace the axle. He said that a small amount of dirt has gotten into the grease. I started talking about replacing the axle right away, which was going to be his recommendation. It would cost less to fix the boot, but we’d end up needing to do the axle later anyhow, so we’ll just get that done now, before it becomes an issue.

It still shouldn’t be the cause of the knocking and shuddering, though. It just wasn’t that bad in there. Still, I’m glad it’s getting done now, before it’s a major problem.

He might be able to get the job done by the end of today, but we have an appointment with Two Face and the vet tomorrow, so we’re going to combine trips. When it comes time to pick up Two Face at the end of the day, we’ll drop my mom’s car off at the garage and pick up the van. I’ll be leaving my mom’s car there so he can check it out whenever he gets a chance, and see why there is still a noise coming from the differential. There is no hurry on this. In fact, I’d prefer it wait until the end of the month, when pay comes in, though that decision will be made after he’s had a chance to figure out what’s going on.

Ah, vehicles. They are such a necessity, but such an expense, too! :-(

The Re-Farmer

Destructive cats, and a winter tree casualty

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So… that didn’t take long.

In re-arranging the living room, the girls and I also moved around the plants. The living room is the only space we have for our bigger plants – and some have gotten very big since we’ve moved out here! – so it’s a bit of a challenge.

One of the things we have a lot of is jade plants. The jade plant that we thought might not survive the move is now a massive, healthy beast of the tree. We also have lots and lots of aloe vera. I knew that aloe propagates itself easily, but I didn’t realize how easily jade plants do as well. It turns out any leaf that breaks off can grow into a new plant.

Leaves break off easily. Especially with our cats. They keep trying to get into the pots, lying in the dirt, and generally wrecking havoc. I recently ended up using the extra legs of the plastic utility shelf we got as supports for the big one, because it was almost completely flattened. (As a bonus, because these are tubes, I can now water the plant through the tops.) This is not a good thing, since jade plants are poisonous to cats.

One of the treats I’ve started to get at Costco are these large plastic containers of Cheese Balls. I’ve been keeping the containers because I thought they’d make great cloche coverings in the garden at some point. When the cats were determined to use one of the plant pots as a bed, mashing the jade plant flat, I put one of these over the plant to protect it. It worked well, but when we arranged things, I figured the plant was big enough to not need it any more and took it off.

Well… they did leave that one alone.

Another smaller one, not so much. The pot was knocked over, the poor little jade plant was on the carpet, and there was soil all over.

I’m glad we thought to put that plastic over the shelves to protect their tops!

I put the soil back and replanted the jade plant. It should actually survive this, but we’ll see. Meanwhile, this and another pot are small enough that I cut the tops off of two of those plastic containers, so that they are not straight sided, and they can completely cover the pots and their plants, with room to grow.

This morning, I ended up using the cut off tops to put over a couple more plants that showed signs of cats bashing their way through them.

Meanwhile, while doing my rounds this morning, I remember to check on the pair of trees my mother planted right against the chain link fence. One of them had looked like it was dead, but I wasn’t up to slogging through the snow to check it. The snow is mostly gone now, so…

Yeah, that is one very dead tree. Both of these were fine in the fall.

I had wanted to transplant them away from the fence, but my mother demanded they stay right where they are. When I pointed out that they would eventually grow big enough to damage the fence, and were too close together, she said they were exactly where she wanted them to be, and she didn’t care if they damaged the fence.

Now that one of them has died, knowing my mother, she’s probably going to think I killed it because I didn’t want them there.

Ah, well. I’ll deal with that when the time comes.

One of the things that has really hit home for me as we’ve been cleaning up around the yards, is how incredibly important it is to think years ahead when planting trees. We intend to plant many, many trees, with a focus on food trees, and this gives us an opportunity to learn from what my parents did 10, 20, even 40 years ago.

The Re-Farmer

I… just don’t get it

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I just called the garage about our van.

There’s nothing wrong with it.

???

He took it for a drive, and it ran fine. No noise. Nothing.

He put it on a lift and checked it out.

No damage. Everything is as it should be.

Now, this should be good news, but I don’t understand. I told him how, just driving from the grocery store parking lot, across the road from the garage, back to his parking lot, it was knocking and shuddering so badly, I didn’t think we’d make it home. How can there be nothing, now? It’s been sitting in front of his garage since Saturday evening. What could possibly have changed?

He’s really busy, and he’s the only person in the garage, so he asked if I could leave it another day. He’ll see if letting it warm up will make a difference, and will take it for another drive when he can. So I will leave it until then.

I just don’t know what to think.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: basement – Done!!!

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Woohoo!!!

It’s done!

The girls and I made a push to finish tonight and, as I write this, we now have two very pregnant cats in the new “maternity ward”.

Before we hauled out all the stuff waiting by the stairs, my daughters and I went rifling through a shed and the barn to see what we could find to use as doors.

First, we went into the shed, where I knew there were some doors that might work. We decided against them, but found some decent wood in a corner. We found a couple more pieces in the barn.

With the trellis wire left over from covering the counter opening to the unfinished bar, we figured we could build a mesh door to size.

I also started to bring some of my tools down. I’m so excited to be able to do that!!!

While in the barn, we found these.

They are actually plastic windows. They were wide enough to fit over the opening into the unfinished bar – there’s space at the top, but the cats won’t be able to get up there.

They almost fit over the opening to the old basement, but that wider part on the bottom couldn’t be covered.

My thought had been to build the wire mesh door for the bar opening, which would have allowed us to make a hinged door (except we didn’t have any hinges handy). With using one of these windows instead, hinges couldn’t be attached, anyhow.

So I found some cup holder hooks and Bungee cords. The idea was to have a pair of Bungee cords holding the window pane in place. That didn’t work out exactly as planned, as we only had one Bungee cord that was the right size.

We made do. You’ll see how in the next photo. :-D

After bringing the stuff to make doors down, the girls and I hauled out what needed to be gotten rid of. We now have an awful mess outside our main door, but cleaning that up will have to wait until the weather improves. Plus, finished the basement was the priority.

The girls started working on building the frame for the wall opening while I started cleaned the window panes, then started cleaning up the area by the stairs.

When it was time to screw the frame together, the girls couldn’t find any usable screws in any of the buckets and miscellaneous containers we kept. There were just nails.

So we ended up using the deck screws I’d taken out from the barn doors, after our vandal had boarded them up.

I’m still giggling about the irony of that.

Once the frame was screwed together, the mesh was stapled into place in two overlapping pieces. There was a possibility of a cat getting through at the overlap, though. My daughter managed to find a couple of shorter screws and we put a cross piece on the mesh side of the frame at the overlap. The overlapping parts of the mesh were then stapled to the cross piece. This closed the potential gap, strengthened the frame, and it can even serve as a “handle” on one side.

Here is how they look now.

The frame ended up working better in the old basement side of the wall. It’s braced on one side by a table, and a Bungee cord attached to one of the cup hooks is keeping the other side in place. To get through, we can unhook the cord, then slide the door to one side.

As for the window-door, until I can find another cord the same length as the red one, we’ve got a longer one diagonally, just to keep the window pane from potentially flipping over. The extra window pane is now stored in the old bar. Who knows. It might come in handy for something else.

The fun part is, we’re already using the basement as a workshop!

I’m so excited! :-D

One of my daughters took over cleaning while I found and brought more tools down, then helped finish the frame. She even mopped the rest of the floor.

I can’t even think of when this floor was ever mopped, other than parts of it at times like when my brother found the water damage shortly before we moved in and had to scrub away mold and bleach the floor and walls in the corner.

Here is how it looks now at that end.

We have set up cat beds under chairs and the old phonograph. A flattened box is there to act as a rug, and we brought in the litter box that was in the sun room, since the outside cats don’t need to use it anymore.

And here’s the rest of it!

We set up food and water bowls at the far end, nearer the stairs.

When I went into the sun room to get the litter box, Beep Beep was in there, curled up on the swing bench. That was encouraging, since we would be getting her soon. Then Big Jim came out.

He had blood all over one side of his head!

It looked like it was coming from an ear, an injury that was most definitely not there this morning. The poor thing! The blood was dry, so whatever happened, it was no longer bleeding, at least, and it didn’t seem to be bothering him. He sure wanted pets, though!

After setting up the litter pan, food and water, one of my daughters and I went outside with some cat treats. I scattered some both inside the sun room, where Beep Beep and Big Jim still were, and in the outside food bowls.

Creamsicle and Potato Beetle were quick to come for treats, and I was very pleased to see Butterscotch waddling her way over, too. We let them eat for a bit, then tried to get the mamas in.

Beep Beep was more cooperative. She jumped out of my arms as soon as I got inside, but I’d managed to open the door to the basement, first, and that’s where she made her escape to – exactly where I wanted her to be.

Butterscotch was much less cooperative.

My daughter was eventually able to pick her up, and I was manning the doors so she could get Butterscotch inside, and into the basement, at almost the same time.

Butterscotch did NOT want to go down the stairs!

It took some persuading and gentle wrangling by my daughter to get her down enough stairs that I could close the door. Then she went back to the top step, essentially trapping my daughter in the basement.

Beep Beep, meanwhile, had already settled herself in front of the chalk board at the other end of the basement.

My daughter spend the next while trying to coax Butterscotch down the stairs. When she did get to the bottom, she immediately hid in a shelf under the stairs. My daughter brought one of the cat beds, placed inside a crate to make a “nest”, and put it beside where Butterscotch was hiding. This way, we hope she’ll find the nice, soft bed and a more enclosed area she will feel safer in.

And hopefully have her kittens in.

We will now have to add going downstairs to our cat care routine. It should be interesting to see how much of a challenge it will be to keep the mamas downstairs, and the other cats upstairs. Eventually, I want to have the litter boxes for all the cats downstairs, which will mean having the door to the new part basement open all the time. That’s not going to happen while the mamas are down there, for a while.

I hope they feel comfortable and safe down there, soon!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: basement progress – the final stretch!

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Soooo close to getting the basement done!

Okay, not completely done, because there are still weird things all over the place, but that can be taken care of slowly over time, even after we’ve set up for cats. So, done enough!

I decided to make use of the remaining shelves of the plastic shelving units I got for the old part basement, with its too low ceiling.

For where I wanted to put them, I had to make an even bigger mess.

It kinda looks like the room exploded. :-/ But, it had to be done!

Here is the final result for the shelves and counters against the old basement wall.

The plastic shelf on the yellow counter will help brace the rigid insulation that’s blocking the old window. There is a heat duct on the other side. It doesn’t even reach into the window, but just has an opening facing it, but there’s enough air pressure to push against the sheet of insulation. I’ve pokes holes in it to let more air through, but having the shelf against it will ensure it can’t be pushed off.

The counter top of the yellow shelf is sagging, and I needed to get the back legs of the plastic shelf as far back as I could, so I ended up laying some boards I salvaged from around the basement, leveled with pieces of floor tiles (those old floor tiles are coming in incredibly handy!)

In the process of working in this area, I checked out the cupboard under the other shelf. I’d only looked at the other half while working here before, and wanted to see if there were more things we needed to haul out.

I found three more motors.

Why are there so many motors??? Counting the ones already moved to the barn, we’ve found more than a dozen motors, scattered about!

At this point, I think we’re just going to leave them in the basement for now, instead of hauling them up the stairs and to the barn. It’s not like the cats can really do anything to them, and they can be hauled out later in the year.

That was just one area that I didn’t expect to have to go so far into. I also cleared out the area were we’d put the van’s original door. There was a whole bunch of stuff behind the old radio, and a sheet of plywood leaning against the old basement wall with more stuff behind it, that was definitely not cat friendly.

Here you can see the part of the old basement wall that had been underground when the concrete was poured. Unfortunately, it makes for a very uneven wall, which in turn makes for gaps we’re going to have to find some way to fill.

After moving out the stuff behind the plywood, I shoved the plywood back, pushing it further behind the lilac shelf, to block off the gap behind it. There is still a gap at the top we’ll have to figure out how to cover. The old radio, meanwhile, is now right up against the plywood, I put some cardboard on it to protect the top, and tiles under the base. The car door is back, and I’ve shoved the twin sized bed frame I’d been using for some time after my husband had to start using a hospital bed.

In the process of doing all this, I found stuff, of course.

Yes!!!! I found some plumb line!

It’s not the one I remember helping my dad use, but I’m happy to have found any at all. It will be quite useful in the future, I’m sure. I made sure to tuck it into a spot that was in the open, so I can find it easily in the future.

This next find was a surprise.

I haven’t seen this since I was … probably a pre-teen! I forget which of my brother’s made it. I think it was a school project. It’s modeled on a plaster cast version still sitting in the old kitchen.

It’s a keeper!

I also moved stuff into the unfinished bar area.

It’s got a bunch of fragile things that need to be protected from the cats, substances in various bottles, jugs and cans that the cats need to be protected from, and some of the stuff we found that we want to restore at some point. All we have to do now is rig up a door to keep the cats out.

Not a lot changed in this corner; I cleaned that shelf, but don’t really have anything to put in it, now that we’ve cleared the junk out. The chairs had been stored against the wall closer to the stairs, and I moved them here to open up the space there, and so they can be used. Some things, like the remaining piece of rigid insulation, will be moved out of there, as we do the last few things before letting the cats in.

More chairs were moved around that table, and the remaining shelf from the old basement got moved in to where I’d found another sheet of plywood. There are still gaps, because of the uneven wall, that need to be filled by the opening between the basements. We now need to also rig up a door of some kind between the old and new basements.

With the very odd shape of the opening, this is not going to be easy.

After this, we have to start hauling stuff out for either barn or junk piles. Once that’s out, the area just needs a quick clean up, and a filling of old mouse holes in the shelves under the stairs, and the root cellar. Then I can take our Christmas decorations out of the root cellar and move them back into this area.

We are so close to being done! But I am so dreading hauling the stuff out. Some of it is very heavy, and others just difficult and potentially dangerous to carry up the stairs. The girls and I will have to assembly line it.

But not quite yet. They’ve been working hard cleaning on the main floor, and we all need a break right now!

It’s pain killer and hydration time! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Are you kidding me?

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There is a reason I’m paranoid about vehicles, but really???

When I was driving to town, then my mother’s, then home again, the van was doing just fine. I drove into the yard to unload, then left the van there until it was time to pick up my daughter from work. The giant puddles of water are smaller than they were, but it’s still really muddy.

In fact, I could feel the van sinking in the mud as I drove through the yard gate on the way out. There are going to be some serious ruts to try and fix when things are finally dried out.

The van seemed to have trouble in the mud, and I still felt a sort of … sluggishness… as I drove to the gate. As I went through, I found myself thinking, did I hear a noise? What was that? Hmm… not hearing anything anymore.

I left early so I could play a bit of Pokemon Go and top up the gas tank. With gas prices so low, I’ve been keeping full every chance I can.

Playing Pokemon Go means driving to different spots where I can park safely for a bit, spin some stops and catch some Pokemon. For the most part, the van seemed to be fine, but every now and then, I’d hear… something. Or the van would feel… odd. Particularly when I made a left turn into the gas station, but it didn’t seem to be there when I made a right turn to leave.

By this time, my paranoia meter was in high gear!!

It wasn’t until I was driving into the pharmacy that it really kicked in. I was making a left turn at an intersection, with an immediate left turn to get into the parking lot, so basically I was making a giant U-turn. As I was turning, there was a most definite and unequivocal knocking, and a matching vibration. Once parked, I walked around the van, trying to see what might be making the noise, but could see nothing.

When my daughter joined me and we started to leave the parking lot, the knocking noise was there, and I was starting to feel a shudder. By this time, I was able to pin it down to the front driver’s side tire area.

As we drove the next few blocks, without any turns, we could still hear the knocking, though not as much as while turning. Instead of making our usual turn to go home, I drove straight to the garage. It was closed, of course, but where else was I to go?

My daughter and I got out and tried to see what might be making the noise. No luck. So I phoned the mechanic, knowing that the business number was his cell phone. Thankfully, he answered, even though he was at home. I told him what was going on (and he remembered our vehicle). Unfortunately, he was going to be closed until Tuesday, since it’s Easter weekend. That’s the earliest he could order parts. Would I be able to leave the van? Could someone come and pick us up in my mom’s car? Yes, he remembered her car, too!

I haven’t driven my mom’s car since I drove it home from the garage, last time. The differential is still making a noise, and while he recommended driving it for about 100-150km. He’d done a flush and the noise should have stopped, but perhaps the fresh lubricant needed to work its way into the nooks and crannies. I didn’t want to drive if when I had someplace specific to go, so it just didn’t happen. In fact, with my daughter’s reduction in shifts and reduced need to run errands, and not even using it to drive my mother around lately, I was seriously considering suspending the insurance. The only reason it hasn’t been done is because I wasn’t sure how the insurance office is doing things right now, and if I could do it over the phone.

Now, I’m glad I never got around to it.

While figuring out whether it was worth my trying to drive it home, he suggested I drive it around the block and see how the van behaved, then call him back.

I made it to the grocery store parking lot, across the street.

The knocking noise kicked in as soon as I took a turn, and the van started to shudder. I pulled into a parking spot and called him back, telling him it was now even worse. We spoke for a bit, and he told me that once I worked out how to get home, call him to let him know where I was hiding the key.

I called my husband to drive my mother’s car and come get us. He can barely get in and out of the vehicle and it’s incredibly painful for him, but we didn’t have much choice.

Then I drove the van back to the garage. By this point, the knocking was even louder, and I could feel the entire van shuddering. It was definitely coming from around that front driver’s side tire.

So now that van sits at the garage, waiting for Tuesday. My hope is that it’s just some mud that got into something it shouldn’t have, and that it’ll be an easy fix.

Thankfully, we don’t have to drive anywhere for another week, though my daughter’s work is going to be doing some changes with schedules. If she does end up getting new shifts, I can only hope it won’t be until after the van is fixed!

Then, maybe I’ll leave my Mom’s car there again, so he can check that noise from the differential again. :-/

*sigh*

I really don’t need this!!

The Re-Farmer