Relative Something

We didn’t get the downpour I was expecting would show me the improvement achieved by my rerouted gutter downspout, but the daylong drizzle yesterday produced results.

A puddle was almost forming in the grass beyond the outlet of the last stretch of the downspout. That is water that would have been soaking into the dirt along the foundation from the ineffective (broken) plastic solution that had previously been in place for years.

It must have been more than a drizzle at some point in the last 36 hours because Cyndie reported over an inch of water in the rain gauge last night.

Knowing that this kind of rain was on its way, we jumped to accomplish as much as possible on Saturday afternoon during a dry spell. I pulled out the diesel tractor, rearranged equipment, and retrieved the wood chipper from the back of the garage.

Using knowledge gained from previous failures, I detached the loader bucket to reduce weight and picked a strategic route to reach the wood chip “station” by the labyrinth without a problem.

A few years ago, I got stuck and created a muddy disaster trying to drive that tractor along the fence line of the back pasture. Saturday, the tractor tires did nothing more than leave a reasonable impression on the soft earth.

There is so much I don’t know about using heavy equipment, but in the eleven years I’ve been playing the role of Wintervale’s property manager, I have figured out how to get along at a level that serves our needs. When the shear bolt broke during the session of chipping a big pile of oak branches, I wasn’t the least bit fazed.

We used that excuse to decide we had done enough chipping for the day and I simply wrenched in a new bolt when I got back to the garage. No big deal.

Before gaining these years of experience, I would have perceived a broken bolt as a sign I had done something wrong. I saw it as a failure. Something to be avoided. Now I keep stock of spare bolts and suffer no unnecessary concern when they are needed.

A successful day of using our equipment to accomplish tasks is a good test of the knowledge I’ve gained from the school of hard knocks.

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