Posts Tagged ‘engine maintenance’
Weather Pummeling
Our region took a pummeling from Momma Nature yesterday with high winds pushing some heavy rain sideways. I was on an errand to Baldwin to seek advice from my tractor dealership and pulled over to capture some photos of the wild sky.
With winds gusting into the 40s (mph), the bottom of the cloud cover was getting whipped into undulating waves.
Knowing it was past due time to change the engine oil of the New Holland diesel tractor, I pulled the manual to check other recommended periodic maintenance. I quickly felt overwhelmed by the list of tasks I had no knowledge or experience doing.
It didn’t take long for the Service Manager to convince me to spend some of my savings and have them do the dirty work. He had me at, “We have time to start on it early next week.”
On the way home, I stopped off to take advantage of ‘Discount Tuesday’ at the movie theater to see the four military-embedded journalists race against time to reach DC in the 2024 film, “Civil War.” I sure hope that version of a possible future for the country remains a fabrication for film and has no relationship with an eventual reality.
I returned home in the nick of time to help Cyndie tend to the horses amid the rain and wicked gales. Being immersed in the fictional world for a couple of hours had me rather disoriented in coping with the wild conditions that were turning feeding time into something of a circus that seemed to fit well with the on-screen chaos I’d just consumed.
Cyndie reported some new chaos across one of our trails through the woods.
If that is the only tree that topples under these conditions, I will be surprised. By dinner time last night, we had received over an inch of rain as measured in the gauges Cyndie remembered to put out earlier in the day.
Our soils are saturated and that makes high-wind days that much more effective at tipping tall trees.
One blessing we thoroughly appreciate is that Asher demonstrates zero stress over lightning and thunder. That’s not something I taught him. He showed up with that trait. I need to remember that gift alone should earn him a pass on other behaviors of his I find myself regretting.
Our dog staying calm during a pummeling storm contributes greatly to our quality of life.
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That Guy
I don’t think I’m that guy, but Cyndie says I might be. One of the reasons I have historically eschewed gas-powered equipment comes from the demands of maintaining the machines. If a device is electric, and all I need to do is turn it on to use it and back off when I’m done, that would suit me just fine. Maybe change the brushes if you keep it long enough, or take care of the batteries if it’s got ’em, but that’s about it.
It’s all the stinky gasoline, oil, air filters, fuel filters, and spark plugs of gas-powered engines that weighs on me. I don’t want to deal with them, so I wait. But how long can I get away with avoiding it without suffering performance problems? I prefer to have my machines functioning at their peak.
After putting our Craftsman lawn tractor through rather rough use, and suffering the consequences of a frustrating degradation in performance, I’ve adjusted my attitude about the machine.
Ironically, this ends up being less about the gas engine and more about the general use of the machine as a lawn mower. I really did use the thing with reckless abandon, mowing over rocks and sticks, heading down our rustic trails and over sharp drop offs, sometimes into wet areas where there was standing water.
The mower responded accordingly, bending and breaking when limits were exceeded.
I figured it was a piece of crap and that I should look into getting a heavy-duty commercial grade machine that could take such abuse. A mechanic at my favorite hardware store helped me to see it otherwise.
We already own a power trimmer. I should be using that appliance in all the afore-mentioned rough areas. My lawn mower is designed to cut lawn grass. If I use it as designed, it will do the job well.
In the past, when I finished driving the mower through all the abuse, I parked it and walked away, glad to be done with that nuisance of a chore. I was aware that grass would collect and build up under the mower deck, but it was hard to access, so I saved it for some other time.
I was tired, and the mowing was done. The last thing I wanted to do was mess with the job of clean up.
I wasn’t that guy.
Well, not entirely. Not yet, anyway.
Maybe I’m getting closer. Yesterday, Anneliese saw me cleaning the mower deck and asked if it had gotten plugged. That made total sense to my old way of thinking. You clean it when it stops working well.
Not any more.
No, it wasn’t plugged. Since the informative visit with the mechanic who gladly sells me products and services, I have changed my methods. I pull off the deck after each mowing, flip it over, and clean out the accumulated gunk, before the mower ever gets even close to plugging.
The same as the way that guy would do it.
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Opportunity Aplenty
Here are some of the issues that are crowding my realm of possibilities this morning:
Our male cat, Mozyr, has fallen into the behavior of peeing on our bed. I’ve been told that once that gets started, it is unlikely to change. We must deal with this immediately. I hate that stench.
We are getting more than enough urine smell from our manure pile. I had no idea what was involved with manure management, and I’m thinking now that the spot we selected seems undersized. I still feel like the location we selected is good, even though the smell sometimes wafts up toward the house, but I fear we may need to take out a few additional trees to expand the square footage.
Speaking of taking out trees, I now have all the equipment to do some serious lumberjacking and there is a dead tree on a corner of our property by the road. It is a chore that is overdue to have been started. Every day that goes by, the task feels more delinquent.
We spent time yesterday testing out the Grizzly ATV for assisting with cleaning up manure in the paddocks, with mixed results. The manure is frozen in multiple layers and much of it covered in snow. We tried both dragging the rake and pushing with the blade. Each seemed to make improvements, but manure that gets collected still needs to be scooped up and moved. That remains and laborious and lengthy endeavor.
I’m supposed to be clearing out our storage corner in the basement. In my search for a solution to the fractured triangular window beside the fireplace, I have connected with a local builder who stopped by to measure for the replacement. Over the phone I mentioned that we also were interested in having a storage room built in our basement. That seemed to go a long way toward enticing him to take on the window replacement. Now I need to get that space ready for the basement work to commence.
It is now nearing the middle of January and I never got around to preparing engines for winter storage. I understand that the primary reason engines fail to run well, or to even start, is leaving old gas in them over the off-season. I am my own worst enemy there. I have a hard time keeping my engines running properly, because I have a hard time getting myself to prepare them for the months of storage.
I took the mower deck off the little Craftsman garden tractor last fall, then flipped it over to be cleaned and to remove the blades for sharpening. It remains where I placed it, untouched.
I’ve got a half-built fence awaiting my attention down the hill from the house. The first snow of the season put that project on hold, but when it’s not bitterly cold, there is progress that could still be made there. I’m afraid the fence has gotten lost in the blur of other work that needs attention.
Meanwhile, we have plans for a Wintervale web site to market Cyndie’s services as a leadership trainer and to offer seminars and retreats here. The “under-construction” image is as far as we’ve gotten.
I’m sequential in nature, so I’d like to go back and get the first things done, so I can move on to the next few, but life doesn’t work like that. I’m back to playing “Whack-a-Mole” with whatever pops up in the moment.
Yesterday, since I had the Grizzly out, I ran it up and down the driveway to clear off the drifts that had developed over the week of historically cold temperatures. It was pleasing to so quickly and easily “whack” something from the list.
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Relative Something 