Posts Tagged ‘teeth cleaning’
Different Surprises
My day started with a most rewarding surprise yesterday, compliments of Swings. Cyndie and I have been listening to “The Telepathy Tapes” podcast, which has made me more conscious of all the chatter and earworm songs going on in my mind when I’m with the horses. With Cyndie’s past experience hearing communication from horses telepathically, I’ve long believed it is likely that the animals end up tolerating the constant noise in my head.
Yesterday, I put effort into calming my mind, focusing on telling the horses I love them in my thoughts as I scooped poop among them under the overhang. I wasn’t aware that Swings was paying any attention to me until her face was right on my ear. I assumed she wanted to exchange breaths in their common method of greeting, but before I could act, she surprised me with the most precious, gentle boop on my nose instead.
Cyndie came out of the barn and found me grinning and giddy and asked what was up. Just the power of horses to melt our hearts, that’s all. I got booped on the nose by a horse! How cool is that?
An hour later, I was on my way to the dentist for a cleaning appointment. I expected a quick and harmless session, but instead, I was given the news that I would need a filling. It was my lucky day; they could fit me in right away, so I didn’t need to return another day. Oh, joy.
I left for home with a numb face after a much less welcome surprise of the morning.
After a little rest to allow my nerves to wake up, Cyndie and I took on the work of bringing the landscape pond out of hibernation. Putting a net over the pond to capture fallen leaves has been a great way to make spring clean-up easier.
Then, Cyndie did some vacuuming while I pulled out the dead reeds from last season.
There is still a lot of rock arranging I’d like to do to call this job complete, but we got the pump and filter installed and started the waterfall at a minimum.
We left it at that to go feed the horses, and I did a little mowing with the push mower before dinner.
Work on the shade sail posts has been rescheduled to next Monday, in hopes the ground will be a little drier by then. As far as surprises go, it’ll be a good one if the holes we drill turn out to be dry at the depth we hope to achieve.
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Changed Plans
How many times lately have we heard that plans have changed? More than a few, I dare say. It reaches a point where I’m finding myself less inclined to make any future plans of substance. My 6-month dental checkup and cleaning appointment due in March was rescheduled when the shutdowns started occurring.
I LOVE the feeling after having my teeth professional cleared of plaque and asked for the next earliest appointment. They gave me Tuesday, May 19. Last Thursday, the scheduler called me to cancel that appointment and said they can’t even guess when the next possible chance will be.
Yesterday, I had planned to connect the chipper to the diesel tractor PTO to convert those tree branches to woodchips before the coming rain arrived. The weather allowed the whole day as the precipitation didn’t begin until dusk. The tractor did not cooperate. It was rather depressing.
I am not a tractor mechanic, but I am willing to naively explore possible solutions to problems. My best guess is that one of the multiple safety interlocks is keeping the starter from working. It’s actually happened before. The very first time I tried to start the tractor, I couldn’t get it to work. The seller had just changed the battery and assured me he would pay to have a service person look at it.
That technician arrived and immediately put the tractor on his flatbed truck, but decided to try one last time before hauling to the shop. It fired right up. I asked what he did differently than me and he said he didn’t know. We assumed it was making sure the gears and PTO were properly in the off/neutral position.
Last year, this happened to me again, but I persevered and after multiple tries, it fired up. Problem was forgotten.
Until yesterday. I tried the same thing over and over again so many times I surpassed the “insanity” definition ten times over. I finally broke down and called my next-door neighbor for advice. He knows tractors as a guy who collects them, refurbishes them, and buys and sells them. He even owns the exact same New Holland model as mine, among his many International Harvester collection.
Diagnosing remotely, he worried about the battery, since I admitted I hadn’t ever cleaned the connections. Well, his concern was well placed, as the neglect was evident and cleaning was warranted. But it wasn’t the problem.
I tracked wires and disconnected and reconnected junctions. While rummaging around beneath the belly of the beast, I found how much corrosion resulted from the mess after the valve stem broke on the liquid-filled tire last year. I spent hours tinkering cluelessly, interspersed with the repeated insanity of positioning and repositioning the PTO lever that I think is the problem. Nothing changed.
Eventually, I gave in to a change of plan and moved on to something else to salvage some glimmer of accomplishment for the day. I removed 24 blocks from six pallets that got added as eight rows to our boardwalk in the woods on our main perimeter trail.
That will be valuable since we’ve already received 1.5″ of rain overnight and it’s still falling.
I plan to call a professional to service the tractor.
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Relative Something 