I had plans to accomplish much more than I have these first 2 days at home after our visit to Jacksonville.
Of course, last Friday was the 13th and the disappointing news on that day was that K&T didn’t close on their house purchase. Penny and I came home to do stuff here and at first all appeared fine here. A quick glance at the garden from the house showed it looked OK. The lawn needed mowing but that was expected. We even got back in time on Saturday to go to church. That left Sunday open for whatever needed to be done.
Sunday morning turned out to be a trip into town to do some necessary shopping and also some browsing for stuff for Sophie. Sophie, at age 4, is experiencing peer pressure at school to dress like a “big’ kid. It’s as if she were already 12 or 13 and wants to fit in. I didn’t know kids the age of Sophie could be that insecure about fitting in but evidently they can. It makes me wonder what K&T are going to be challenged with when she is 12. Anyway, Penny is searching for and finding some clothes that Sophie might like (at bargain prices, naturally) and that was part of the Sunday morning mission.
Some of lunch on Sunday came from the garden. I’ll follow up later with a garden report. But when I picked the lettuce for our lunch I noticed that the plants that were not in the reservoir pots were wilting and 2 of my tomato plants had died for lack of water. I checked the pump and found that it would run but not pump water. I couldn’t do any troubleshooting just then because it was lunch time.
After lunch I watered the garden. The pump couldn’t have been broken for more than 2-3 days because the lawn was green and the plants that were in the reservoir pots were all OK. I lost 2 tomato plants some squash and almost all of my snap peas. I spent the rest of the afternoon seeing if I could fix the pump. It needs an expert.
The black cloud stayed over me. After giving up on the pump it was time to mow the lawn. You guessed it – the mower wouldn’t start It was too late in the day to troubleshoot it. I think I knew what the problem was. The last time I used the mower it also had issues. Somehow the gas got contaminated with what looked like algae. The carburetor jets were plugged. I’m guessing there was still crud in there. So my Monday morning job was to get it running again.
The cat feeder fed the cats while I was gone – it still had food in the tray. No cats were around on Saturday evening. Sunday night Buzz showed up and was quite vocal and friendly in welcoming me back. He must have been in a nasty fight because he had scabs on his head and a long healing slash the full length of his ear.
Monday morning I looked at the lawn mower and the jets were plugged and the float was stuck. I freed everything up and went to put the bowl back on the carburetor and I couldn’t find the gasket that formed the seal. I’m usually pretty good about not misplacing important parts in a job like this but I have no idea what I did with this gasket. I fashioned a gasket out of a plastic ring from a gas can wrapped in Teflon tape, installed it and it seems to be working OK. The mower started but only idled. I wiggled the butterfly valve and cranked it again and this time it ran normally. I got the lawn mowed.
I also called the pump man and he came out and took the pump with him to the shop.
Maybe Tuesday the black clouds will go away.
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