Oh wow! I forgot all about it. And Clemson too. Almost always the first game has been with a little team few have heard of. I guess they figured they better get it over with soon in case everything has to shut down again.
(9/5/21) Sunday Trimmed enough of the hedge the night before to make it look decent and got a half truckload of stuff to haul off. Some vines need to be clipped right at the ground level, so I'll wait 'til cooler weather, when the fire ants calm down. Sprayed along the road to the dam mainly so I can spot the edge of the bank more easily next spring. Several little spots of kudzu had popped up out of nowhere. Likely from moving dirt when they cut the road. Glad to get it early. Debated doing more when the (very loud) shooting started. It always sounds closer than it is, and you don't know where it's coming from, when you are down at the lake due to echoes off the hills. The rest can wait 'til next year. It's a relief not to have to worry about goats during hunting season.
Labor Day The first proposal for Labor Day was simple: "A workingmen’s holiday. The day should be observed with a street parade followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day." I came from a working class family and my father belonged to a union, but I did not appreciate the significance of all this as a kid. I don't ever remember a family gathering, or a picnic, or anything on Labor Day. Things like that happened much earlier in the summer. I only remember us sitting in lawn chairs at night watching the fireworks from a small amusement park within walking distance of our house. I really dreaded Labor Day because it meant going back to school the very next day. It was hard to be entertained and amused on that Monday. I'm sure there were millions of kids who felt this way. But as soon as school started, thoughts of summer disappeared. There was too much new stuff to do to think about it. Later Labor Day only meant the beginning of the end of summer. Quickly shortening days. The first leaves beginning to fall. A stretch of cold days lie ahead, with outdoor living things on hold. All this was sad, but there was no playing in the back yard anymore. That was kids stuff. I hardly even went outside for many years. Now as a retired homeowner in the South, Labor Day should be all good, because it means the end of "playing" in the back yard, or the front yard, unless I create work. Winter is a piece of cake here, and school started a month ago. I'm already used to the traffic. So my point is, why do I still feel sad about Labor Day? Labor Day is clearly a change point just by its very place on the calendar. Much more so than New Years Day, in my opinion. Is it because I can't shake old feelings from long ago? This makes no sense and must change. From now on I'm going to look forward to Labor Day, and try to make it the day for turning over a new leaf. I may make some Labor Day Resolutions. They will probably go just about as far as New Year's resolutions, but a person has to keep trying. . .
(9/10/21) Friday The lawn mower part came late this afternoon. I got all excited. How to Replace Transmission in Honda Mower Only one small obstacle. There is one (just one) screw with a star shaped head. Why would they do that? Ready for the new part, but wait... The clutch cable end. Half broken and the other half frayed. Its days were numbered. Spent a long time trying to find the right one online. Still not sure. There is one place on the other side of town that handles Honda mowers and does repairs, so they might have one in stock, but it's a long shot. Oh wait, it's weekend. They close at noon Saturday and there's a home football game. How to Replace Clutch Cable I refuse to mow the lawn again until this mower is put back together properly and running. No rain predicted for 4 days (thank you).
I would have to have it up on a bench to work on it. My back hurts today just from the bending down I did yesterday to fix my tub/shower drain. Those Honda mowers are hard to work on. It looks like yours has the mulching blade. Mine got plugged up all the time if the grass had any length and was the least bit wet. The clutch kept having issues and after replacing the cables the third time, I finally gave it away to a Mr. I love Repairing Lawnmower guy and bought a new Husky with 4 wheel drive and a Kohler motor.
There was so much grass clippings built up under that plastic shroud. That thing is supposed to protect the belts and mechanical parts. Belts were running inside a pile of grass. Poor design I guess. Glad you mentioned the mulch blade. I'd like to try putting a regular blade on it. Will see if one is available. So many of the new mowers are plastic now. I wanted to try and salvage or modify this one, if I could. This is a Hail Mary project. If it doesn't work, the mower goes up at the curb. I think this mower was designed for fancy lawns with perfect grass, and people who get out a ruler and mow at exactly the proper time. . . Edited to add: No such single blade exists
I left off here waiting for a new cable for the lawn mower. Long story short, I'm now waiting for another one, and also need a new bolt, which I'll try to match at Lowes. The cable should be here by Friday. Meanwhile I've been trying to clean up the basement and rearrange things in a more efficient way. That's not going well either. It has been raining off and on for 3 days, sometimes heavy. The rain matters because some very long (12') items need to be moved from one end of the basement to the other. The only way to do this is take them out one door and back in by another door. That's my excuse anyway. The rain has stopped today and it's supposed to get down into the low 50's. Colder temps are not a good excuse. While I'm doing these I see several potential projects. One is to build some kind of rack to store long handled garden tools off the floor. Currently they are just leaning up against a wall in a pile near the door. Since most of the basement is windows (12), and the outer walls are granite stone, there are only two places where it could go. Each requires a completely different strategy. I'll think about that tonight and get back to throwing away small things in the meantime.
(9/23/21) Wednesday Progress in the basement could be described as haphazard. It was one of those days where you find something you were looking for a month ago, and drop everything to do with it what you wanted to do at that time. At one point ended up putting out fire ant bait. Probably too late in the season now, but there was a small bag I wanted to get rid of. I don't think it works anyway. A lot of sweeping, sorting, and chopping up old cardboard boxes to fit in the trash. Those long items will not fit where I thought they would so I'm now planning on major rearrangement of things. Ideally it would be nice to take everything out of the basement, put it in the yard, and start from scratch putting it back in. But you can't count on the weather, and some things are too heavy to move very far. There is an unfinished wall partition behind the washer & dryer. I like it that way because you can get behind the washer/dryer easily and it lets in light on both sides. The brick foundation below has fallen out in one spot in the middle over the years. It looks like someone knocked the brick out at one time to do something, and tried to fill back in with the broken pieces. This would have happened over 40 years ago, maybe 100. It would be an easy small project to repair this. It wouldn't look pretty but no worse than it does now. Just got a USPS tracking update that the mower cable will arrive this afternoon, so it's back to that job when it arrives.
How much is all that repair work costing you? Might consider buying a new mower and see how much money you could save plus all the labor you are putting out. You wouldn't have as many fingernails to clean and you could sit in the den drinking iced tea with a swush of lemon and think, I wish that sob would keep his thoughts to himself. Sometime I worry about you.
My time does not count. I don't work by the hour. If I had ordered the right parts the first time, they wouldn't have been very expensive. But that's not the point. I just want to see if I can do it. All I have to do to clean fingernails is wash the dishes once by hand. Kills two birds with one stone. If I sat around drinking tea, I'd start thinking too much, and too much thinking apparently can make people grumpy. Don't know for sure. Just an observation. As far as keeping busy, it's a family tradition.
Mower belt was a perfect match. Only 2 hours later ... ... cable attached and mower back together, except the cover over the bottom. Cranked with 2 pulls. A miracle. [I forgot to drain the oil and it had run into the carburetor and all the way out through the air filter.] Didn't move at all at first, but several turns of the cable adjustment thing and it took off across the driveway all by itself. Will look for that bolt tomorrow at Lowes. It is one of 2 that holds on a belt guard. It acts like it's stripped. Keeps turning. But looks like it has little divots on the threads. Maybe I'll try filing the threads a little. Maybe I'll have to order one. Maybe I'll just glue it in.
maybe wrap a tiny bit of some type of "floss-like metallic thread" around the damage part of the threads, to fill the gap? ....or foil?
That's a good idea. Maybe a tiny drop of solder would do it. That stuff is pretty soft. I have a little electric soldering iron somewhere. Possibly some gritty dirt got up in the hole and ruined it when I screwed it in. The bolt must be awfully soft material. Probably Chinese steel.