Busy Weekend, Fixing and Preparing...
As usual, it was a very busy weekend. Given that it is most likely the last weekend with decent weather for the next several months, the push was on to get as much of the outdoor tasks finished as possible. One of the most important jobs was to switch the tires on Trixstir's van.
Unlike my Ranger, which has "All Weather" tires (not the same thing as "All Season" tires), we have two sets of wheels for the van: All-Season tires mounted on the nice-looking mag rims, and true Winter tires mounted on ugly (but functional) black rims. Each season, we swap the wheels, making note of which spot they came off of so that they get rotated properly, and also note the kilometres since the last swap. The process normally takes The Doofus and I an hour or two to do.
Why "The Doofus" ? Well, as I may or may not have mentioned in other posts this year (I know I haven't been updating as much as I should) he decided to start smoking back in February, because all of his "cool friends" were doing it; and this Fall he decided he wasn't going back to school. Nope, he figures Grade 11 is good enough, because he'd rather work for minimum wage as a Carnie than go back to school and complete his Grade 12. He's 18, and legally an adult, so we can't force him to do anything he doesn't want to do anymore. Frankly, methinks "The IDIOT" would be more appropriate; but I've been told "that's not nice" - so "The Doofus" it is. :P
At any rate, switching the tires around was the easy part; the hard part was repairing the wiring harness for the anit-lock brakes and the suspension system. Some time ago (a couple years?) one of the wires broke. It should have been a simple job to reconnect them, but the local dealership did a half-assed patch-job, saying "We don't have an electrician to fix it properly." Or something like that - I wasn't there, so I'm just going with what Trixstir told me. The patch held together until this Summer, when it broke again. While we had the wheel off, I figured I had better fix it before the weather gets any worse. There's really not much to it - it's just two wires, and one was broken. Actually, one was completely broken, and the other was in such bad shape that I just nipped it off too. It should have been an easy fix: Solder the wires back together, cover with shrink-wrap, and you're done.
Except that with the damaged bits removed, the wires wouldn't be long enough anymore, so I had to splice a little extra into the harness. Again, not really an issue - you just have to make two connections each, instead of just one. The problem was that the wire that was newly damaged was easily repaired, but the other wire simply refused to accept any solder. No matter what I tried, the solder would just roll off, and not adhere to the wires. They were copper, but they were tarnished black, and nothing I could do would make the solder stick. In the end, I cut the plastic insulation off of two butt-connectors, and crimped them as tightly as I could to the wire. From there, I flooded the connector with as much solder as I could, and then shrink-wrapped the whole mess. Hopefully this will hold. The repaired wires were then carefully wrapped in black electrical tape, then covered with plastic wire-loom, which was then covered with yet another layer of electrical tape. I sincerely hope that those connections hold, because removing all of that would be a royal pain. Did I mention that all of this had to be done within the confines of the wheel-well, and that I only had about four inches of free movement from the main harness? Fun stuff...
It's all good now though - the repair seems to be working, the tires have been switched and rotated, and the van is about as ready as it will be for Winter. The rest of Saturday was spent trying to catch up on some work at the shop.
Today (Sunday) was spent at the Farm - trying to get things finished there. The biggest concern was getting the snowblower mounted on the old Massey-65, and clearing enough room in the quonset to get everything inside. Believe it or not, it was an incredibly warm +15°c today, almost unheard of at this time of year! Looking around, it looked more like Spring than the onset of Winter, but the forecast sounds like that's all going to end soon. Whether or not we'll actually need the snowblower this Winter is hard to say - we didn't need it at all last Winter, and by all account this Winter should be even more mild. On the other hand, my experience with "warm" Winters is that they might not snow much, but when they do, you get a lot of the wet heavy stuff at once. Better to be prepared, even if we never wind up using it.
Mucking out the horses' paddocks by hand is a slow, unpleasant task - particularly if you've had a week of wet weather making a sticky mess of everything. Slogging through the muck with shovel and wheel-barrow is not my idea of a good time, but it needs to be done. I would love to have a small utility tractor for this kind of work - it would make it a lot easier. The Massey-65 is a bit too big, and the FEL on it doesn't have a proper "scooping edge" on its bucket. The edge is blunt and rounded over, and it winds up just skimming over the muck instead of actually scooping it up. Replacing the bucket with one that had a proper edge would be an option, but that wouldn't address the fact that the Massey is not the best-suited for this task. It's old, it's cranky, the hydraulics leak, and lifting and scooping (be it muck or snow) requires contant gear-shifting, clutch engaging, and standing up to see what you're doing. In short, it's quite a work-out and your legs will get very sore. Still easier than doing it by hand, but a chore just the same.
It was getting dark (and cold) as we finished, and we found that there just wasn't enough room in the quonset for everything. As much as I dislike the idea, we decided that we'd have to leave some equipment outside. I moved it alongside the old pig-barn where we had cleared things out over the summer, which should provide some shelter from the worst of the winds. We'll put a tarp over them, and weight it down with bricks. Hopefully this will keep the stuff protected almost as well as being in the quonset.
We got back in the house just in time to prevent the Munchkin-II from flooding the bathroom yet again. She flooded it last week by trying to flush nearly a half-roll of toilet-paper at once; and she did the same thing again tonight, despite being warned not to do so. This time though, we caught it before she flushed. That said, one still had to deal with the soggy mess - time for rubber gloves and a slop-bucket. Pity those gloves just aren't big enough for my huge hands, so that task had to fall to either Trixstir or The Doofus. ;)
The Doofus argued that he had to do it the last time, so Trixstir wound up dealing with it. Frankly, I think he should have done it this time too, since he won't help clean out the horses' paddocks. We needed something quick, hot, and easy for supper - so I suggested pancakes. Fast and easy to make, and the kids love them, so there's no arguements trying to get them to eat. Trixstir went to bed at 9, which was way too early for me, so I stayed up and watched "Gravity" - a space-themed movie with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. It won seven Academy Awards, but I wasn't overly impressed. OK, it's got some impressive camera work (great visuals), but there's not much of a story. It's sort of like a space-based version of "Cast Away", but while I'd happily watch Cast Away multiple times, I think once was enough for Gravity. Ah well...
So that was the weekend, more or less. Back to the grind in the morning...
Unlike my Ranger, which has "All Weather" tires (not the same thing as "All Season" tires), we have two sets of wheels for the van: All-Season tires mounted on the nice-looking mag rims, and true Winter tires mounted on ugly (but functional) black rims. Each season, we swap the wheels, making note of which spot they came off of so that they get rotated properly, and also note the kilometres since the last swap. The process normally takes The Doofus and I an hour or two to do.
Why "The Doofus" ? Well, as I may or may not have mentioned in other posts this year (I know I haven't been updating as much as I should) he decided to start smoking back in February, because all of his "cool friends" were doing it; and this Fall he decided he wasn't going back to school. Nope, he figures Grade 11 is good enough, because he'd rather work for minimum wage as a Carnie than go back to school and complete his Grade 12. He's 18, and legally an adult, so we can't force him to do anything he doesn't want to do anymore. Frankly, methinks "The IDIOT" would be more appropriate; but I've been told "that's not nice" - so "The Doofus" it is. :P
At any rate, switching the tires around was the easy part; the hard part was repairing the wiring harness for the anit-lock brakes and the suspension system. Some time ago (a couple years?) one of the wires broke. It should have been a simple job to reconnect them, but the local dealership did a half-assed patch-job, saying "We don't have an electrician to fix it properly." Or something like that - I wasn't there, so I'm just going with what Trixstir told me. The patch held together until this Summer, when it broke again. While we had the wheel off, I figured I had better fix it before the weather gets any worse. There's really not much to it - it's just two wires, and one was broken. Actually, one was completely broken, and the other was in such bad shape that I just nipped it off too. It should have been an easy fix: Solder the wires back together, cover with shrink-wrap, and you're done.
Except that with the damaged bits removed, the wires wouldn't be long enough anymore, so I had to splice a little extra into the harness. Again, not really an issue - you just have to make two connections each, instead of just one. The problem was that the wire that was newly damaged was easily repaired, but the other wire simply refused to accept any solder. No matter what I tried, the solder would just roll off, and not adhere to the wires. They were copper, but they were tarnished black, and nothing I could do would make the solder stick. In the end, I cut the plastic insulation off of two butt-connectors, and crimped them as tightly as I could to the wire. From there, I flooded the connector with as much solder as I could, and then shrink-wrapped the whole mess. Hopefully this will hold. The repaired wires were then carefully wrapped in black electrical tape, then covered with plastic wire-loom, which was then covered with yet another layer of electrical tape. I sincerely hope that those connections hold, because removing all of that would be a royal pain. Did I mention that all of this had to be done within the confines of the wheel-well, and that I only had about four inches of free movement from the main harness? Fun stuff...
It's all good now though - the repair seems to be working, the tires have been switched and rotated, and the van is about as ready as it will be for Winter. The rest of Saturday was spent trying to catch up on some work at the shop.
Today (Sunday) was spent at the Farm - trying to get things finished there. The biggest concern was getting the snowblower mounted on the old Massey-65, and clearing enough room in the quonset to get everything inside. Believe it or not, it was an incredibly warm +15°c today, almost unheard of at this time of year! Looking around, it looked more like Spring than the onset of Winter, but the forecast sounds like that's all going to end soon. Whether or not we'll actually need the snowblower this Winter is hard to say - we didn't need it at all last Winter, and by all account this Winter should be even more mild. On the other hand, my experience with "warm" Winters is that they might not snow much, but when they do, you get a lot of the wet heavy stuff at once. Better to be prepared, even if we never wind up using it.
Mucking out the horses' paddocks by hand is a slow, unpleasant task - particularly if you've had a week of wet weather making a sticky mess of everything. Slogging through the muck with shovel and wheel-barrow is not my idea of a good time, but it needs to be done. I would love to have a small utility tractor for this kind of work - it would make it a lot easier. The Massey-65 is a bit too big, and the FEL on it doesn't have a proper "scooping edge" on its bucket. The edge is blunt and rounded over, and it winds up just skimming over the muck instead of actually scooping it up. Replacing the bucket with one that had a proper edge would be an option, but that wouldn't address the fact that the Massey is not the best-suited for this task. It's old, it's cranky, the hydraulics leak, and lifting and scooping (be it muck or snow) requires contant gear-shifting, clutch engaging, and standing up to see what you're doing. In short, it's quite a work-out and your legs will get very sore. Still easier than doing it by hand, but a chore just the same.
It was getting dark (and cold) as we finished, and we found that there just wasn't enough room in the quonset for everything. As much as I dislike the idea, we decided that we'd have to leave some equipment outside. I moved it alongside the old pig-barn where we had cleared things out over the summer, which should provide some shelter from the worst of the winds. We'll put a tarp over them, and weight it down with bricks. Hopefully this will keep the stuff protected almost as well as being in the quonset.
We got back in the house just in time to prevent the Munchkin-II from flooding the bathroom yet again. She flooded it last week by trying to flush nearly a half-roll of toilet-paper at once; and she did the same thing again tonight, despite being warned not to do so. This time though, we caught it before she flushed. That said, one still had to deal with the soggy mess - time for rubber gloves and a slop-bucket. Pity those gloves just aren't big enough for my huge hands, so that task had to fall to either Trixstir or The Doofus. ;)
The Doofus argued that he had to do it the last time, so Trixstir wound up dealing with it. Frankly, I think he should have done it this time too, since he won't help clean out the horses' paddocks. We needed something quick, hot, and easy for supper - so I suggested pancakes. Fast and easy to make, and the kids love them, so there's no arguements trying to get them to eat. Trixstir went to bed at 9, which was way too early for me, so I stayed up and watched "Gravity" - a space-themed movie with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. It won seven Academy Awards, but I wasn't overly impressed. OK, it's got some impressive camera work (great visuals), but there's not much of a story. It's sort of like a space-based version of "Cast Away", but while I'd happily watch Cast Away multiple times, I think once was enough for Gravity. Ah well...
So that was the weekend, more or less. Back to the grind in the morning...