Slacking: How to Pull a Mule

How NOT to get stuff done

It seems I've been slacking. Yep.  Really. For anyone that knows and understands me, that's procrastinating with cause. Fidoodling.

I haven't posted since June 15th.   Why? Better read that again, yep,  I've been slacking.

Here's a list of fidoodling  excuses I made up thought up. Some might even be  real or justified applicable. They aren't in order either, who needs order? How NOT to get stuff done comes to the fidoodling alert mind.

• The weather. It has been dull, raining, foggy, cold, and wet. We can't write when we're wet, the paper gets soggy.   Never mind the flooding of previous weeks, we received 55mm of rain  in the last 24 hours, too,  with continuous thunder storms.
• The power.  It goes off and on.  *We're conserving energy. How to lose files also comes to mind. Shut down the computer or watch it die  fry, sizzling  it's last file.
•  *Just in case.
• A splitting headache. The air pressure must have done it  if it wasn't the continuous thunder storms or the sizzling files..,,,you get the idea.
• The dogs don't like the thunder storms. Tilly the Tall and Ebony the Short  (T.T.T & E.T.S.)  are edgy and out of sorts. They're smart enough to shut down and hide to protect their hides.  
• It's coffee time.  'Ya gotta have caffeine to write stuff.'  And muffins. Cranberry. No power,  no muffins, no writing. Cookies may be an acceptable substitute.

• Computer trouble. A plague of  Word.doc file failures,  opening with indecipherable garbage code. NOT a VIRUS either, unless you wish to re-label Microsoft-based Office2010, which has now earned the the Official title of  "Pariah of Pariahs" in computer stuff-- a 'virus'. It's just greedy mean-spirited, badly-designed fluffware.     It insists on "converting" everything with a nuisance, sneaky  program called "Wordicon.exe"  and messes everything up, even modern Word.doc pages,  formatting and all.   Now we officially despise MS Office, period. Windows 7 is in on it.  Wordicon.exe does NOT come up in any searches.  No wonder it's hiding, I would kill it immediately and promise to bring thunder and lightning down upon it  if I ever find it.   It must be  a conspiracy --but then, maybe not......

• Deleting files.   I  have vigorously deleted all "MS Office 2010 blah blah" program files.  Guess what?  Not a problem in sight.  Imagine that....All  Word.doc files are now opening properly. MS and Windows just struck again,--- no wonder people buy Macs.  Just saying...ho hum... --and digressing. 

•  It's a jungle out there.  I looked out the window. The grass is tall enough to look IN the window right back at me. And laugh.   It's raining. Too wet to formulate any cutting attacks. I make cutting remarks  instead.  I am willfully forgetting the invectives.   I shut the blinds.  I cannot look. Well, fact is,  I also cannot see, the grass is in the way.

• Fixing lawn and garden equipment ( because it's a jungle out there. )

• That only included fixing a broken rototiller, which took off across the garden in high speed, running over some current bushes  like an insulted mule being towed by an old walking tractor
•  Reviving a second  old rototiller just in case. It smokes and leaks a lot. Wonder why. It's older than dirt, hasn't been run for 20 years, and has too much oil. Put a new carburetor on it. It even runs. Broke the pull rope 3 times. Changed the pull rope. We wonder why.  Smoking almost stops, and now the gearbox leaks. It starts. It works.   

• Repairing a broken mower deck mount on the riding tractor. The grass is growing exponentially as I figure out how to fix it.  Remove broken mower deck.  Preliminary engineering suggests welding or brazing required!  Done. Brazed.

 " Scotty here, Captain Kirk, she should hold, but I can't promise anything, Captain, beam me up..."

• Sharpening the blades on the mower deck on the riding tractor. They split rocks better when sharp.  
•  Replacing a broken belt on the riding tractor transmission drive which broke when the deck broke. No belt, no go.  It only took 3 trips to the city to get the right belt. Don't these belt suppliers know anything? I need a vacation. *sigh
• Replacing another broken belt on the mower deck on the riding tractor. Wow, only one trip for this belt. There must be some kind of mistake. Are we sure it's the right one, first trip? How can that be?  Impossible. It is a mistake. *sigh  Another $38.95.
• Reviving an 80- year-old mechanical walking tractor.  Antique and quaint but efficient. Will tow a mule or hill potatoes. Tires are rotten and split.  I cross my fingers and turn on the air compressor.  The tubes still hold air enough to get it off of the ground; I can see those noble, ancient tubes, because the tires are  split,  smiling like a pair of happy faces under pressure.   They're a weird size. Uncommon.
• Getting Tires:    Local tire supplier laughs raucously.    Gotta buy new ones somewhere . Find them in the Ozarks or someplace, that is.  Helpful son actually finds'em, too, it seems I can get them on order, on line. Otherwise I'd have to ride the mule to Iowa or the Ozarks or someplace to get them. 'Ya gotta love technology when it actually works.
• Replacing the carburetor, coil and pulley on a replacement motor for the walking tractor so it can actually run and make the walking tractor tow a mule or hill potatoes, mostly the latter.  Amazingly, the ancient motor mounts fit the "modern" Honda motor. 

               " No wonder," I said, scratching my head, " it's a 30 year old motor too!"  *sigh   

• Testing the old walking tractor.  Halleluleah!  The new-old motor  fires up and runs like a Cesium clock.  It makes the old antique move,  a bit too quickly. *Note to self, optimize pulley sizes...  It makes the split, smiling, rotten tires roll up and down the driveway..... I'm a mechanical smartass, so I mount  a tool on it and carve a couple of long, deep  trenches in the gravel in the driveway just to impress the wife.  She laughs. 
• Filling trenches in the driveway.    I get to fill the trenches  up again, you know, the ones made  testing the old walking tractor....I should have tried towing the mule instead. 

   
   

The Antique Walking Tractor  Circa OLD

Admiring the old walking tractor. It's the real deal. It's going to work, too. 
I think I'll have to paint it and put new handles on it too, the original wood kind.  Varnished. 
The 'replacement' Honda motor is 30 years old too.











 How about fixing the old LawnBoy now, you ask?  The one I dug out of the weeds behind the garage.     
 Now that's a lawnmower. It's 60 years old too. I'm just a bit curious,  so  I just put a few drops of gas in the spark plug hole, and second pull, it fires.  Twice for good measure.  It still runs better than the new ones.
 All it took was...well, that will  be another post, with pictures too.   That jungle better watch out.

 oh...about *Posting? 
 Frankly, I'm having too much fun doing stuff, doing REAL stuff. With new tires I might even be able to pull a mule.

* Posting? Well...er....in a few days,  the tires are coming and I'd like to see if the old Lawnboy will run too --and. .... well, okay, I have to be a slacker and fidoodle around  procrastinate  sometime, don't you think so?
 Coffee and muffins comes to mind....


Is that incoming I hear?