Tuesday Twitterdeetools

The brisk winds from yesterday afternoon have died down.  The lawn is covered with small debris, and I've got a day of  major mowing and clean-up job ahead.

 This is the white-clover time of the lawn-mowing season.  I hate it, almost worse than dandelion season.  This year rotten weather decimated the dandelions early on.

This year I hate the white clover season even worse cuz for the past three-four weeks, the lawn has been covered with cotton.  If there were a market on cottonwood cotton, we would have been able to fill the demand for sure. 

Just when I'd think we'd seen the last of  white lawns, another cotton supply would come drifting through, leaving another fluffy white blanket to cover the grass.

In the last day or so, the deposits seemed to have ended, just in time for the vast sea of white-clover nubbins to pop up all over, giving the lawn a totally scraggy look.  And to make matters worse, a lawnmower blade hasn't been invented which can reach down to the ground and decapitate all those little buggers.  

So, this is the season when a lawn mowing just doesn't produce much in the way of visual esthetics, but at least I'm keeping the grass in tow.  

And, speaking of those little white cotton fluffs---they've been inhabiting the house a lot lately and surviving.

My normally wonderful Dyson vacuum cleaner---a sucker supreme---has gone on the fritz.  There's something wrong with its cord, so it won't start up.

Last time I called the folks down at Sew n Vac repair center, they said they didn't do Dysons.  Nonetheless, I'm gonna call them again because maybe they do cords.  Seems like electrical stuff in cords should be fairly universal.  They can just pretend it's a Eureka or Hoover cord.

Bill bought me another vacuum cleaner the last time the Dyson wasn't working right (I actually figured out the problem eventually on my own).  I figured out the problem out of necessity.  In the past few years, I haven't seen too many vacuum cleaners---except Dysons---that will suck up dirt with any consistency.  

What's this thing with putting roller down to "bare-floor" level, only to vacuum up an area and find everything you seemingly sucked up from the floor in a nice pile BEHIND you???  Seems the vacuum inhales the residue and then blows it out the back.  

It seems there's never an end to the problems with indoor or outdoor equipment.

Last night, after seeing Bill with some bolts to fix a broken handle on the push weed eater,  I took the battery-operated weed eater---purchased in 2009---out to the road to slice off a clump of tall grass near the driveway. 

I loved that weed eater.  As a battery-operated item, one needs to just flip a switch to get it going.  I flipped the switch last night, however,  and immediately noticed myself going back to the shed with a dead weed eater.

That battery will regenerate from the charge just so often, and this time, after a week of charging, it bit the dust and not the weeds.

So, out came the 2010 tool.  It's gas/oil operated, and so far it's been behaving.  We'll see if it lasts the season.  If it does, I'll take my hat off to Merwins for selling a quality weed eater.

I also decided last night (it was pretty pleasant out once the high winds died down) to get the rototiller going again.  It had sat for a month through never-ending rain in the north garden.  I could not set foot in that garden without sinking clear to China until about ten days ago.  

Finally, last week I was able to direct the tiller back to the shop to drain the gas and put in a new supply.  Last night I pulled the cord, and it started up on about the third try.  So, I drove it back out to the north garden, which this year only grows weeds and lots of them.  

The tiller worked---after a fashion.  It has a messaging problem somewhere in the gas line.  After a round or two through the weeds, the gas line sends a message to the tiller to sputter and die.  After several deaths and an equal number of revivals last night, I was able to get most of the garden of weeds knocked down.  

I'll just keep working at that project since that garden will not grow any veggies during this summer season.  Maybe next year that area will not remain a lake until July.  Maybe next year I can once again brag about garden bounty and ribbons at the fair on my produce.

This year seems to be dotted with memories of things gone wrong, equipment gone south and Mother Nature-related comings and goings---all enough to make a sane person scream.

We, in North Idaho, through lots of life experiences, know that sanity and rational approaches to any task often end up being weak links in the survival process.