Yard Work for the Beat Down

I'm not as active as a volunteer firefighter as I used to be, because over the years my body has been beat down pretty good ... by doing yard work.

Other than a couple of back injuries, I've never really been hurt on that hazardous job. Firefighting, I mean. Yard work, now that's the task that leaves me moaning on the ground, and not in a good way.

 

You ever try to mow with this stuff on?

 

With firefighting, you wear tons of protective gear, which changes the most likely medical problems to heat stroke and heart attacks. With yard work, you wear shorts and a tank top, and in some cases hold a can of beer. In addition, with firefighting you tend to have the topic of safety going on in your mind:

"Say, I'm in zero visibility, crawling over a burned out floor, shoving a metal pike into the ceiling when I don't know if the electricity is still on." It's just an example. I've never pulled a ceiling while crawling on the floor, so don't sweat it.

When I'm doing yard work, I have other topics on my mind:

"I wonder how long I could let this grow before the lawn police arrest me?"

An action shot.

But the biggest reason for this seeming paradox is that fire just doesn't give a darn about me, while Mother Nature hates me.

Oh, yeah. Mother Nature is a vindictive bit ... being. She hears me complain. I complain a lot.

"It's too cold." "I hate bugs." "That's not rain: It's a cloud of pollen!"

Once, as I was mowing in the front yard, one of our trees bent down and beaned me with a limb. It had nothing to do with me not paying attention. It's also the only time in my adult life that I did a full somersault.

But recently I learned a new twist: My furniture is in cahoots with Mother Nature. Much of it is wood, after all, an increasingly expensive resource that doesn't just grow on trees. I'm always shoving furniture around, banging into it, and of course sitting on it. This axes of evil (see what I did, there?) recently tried hard to do me in.

I was mowing in the back yard, near the lilacs I've horribly neglected. If you were a lilac and your caretaker doesn't trim you or keep other trees from growing up in the middle of you, wouldn't you be upset? I don't know, either.

As I pushed the mower around one of the bushes, it reached it's driest, deadest branch out and clobbered me in the arm.

The evidence.

 

The above photo is my arm, just so you know. Now that I think of it, maybe this is what the far side of my forearm always looks like--I usually can't see it. But no, my wife takes great joy in pouring peroxide on my fresh wounds, and when they're old I don't scream like that.

The very next day, I noticed the TV remote was missing. (Just hang on, it's connected.) No big deal: It can always be found by sweeping a hand between the cushion and the inside of the couch's side. We put it on the arm, it slides down, and Bob's your uncle.

(That's just an expression: I don't mean to offend anyone who actually has an Uncle Bob.)

Now, the couch is only a few years old, and we really like it. It has two recliners, something that's always seemed like rich luxury to me, but boy, am I glad for them--especially on bad back days. But when you recline and unrecline and plop down on something all the time, there's bound to be some wear and tear.

As near as I can tell, a nail popped loose and just hung there, between the side and the cushion. Waiting. For me.

I swept my hand down there, just like I always do. What happens when something suddenly stabs into your hand? You withdraw your hand, don't you? Which I did, but the nail had already embedded itself into my finger. I'm pretty sure it bounced off the inside of a fingernail.

I'll spare you the photos.

Have you ever bled so much that you couldn't stop it even with pressure, elevation, and cold? It was just a finger, for crying out loud, which is exactly how I cried. Out loud. Luckily no one was home, but that meant I had to do the peroxide thing myself, and it's not nearly as much fun that way.

Two injuries in two days, on the same arm. And what swung that nail out to grab me? That's right: the couch's wooden frame. I got even by bleeding on it, but still. Also, I hurt my back again jumping halfway across the living room while waving my hand wildly, and later I had to clean up that blood.

Luckily I'm used to cleaning up my own blood.

Don't doubt the connection: The truth is out there ... and in there. Mother Nature is out to get me, and there's nowhere to hide. Today the couch--tomorrow the bed.

There's a thought to sleep on.

When I'm going to give blood, I prefer advanced notice.

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Sewer Routing Uncovers New Form of Torture

(Note: I just spent another weekend going through this all over again. It's a good thing I wrote this blog before that, because I've lost all sense of humor since then.)
 

There came a certain point the other day, when I dropped to the ground in exhaustion and told my wife, "I don't think I can do this."

Get your mind out of the gutter. Or maybe not, since I'm talking about routing out a sewer line.

You may call it a sewer snake, or a router, or go with the trademarked Roto Rooter, but any way you look at it, it's a crap job. Despite my well-known lack of mechanical ability, I've used routers numerous times, back when roots were growing in my sewer. (By the way, the stuff you flush down that's called "root killer" is really, I suspect, root fertilizer.) But several years ago a true professional came in, put a giant trench in my back yard, and replaced the old ceramic sewer line with brand new, professional grade plastic. I've had no problem since.

Until last weekend.

And it always happens on a weekend, in order to maximize your troubles. Emily and I were preparing for an author appearance, and I headed to the basement for a folding table. There it was: two pools of water over the lowermost drains.

Indoor swimming pools are only fun if you can control what kind of water goes with them.

Ah, but now the good news: While replacing the line, the pro guy put in something called a cleanout, and its purpose is to give you a place to put in the snake/router/out-of-control-metal-tentacle-monster if you need to clear a blockage.

The router I rented weighed six thousand pounds, but it was way easier using it outside than trying to work it through a drain in the basement. I put fifty feet of writhing, hand-smashing sewer snake into the line. It did absolutely nothing.

Which is pretty much standard with my home maintenance jobs.

So, Emily and I hoisted the whole 6,000 pound unit down the outside stairs to the basement where, no matter how much I tried, the snake wouldn't fit into the hole. ("That's what he said." I know you're thinking it.) Then we hoisted the whole 6,000 pound unit back up the basement stairs and into the back of our SUV.

Have you ever heard a car scream? It's not pretty.

But the place I rented it from (Doc's Hardware, downtown Albion), traded me a smaller unit for no extra charge. That one, with maybe a bit of effort, did go into the basement drain. After about twenty-five feet of pretending I was my house's doctor giving it a colonoscopy (now it knows how I feel), the router bit came out with a substantial amount of yuck clinging to it.

It sounds so much easier than it was. I'm not just talking about the pushing and pulling, and the invention of new curse words. To get the router bit in I had to lay on the floor, stick my hand into the drain, and physically force it around a bend in the pipe. Yeah. You know what was in that drain? Yes. Yes it was.

This is why, during our after action review, Emily poured two gallons of peroxide and then three gallons of alcohol on my hand. You see, so much skin had been skinned (thus the term) that, had it been broken (as at one point I thought it had), the doctors could have examined my bones without doing x-rays. Emily was, quite rightly, concerned about infection. (I mean, we do know where it's been.) She was also rightly concerned about the neighbors calling 911 after all the screaming, but I suppose they're used to me by now.

I felt like I was victim #3 on an episode of Game of Thrones.

(Note: We need to buy more peroxide and alcohol, and maybe drinking alcohol, too.)

I don't remember at what point I told Emily that I wasn't sure I could do this. It was fairly early in the process, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm in my fifties, and last time I routed a sewer line I was in my forties. I don't feel any different--except for when I try something like this.

But we did do it, and it took less than twenty-four hours. (Note: The first time.) As of this moment, only two days later, I can flex my hand again, the scrape on my abdomen has stopped oozing, and I can use my arms as long as I don't lift them over the level of the scrape on my abdomen.

I'm going to call that a win.

 It really wasn't that bad, see?

Car work; or we could fight pollution with a horse and buggy

Our car just hit 100,000 miles--and its fifth birthday, at the same time. I've become a big believer in preventative maintenance, so I brought it in for all that hundred thousand mile stuff, including a change out of the cabin air filter that I didn't realize cars had until I researched it. Hey, we all have allergies--even the dog.

Spark plugs, radiator flush, tire rotation, oil change, fluid checks--We have a lot of driving to do this summer, and I want to take care of the car that's taking care of us. Especially since we can't afford a second one. Some of you might remember that a few years ago our Ford Focus fell victim to a young gentlemen who thought the answer to being sun-blinded in heavy traffic was to cross his finger and hit the gas.

So we bought a Ford Focus, which we love even more. But five years and six digits is middle aged by car standards, so we had to give it a colonoscopy, check its cholesterol level, and start it on some acid reflux medicine.

Turns out we also need new brakes. This is no surprise--so far as I can tell, the brakes have never been replaced on the Escape, which we bought when it was about two years old. Anyone who's ever done a lot of driving on the interstate knows that, no matter how defensively you drive, you're going to have to work those brakes! It's almost as bad as driving local roads at dusk and dawn, when the deer are out.

Also, I recently had to brake for a turkey.

 This is not a complaint, because let's be honest: I've been going through my own 100,000 mile problems in recent years. I've had to get my fluids checked, some of my spinal column needs replaced, and my paint job has been fading. Sometimes the car and I sit around, sipping Metamucil, and complaining about kids these days and their oversized pickup truck tires.

Besides, it's an incentive to push my writing career harder. According to my estimation, to pay for this work I need to sell at least three hundred books, or four thousand short stories, or take a part time job washing cars at the dealership.

Or I could do all the car maintenance work myself ... but I'm not sure our medical insurance would cover that.

Linemen Are Always Wired Up

I heard a noise last summer and looked around the corner to find a truck parked in my back yard.

A lot of the utility workers from around here are down in the southeast right now, trying to repair all the infrastructure damage done by Hurricane Michael. They're putting in some long, long hours, a long way from home.

On more normal days these are the guys who keep my computer and TV running, not to mention, oh, lights and heat. Speaking as a person who once, as a lad, tried to dig a piece of bread out of the toaster with a fork, I wouldn't take their job for love or money. (The toaster won.)

First world griping, or: internet apocalypse

Remember when your utilities were gas, electric, water, and maybe phone, and the idea of having the world at your fingertips and a screen in your hands was something for rich people or science fiction characters?

No, me neither. But I got a taste of first world stone age when our internet went out at the beginning of this month. How great is it that Mediacom convinced me to get my home phone service through them, then told me I'd be out for two weeks after both it and our internet went dark? It's so great, it makes me want to just injure my back and lay there, unable to use the internet or talk on the phone, or move. That's how great it was.

And that's the irony of it, that it failed at a time when I was flat on my back and could have used it most.

(Truth in advertising: It actually hurt to lay flat on my back. I was in more of a fetal position.)

 But there's a bright side: By the time the pain eased enough for me to do anything at all, I worked on writing or--wait for it--reading. In the week and a half or so we've gone without, I wrote a submission outline for my newest novel, and got halfway through a final polish on the manuscript. I'm also halfway through the first novel I've read all summer.

That's the good news. The bad news is that when I do do internet stuff (and we all know there's a lot of online do-do), I often ended up using my phone. I didn't think twice about it until I got a notice that, 25% into the month, I'd used up 75% of my data. For you older people, that's like gossiping on a party line until the other users start yelling for you to get off the phone.

That's why I'm stealing the internet you're getting this from right now. *ahem* Borrowing. It's also why I'm not online as much as usual, even though I'm still limited in other things I can do. First world problems, yeah, but I'm paying for my first world stuff with money I earned by helping other people with their first world problems.

And when I called the people providing me with that first world service, who out of fairness I shouldn't name, they said a serviceman would be right there, in about two weeks.

Thank you, Mediacom. Thankyouverymuch.

Basically I'm telling you this because the service guy is supposed to be here today (they moved it up three days, so why am I complaining?) I don't want to vent on the repair guy, because it isn't his fault, so I'm venting on you. There. Vented.

How things go today will determine what kind of mood I'm in tomorrow ... but either way my smart phone won't be very smart for the rest of the month, and I suspect M******m isn't going to reimburse me for that.

"I feel like something's just crushing me." Kidding! This was taken after my sinus surgery.

Revenge of the Water Heater

 Note: I wrote most of this piece a month ago, put it into a draft, and immediately forgot about it. I decided to post it now because a few days ago I mentioned in passing that I was attempting home maintenance, and there have since been several inquiries about me at local hospitals. I'm still here, I survived, and thanks to my brother my home once again has running water.
 

The thing about a water heater is that it's supposed to heat water--hence the name--and then hold aforementioned heated water until you let it out. If the water gets out before you want it to, that's a problem. It's also a problem if the heated water isn't heated, but never mind.

So when I saw water leaking out of the bottom of my water heater, it naturally occurred to me that I might have a problem. And what does one do in modern times when one has a problem? That's right: consult the internet.

The internet told me that the water might be coming from the drain valve, in which case I might be able to cap it. (It wasn't.) Or, it might be coming from anywhere else, in which case both I and my wallet were screwed. Further consultation revealed that "screwed" was not meant literally, so my collection of mismatched screwdrivers would not help me. Nor would the jar full of screws I've found in random places, and always wondered what they were supposed to be holding together.

Further, I discovered drinking a screwdriver would help, but only temporarily.

The internet told me my water heater is approaching its normal lifespan anyway, and there's no use crying over spilled water. However, it also told me that if the leak isn't too bad, and the water isn't damaging anything, I could go on using the heater for years more before it finally conks out.

(I suspect it was people on the internet who said that, rather than the internet itself. Then again, keep feeding information into a computer system and sooner or later it's going to figure stuff out for itself--we've all seen those movies.)

This idea suits me. (The "keep using it" idea, not "the internet's taking over" idea, which terrifies me.) "Ignore the problem and maybe it'll go away" is a creed I've lived by when it comes to home repairs, or anything mechanical. Yes, that may have led to a tire falling off my car, but no creed is perfect.

On a quite definitely related note, I also discovered that the valve to shut off water to my heater is corroded so badly that it's no longer a valve. It's just a scaly green blob with no logical function, rather like a politician's brain. I can't change the heater without shutting off water to the entire house, and the house is heated with water. If that's not an excuse to put the whole thing off until cold weather ends, I don't know what is. What could possibly go wrong?

 So I put it off until May, and started work three days before our town's spring cleanup day, when I could put the old water heater out. Three days later I was indeed able to take the old heater out, just in time. At that point I didn't have any water, hot or cold, and due to a pressure surge I'd also lost my  washing machine. But hey, I got rid of that old water heater.

I could go into more detail, but it's a little hard to type with these burned fingers and the strained shoulder. On the other hand, the sore toe and damaged knees make for a good excuse to catch up on episodes of Fargo. Thanks to my brother everything's up and running except for the washing machine, which was at least three decades old and bought used, anyway.

My home, which was also bought used, is always looking for new and original ways to beat me down. I suppose when it's time to install the new washing machine, it'll find a new way.

This is where my home maintenance projects usually go.

Worst Home Maintenance Fail Ever

When I opened my Blogger account this morning, I found that all my visitor stats had disappeared. (They popped back into existence a few hours later, having apparently undergone some kind of existential crisis. I've been there.)

One would be tempted to blame Blogger, or the internet in general. However, in the last two days I've broken a brand new pipe wrench, a washing machine, a copper water pipe, a vent hood, my back, and the entire water supply to my house. Can't speak for the new water heater: I haven't advanced to the point of igniting the pilot.

So for the moment I'm not prepared to blame anyone else for stuff going wrong in my  vicinity.

On an all-too-related note, you might not be hearing from me for a few days.

This photo is from my chimney demolition, which led to a broken sledge hammer, smashed ladder, and big hole in the ground.

Water Heater Mayhem

A certain percentage of the population will insist that if they can do something, it's easy for anyone to do.

Example: I take a woodworking class in high school (because an industrial arts class was required and I wasn't any good at getting out of that kind of thing). "It's easy. Anyone can use a saw and sander, and make a bookcase."

Well, I have a dozen bookcases, and I didn't make a single one of them. I also have an Incomplete in woodworking class.

Keeping a small engine going is easy, with just a little training and practice. Tell that to the crew of the passing 747 who found a piece of my mower blade and a spark plug embedded in a wing after the infamous Exploding Lawn Mower Incident of 1998. I don't care how much the federal investigator claims it broke the laws of physics.

So when I tell you I'm a little nervous about installing our new water heater, I don't want to hear any of that, "ah, it's easy" crap. The E.R. has a special "ah, it's easy" treatment room. It's right next to the "hold my beer and watch this" ward.

My wife spent the better part of a day researching the best replacement for our heater, which recently went from a small leak to rinsing the basement floor, and wasn't that nice of it to help keep the place clean? Then we drove to the store, and discovered it would fit into our Ford Escape with exactly half an inch to spare. Then came getting it out of the SUV and down the basement steps, which make two sharp right angle turns: One at the inside of an L shaped wall, one at the basement door. Picture it. The new heater weighs 130 pounds, which is still less then the piece of my lawn mower they found inside a barn six miles from my lawn.

And that was still the easiest part of the job, although my back denies it. The rest comes later this week, when I have to remove the old water heater and install the new one. The instructions are pretty plain, step-by-step, and involve electricity and natural gas.

But not to worry: Someone will show up to help, they always do. No one really wants to see my house blow up. That I know of.

I'm sure it'll work out fine. Or if you don't hear from me later, look for a video similar to this one:

https://youtu.be/Cv178a60Ypg

Or ... nail?

My car had a flat this morning, which I suspect might be related to this screw sticking out of the tire.

The Fall of The Conservative Lawn Mower

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

            With the purchase of a brand new lawn mower, only the third new one I’ve ever bought, I said goodbye to my conservative lawn mower.

            (So named because it stopped working whenever it tilted to the left.)

            It had a good, long run. In fact, the conservative lawn mower wasn’t one of the three bought brand new—I got it used, just like my house and my cars. If it’s good enough for Pontiac/Ford/Dodge/Buick/Chevy/Nissan/Ford again, it’s good enough for Briggs and Stratton. (The less said about Renault, the better.)

            Well, good for a while. I should have retired the conservative lawn mower the first time I tried to mow the hill out front, only to have it putter and die. From then on, it only worked when on the level or tilted right. That wouldn’t have been so bad on a nice, flat lawn, but over my entire lawn there is exactly one square foot of level ground. It’s as if my landscaping was done by a guy with an inner ear infection.

            So I’d go one way and be fine, then forget, turn around, and the mower would gasp like someone finding a quiet moment in a Michael Bay movie. I’d have much preferred a moderate lawn mower.

            I needed a mower that would match my personality: Cheap and simple. It also needed to be light because of the tendonitis, which bothered me so much when I shoveled snow that I almost forgot how much I hated snow whether it was shoveled or not.

            Finally, I found a lawnmower with two stickers on the box, stickers that made it perfect for my needs: “clearance”, and “already assembled”.

            It took me only an hour to have it ready to go. That’s a new record, for me. I was a little startled to discover it had no throttle, but it’s safe to say that with me the fewer parts, the better. I went out, I mowed the lawn, and I came in. That’s all a person needs in a lawn mower.

            As for the old one, Spring Cleanup week was coming up. I had a suspicion that if I put it out on the curb, it wouldn’t last long, and I was right. In fact, as I came through the door after taking the first load of junk out, I heard a truck roar to a stop outside. By the time I turned around and looked out, the mower, a broken office chair, and a fifteen year old computer running Windows 95 were all gone.

            You could argue that I should keep stuff “just in case”, but that’s exactly the kind of attitude that was heading me toward being on one of those basic cable shows.

            For awhile the mower did a good, if not great, job. It was easy to start, easy to adjust, easy to use, the exact opposite of pretty much any government program. Then, one day … it stopped. By which I mean, by itself. By which I mean, it wouldn’t start again.

            And yes, I did aggravate my tendonitis trying.

            I’m not sure why this surprised me. If my life was a sitcom I’d be Gilligan, or Tim Taylor on a bad day. If I was a kid’s show, my motto would be: “Can we do it? NO!”

            Still, I’m forever the cockeyed optimist, assuming that expression means you should accept defeat, but won’t. With the conservative lawn mower gone (and suddenly I missed it), I put the backup to work: an electric mower I inherited from my grandmother, tiny and unadjustable. The mower, not my grandmother. It was built, apparently, for people who scalped their yards like the villains in an old western. I call it “General Custer”.

            Every now and then I’d mess with the new mower, which mostly consisted of yelling at it, shaking it around, and begging. Then I’d pull the cord a few hundred times, give up, and get out the extension cord.

            Then I got lucky: Emily and I both became seriously ill, and had an excuse not to mow the lawn for three weeks. Well, lucky is relative.

            Once back on my feet, I realized the electric mower would be helpless against the forest of weeds that now snapped at my knees. I would give the new mower one more try, then give up and take it back—in other words, I’d do exactly what I should have done a month earlier.

            Not knowing what else to do, I drained the gas tank, filled it back up, took off the spark plug, put it back on, and pulled the start cord.

            The mower started. In fact, it purred like a guided-dander-armed cat.

            I can now take credit for “fixing” my new lawn mower, even though I did absolutely nothing that should have had an effect on it. It’s not often I fix something, but when I do … that’s exactly how it works.