Free lawn mower

As I was on my way home from work yesterday, I noticed a lawn mower pushed to the curb for the garbage man. I asked permission to take it and got my first free lawn mower!

It had obviously sat for a few years, so I disassembled it to clean the carburetor and free up the frozen butterflies and linkages. (Lemontree lent a hand too.) One of the throttle shaft seals disintegrated when I attempted to clean it, so I cut some foam from Tiffany's "eggcrate" mattress pad and made a new one. Sharpened the blade, put in some fresh oil and gas and... it started up on the first pull! Not bad for free garbage.

There is a broken throttle control lever, so I'm going to hit up some local lawn mower junkyards and see if I can get a better one. Other than slapping some paint on the rust, this "garbage" is ready to cut a few more lawns for somebody. If I value my labor, I'll be selling it at a loss, but it's still fun to divert something from the landfill. The best form of recycling, in my opinion. :)

Painting!

This is what we've been up to just about every Saturday for the last month or so, and every day during the whole week Corwin had off work. Painting our house! It didn't quite work out as planned. For one, the prep work takes some time. We had some peeling paint, so we did some scraping and applied primer. We thought we could do a side of the house each weekend. We also thought our spraygun worked. But apparently it is broken, so we did it the old fashioned way, which in a way is probably better, because we can get into the crevices better than I think a sprayer would have done. Also, we didn't count on it getting so hot so soon, so every day we've been able to work on it, it's only been a few hours.



I wish I could show you a finished picture, but alas, we are destined to work at it for a while longer. Most of the main color is finally applied, and I've started on the trim (a reddey-orangey color). For your enjoyment, I attach a photo of Corwin painting where I couldn't reach. The color on the slat below where he is painting is the dried finish color. I know it's not a huge difference from the original color, but now I can say our house is light gray, and not some tannish wierd color.

What's That Bug?

We were spending the evening watering our various plants in the backyard. I checked my compost bin and saw that it was very dry. While I was doing this, the girls joined me. Tiffany looked in and saw several little bugs running around. Of course, you know that compost bins are full of bugs of all sorts. I know this, too. Lately, I've seen a lot of ants, but it's not uncommon to see pill bugs and earwigs, so that's what I expected when she asked, "What's that bug?" Well, it obviously wasn't any of those afore mentioned bugs, but it was really hard to get a good look at. They liked the dark, so if I moved a piece of compost, I saw maybe a hundred of them, but they scattered and disappeared deeper into the compost, that it was so hard to get a good look at them. Finally one of them got caught in an eggshell. Despite their speed, it couldn't climb up the smooth sides of the shell, so I caught one!


It's really dusty. The picture really doesn't look like I remember it looking. Funny thing about pictures. I remember it being blacker and skinnier. Of course it was moving really fast. It was tough to get it to sit still for a picture.

Anyhow, I went searching on the web for this strange creature. I knew it was some sort of larvae, so that helped. But what really helped was running into a wonderful website called What's That Bug? I'm not sure I've figured out what it is, but I think it is the larvae of a carpet beetle. I sent the picture to the administrator of that site to ask, so I may yet find out definitively what the bugs are. I then spent 2 hours looking at bugs on the website. It was way cool.

Teardown begins

Our VW Fox has served faithfully as the family car for several years, but it's a little on the small side for a growing family and the paint... well, Volkswagen picked a bad formulation for their red paint in 1988 and the result is not pretty. The VW Jetta is larger than the Fox both in legroom as well as trunk space, so we purchased one a while ago and it's been sleeping in the garage until I had time to get to it. Last week, I finally had time.

I've removed most of the front end to expose the now nearly naked gasoline engine. The gas engine will be replaced with a turbodiesel engine from a local junkyard that has been bored out and will be rebuilt with new pistons and bearings, so we will essentially have a new engine ready to go 300,000 miles or more (VWs and diesels both last a very long time -- some VW diesels have passed 500,000 miles without a rebuild). Yes, yes, diesel fuel is currently more expensive than gasoline, but at 45 to 50MPG, it still ends up being cheaper per mile than a 30MPG gasoline car. Plus, you have the option of burning waste vegetable oil in a diesel engine... free fuel!

I'm also going to be replacing all of the wear items. Once the Jetta is done, we will sell the Fox so the Jetta has to be reliable enough to go on interstate trips -- any part that might leave us stranded is going to be replaced now while it's all in pieces anyway. The cost of replacing the engine and various parts will be high up front, but will still be less than new car payments over the long term... and because it is an older car, it will be cheaper to insure and less likely to be stolen. Plus, it's kind of cool to build your own car... kind of the ultimate Lego toy.

Fishing

I finally gave in, after much youth persuasion, to buy a fishing license. My girls wanted to go fishing. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that fish and game officials were at the park teaching kids how to tie knots and giving them a chance at casting. Or the fact that my brothers and parents regularly go fishing. I'm kind of a cheap skate. I didn't really want to fork over $25 for a license when I know for a fact I probably won't catch anything. What can I say? I'm a bad fisherman. Or maybe I'm not dedicated enough. Nah. I'm just lousy at it. I could go fishing with a group of people and be the only one who didn't catch anything. This is probably the reason I haven't had a fishing license in the past ten years.

I couldn't find any of my old poles. It seems I most likely left them at my parents' house where they got commandeered by my brothers. For some strange reason, I couldn't find my tackle box either. I don't really think I would have given it away. I'm sure it's around here somewhere. Happily my family had given my two oldest each a pole, which they have never used. These were old poles, so I looked at them, and found the reel on one was actually broken, so I had to throw that one out. The other was in great condition. That is, until somebody stepped on it and broke the reel. So, we went to Walmart, where we bought new poles, and a few essential tackle supplies. I even got a little pole for Emily. She was so happy about it, she carried it through the store, gave it up only to check out and allow the checker to cut it off the packaging, then she proudly marched out of the store, carrying her new pole over her shoulder (it was a small teaching moment for her to no longer drag it on the ground).

For our first attempt, we went to fish in the river. We parked, then walked through the brush (Emily proudly carrying her pole all the way) and sat under a tree in a nice shady spot, because I'm crazy I didn't want a sunburn. Emily wanted to get in the water, so I kept pulling her back. I helped Tiffany get her pole ready first. Then I let her cast. She stood and threw her line out. She promptly caught the tree overhead. I showed her how to pull the line from the tree without breaking her pole. It took a while, but I finally got Katie set up, and helped her cast her line. Meanwhile, Tiffany reeled hers back in and cast again. This girl caught the tree at least half a dozen times. Not to mention that Katie and Tiffany tangled their lines together several times. All this before I even got Emily's line set up. Emily was very possessive of her pole. She didn't want me to touch it. She let me cast the line once for her, and I think she even got a bite. She wanted to hold her own pole, by herself. And practice swordplay with it. After I helped her reel it in, she didn't want the line back in the water. It took me a while to realize I needed to remove the hook from her line. After she impaled Katie's pantleg. Katie was really good and sat still most of the time. Tiffany learned to sit down to cast, so eventually she (mostly) avoided the tree. We only stayed about 45 minutes, but it was an exercise in frustration patience.

Next time, I think I'll choose a nice, quiet pond with no trees.

Tiffany asked if we could go fishing every day.

How I spent my Saturday

Today I made a bike-cam mounting bracket out of an M5 x 0.8 screw and nut, a random chunk of spare metal drilled, heated, bent, and ground, and a 1/4"-20 bolt and nut. The little screw goes where the front reflector threads on, and the bigger bolt fits the tripod mount for a camera. Here it is mounted below my left turn signal (click for a slightly bigger view):



The metal was left over from a failed attempt to build a tool to work on my VW Rabbit so it was nearly free.

I was a little worried that the spot-welded nut that the reflector threads into would snap off the first bump I went over due to the weight of the bracket and camera, but the 'Yamaha' sheet metal badge it's attached to has some give to it for shock and vibration absorption. It also means the video ends up being a little wiggly but not too bad (you can just barely see my fender at the bottom right of the below video as a reference point for the wiggle). If you want to watch it, you may want to skip ahead to 15 seconds in as the first bit is really boring:

Clicky: http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=21j3y4z&s=3

I don't have a really cool video yet, unfortunately... this was just a proof of concept. :)

The project turned out ok, and really, half of my desire to make it was just to give me a reason to play with power tools, torches, and a sledgehammer... and it succeeded in that respect. The other half is, I thought it would be a cool thing to do after I watched a bunch of motorcycle videos on YouTube. One thing that you really notice on videos like that is that motorcycles are like airplanes when turning -- they really bank or lean. The interesting thing is that the lean seems much more radical on video than in real life. In the video, the corner was taken a fair bit faster than the recommended 10MPH (but still within the posted speed limit, I promise!), but it looks like I'm practically dragging a footpeg.

Variation on an old theme

I don't know about the extended Thueson clan, but we all love "Yummy Potatoes" or "Funeral Potatoes" or "Wedding Potatoes" or any of the other dozen names it's known by. The other week we tried something a little bit different: "Easy Cheesy Salsa Potatoes", and they actually turned out quite good. No, this isn't a food blog but since Yummy Potatoes is a popular dish with just about everyone I know, I thought it wouldn't hurt to kick things up a notch.

Here's where we got the recipe: http://www.bettycrocker.com/Recipes/Recipe.aspx?recipeId=18970

Rainbow Clouds

This was yesterday. There was a circle rainbow around the sun, and a second upside down rainbow in the clouds underneath. Unfortunately, I don't have a wide enough angle on my camera to get the circle, but I think I still got some pretty good pictures.

Tuesday

Corwin's birthday was Tuesday. I made a cake and wrapped his gifts (just what he asked for, a twirl a tie and a few new ties). The girls lost the birthday cards we bought for him, so they each took a sheet of printer paper and colored their own cards for him.

Tiffany set up the play room table in the living room and put his gifts on it. It looked very nice. Emily then opened the gifts about three times, and spilled a glass of water on the table, completely soaking one of them.

I started making a cake. I borrowed my mom's old McCall's cookbook for a few recipes (wonderful cookbook, by the way). So, I found a white cake recipe and proceeded to start making the cake. I got the shortening out and found that it was rancid. The girls wanted to smell it, so I let them. They were sitting at the counter. I mistakenly left it on the counter in front of them. I went to get a new can out of the linen closet (yep, I keep food in the linen closet). When I returned, I saw that they each had handfuls of shortening. I told them to clean it off themselves. I even gave them some paper towels. So, I start mixing up the cake. Understand, I am not 2 feet from them. I am standing at the same counter even. Well, I glance over, and they now have shortening up to their armpits! The paper towels I gave them were unrecognizable shortening blobs. I had to actually, physically clean each child myself (not just hand them a paper towel) and take the shortening out to the outside garbage. What amazes me the most is what a one track mind I have.

To finish the cake (a layer cake with strawberry jelly between the layers), I had to make some frosting. While I think it's kind of fun to decorate cakes, I hate making frosting. So, I looked through the frosting recipes in the book, most of which were to be cooked on a double boiler. I found a wonderfully simple frosting, I just hoped it would taste ok on a cake. Actually, it is called "sour cream topping." The recipe calls for 1 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar, a one tablespoon grated orange peel. I put 1 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla flavor and a drop or two of almond flavor in a bowl, and Katie mixed them (I guess I just have a hard time following a recipe). I put it on the cake, it didn't cover very well, so we mixed up another recipe of it, and it covered the cake well. The girls enjoyed licking out the containers. They thought it tasted great. And actually the frosted cake tasted great as well. It was much more refreshing than the usual gag-me shortening & powdered sugar frosting. The downside, of course, is that you can't do real decorating with it. I bet it would taste really good with strawberries.

One birthday card was found before Corwin came home, the one from the girls. The card from me wasn't found until the next day.

Life and Death Ramblings

It's been a lot longer since my last post than I've wanted it to be. So much has happened and so much on my mind, but I didn't know how to put any of it down in words.

First off, there have been a couple of deaths of people I know. My sister-in-law's step-dad died a few weeks ago. I remember Vern as a kind and happy man who always had a smile for me. He accepted myself and my siblings as his own family, even when he went through rough times of his own.

Another of my sister-in-laws lost her step-dad just the following week. Her mom and step-dad were riding a motorcycle, which was struck by a car turning onto their path. Her step-dad died at the scene of the crash. Her mom has been in the hospital since, with very serious injuries. It's been a couple of days since I talked to my brother, but I believe she has finally left the ICU, but due to her injuries and operations needed to repair some of the damage, she will be in and out of the ICU a few times.

Corwin has been excited to have his motorcycle running and has been riding it to work. Some people would say that in light of my sister-in-law's family, I should forbid my husband from riding. Of course, that would be my gut reaction, but if I did so, where would it stop? He could then forbid me from riding my bicycle, or walking along a busy street, because of there is a chance an inattentive motorist hit me. The only thing I can do is remind people to watch out for each other. Motorcycles are everywhere on the road, especially during the summer, as are bicyclists, and to a lesser extent, pedestrians. Just remember to look for all those who share the road with us.

A celebration is in order for my cousin, Patti Jo. She has been fighting cancer with chemo treatments, and the last scan showed no remaining sign of the cancer! Heavenly Father has given her a great blessing and answered our many prayers in her behalf.

With all these events, and more I have been thinking about, I have been pondering life a bit more. When so many people I know have been affected because of the fragility of the human body, I can't help but think of my own existence. I've been pondering what preparations I should make if something were to happen to me tomorrow. I'm thinking more of the value of a will, living will, and the power of attorney.

On a brighter note, the girls and I visited a local greenhouse yesterday and purchased some plants for our gardens. I planted some onions in Emily's garden. Katie planted tomatoes. Tiffany planted bell peppers and onions around her rose. I put in a few petunias and other flowers on the side of the house and a sandwort in the front where I had moved the rose from earlier this year.

We're really good at...

We're really good at procrastination. We bought a bunch of wood about two months ago and only now got around to putting together Lemontree's compost bins (she found some plans online that used 4x4s with slots in them, to allow the slats on the side to be slid out when it was time to empty the bin).

To be fair, the weather was really bad on some of the Saturdays we might have built it. And then when we got around to our first attempt to cut the slots for the slats, the guide on our cheap little router was too wimpy and every time I'd hit a knot in the wood, the router would jump out, bend the guide, and make a mess of the slot I was cutting.

Plan B was to use the table saw to cut dadoes, but the fence was broken so we put in an order for a new one. That took another two weeks to arrive, and then it was off to the store to buy a dado blade. Oops, the arbor on our cheap table saw is too short for a dado!

Plan C was to cut a few slots in the wood and Lemontree, never afraid of a little mindless tedium, would chip out the rest with a chisel. This finally worked and soon we had assembled the front and the back. Hilarity ensued as we tried to get the kids to help us stand them up so we could connect the front and the back to each other. Suddenly, they all had to go potty, or were hot, or tired, or thirsty... huh.

I'm not going to post a close-up of the thing, because with our workmanship, we wouldn't last 5 minutes on Hometime (unless it was an episode that used us as an example of how not to build things), but from 20 feet it looks ok. There are three compartments so two can be composting while the third is being filled. A couple of slats are missing from the middle so the girls know which compartment is to be filled (and so they can reach to put things in).

Emily's Birthday

Emily is two years old, now. Her birthday is today. Tiffany and Katie wanted to buy her a gift. They each took a few dollars to the dollar store. Katie gave her the stick horse. Tiffany, a very cute snow globe. They each bought a birthday card for her, too. Tiffany and Katie made such a big deal out of Emily's birthday. They were so nice to her, and generally made it a really great day for her. Here's the picture of her posing with her gifts. Grandma (Corwin's mom) made her the very cute jumper, which Emily absolutely loves. It has sheep and duck buttons on the front. Grandma and Grandpa also gave her the book, which I must say is very cute. Our neighbor gave her the teddy bear. We gave her the sunglasses (which she really did want). And then there's the comb in the picture. Well, Katie wrapped it up for Emily. I don't know why. Maybe she was just excited. Emily really loved all the attention she got.

Squirrels

When I looked out my window yesterday morning, I saw a squirrel in my back yard. I watched it as it leaped through the grass straight to my compost heap. It took a piece of hotdog bun I had thrown there the night before. It took it across the lawn, then up to the top of the fence, where I watched it nibble it, turning the bread round and round.

Later, I took the kids on a bike ride. We stopped at a park for lunch. We had a picnic of some wonderful French Morbier cheese, crusty bread, apples, and cumquats. The girls ate some, then went to play. I moved to a park bench to watch them. Apparently, we left a couple apples on the picnic table. I glanced over just as a squirrel picked a whole apple up in its mouth and went bounding away with it. There was another squirrel attempting to do the same with the other apple. I scared the squirrel as I advanced on the apple. There were a couple squirrel bites out of it, so I tossed it at the squirrel, who ran after it like a dog playing fetch. It grabbed the apple and kept running.

I've never seen a squirrel eat anything other than nuts, so this was interesting to me.

As a side note, cumquats are my new favorite fruit. I'd never had them before, but they are sooo good. The first one was surprising, as I didn't expect the acute sourness of the fruit. Being an orange colored fruit, I expected the sweet flavor of an orange. Instead, I was surprised by the sour flavor of a lemon or lime, which I like, too. I like the bitterness of the skin, mixed with the sour flavor. I think, because of the skin, it doesn't affect my teeth as much as eating a lemon or lime does.

Emily's language progression

Emily has finally learned to say the "eye" sound. Now, instead of saying ha and bah, she actually says hi and bye. She's even putting it to use in other words and names. It's exciting to see her language developing.

It's interesting to me that each of my children learned to speak differently. I think Tiffany learned a word at a time. Katie talked in complete sentences. One of the very first things she said (before she was even 2) was, "I want some cookie dough." Now, Emily is learning one sound at a time. She can say several different sounds, but hasn't gotten the knack of putting the sounds together.