He was going to pull out sometime this afternoon, having a appointment to meet a guy tomorrow in the big city about five hours away. Then the meeting got bumped up to this afternoon, and he decided to boogie. We were kind of done anyway: We agreed we should do it more often and not for quite so long.
One thing I’ve always liked about BB is that he’s not afraid of companionable silence. But no longer having a lot of experience with human company I kept feeling the need to fill the silence with stuff. It became uncomfortable. Yesterday afternoon he just went off to be by himself for a few hours, and I got some single-person stuff done.
Finally took half an hour and replaced the vents on the remaining two Jerry cans. Took a lesson from some things that could have gone better the first time, and the last two were done in less time than the first one took. Just in time, too, because I haven’t been this out of gas in years – there’s literally no gas in the place except what’s actually in the Jeep and generator tanks – and now I can top off tomorrow morning without spilling gas all over the back of D&L’s pickup.
(BTW: Private to the person who sent me that Honda generator – still transforming the way construction jobs get done around here. Just what I needed, really, and I didn’t know it till it happened.)
Speaking of power tools I was so pleased with myself over the way that the gas can vents went that I immediately proceeded to make a big mistake with the chop saws. The Lair now has two Official Chop Saws, one (the Makita that belonged to my father) is of far higher quality than the other but the blade is extremely dull. So I thought I’d swap blades on the two saws and then Jeep the Ryobi up to the pumphouse so it’ll be convenient to the woodlot. I was so invested in doing that chore that I never stopped to see if the two blades were even the same size. Which put the cherry on top of my foolishness in never reading the Makita’s manual, and I took the bladeguard off without ever asking if that were a wise thing to do. Not only was I not able to switch blades, I also spent nearly an hour trying to figure out how to put the spring-loaded guide back together. Ah, so.
But from there I did something easy…
I’ll be able to retire the stick I’ve kept in the back for years. Felt kind of stupid: New rear window lift supports are cheap on-line, and I never bothered to look. Took less time to install them than I’d have believed, too. Sometimes I put too much effort into finding work-arounds for things that break or go wrong.
Finally, speaking of things that turn out to be cheap (if not necessarily easy) to repair…
That is the new float switch kit for Ian’s water tank. I spent all winter leaving the well pump turned right off until the tank level was down enough to spend a whole day pumping it back up again, to minimize the overflowing caused by the tank’s failed float valve. Since I’m here alone it takes a long time to wash enough dishes, flush enough toilets and water enough chickens to half-empty a 2500-gallon tank. I actually considered not fixing the switch at all, since historically my first hint that something has gone wrong with the water system is an empty tank and with the switch broken I’m forced to remember to manually check the tank level from time to time.
But “leave it broken” just isn’t a good strategy, all things considered. So in the near future the tank will get a new switch.
Now all the folks are gone and I’m back to my silent place and (as usual) loving it. There are other little things I could be doing, but I think I’m going to declare this an afternoon of rest except for baking some bread.
