Oh, what to do during Covid-19 isolation?
Keep warm, for one thing. Mother Nature decided to treat us to a little
February in mid-April. Here at the farm,
we received less than a tenth of inch of moisture from the day-long squall. We received the full blast of cold air, fog,
and ice.
I kept two fires going, one in the shop,
where I was working on the old Briggs & Stratton auger engine’s fuel tank
and strainer, and one in the farm kitchen. First, Briggs and Stratton: over the
years, the gas cap deteriorated, first by losing the gasket that helped keep
the cap tight on the gas tank, then losing the chain that kept it attached to
the tank even when it was not in place.
A severe blast from the north somehow blew
the cap off and it has been MIA since. I had to clean the tank and the fuel
bowl before using. A heavy piece of
plastic held in place by a bearing race worked for a year or two to cover the
tank opening. Somehow, that jerry-rig disappeared
this winter, and the tank took on some dirt and rust.
With spare time spent in the shop, I came
up with another jerry-rig. (I would
gladly buy a new cap if I could find one to buy.)
Maybe the hose clamps will defy the
wind.
Two pistons from the old John Deere R
occupied the rest of my time between stove-tendings. More on that someday. Promptly at 5 p.m. I checked to see the fire
in the shop could die safely without spreading like Covid-19, and I returned to
tending the kitchen fire and watching television.
The morrow brought clear skies and
brilliant sunshine. The skiff of snow
dressed terra firma in virgin white. The
old elm branches glistened with their glaze of ice. No day to stay indoors, even though the
temperature wouldn’t get much above 50.
Four or five years ago, I began watching
the price of wood splitters at Lowes and Bomgaars. My interest stemmed from the felling of the poor
old spruce tree in the front corner of the yard. https://50farm.blogspot.com/search?q=spruce That left me
with some huge logs, logs cut to correct lengths, but much too big to lift, let
alone get into a stove.
The thought of attacking those logs with
maul and wedge didn’t appeal to me. Nor
did moving them to mow where they protected rabid weed and grass growth. Thus, the observation of wood splitters at
the box stores.
The price of the splitters rose in the
fall at the beginning of wood-burning season.
It was spring of 2017, I think, the price went down by a hundred
dollars. Many of the same splitters were
sitting there from the previous Fall.. Time to get rid of them,
I guess.
The splitter has its own wheels, but I didn’t
think those small wheels and bearings were up to a 150-mile trip at any kind of
speed. I told the salesman that I would
take one of the splitters only if it would go into the back of my little pickup.
Out came his tape measure. It would go into the back of the pickup. With the help of his forklift, it did go into
the back of my pickup.
The pickup was heavier by 3 or 400
pounds. My wallet was lighter by $900 +
tax. The huge logs at the farm got
lighter.
“Making firewood warms you twice,” goes
the old saying. The recent felling of a fifty-year-old
elm left me with several huge logs. On
the icy sunny morning, I drug out the splitter and went to work. The rare windless day made for a very
pleasant day, Mother Nature’s gift for inflicting the previous day on us. Between sun and labor, I stayed pleasantly warm.
What would I be doing if we weren't restricted by Covid-19?
