John's Blog

Monday was fairly standard.

I planned on fixing weed whacker. I did that. I planned on sharpening the blade for Kyle’s lawn mower. Did that. Vander Veer? Absolutely. The extension cords remain undone.

Kyle stopped by mid-morning and traded Titania for Kim. Me, myself, I, and four doggos acting as my shadow started with the WW. After downloading the owner manual and studying the WW I ended up doing two things to it to get it to feed string. I lightly sanded the contact surfaces on the two parts of the spinning bits that cover the string spool. That significantly reduced the friction between them. The manual says to use 80 thousandths string, it was loaded with 65. Too thin. maybe not enough spinning mass to advance the string. I solved that problem later.

The six of us then turned our attention to the blade. The doggos disappeared as soon as I fired up the angle grinder (don’t blame ‘em). I stopped when the blade was wicked shahp. Probably too sharp but what’s done is done. I carefully checked it for balance before and after working on it as Kyle mentioned his battery powered mower seems to shake a bit.

Kim eventually returned. I left for Ace Hardware ten blocks away. They were out of 80 string so I drove all the way cross town to a place named K & K Hardware. It’s a mom and pop shop one city over that’s been there for ever and a day. They had a honkin’ spool of round profile 80 for $16. As for profile, it was round. I’m not a fan of WW string that has a square, or hex, or some other profile that’s not round. Too much opportunity for those edges to conflict with each other as the string advances.

I got home and installed the 80 and test drove the thing. Boy howdy! That WW has the most power of any WW I’ve ever used whether gas, corded or battery powered. Very impressive. It fed string perfectly.

Kim and I brought Titania over to Kyle’s place, when we got home our three were in a panic for Vander Veer. Which we did.

Yesterday started with another looong coffee session. We gotta shorten those somehow. I got home and ate lunch, then took the pups to Vander Veer yet again. We got home to an empty house, the three dog bowls prepped with kibble and a note resting on top of ‘em: “I’m out junkin’ with Mom.”

I got to work. I fired up the carpet cleaner and attacked the kitchen floor. I was part way through the living room floor when Kim returned. It wasn’t a very good junkin’ trip but at least she had left the house.

Today will have light breezes and temps quickly climbing to the mid-70s under pahtly sunny skies. Clouds will gradually gather this afternoon which might produce a bit of rain. So I plan to mow lawns and promptly get the clippins to composting. Kim mentioned yesterday that Lydia starts howlin’ (?) the moment I leave the property. We’ll have to do something about that. Cheers.