Home made tool

We returned to Houston Saturday afternoon and discovered a number of little "issues" including no dial tone, signs of mice and no water. I began to investigate at the water meter box where the shut off is and sure enough the water had been shut off. Just then my neighor drives up and informs me the city workers shut it off about a week ago. Now this trip for me was a three week stay in Utah, but for Robin it was about a year long stay in Longview and a week in Utah. I traveled to Washington and I had another trip to Utah in there somewhere. So Robin decided it would be better for the smooth operation of the household if she had all the mail forwarded to Longview so she could pay bills and keep things under control. Great idea in theory, but somehow the post office neglected to forward our water bill. Hence the water shut off. I was thinking great, no water until we can get this sorted out Monday.

When we first moved in we didn't know where the main shut off was in the house and we had to have the city come shut off the water for something and I watched as two guys struggled to turn the shutoff. Probably had not been turned since it was installed. It is in a little box in the ground and has a valve that takes a special tool. I've used a crescent wrench in Washington, but the valve wasn't as hard to turn as this one and the box is too small to get any leverage.

Anyway, I was thinking no way am I going to wait until Monday for a shower, so I hustled to Home Depot because they sell the tool to turn the water on. I was skeptical that their tool would do the job as it is made from a three foot section of rebar with a little key welded to the bottom that fits the valve and a handle welded to the top. It looks like a T. Turns out I was right to be skeptical because the handle came off on the first twist and I didn't even have to twist very hard. I tried the old crescent but no way was that going to work. So I went back to the Depot and bought three pieces of one inch black pipe and a t. Back home I used my grinder to cut the slots in one end of the pipe to fit the valve and made a handle with the t and the two shorter peices.

Needless to say we had water all weekend. Robin got the issue straightened out with the city monday. I got the dial tone to work, now if we could just catch that pesky mouse.

I Hate Fireants

I have never gotten fire ant bites on my hands. They usually get me around the ankles or feet depending on my footware. Yesterday after we returned home from Utah the grass needed mowing, and I had some time. Our nieghbor cut the front yard while we were gone but it needed it again and the back was really long. It takes about an hour and a half to cut the entire yard. The back half is mostly weeds and doesn't grow very much but this time the weeds were pretty tall so I cut the whole thing. It was close to eight pm when I finished so it was starting to get pretty dark. I decided to pull some weeds that had grown up in the cracks between the driveway sections. The second section had a fire ant hill in it and they got in 4 good bites before I brushed them all off. They are exceptionally quick little buggers. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, fire ant bites are kind of like a cross between a mosquito and a wasp. They are not exceptionally painful initially but right away they start to sting and itch. Then after a while they just itch, a lot. They make a little welt that oozes liquid when you scratch it, which is most of the time. They go away after about a week or so, but I swear that when you get a bite it re-activates every other bite you have ever gotten and you think they are biting you again. Or maybe it's just my imagination. They are truly miserable little critters and as far as I can tell serve absolutely no useful purpose in the ecology of the planet. I mean most bugs have some purpose like helping to decompose and break down other organic matter or serve as food for some other useful bug or animal. I am pretty sure nothing would eat a fire ant and I have never heard of anything useful that they do.

Cutting the grass on my litle riding lawn mower is really just a poor imitation of real farm work, with a real tractor. Just to prove I can do both I have posted these pictures of me loading one thousand lb. hay bales on a trailer last week at Mark's place. The top picture was taken just as I successfully droped the bale and stood it on it's side. (second try. the first time it rolled completely off the other side)