Beautifying the Ranch

No, I'm not putting pictures of me in front of the place, but thanks for the thought.

There is a planting bed at the front of the house. It's got a southern exposure so it gets plenty of sunlight. Last year my wife picked out the plants for it, and her theme was "Flowers that Jeff hates."

This year I beat her to the punch and picked up some plants from Menards. I got a half-dozen different styles/colors, including some grasses.

To prepare the bed I finally got a chance to use the rototiller. It was a tight fit in this narrow bed, but it chewed through the ground without a problem. Well, it should, it's only lightly compacted dirt. I did the same on a planting bed on the side of the house, but haven't picked up the plants for that area yet. I still need to remove the stump from an old burning bush which was planted there and allowed to grow wild.




I also started preparing a spot in the back yard for a garden, which should really give the tiller a workout. Currently the spot is covered with a thick layer of grass. I could possibly till right through it, but if the grass is still alive it'll start growing right away once I plant and water the garden.

The goal is to kill the grass. Yeah, I could remove it with a sod cutter or a shovel, but that's a LOT of work that I don't want to do, so I went with "Plan B".

Plan B is covering the ground with a dark tarp and letting the heat generated do the hard work for me. Between the heat and the lack of sunshine I should be able to accomplish the goal. I could also use a lot of grass killer, but would rather not.

Since the days are longer now I'll probably break out the tiller after work in the next day or two and break the ground up. Then it gets covered up again for a few days before tilling again. Maybe it'll be ready to plant in a few weeks.

More Regular Maintenance

While you're cleaning out your gutters and changing the batteries in the smoke detectors, don't forget your furnace air filter.

This one was installed last fall. I use Honeywell filters that are pleated and about 4" thick. Pretty nasty looking.




The back side is nice and clean. This is what the new filters look like (except for the wire mesh which is only on the back side). The 4" thickness along with the pleating increase the surface area tremendously compared to a generic 1" filter. Because of the extra surface area I only have to change the filter twice a year.

Ghetto Metal Fabrication

Back to the rototiller I got for free a few weeks ago. I didn't notice it right away, but there was no shield around the tiller blades. This wouldn't keep it from operating, but it would make using it a very dirty operation for me as it would throw dirt all over me.

Time to do a little metal fabrication!




A few years back I did a lot of metal fabrication in the garage of our previous house. This Humvee replica was built on a Chevy Suburban chassis. Everything brown was fabricated from scratch. The cammo parts are military surplus, and the doors are replicas. Compared to this, a dirt shield for an old rototiller should be a piece of cake!




First step was to remove the motor from the tiller. Four bolts and the throttle cable were removed in about 5 minutes.




The lower unit only needed a little de-greasing.




I had enough spare sheet metal laying around to do this, but most of my metal working tools are still packed up. This was a pretty simple job so I went with hand tools. Aviation snips, a 24" x 24" sheet of aluminum, a 3 pound mallet, and cordless drill is all I needed.

The back end of the sheet was cut to fit over the frame and the sides were bent down. The aluminum bends easily, so I didn't have to use a metal brake.




It's probably wider than it needs to be, but I can easily trim it back later after I try it out for the first time. As it sits now it should easily keep me from getting covered in dirt. Total work time, about 90 minutes.

The thin metal would benefit from a couple of beads being rolled into it, but it's not worth the effort right now until I get a chance to try it out.

After mounting the engine it fired up on the 3rd pull. Life is good.

Spring Gutter Cleaning

We've had a lot of rain over the past few days, and it looks like it'll keep up for at least another day or two.

Since we moved in there have been pretty regular "issues" with the downspouts, as they get a pretty good build-up of leaves and twigs which can block the flow and plug the downspout. Plugged downspouts lead to water coming in at the foundation, which has meant water getting into the basement.

I took a little time when the rain stopped to go check the downspouts, and found that two of the four had some build-up. Neither was too bad, but one of them could have easily escalated to full blockage with a little more debris.

Five minutes of work and they're all cleaned out and ready for more rain. I also found that one of the drain lines was ready to come disconnected, which would have let all the water drop straight down to the foundation. Probably from the kids playing around it, would be my guess.

The blockage I get now is nowhere near as bad as it was last year thanks to the tree trimming I've been doing. Trees which were overhanging the house were cut back as much as possible, so now much of the junk ends up in the gutters thanks to the wind. I won't cut the trees back too much more, as they'll really start to look hacked up if I do that.

Taking Advantage of a Nice Day

It's been too long since I did any work in the garage. About all I've done in the past 8 months out there was making it messier.

Took care of that today, and got things about half-way done.

All the big stuff was pulled out and rearranged. I also broke out the leaf-blower and got all the old leaves and dust out.

I still need to go through all the stuff on shelves and clean off the work bench so I can tune up the chainsaws and do some other work which wouldn't be appreciated on the kitchen table.

Yardwork FREEBIE!

A few days ago a neighbor had an old table saw and rototiller out at the street, giving them away.

The tiller found it's way to my garage, thanks to another neighbor who grabbed it for me. He talked to the folks giving it away, who said it was last used a few years ago and worked well then. Health problems led to it's dis-use.

I figured if I could get it working it would be worth the price (free).

Luckily, it was stored without gas, so there was no build-up in the carb. The air cleaner was damaged by mice, but they didn't get anything into the carb so I can run with it as-is. The throttle cable is shot and needs to be replaced, but works good enough for now. The plug was pulled and it looks good. I also confirmed that it was sparking when the starter was pulled.

I put some fresh gas in and gave it a few dozen pulls and couldn't get it to even sputter. I wasn't sure if there was a problem with the carb, fuel line, or anywhere else, so I poured a few tablespoons of gas directly into the carb.

Three pulls later and it fired up and quickly settled down into a smooth idle. I hit it with some engine degreaser and got it cleaned up so I can more easily give it a tune-up.

It needs: an air filter, a drive belt, a throttle cable, an oil change, and maybe a new plug. Maybe $20.00 in parts and it should be ready to rock. No idea how old it is, but it's probably at least 25 years old. We'll see how it really works later this year, as I'm planning to do a small garden.

Meat - it's not Just for Breakfast Anymore

"Vegetarian" is an American Indian word meaning "bad hunter".

Recently I've been spending more time working on my BBQ recipes - pulled pork, ribs, etc. Not just thrown on the grill, but in a slow-cooking smoker, designed to cook the meat at a low temperature for upwards of 18 hours.

Yum-diddiley-scrumptious!

While looking at recipes and methods online I noticed a lot of information on grinding my own meat for sausage patties, brats, links, etc. This seemed like an interesting thing to try, because I like to make sausage patties for breakfast on the weekends, but they're always expensive (I'm cheap) and you're never quite sure what is in 'em.

So I found a couple of promising recipes and picked up a meat grinder.




It's the old-style crank, and not motorized. I figured if I like how they turn out and I start making and freezing the sausage I can always upgrade later on.

After the first trial run, I'm surprised at how well it works and how good the sausage is. If I buy the meat in bulk it will cost me 30% less to make my own sausage and control the ingredients. I usually buy pork shoulder for $1.50 a pound in 14-18 pound bulk packages for making BBQ, so no problem there.

The first batch I made is pork, salt, cayenne pepper, rubbed sage, black pepper, crushed red pepper, coriander, and Accent (MSG). No other preservatives, additives, finger nails, or fillers. Accent is the only semi-questionable ingredient, and I'm going to do some tests to see if it tastes the same without it. If so, it's gone, too. I'm also planning to experiment with how much fat is in the mix. Pork shoulder is very fatty, and ground sausage is usually very fatty too. If I can use less and still get good results, so much the better!

First taste test confirmed that it's a very tasty recipe. The sausage patties aren't all perfectly round and even like the store-bought stuff, but who cares? It'll all look the same at the end of the day...

I plan to try grinding my own hamburger soon. Those who have done so often swear by it, as you can control what cuts are used, the amount of fat, etc.