Nice weather meant I was outside most of the day. Since I'm normally up before anybody in the house, I have to do "quiet" projects. This morning, I decided to finish putting the three remaining tires on the lawn tractor. The rear rims & tires came off easily enough, and I was also easily able to get the new tires on the rims. The problem came when it was time to seat the beads on the new tires, as I just couldn't get it to work. I gave it the old college try for about 90 minutes before figuring I was just wasting my time. I'll man-up to the truth and say I was whipped, so I loaded the rear tires and remaining front tire/rim into the car and headed over to a local tire shop. $10 to install three new valve stems and get everything finished up on all three tires. Hell, I'd have paid $10 per tire if they asked for it! It took them less than 10 minutes to do it, thanks to having the right tools and the know-how. I find comfort in knowing I at least got one of the four done completely on my own. That will probably be the one which leaks air. . .
Once everybody else was up, I headed out to the backyard for some sweet, sweet, chainsaw action. I was running low on wood for the firepit, so I took down a medium-sized pear tree and one of the scraggliest pine trees I've ever seen. This gave me a chance to put the old saw I just had worked on to the test. I need to tweak the idle speed on the carb, but it works pretty darn well. My neighbor gave me a sharpening set he has had for years and never used, so now I get a new toy to play with. While I was out cutting wood, my wife took a picture of me:
Don't worry, I put on the safety glasses before getting to work.
