Some Days, All One’s Plans Go Askew

by admin | December 5, 2024 1:07 pm

            Man plans and God laughs.

– Yiddish adage

Thanksgiving break was supposed to provide time to get chores done around Three Geese Farm, after we all fattened ourselves up on fried catfish and all the high-cholesterol accessories – in a break from traditional turkey and trimmings. Brother Gregg arrived on Black Friday not to shop but to help service Little Red – primarily an oil and filter change, tightening some leaky hoses and connections, etc. Thanks to my inability to distinguish between quarts and gallons, that oil change turned into a bit of disaster that required hiring a paid professional to fix. That is about all the detail I am willing to provide. Hobby farmers are prone to error, some more than most. That would be yours truly.

Undeterred, the next morning I headed to a rental store to pick up a buffer/sander. I planned to strip the peeling stain off the back concrete patio and get it ready to be resurfaced with epoxy paint once it warms up. It was indeed cold as I clambered into my 2001 Toyota Tundra to head there and twisted the thermostat knob to get some heat going. The plastic knob broke off in my hand. After nearly a quarter-century in the East Texas heat, the plastic parts have become brittle. I still haven’t fixed the broken passenger door handle from a few months ago, since passengers are rare.

But I needed this knob. Otherwise, I have to use needle-nose pliers each time to change it from hot to cold, something a bit dangerous to do while driving. I swung into an auto parts store [1]and ordered a knob for $15. Until it arrives, it’s the pliers to adjust.

The rental guys loaded up the buffer. I headed home and wrestled it out of the truck bed. It weighed about 150 pounds. Thank goodness for CrossFit training since I was home alone for the weekend. I got to work scraping off the stain.

Buffers take a light touch to keep them under control. I have past experience, having spent months buffing floors as a part-time janitor at Stephen F. Austin State University while in college there. Things were going well, stain chips piling up, bare concrete again visible. Then, halfway through, the buffer locked up. Nothing I could do helped. It was 12:20 on Saturday. The rental store closed at noon, so I was out of luck until Monday. Getting the buffer back in the Tundra unassisted was a challenge. I parked the truck with the bed facing downhill in the driveway to lower the distance to the tailgate. Again, it took a CrossFit deadlift and a string of purple prose to get the buffer up into the truck’s bed. It was time to move on to the next project, since now both the tractor and the buffer were inoperable.

Our shop heater has previously been fueled by diesel and can heat the 1,500-square-feet up nicely in about 30 minutes even if it is freezing outside. But diesel exhaust stinks and is not conducive to using our small gym in a section of the shop, with its rower, trampoline, ring rows and several weights. I ran the diesel out of the heater and began filling it with clean-burning kerosene. As I leaned over the funnel, one of the air pods fell out of my ear and into the funnel’s cone. The air pod nearly disappeared down the funnel’s snout and into the heater tank. I lunged forward, managed to grab it and quickly wipe off the kerosene. Surprisingly, the air pod still works. I guess Apple makes them kerosene-proof.

I was beginning to conclude this was not my day, actually not my long holiday weekend. I had broken the knob on my truck, the tractor, the buffer, dunked my Air Pod in a kerosene-filled funnel and wasted an hour trying to gas the gophers that wreak havoc on our yard. The gopher gas look like mini sticks of dynamite. If one can find their tunnel – not exactly easy – you light the fuse on the gopher killer, stick it in the tunnel, cover it with dirt and yell, “Fire in the hole.”

OK, you don’t really have to yell anything, but I found it fun. I have no clue if any gophers/moles were dispatched from Three Geese Farm, but it is not for lack of trying. Maybe the survivors will take the hint and head over to the neighbor’s place to create their mounds.

This seemed to be a sufficient number of failed tasks to tackle in a day. I grabbed my book and headed to the front porch to read. At least I can’t screw that up. Tomorrow, I plan to tackle replacing a shower head. Prayers appreciated.

Source URL: https://garyborders.com/pages/some-days-all-ones-plans-go-askew/

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