Lock tight with Loctite

As I walked along one of our paths the brush was over the path right at eye level.  I planned to go back and forth on that section a lot today and decided to cut it back.  It was a patch of brush that had long bothered us and I thought I'd cut it all out.  So, I got nippers, draw saw, chain saw, and wheeled trimmer with a saw blade.

We nipped and we sawed and we wheeled.  We gathered all the cuttings up and piled them for later chipping.  As I was moving the wheeled trimmer back and forth suddenly the handle felt all wrong.  The upper handle on one side was no longer attached to the lower handle.  Oh, no!  The tightening knob had fallen off.

We looked and looked around our work area in vain.  I went to one previous work area while my wife went to another farther away.  I didn't find the knob.  I went in to call Denny's Lawn and Garden to order another.  I pulled out the manual to get the part number.  I picked up the cordless phone to call and wondered if Denny's number was in the handset directory.  It wasn't.  I fiddled and faddled with putting the number in.  Once I got in, I couldn't bring the number up.  Just then my wife hollered from outside, "I found it!"

She had gone along the path past our work area without success.  When she came back, the sun was at the right angle to reflect off the metal threads of the knob.  Whew!  We could continue using trimmer for the day.

I got out my tube of Threadlocker Blue and applied it to the bolts on each side and cranked down the knobs as tight as I could.  Now, it should require a good grip or a ViseGrip to get the knobs off.

I should know better.  This is the third time that a pre-assembled piece of equipment has had nuts come loose.

I had a sickle mower that wore parts out because of loose nuts or the nuts would disappear in the grass.  I had to use it with a 13mm socket wrench in my pocket to tighten the nuts frequently.  Finally, I put Loctite on them each time I changed the blade and had few, if any, problems with lost nuts thereafter.

I bought a trailer mounted chipper and shortly after I started using it, one of the tail lights became loose.  The nut had disappeared.  I better fix that light before I haul the chipper back for any service.

Maybe I will learn to put a thread-locker compound on all potentially loose nuts on any pre-assembled equipment that shakes, rattles, or rolls.  Hah!  Maybe I should ask the assembling store if they have used Loctite.  Hah!  That will probably cut their margins.

If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes

Because weather, in the sense of clouds and sunshine, is quite variable in Duluth and many other parts of Minnesota, many people joke about it with the title phrase.

On a larger scale, one can see this with the five-day forecasts. Three days out might be sunny and four days out might be snow. Then later three days out has rain and four days out is sunny. This happens because weather systems are chaotic; an upper wind can change direction pushing a weather system further north or further south, or speed it up or slow it down.

Even within a day's forecast, the weather can vary. The forecast may call for rain and the day starts sunny; carry your umbrella, the clouds haven't arrived yet. Conversely, the forecast may call for sunny and the day starts out overcast. Don't cancel your picnic; the skies will probably clear.

We had a sample of this for the last two days. Yesterday, Friday, was predicted to be sunny, and today was predicted to be rainy. When we stopped at Bixby's yesterday for coffee and our lunch for our cabin stay, the sky was gray, gray, gray. One of our friends kidded about the non-sunny day we had ahead of us. I retorted that it would change.

Sure enough, by noon it was sunny in Brimson. I was hauling some stuff down a trail and looked at the blue, blue sky through the notch in the trees. I almost stopped to take a picture to show our friend.

Today was predicted to be rainy, and it was. But not all day and when it did rain it wasn't heavy. We had many times with no rain or just a light mist. We wore rain jackets outside most of the time, but often they remained dry. On the other hand, we didn't notice the rain much until we looked at our jackets.

Surprisingly, we accomplished more today than we did yesterday, even recognizing we worked outside only in the afternoon yesterday, and both morning and afternoon today.

BTW, we do lots of work in brush and tree cutting, but we also take walks and just stand still enjoying being outdoors.

Or listening to or watching critters. I heard scratching on one of our sheds. Oh boy, has something gotten inside; I thought I had it squirrel-proofed. I walked over to the shed and a red squirrel was splayed out on the vertical service. As I approached, he spun around to face one way looking for escape. Then he spun around the other way. I clucked at him and he dashed down to the ground and ran around the shed. When I got back to the cabin, I heard him making his territorial chatter. So there, big guy!