I used to post notes about what I was working on and I’d like to get back into that habit. Not because it’s particularly noteworthy—just because I like revisiting these memories.
Pond
The big job this weekend was to get the pond ready for the year. Rachel did most of that work on Saturday while I piddled with other things, like building a new sugar snap pea trellis in one of the raised beds. Rachel drained the pond and power washed all the limestone. Unfortunately, after she refilled the pond, she realized the pump wasn’t working. That was a discouraging development, since that meant we would have to empty the pond by hand in order to extract the pump cord and hose from behind all the rocks. I talked her into leaving it for the next day.
The next morning (today), she found that the pond was half-empty. That meant, she said, we either had helper fairies or a leak. She refilled the pond about halfway and we left to visit my mom and pick up a new pump at Lowe’s. By the time we got back, the water level had not gone down, but we also noticed that the liner looked pretty threadbare in spots. We again drained the pond, got the new pump in place, and then partially refilled it. This week she’s going to contact the pond store in Monrovia to see if they have better liner than what we got at Lowe’s when we built it a few years ago. We’re likely going to be rebuilding the whole thing at some point this week.
F150
I inherited from my dad a teal green 1996 Ford F150. We’ve used it a lot over the years to haul trash, dirt, and mulch, as well as move friends and family all around the county. But honestly, it’s pretty neglected. Last year, during one of my rants about “cars these days”, I realized I had a perfectly repairable pickup sitting outside. I know basically nothing about cars. At best, I can do routine maintenance. But that day I decided to learn how to work on this particular pickup. It should be relatively simple to learn; there’s plenty of room under the hood and it has power nothing. Even the windows are hand crank. I bought a Haynes repair manual and started making a list.
First task: repair the driver’s side inside door handle. Right now when you want to exit the truck, you have to roll down the window and use the outside handle.
See that torn metal? There’s supposed to be a tab there where the handle attaches. I found a reinforcement plate at broncograveyard.com that I can pop rivet over the top of that area. Apparently this is pretty common on old F150s. I ordered it plus some door panel clips today.
Also, the gear shifter is sloppy. I already knew the solution here: tighten the bolt under the dash that connects to the shifter tube. Since we had been driving it a bit more lately, it had worked itself loose again. Today I read a suggestion of some blue threadlock to keep it in place. I did that a few minutes ago. Here’s hoping it holds.