Today was a trip to help Dad. Several things needed a little attention as I thought he did too. I am sure he is not happy being moved out of the house he has been in for 15 years and the thought of not having room for all of us to come visit bothers him as well. So I am making more trips over just to visit and help on little stuff.
On the way I took the southern route through Hennessey. On the way I noticed several fields of Canola. That is something that 30 years ago that farmer would have been ridiculed out of the county for not growing wheat. It was also a problem as there were no markets for anything but wheat back then. Today there is a much greater push to diversify crops and to do more rotation of the crops. I know that our own farming (wife’s interest) has changed a lot in just the past 10 years. My BIL has talked my FIL into no-till, limited till and rotating in corn, milo, soybeans, and any other thing he can swap out that will make a good crop. I think it may even be improving the land a little as well as returning a little better on the investment with the rotations. Although some years you really wonder, like this last one the income was little more than the expense due to several problems – rain or lack of , and hail – too much of at wrong time. Anyway the two pictures below are from my trip and I just thought it strange that on the one side of the road was a good crop of Canola –
Then on the other was a decent crop of wheat.
I got to Enid and just about 2 miles from Dads apartment he calls asking if I am coming over. YEA? will be there in 5 minutes. “Well, I thought you would be here earlier (it was not 10 yet)?? I told him I didn’t think it was a need but would be there in a few minutes and we would go get his light at the old house fixed and fix the toilet float. I had fixed the lever last week but now the float was sticking. I think it was sticking before and that caused the break in the old lever arm as it was plastic. I had put in a metal arm. We grabbed up a few tools and headed up to the house. He was right the lever was real hard to make it work and I started looking at the flapper and it was getting too soft and was rubbing off pieces? the tabs that held it on were all pulled in and it looked like the wrong one and didn’t fit properly. I got the light bulb replaced and then we headed to Lowes to get parts.
We got two different ones not knowing exactly the model of the toilet but I thought that one would work and we would bring the other back. Back at the house it was not much to get the chain shortened and everything set right and installed and when we left it appeared that it would work fine. Actually better than the other one that he had in there. I hope.
We left and went back to Lowes, returned the unopened unit and then off to lunch. He had a desire for Western Sizzilin so we stopped there on the way back and got the lunch menu chopped sirloin. I still ate too much even if they didn’t have a buffet? Oh well.
When I had arrived earlier, I had brought in a bag of salted peanuts and he was in those before we could gather up and leave and was back on it when we got back… and He ate as much as I did for lunch? As we sat there resting the over size lunch he handed me one of his wooden puzzles that my niece had taken apart and no one had been able to get back together the past 3 weeks. Fortunately he had marked it when it was together which pieces mated up but that had not been enough help for the others, I guess. So I worked on that figuring out the cut-outs and the linking of pieces and after about 30 minutes got that put back together and he was happy that he could put a rubber band back on it and it was back. I am not bragging on that one as I realize I must have gotten pretty lucky to get it back together, and the numbers and marks on the end sure helped to figure out which pieces should be mated up. I left and headed home after that as I didn’t need any more puzzles for this day.
When I got home a strange set of things happened. Well, normal for me, but strange to others. I looked out and saw the grill, it occurred to me that I was going to check on getting the infrared inserts if they would fit to replace the cast iron grates. I went out to look for a number and couldn’t find one but the grates were in bad shape the grill had not been cleaned in some time and I decide I should fire it up and get it hot then scratch off all the crust. If you don’t heat a grill up good and hot some times, (like the clean cycle on an oven) the crust will build up a lot and then draw moisture then rust out your cast iron… well some of the cast iron was rusting down – we waited a bit too long to brush it off. That little diversion proceeded and I decided that I should scratch it down to the bottom, not just the grates. The heat shields were also rusting in spots, so I cleaned them and I could see that the fire tubes were clogged and not all the holes open so I moved on down to them and actually had to grind off the old screws on the back to get the tubes out to clean them up and bush them down. After all that cleaning the starter would not light? Damn should have left well enough alone – huh? I persisted and finally got the igniter set properly as I had bumped it when brushing down the tubes and it started lighting up, it is slow but will light up once there is sufficient gas in the tubes. I then put it all back together and it is now ready for more cooking. I still didn’t find a number to look up the grates and I never found if I could swap out for the new infrared grates either? When I looked on the internet there were 100’s of grills similar to mine. I did look for the infrared stuff and I figure it will not work that way after reading up on them. They list that they have an auto-clean system on those units that will shut down the gas when they are burned down? I need to look at them at Lowes some more as I never saw any other pieces than the set in grates? Oh well. In looking up the parts to fix this one it will cost about $200 and that is just for two new grates and the burners and heat shields. A whole new grill is only $399? Does it pay to repair or replace? I have not figured that one out yet. Maybe next year I will figure it out but I think we use it like it is for another year or two then replace?
With that I decided to read email and finish the day but made a few notes on what I should do tomorrow – if I can get to it all? – WD0AJG