Went to move the tractor and the battery didn’t have enough juice to charge it. Of course, I left the bucket down at just the right spot where I couldn’t open the hood far enough to get to the battery and swap it out. It was about half the size of a car battery, so I assumed it was a 6 Volt battery like I have on the boat for house batteries.
I got an extension cord and wheeled the battery charger over. The charger was 12 volt only, but I figured if I put it on the low amerage setting it would be fine. I hooked the clips to the battery, but just to make sure, I looked up on my phone if it was okay to charge a 6 V battery with a 12 V charger. It is not. I saw the various ways of stepping down the 12 V charger to 6 volts, including powering a 6 V light in line before hooking up to the battery to be charged. Or charging two 6 volt batteries at the same time hooked up in series. I had neither items to do this.
So, I asked as many friends as I could think of if they had one. The older model chargers, like the garage-saled one I had at our cabin once upon a time, had a switch for 6 or 12 volt charging, but most modern chargers do not. Most everyone said the same thing – I used to have one, but it died, and the new one is only 12 V.
So, this morning, I thought I’d cruise the free piles that are out with the sunny weather to see if any were being given away, along with a set of 13 sneakers for a friend in Craig to use for his wading boots, and a bench vise he also needs. Yesterday, I went to the kelp beach out North Douglas to get some kelp for the rhubarb patch. I normally go in the fall, but wasn’t here last fall, and with the weather so nice, I hoped the trail would be snow-free and I could get down there with minimal risk of falling on my new shoulder.
I saw some old friends on the way, and talked to them a good while. I find myself enjoying this more and more as I get older. Probably because I spend so much time alone not going to a job. And I sometimes feel like I linger too long talking. Like the listeners want to move on. Oh well. Old age here we come.
When I got to the kelp, it was dry. Really dry. The fall kelp is usually wet, and a pack-full is heavy. Really heavy. I anticipated taking partial pack loads up with the new shoulder. But, the kelp was so light I was able to fill the pack, put one shoulder strap of the pack over my good shoulder, with the pack strap at an 45 degree angle across my back so that the pack dangled off my opposite butt cheek below the good shoulder for support, and up the 1/2 mile hill to the car I trudged.
On the way home, there was a free pile along the road. Something caught my eye. Some small windows. I must have seen the aluminum frame or something. I figured it was probably a trailer window or similar, but thought I better turn around and look on the outside chance they were boat windows, as I need one for the skiff in Craig. I turned around 50 yards past the pile and back tracked As soon as I saw the manual windshield wiper on the window, I knew it was for a boat! I stopped at Bob’s house on the way home, and we discussed how I could install it when I got down to Craig. NICE!
So that’s what had me out looking for other treasures today. During COVID, people all over town put out free piles when they couldn’t have garage sales. They must have seen some value in this, as this practice has continued. Way more free piles than garage sales, it seems.
I cruised Douglas and downtown, and no luck, so I headed for the Valley. I stopped in at Western Auto to see what they had for new chargers. My friend Rich was on his way in. He asked me what I was there for. A 6 Volt charger I said. He had one! I’d be out in an hour, when he’d be done with his chores and back home and I finished cruising free piles in the Valley.
After no luck with the Valley free piles, I picked up the charger, and headed home. When I hooked up the charger, nothing was working. (Turns out, I later discovererd, the reason it wasn’t working was because it wasn’t plugged in to the outlet in the garage at the opposite end of the extension cord.) I thought maybe it was a positive ground system or something for this old tractor. So I looked it up online. It said my tractor was “powered by a 12 volt battery”. What? I looked all over the battery in there as best I could. And there was printed, along with the other markings. In plain sight. Clear as day. 12 V. I put my own charger back on the battery. You can’t fix stupid.
I also learned another lesson yesterday. How to split wood when you’re down to one good shoulder. I can’t remember if it was my Dad, or the Ingalls boys and their Dad, but I learned to split the hardwoods of the Allegany Mountains of northern Appalachia with a “sledge and a wedge”. That’s how we split wood then. Long before power splitters were common. Or maybe long before we could afford them.
Later, when my brother and I left the nest. my Dad got a used wood splitter when he started selling wood to pay for the expense of getting the wood for the house, or to trade to Dave Sisson for a new sale. But, I still split by hand when I’d return home. The constant bending over to muscle the rounds up on the splitter just seemed annoying. There was no rhythum in it for me. When you split by hand, you analyze each piece to see where to strike it so as to perhaps split around a knot, or take all the sides off the round before splitting it down the middle. There’s also the satisfaction of the thwack on the wood, and the sounds of the wood splitting apart.
As I got older, I learned how to split wood with a splitting maul and have used one of those ever since. But a guy needs to keeps some wedges around when felling trees and splitting wood. Sometimes, a wedge will split a round when a maul will not. Or if you manage to stick the maul in the wood and need a split from the sledge and wedge to get it out.
I found my wedge in my chain saw tools bucket. For a hammer, I thought I’d try a drill hammer, which is basically a miniature sledge hammer with a short handle, made to swing with one arm. It was not taxing to hold the wedge with my new shoulder. I held the wedge with my new shoulder hand, and lightly tapped it into the wood with the drill hammer held in the good hand. A few whacks and the wood split. This was gonna work. I soon learned to choke up on the handle to swing when you are setting the wedge in the round, and then move the grip further down the handle as the wedge moves into the wood.
I could initially split about 4 rounds a session before my good arm got tired. I was soon up to double that after a few days. Just like I’ve always done, I’ll do a few sessions a day to drag the chore out to maximize my outside time, get some strength back in the rest of my body, and maybe get my weight loss moving again. I’ve plateued here with my weight for several months at about 50 to 60 lbs lost, after I stopped getting good workouts with the bum shoulder. Plus, my good shoulder is not going to ruin itself.
It sure feels good to be back in business and spending more time outside. It’s an instant positive mood improver.
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