Sickness cannot halt production on the farm, it can merely sideline it! I was very ill last week and ended up catching pneumonia. Ever since that first bought of Covid my lungs have not snapped back and I get pneumonia pretty easily now. Of course I got it and finally had to reach out to my PCP when my oxygen saturations started to drop into the mid 80% range. This caused several days of missed work but Mr. Rainman was coming out for the weekend last week and I needed to take advantage of the help. The plan was to get the sand down and compacted in the Gazebo so that we could lay the pavers. There are about 1200 pavers that have to go down to fill up the space. This does seem like a lot but they just have to lay down then we can put special grout down and seal them all in place.
The real problem was we had still not managed to get the compactor to function correctly. We have done multiple things to get it going. We ended up having to change the oil as this model somehow gets fuel into the oil which then causes the motor to kill itself when it gets up to speed. Once we did that it worked but the throttle cable was still not working correctly and Mr Rainman ended up touching the hot exhaust plat and burning a couple of bolt patterns into his palm. We decided that this project was going to have to wait until the spring. We need to fix the throttle cable again and we need some water available to water down the sand as we compact it. I managed to find a throttle cable that is used on a concrete cutter that allows you to set it at various locations and the cable will not retract with vibrations. I have ordered said cable and it should be here this week. I am sure I will have to fabricate some type of holder to hold it in place but if the throttle cable stays in place it will be worth it. I just need to get a tarp and cover up the compactor for the winter. This chewed up five hours trying to get things up and going before we finally just called uncle and gave up. There is a plan in place and we will pick it up in the spring.
I have several other items that need to get done before the ground freezes so I have to pivot my to do list to get these items knocked out soon. If I were not sick they would have been done now but I have been having to rest. Rest is a four word cuss word when you are talking to a farmer/rancher. It is fairly derogatory and tends to get in the way of all progress. It is not one I like to hear in regard to my work output. I have been hearing it a lot lately from a lot of different directions. Ultimately, despite my will I have been forced to rest and recuperate.
Stewart Creek Somethings 