Our Olde House: March 2026

I was walking around the house when the black walnut tree stump struck me as needing to go. It is hollow clear down to the ground and essentially useless now; Miss Sherry tried planting something inside the stump, but it died. It would be nice to have it removed and the carport repaved, which also would look much nicer than a rotting tree stump; not a high bar. Actually most of the driveway could be removed and repaved, but that inevitably would lead to ‘project creep’ or the Columbo effect, as just ‘one more thing’ gets added to a project.

Spring is the time I check the big mower to verify that it is still working. When I went out to the big barn to test the mower it did not start; it made absolutely no sound which usually indicates a dead battery. I put the trickle charger on it for a few hours and tried it again, and it started. I drove it around the back yard to charge the battery and to check everything. The oil needed changing and I felt a vibration in the blades I did not notice last year. It also took several seconds for the blades to engage after I moved the lever, so I decided it was time for some mower maintenance.

I called our guy who fixes mowers, and he came over to look at it. It started when he got here so he was able to check the blade vibration and engagement. He returned the next day with a trailer so he could work on the big mower in his shop. After a couple of days he brought the mower back with the list of replaced items. He jumped my battery so the mower started right up. The oil and oil filter were changed, and the fuel filter got changed too. I got new blades which fixed the vibration issue, and he shot some oil on the blade engagement ‘thingy’ which seems to have fixed the hesitation.

I mowed the leaves on the brown front lawn and a little in the back yard just to charge the battery. I turned the mower off, and then tried to start it again and it did not make a sound. I declared the battery to be most sincerely dead, so I took it out and traded it for a new one at an auto parts store. Very easy process; the only downside was carrying the battery which seemed much heavier than before, one hundred feet from the barn to my car trunk, and back again. It occurs to me now that I could have driven the mower much closer to my car before I removed the battery. With the new battery installed the mower fired right up and I drove the mower around a bit just for fun; yes I am easily entertained.

I remembered that I wanted to check the gutters for leaves, but the drone battery needed charging so I did that the day before I wanted to use it. The next day I sent my drone up in the front and back yards to check the gutters for leaves, and none of the gutters looked bad. There are a few leaves in the gutters but not enough to justify a scavenger hunt to find all of the gutter snoot parts, or the assembly process, just to blow out a couple of leaves from the gutters.

I still had ants in my bathroom after three weeks, which is two and a half weeks longer than I have fought them before. I did notice that there was a lull in their attack, and I think they were changing nests. The really really small ants are gone, but a bazillion slightly larger ants are eating the ant bait. Hopefully this round robin of ant nests will end shortly, so I do not have to exterminate all of the ants in the neighborhood.

After finding and removing about five ants per day from my bathroom for several days, it occurred to me that the ant bait may be attracting the ants, so I removed the tinfol and ant bait. I still had a few ants the next day, but none after that. It has been over a week now without an ant so I am declaring victory. Miss Sherry said the ants are looking for water, and since it rained pretty good a couple of days ago the ants should be able to find water outside, and leave my bathroom alone.

The Generac told me it was time for its annual maintenance, so I called up the Generac people and made an appointment for them to come out. They came a few days later and changed the oil and oil filter, and checked the operation which had no issues. The Generac starts itself up and runs for five minutes once per week, so we are sure the battery will work if it actually needs to. We love this generator because we do not have any anxiety when bad weather is forecast since we will have power even if Entergy does not.