Our Olde House: August 2026

When it rained a lot a few weeks ago, the grass in the backyard had grown a lot and the gardeners were not due for another week. I decided to take my big mower out for a spin even though the lawn was soaking wet and it was hot outside. The grass was very high, and after ten minutes the mower died, I assumed from too much wet grass clogging something up. I waited a few days for the mower to dry out and tried starting it again; it spun but did not start, so I called our lawnmower guy to see what I broke. 

He came over to look at the mower, and we tried starting it again. It had plenty of gas and oil, and the air and fuel filters were fine, but when he looked at the fuel solenoid he said it had melted. The fuel solenoid stops the flow of fuel from the tank when the engine is off; in this case, the solenoid melted in the ‘closed’ position so the engine was not getting any fuel. He ordered the part and when it arrived a few days later, he removed the melted solenoid and installed the new one. The mower fired right up and I finished mowing the grass.

The old fan and light fixture in the dining room had two strings hanging down, so you could turn the light and fan off and on. The last time I turned the light off the string broke; no problem I thought. I bought another light and fan combination fixture that screws into the light bulb socket of the existing fixture. The dining room has a twelve-foot ceiling so I needed a ladder to reach it; Miss Sherry steadied the ladder while I climbed up. I installed the new light and fan combination fixture and descended the ladder to test it. 

I pressed the buttons on the remote and nothing happened. The remote had a battery, but the socket was turned ‘off’ before the string broke. Back up the ladder to see if I could find enough string left to grab. As luck would have it, there was a small piece of chain that I pulled to turn the socket ‘on’. The remote control for the new light and fan worked perfectly. 

It had been a couple of weeks since the front hall receptacle stopped working, and I decided that I should plug a lamp into it so I would know if it ever started working again. When I crawled under the table, bumping my head only once, and plugged the lamp into the wall outlet instead of the extension cord, the lamp lit up. Apparently, this receptacle fixed itself sometime during the past few weeks while I was not looking.

I still do not have a reasonable explanation why the receptacle stopped working, but I do have some guesses for the cause of its resurrection. Number one, it rained yesterday but did not rain today. Number two, the power to the house went off today and the generator turned the power back on. And Number three, it was hot last week but is cooler this week. I have some more possibilities, but all of them sound silly when I say them out loud.

I noticed some poison ivy growing in the side yard next to the driveway. I have hose-attach bottles of poison that will kill poison ivy which I use to spray large areas, but I also have a little pump spray bottle of it for any stray plants. I put on a plastic glove and got the little bottle from the tool shop. I have not used this in awhile and when I squeezed the handle nothing came out. After trying several times, I decided that the nozzle must be clogged, so I went to the hardware store to buy another bottle. I could pour the rest of this old bottle into the new bottle after I had used some, so nothing would be wasted. 

I got the new spray bottle, another plastic glove and went to find the poison ivy. I squeezed the handle on the new bottle and nothing came out. After trying my French to convince the bottle to work, still nothing happened. I do not like to mess with poison so I was ‘in a hurry’ from the beginning which was the actual problem. When I calmed down and relaxed, I noticed something on the bottle nozzle, the word OFF. I also noticed that when I turned the nozzle ninety degrees the word ON appeared, and the bottle sprayed. 

I remembered that all of these spray bottles for poison have an OFF and ON position on the nozzle. Surprisingly enough, the old spray bottle also worked when the nozzle was placed in the ON position. I suppose the advice derived from this episode would include Haste Makes Waste and When All Else Fails Read The Instructions come to mind. But that is not important, what is the important thing to remember is that I killed the poison ivy and did not break anything else during the process. Win win for me, which is as good as it gets.