The girls are happy!

Mrs ERJ and Belladonna were grounded.

Mrs ERJ's vehicle went Tango Uniform three or four weeks ago.  Belladonna's was down for ten days.  Four drivers and two of our three vehicles were in the shop for an extended period of time. 

It is all good now.  Both vehicles are back on the road and the girls are very happy.

Mrs ERJ's ride
Mrs ERJ's ride would not go into reverse.  The situation rapidly degraded.  In short order it did not want to shift  out of park.

We took the vehicle to Wilder's Automotive in Eaton Rapids.  He charges a half-hour hoist time for diagnostics, which is about $40.  He called us later that day.  He was not able to figure out the problem.  He recommended that we take it to Lansing Transmission.  He did not charge us the half-hour saying, "I am not going to charge you because I was not able to diagnose anything."

Mrs ERJ called Lansing Transmission.  We were able to get it into gear.  We were met by Stacy and Lori who were taking their break.  They fiddled with the minivan and were very encouraging.  They said that there was a position sensor (gear selection)  internal to the transmission and the repair would be between $300 and $500.

The reason it took so long to get the minivan repaired was two-fold.  Transmission shops that are widely heralded as being honorable have more business than they can turn over.  The second issue is that one of the mechanics (Lori) strained her shoulder and she was put on office duty.

This ended up being the main problem.

There is supposed to be a finger on the smaller diameter, center rod.  It is no longer there.  That allowed the rod to retract completely within the sleeve and the sensor (Hall Effect?) could not see the rod.

The bill came out to a bit more than $600.  They ran into another issue.

This motor mount is supposed to incorporate a fluid damping element.  The mount blew out (the vehicle was originally a rental unit from New Jersey, draw your own conclusions).  They replaced this mount which took the cost above the original estimate.

The great news is....way cheaper than a replacement transmission or complete transmission rebuild.

Belladonna's ride
The timing chain ate the timing gear.  The engine is an "interference" engine.  Consequently, the pistons and the valves tried to cohabitate the same space at the same time.

The engine ate itself.

The good news is that it happened 170 yards from our driveway rather than downtown Grand Rapids.

Wilder strongly discouraged rebuilding the engine.   The vehicle (and engine) has 218,000 miles on it. Kelley Blue Book estimated the vehicle's value at $1800.  Rebuilding the engine would require a new head and beau coup repair hours.

He did say that an engine swap would be about $2000.  A quick look on Craigslist suggested that a comparable vehicle would be about $4000.  The smart money would probably not dump $2000 into an "$1800" vehicle but this has been a good car and Bella likes it.  I don't always do the smart thing.

She was grounded for about 10 days while things were being sorted out.

Bella's vehicle is now being powered by an engine with 94,000 miles on it.   I will be tickled if it gets her through college and a year on the job.

Summary
We got through it.  The upside is that we communicated better.  One complication is that the S-10 has a grumpy transmission and the girls loath driving it.  I AM the only driver of the S-10.  We had to talk or I might be off on some errand when they needed to be somewhere.

One of Bella's friends loaned her a car so she could get to a couple of job interviews.  Thanks Erika!  The S-10 does not have air conditioning and Bella wanted to be "fresh" for the interviews.   Bella got the job.

Forty year class reunion

Polyester leisure suits.  Synthetics are making a comeback.  They dry quickly and are "sporty".

My forty year class reunion is coming up.

I went to my five year reunion.  I missed all of the rest.

Platform shoes.  Does anybody remember platform shoes?

I am leaning toward going to this one.  Part of what is tipping me in that direction are the health issues two of my brothers experienced.

Carpe diem.

Do any of you readers want to weigh in with an opinion?

Maximilian sunflower seedlings

Maximilian Sunflower seedlings

They were a little bit smaller on May 2.  Post HERE

These roots are part of the reason that this species can handle drought.

60 seedlings.  Armored.  I will move them in the fall.

Shallot seedlings just to try something different.

It takes me about 25 minutes to weed a 65' row of potatoes.  They are much faster to weed when they are all the same size and spacing.

Daylilies.  A scattered plant here-and-there has been blooming over the past week.  This is the first clump where MOST of the plants are blooming.  I am going to call 1425 GDD (B42) the start of daylily blooming.

Plums hiding in a red-leafed plum tree.

A rant about five gallon gasoline containers

---Start of Rant---

Nothing is more iconic than the five gallon gas can.  Few things are more recognizable.  Few things are a better symbol of Urban over-reach.

This can was clearly designed by a person who never used one to conform to specification designed to punish those who do.

One operates this unit by lifting it by the handle.  Five gallons of gas (31 pounds) weighs less than five gallons of water (40 pounds) but most people will need to use two hands to lift the container above belt height.

A third hand is required to rotate the green collar on the spigot to align the tumblers molded into the black spout.  A fourth hand is required to depress the top portion of the black spout so it fully engages the matching features in the green collar and the device will unlock, allowing the gasoline to flow.

Two more hands, numbers five and six, are desirable for tipping the can so the spout is below the level of the gasoline and it can actually flow out of the can.

Six hands may sound like a lot, but it comes in handy as the gasoline flows out of the can at approximately one thimbleful every twenty seconds.  It takes a significant fraction of an hour to empty the can of its contents.  It is gonna feel like you and your two helpers are standing there forever.

Whaddya mean you are getting older and are not as strong as you used to be?

Whaddya mean you have wimminfolks in the house who struggle with lifting weights?

Whaddya mean you live in the sticks and don't have two stout friends to help you?

That ain't the regulator's problem.

WHY?
Cutting to the chase, the minions in the EPA believe that internal combustion machines are spawn of the devil and that people who use them are the devil's acolytes.  Punishing people who use petroleum powered mowers and chainsaws and boat motors and tillers and automobiles is a feature, not a bug.

The people who worm their way into the Washington D.C. power structure are urban people.  They cannot imagine my life.  They don't use five gallon gas cans.  They don't need to.

• They ride the Metro or they can bike the 1.6 miles to work.
• They live in apartments or hire a crew of Latinos to do the yard work.
• Businesses deliver food (from restaurants) to their door.
• They don't personally know anybody who owns a chainsaw, lawnmower, pressure washer or generator.
• By volume, they buy 1000 times more foofoo coffee than gasoline.
• Their idea of recreation is to ride a bus downtown and follow the crowd into the baseball stadium or the protests.

Our would-be rulers harbor the belief that everybody who is not-like-them is clinging to primitive, archaic, culture; proto-Amish if you will.  They figure that it is their mission to chivy, chafe and inconvenience us into conformance.

In the beginning
It started out innocently enough.  Pre-emissions control passenger cars emitted 20 grams (2/3s of an ounce) of hydrocarbons a mile (source).  Those hydrocarbons contributed to smog and other health hazards.

Governments figure that anything worth regulating is worth regulating comprehensively.  They also started to regulate the "evaporative" emissions.  Those are emissions that occur when the vehicle is not moving.  Then they regulated the gas vapors that pour out of the vehicle's gas tank when it is being refueled.  The vapors are displaced by the incoming fuel and were spilling out.

Then somebody noticed that every Billy-Bob and Boy-Howdy from Caribou, Maine to Needles, California was storing 20 gallons of gas in vented containers in their garage or shed.  Some of those sheds got to 140 degrees and significant amounts of gas boiled out over time.

Saving the earth
Gasoline is formulated according to the anticipated temperature.  Cold weather gasoline has significant amounts of butane in it.  Butane is a cheap source of energy.  Butane is volatile. Butane boils out of the gasoline.  Butane is a hydrocarbon.  Light hydrocarbons like methane have been implicated in man-made global warming (gasp!)

The irony is that "good" intentions are not enough.  Anywhere between two and eight ounces (60ml and 240ml) of fuel are spilled with every transfer due to the infernal awkwardness of the system.  Sometimes the secondary container gets knocked over and far more than 240ml spills.

---End of Rant---

How do you fit that in a pontoon boat?

Uncle Mike, Kevin...are you taking notes?  H/T The Lonely Libertarian

Marlette Series Loam

The Marlette series consists of well drained and moderately well drained , gently sloping to steep soils on till plains and moraines.  These soils formed in calcareous loam glacial till.

In a representative profile the surface layer is dark grayish brown loam about 9 inches thick.  The subsoil, about 29 inches thick is dark brown, firm clay loam.  The underlaying material, beginning at a depth of 38 inches, is carcareous brown loam.

Runoff is medium in less sloping areas and rapid and very rapid in the more steeply sloping areas.  Permeability is moderate or moderately slow, and available water capacity is high.

The less sloping areas of Marlette soils are well suited or moderately well suited to farming, and most of the area are covered with crops.  The more steeply sloping areas are poorly suited to farming, because of rapid runoff and erosion hazards.  Some of these areas are wooded or are in permanent pasture.   -Source (page 30-of-102)

Most of my property is 2%-to-6% (slope) Marlette loam.  Slope percentage is the number of feet of vertical change for every hundred feet of travel in the steepest direction.

What happens when wild wolves run into raccoons with Canine Distemper?

Orange shaded area indicates areas where wolf packs are possible.

Counties circled in red are where confirmed (Yellow Medicine and Olmstead) cases of Canine Distemper were found in Raccoons or where suspected cases were found (Dodge, Winona, Kandiyohi and Mist) in 2017.

Things will get interesting here in a bit.