With the promise of decent weekend weather for the first time this year, I knew it was time to start working outside. Cutting the lawn, washing some windows and putting out the deck furniture were all on my to-do list. Especially cutting the lawn. After an exceptionally wet start to spring, the grass was getting to the point that I might have expected another visit by Bylaw Enforcement. They dropped two years ago by to say hello and ask me if my lawnmower was in working order. I wanted to avoid a repeat of that humiliation. Cue the first visit to Canadian Tire on Friday.
Canadian Tire is about a ten minute drive away. Even that close, it is still at least half an hour out of the day, allowing for the round trip and about ten minutes in store. And on that first trip, it only took ten minutes to grab what I needed– a tune up kit for my Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine– and check out.
Once back home, I set about hooking up the hose so I could wash some the some of the windows and siding. My plan was to get the furniture out of the shed and onto the deck, so I could move my lawn equipment into the new shed after cutting the grass. But over the winter months, the leader hose to the reel had cracked in several places. Cue the second trip to Canadian Tire for a new leader hose.
After replacing the leader hose, I began hosing down the siding and windows. But over the winter months, the hose nozzle had cracked in several places. Cue… a trip to the basement for some electrical tape. Sure, it was a literally a band-aid fix, but I was not going to go back to Canadian Tire a third time on the same day.
My Friday ended with steak and taters on the barbecue. The furniture remained in the shed.
First thing Saturday morning, we headed out as a family to do a little shopping including a quick stop at Home Depot for top soil and a hose nozzle. Once back home, I got to work on the lawnmower. I changed the oil, spark plug and air filter. The lawnmower fired up on the first try and purred like a kitten– for a couple minutes, anyway. Until the smoke started billowing. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but when I noticed oil dripping from the air filter, I theorized that perhaps I had not completely drained the old oil and overfilled the mower. A quick visit to the Internet confirmed my suspicion that this was indeed the cause of the smoke. The brand new air filter was a wet oily mess. Cue the third trip to Canadian Tire in less than 24 hours.
I hate doing things twice, but I basically did two lawnmower tune-ups. I try to take care of as many errands as possible on a single trip, but I ran over to Canadian Tire three times. On the positive side, the second oil change did the trick. I spent about fifteen minutes making sure all the old oil was drained out before adding the new oil.
To save money, I could have just dumped out the excess oil to bring the amount down to an acceptable level, but that would have defeated the purpose of changing the oil in the first place, since the old oil would have still been present. But the air filter was still toast anyway. The Canadian Tire run was unavoidable. The bottom line: lawnmower tuned up, excess oil burned off, and the front lawn and the grass in the backyard dog run cut. No reason for the neighbours to complain.
The remainder of the day was spent cleaning up the dead branches and twigs that had fallen in the back yard over the course of the winter, and doing some landscaping (topsoil and grass seed) around the new shed. The furniture remains in the shed. If the decent weather holds, it may see the light of day on Sunday.
All I can say for sure is that I will not be going back to Canadian Tire again this weekend.
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