When last we left this adventure, the Jeep was being charged and the snowblower was halfway down the driveway stalled. Eventually the Jeep started, I winched the blower onto the trailer the next day and off we went to the Honda shop, fearing the worst. I mean this thing flat stopped and I couldn't free the starter rope.
A short digression: Some time back I wrote about why I bought a Honda car. It was because of the reliability of the other Honda machines I and my friends own. In all the years, I can't recall ever seeing a piece of Honda equipment break down. This includes four wheelers, generators, pumps, snowblowers, maybe a car now and then but I can't be sure. For example of all the engines I had to start last Thursday, only the 15-year-old Honda four-wheeler did. (Well, the snowblower started, too, but that didn't last long) So, back to the story.
The shop called me Tuesday with the news. People! I broke a Honda!
The whole damned engine. And, I can't even blame the manufacturer. Funny how the finger of blame most often has a 180-degree curve in it. It has been religion with me since I owned or operated and depended on engines. ALWAYS check the oil. Dumb! There is a slight blame on Honda for a design failure: a steel plug turned into an aluminum engine block. I managed to cross those aluminum threads when I changed the oil last spring and over the summer all the oil leaked out. If I had checked it I would have known and could have prevented this damage. But, now the crankshaft and pistons are bound up for good and I get to pay $800 for a whole new engine. (That Honda reliability doesn't come cheap.) Worse, it is not my machine so I absolutely HAVE to put it back better than it was. Yippee! Merry Christmas everyone. Feel joy in the fact that I have a working snowblower again. Plus, it's going to take about two weeks for the engine to get here, and I am sure hoping we don't have a big snowfall before then.
I was commiserating with a friend last night who also was having a series of breakdowns and talking about how you get to a comfortable place and then things start to break, or maybe worse, when you let some minor chores go for awhile and then something big happens and all of a sudden you have a huge pile of work in front of you. First his truck broke down and once he got that fixed and drove it to work, his wife called to tell him the furnace just went out in their new house. I shared my experience and the hopes it wasn't a whole furnace replacement (it wasn't, but it was more than $400) Then I drove home last night with the temperature down around zero and the wind still howling, only to find my own heater stopped, out of fuel (one of those put-off minor chores, I was going to check it today, honest). There are times to be thankful for a wood stove.
So today I am warm and $1,200 lighter. Pretty close to that for my friend, too. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, "so it goes."
AT THE FEEDERS: A new bird this week, a boreal chickadee. Pine grosbeaks, nuthatches, the usual chickadees and a grouse. And then today standing outside with the fuel delivery guy, I saw two merlins hanging out in the trees.
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