Phil Troubleshooting in the Cold

Phil has been working out in the 20 degree weather, in the wind and driving light snow. I go outside as little as possible.

Thursday morning, Phil managed to reassemble the chipper entirely. He had had a hard time with the bearings, but by hooking on a clamp or something, he managed to whack everything together in short order.

Then it was time to deal with the clutch. He had tried to bleed the line before, but it hadn't made much difference. "I know what I did wrong, though." Unfortunately, the plastic tubing required could not be found, so that was a 90 minute trip to town.

We worked on bleeding the line for some time. The clutch finally started to have some resistance, but suddenly it didn't. I checked the fluid reservoir, and it looked almost empty. I wonder, in retrospect, if it had gotten empty, and more air went into the line (the book cautioned against this; otherwise, you have to start over). A few more attempts, but finally Phil just refilled the reservoir and pumped the clutch hundreds of times. Now it works well.

Was that hour or two we spent in the Big Blue Barn what made the difference? Who knows.

But the day was far gone, and by the time Phil brought hay and minerals to the cows, and got the chipper hooked back to the tractor, the day was done.

The water had frozen in the line to the cows yesterday. So today that was a first priority: get water for the cows.

Well, first Phil went out to make eggs for breakfast. I think he was getting water for his coffee. He turned the spigot on. And it came undone so he couldn't turn it off!

The water on the ground froze quickly. If that had happened to me, I don't know what I would have done. I don't know what he did, but he finally managed to get it stopped.

Happy breakfast making!

The line to the cows was not going to work, so he headed up to fill the tank on the trailer. After 100 gallons, the pump ran out.

Is our well almost dry? Is this an extreme cold thing? It's too bad Phil wasn't here when the service guys came last year to put in a new pump. It would have been interesting to have them measure the actual water level.

With that sobering bit of frustration, Phil took the 100 gallons over to the cows. They finished much of it, while he took the tank and trailer down to the creek.

The pump we bought last September to drain our "pool" did not come with instructions. So Phil spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how to make it work. But finally the tank was filling.

Then Phil fell into the creek! It sounded like quite a tumble, but thankfully, though he fell head-first out of the trailer, he ended up on his feet. Boots, pants, over pants all soaked. And quickly frozen. But he didn't drown in the ice water.

It actually hadn't occurred to me until right now that that could have been the end of him: drowned in the freezing waters of the creek. He's often with the cows for an hour. I wouldn't have gone to look for him for a long time. Some things are better not to imagine.

When the cows were watered again, he left the water trailer, changed clothes, warmed up, hooked up the chipper (again), and headed down.

For about four hours, he was down in the lower pasture, working in the cold air. For those four hours, nothing broke, everything worked. Four hours of the precious wood chips pouring into the back of the truck.

Then, at 6pm, when it was quite dark, he started to head up the slope. But the light snow had slicked over. Despite the frozen ground, there was no chance of him coming up slope with either truck or tractor tonight.

But with all the setbacks of this week, he returned in good spirits.