A Hot 3-Day Weekend

With three days to kill and no real plans, Saturday I decided it was time to tackle the overgrown weedage and vineage on the east side of the house. The east side of my house is kind of the ‘forgotten’ side, the yard is smaller than the rest of the yards and no one goes over there much. But Saturday I was determined to ‘clean up’ the landscaping mess that father time has overseen these past few years that I’ve neglected it.

Armed to the teeth with loppers, sheers, gasoline powered hedge-trimmer, rakes, my trusty 23HP V-Twin lawn tractor and a gallon of drinking water I headed for the east yard Saturday morning first mowing the lawn area between me and the neighbor’s yard and then getting down to business with the various sharpened steel I brought to conquer the out of control horticulture. Everything was going well and I took frequent water breaks (the older and fatter one is the more important it is to stay hydrated while working in the sun).

I was just about ready to take a midday lunch break when I thought I’d go ahead and snip some weeds growing between the house and central air unit… two brown vines were especially tough to snip, so I chopped and yanked until I heard the air conditioner shutting down… I had just cut through the brown thermostat signal cables! Yikes!

I went to the shade to formulate a plan… I have enough electronics/electricity understanding to re-attach the wires, which I did. Still no AC though… and the fancy new electronic wi-fi thermostat I barely know how to operate had no power to it!

Several hours passed during which time I installed the 110v emergency (hurricane time) window unit in my bedroom so I’d have one cool room to sit in to watch college football. A call to my home warranty reflected it would be Wednesday before someone could come out. So I went to the internets for help. According to several you tube videos, there must be a blown fuse in the air-handler… more tools, more time and later on I removed this blown-out hard to find 3.2 amp 300v fuse. But no one in town on a Labor Day Saturday carries this type… not the familiar friendly local hardware store, not the big box chain hardware stores. Back to the friendly internets and I ordered one from my favorite place to shop: amazon. It too will be here Wednesday. My plan is to receive the fuse, install it and hope the AC works and call off the AC man and save the $100 co-pay on the warranty.

If you’re still reading this summary of a mostly wasted Saturday, thank you. You should know that out of frustration the gardening ended right then and there once the wires were cut… although I did mow another little piece in the early evening, but that consisted mainly of driving the mower around the yard with the blades spinning, I don’t consider that work – and especially not since I installed a cup holder on the mower if you know what I mean.