What a Joint

Closer inspection reveals that our 1994 Ford Aerostar AWD van was suffering from a Constant Velocity joint failure.  It is our second vehicle and has taken the place of our Toyota pick up while we save some money to get it fixed.  So spent yesterday with brother Tom and a friend replacing the joint assembly.

We were outside in 5c weather and I was glad for my heavy insulated work coat, gloves,vest and thermal pants.  And very grateful for friends that are better mechanics than me.  And had the right assortment of tork, allen, impact drivers, jack stands and sundry other general hand tools it took to make the repairs.  It was quite a job and provided plenty of opportunity to wonder about the designers of vehicles.  Why they would use so many different fasteners in such ridiculously difficult places to get to.

I am starting to believe the reason for that was indeed the automotive designers revenge on mechanics after coming home to find an auto-mechanic in a compromising position with his wife.

They heavy rains have revealed that I may have been a bit optimistic in thinking I was going to have a mud free driveway.

It's a lazy dazy day with the fire singing in the living room heater and a steady rain drum beating on our metal roof. We're having a late breakfast of pancakes made from flour we hand ground from raw hard red winter wheat.

They have a nutty, fulsome flavor with a stick to the ribs earthiness.  The doggies think the pancakes with just a bit of butter and strawberry jam is just about the next best thing to cow tongue.  On a scale of 1 to 10 that's about a 20!

We've been wanting to try grinding our own grains after watching a demonstration by a neighbor.  While cleaning out a part of a storage shed I discovered a box that had a hand grinder in it.  Score!  A heavy duty, nickel plated machine that will last for quite a while.  It was made in Median  Columbia and has attachements for meat and we also think for making oats flakes.  The newspaper it was packed in was from 1973.  It had an advertisement for a hand held four function LCD calculator for $99!


Raw Hard Red Winter Wheat on the left, Whole grain, no preservative flour on the right!

 We bought a bag of Oats and will try that experiment later.  Hope you had a restful weekend.

Comments

I have a brother Tom. I'm just sayin'
Art Blomquist said…
Ah everybody should have one! Especially with heavy equipment to lend..

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