…..every year when I go to the cottage I learn something new

Friday, July 3, 2015

First things first. Coffee. I started the BBQ and boiled water to make a pot of coffee. I don’t know why we feel the need for expensive coffee machines when using a kettle and a coffee filter over a carafe makes excellent coffee and in the same amount of time.

Dr. D came over and shared a cup of coffee with me and then we went to tackle the water problem. We’ve both started this pump hundreds of times and have never had a problem that couldn’t be solved with a minimum of effort. Today was the exception.

One of the things that I noticed was that there wasn’t a strong smell of gas, even after numerous pulls on the cord. Most people would think that we flooded the motor. Just in case we gave it a rest. Dr. D also thought that it might need a new spark plug so she rummaged through her brother’s stash in the boathouse and found the exact match. The difficulty came when we tried to remove the old one. I don’t know how a man with big hands could possibly remove this spark plug. We found the socket wrenches but the plug was so far into the motor that the wrench didn’t fit.

We found another tool that fit over the bolt at the bottom of the plug and with a screw driver acting as a lever we finally managed to remove the old plug. We screwed in the new plug and tightened it the same way we loosened the old one. We pulled on the cord again. Nothing. Now what?

Dr. D remembered that her brother had heated the end of the spark plug for another application so we removed the new spark plug using our make shift tool and got out the propane torch. After heating the contact end we put it back into the motor and tried again. Nothing.

As a last resort we called D’s brother and her parents. We reached her mom and dad who were on holiday on the east coast, first. We told them what we had done and all the suggestions that they made we had already tried. Their final recommendation was to get buckets and get water from our neighbours. Luckily D’s brother D called. He was on his way to the cottage but was still one and a half days away.

After explaining, again, what we had done he advised that we check the carburator. Okay but where is it? We’re lucky that he knows this motor so well because he described exactly where to locate the carburator and how to empty it. The theory is that water had mixed in with the gas and wasn’t going through the motor. That would account for the lack of gasoline smell when we were pulling on the cord. Again we had difficultly removing the bolt but this time the socket wrench proved useful. After emptying the tank we pulled the cord again. Nothing! Arghhh!

We decided we needed a break and went inside D’s cottage. She made us each a cappuccino with the expresso maker she brought to the cottage. Did I mention that they have electricity where I don’t. What a treat! After being satisfactorily caffeinated we decided to clean up the tools and wait for D’s brother to arrive to fix the problem.

After putting the tools away and cleaning up the area, I suggested that we give it one more try, just to make sure that it really wasn’t working. Voila! It worked! We gave each high fives and acted like little children who had just won a competition. We had beat this thing and fixed it ourselves.

I filled up my water barrel and five large bottles of water that I took to the kitchen. Someday I will actually have the water piped right into the cottage so that I don’t have to lug water every other day but that’s for another day.

Now it was time to celebrate. A little bit of wine and great food. A wonderful way to end the day.