the Walnut Diary

It’s hard to retain one’s belief that he is the smartest guy in the room when he can’t remember right from left on some occasions.  One of these happened last night when I decided to turn on the outside water supply after three days of work with Les on my sister’s bathroom ceiling.  We had tired each other out. 

 
A walk around the garden had determined that the newly-transplanted raspberries would soon need water.  That involves emptying the Kioti of chain saw, chains, oil, gas, and the winter clutter, washing it out, and installing the 25 gallon tank and 12v pump for watering.  First step is to turn on the water supply to the taps out the lane.

I’d had it on once this spring, but then the tap froze up during a heavy frost, so I had shut it off and drained back the water.  I thought. Today I tried to turn the tap on.  Stuck.

Now this is where the problem is for me.  Over the years I have accumulated a lot of force multipliers for my diminishing wrist strength.  At hand was a strap wrench, so I grabbed it and used it to ease the tap open.  It didn’t ease.  More force.  Still more.  Eventually the top broke off the tap.  No leaks.  Frantic searches through online listings of local hardware stores provided no leads as to how to replace that part of that 3/4″ threaded brass check valve.  Replacing this key component involves a total shutdown of the house water supply.

At 5:00 a.m. I woke up thinking that the tap might already have been open.  This proved to be the case.  We now have outside water, though I’ll need to do some plumbing before it can be shut off for winter.

Back to the force multipliers.  The worst of them is the 1″ pneumatic impact wrench in the shop.  This tool definitely should not be operated by someone who is iffy on left vs right, especially when removing a stuck wheel stud from a Porsche.  On the other hand I get a grudging respect from Porsche acolytes when I admit to twisting off one of the studs in the left front hub of my Cayenne.  Nobody has ever done that before.

Archimedes and his screw principle provided the foundation for modern machines, and his right-on left-off precepts have served me faithfully until these few lapses over the last couple of years, but I must remember not to use available wrenches to reinforce a wrong assumption when in a hurry.