Taming the Jungle

Published on Aug. 19, 2008 in Australia

Most weekends closely mimic each other: drinking a lot of wine, playing the the computers, eating lots of food. However, this past weekend was pleasantly eventful.

Saturday night we met up with some of Yan-Shih's co-workers in Windsor, a tiny suburb on the way to the blue mountains. After a stunning dinner of fish curry with numerous sides, we drove into Richmond to watch a local guild's play, A Dark Winter Night. Having been spoiled in theater since a small kid, I still really enjoy the performance. It was humble but entertaining. They even served free coffee and biscuits at intermission!

After the play we stopped by a local pub. Two beers later we were on the way back to Windsor, and shortly after saying goodbye to Markus and Marion, we fell asleep.

At 9:00 we woke up, feeling totally rested, and ate a yum breakfast. Remco and Daisy (our hosts) had some wonderful aged cheese, which when put on crumpets, was simply delightful. The previous night I had been complaining about the need to mow our lawn, and our lack of a lawnmower. Remco and Daisy immediately volunteered to not only donate their lawnmower, but to help us mow the lawn!

As you can see, our lawn had turned into a bit of a jungle. We moved to the side lawn, yet the mower started to slow down. We figured it was full of sticky grass and subsequently turned it upside down and scrapped out the basin. For those of you paying attention, you must be thinking 'you turned it upside down!'. No gas fell out, but oil spilled out everywhere. Upon next start it just chugged and spat, and wouldn't start. We cleaned the oil filter, tried again, but no luck. I borrowed a wrench from a neighbor and we dismantled the lawnmower, tried to find a problem, and tried again: no luck. Finally I decided to consult Yahoo Answers and found exactly what I was looking for. We ultimately cleaned the spark plug and the cylinder that the plug is in, and also cleaned the cylinder going to the muffler. Both were cleaned with lots of q-tips dipped in gasoline. On next start, it worked!

Remco and Daisy ended up donating basically their entire afternoon to us. We tried to repay them with cookies, wine, chocolate and lunch -- but I honestly don't think that is enough. I'll have to think of something special. But until then, thanks!

Tagged as: generous | house | work | yan-shih

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