Corker!

The temperature rose to a spanking 26 degrees Celsius today and we could well see it rising a bit higher again tomorrow. My main aim today was to taxy 28AAD, my Weedhopper, but first I had a couple of other things to attend to.

The first one was to fix my ride-on mower. The last time I used it, a securing pin dropped out of one of the arms that hold the cutting bed in place allowing the arm to twist backwards and under the cutting bed bringing the mower to a dead stop. Luckily this happened as I was approaching the end of the job and I had a spare pin that allowed me to put the arm back in place to finish off.

However, I then found that the bed wasn’t lifting on that side when the height lever was raised, so I needed to look at that before doing anything else today as having a working mower is essential at this time of the year.

As I expected, I found that yet another pin had dropped out allowing the lifting lever on that side to fall off its peg, and yet another pin that I just happened to have solved that problem too.

But what I’m finding rather concerning is why all these pins are dropping off? And the other question I ask myself is why the heck can’t I find any of them while I’m driving around on the mower cutting the grass, as they’re big enough for goodness sake.

Then it was time to get some fuel, 20 litres for the Weedhopper and/or X-Air and 20 litres for my garden tools. And while I was in Intermarché getting 2-stroke oil I also picked up one or two items that I forgot when I was there the other day.

Then it was home for lunch and over to Malbec with high hopes that with today’s high temperature I’d be able to do some decent taxy testing in the Weedhopper on what I thought would be a rapidly drying runway.

Here are a couple of shots of the Weedhopper in its ‘natural environment’ at last, ready and waiting at the top of Malbec’s runway in what I think must be the best weather we’ve had so far this year.

But it wasn’t to be. After doing one high power taxy down the runway and back I got out and checked the runway surface. Sadly, I found that it’s still too soft and I’d left some marks that I then needed to tread down again. So that was it – taxying had to be abandoned yet again for the day, but before calling it a day, I took the opportunity to take a few more shots of 28AAD parked in the sunshine.

It’s taking much longer than I expected for Malbec’s runway to dry out but there’s no point pushing it as that will only cause damage to its surface that will then need to be rectified. I’ll try again tomorrow but I must say that on today’s evidence, I’m not that optimistic that things will be much better.

Fortunately the high temperatures should persist right through until the week-end and, hopefully, beyond, so surely it will become dry enough to use some time in the near future. Why it’s taking so long is a complete mystery 😕