One thing I benefited from marrying Lovely is a rusty old wagon with three wheels. I don’t know what possessed me to keep it lying around, but I did. After looking at this junky Radio Flyer for three years, I decided it was time to either give it a wheel and make it useful or trash it. Why I chose the wheel option, I’ll never know, but a visit to a psychiatrist might enlighten me.
I looked everywhere for one wheel, but did not find one. Finally, I resorted to Amazon and found wheels galore. What I didn’t find was a perfect match. Being an engineer, I needed the fix to be balanced from side to side. A matched pair of wheels arrived several days later, and I went to work.
Removing the unmatched wheel from the axle was a headache that involved pounding and making a lot of noise. The action loosened a pile of rust from the bed due to all the shock and vibration, and caused a bunch of new holes to appear. Eventually, with the application of copious amounts of WD-40, the old wheel came off.
The two new wheels on the old axle made the wagon look sexy. There was only one cotter pin and I needed two, one for each wheel. With a little persuasion a nail fell out of my miscellaneous box to fill the need. A twist of the nail into a curve kept the new wheel in place. On TV all the old car restorations involve adding new paint, and paint shelf in my shop yielded a can of sky blue and another of white. The blue covered the rusty bed and the white made the hub caps look new. It was done, and available to haul stuff around the garden.
Next, I dragged the Flyer out to the garden and summoned Lovely to examine her wagon. Oh my god! She exclaimed, “A Lamborghini,” and we doubled over in laughter.
This weekend, I put the Lamborghini to use by hauling two cement blocks that had been lying next to the Lambo, alongside the house, for more years than the Lambo had sat rusting. The trip was but a few yards to the far end of the pond. The blocks provide a base for the new aerator pump that pushes air into the water to keep the fish alive through the winter. Maybe this fall, I will avoid the mass fish kill that has happened for the past three years.
Filed under: Biography, Fish, Garden, Pond | Tagged: Fish Kill, Lamborghini, Radio Flyer Wagon, Repurposing |
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