Jack

Jack

Thursday, May 31, 2018

Satan's Carpet Cleaner

One thing my father taught me was to love a good, well-made appliance. Towards that end I have no trouble whatsoever paying good money for something--but once I have, you bet that damned thing better work.

Once such item is my monster Bissell carpet cleaner. With our Nevada snowy winters, decomposed granite (DG) dirt that cheerfully sticks in the tread of your shoes until you come inside and our various animals, this thing isn't a luxury item, it's a damned necessity.

I call mine the Big Beast.

I got it at the same time we bought the house 6 years ago once I saw the state of the carpets here. Based on the amount of dog hair and DG the Big Beast has pulled up out of the carpet I strongly suspect the previous tenants had simply left the window of the master bedroom open and allowed several large dogs to come and go through it as they willed, year round.

By the way, the Bissell 'Pet Urine Remover' solution in fact, looks suspiciously like...well...


The Big Beast has served me faithfully ever since. This thing could pull Satan himself up from Hell through my carpet, it's that strong.  When you turn it on you have to warn anyone else in the house that you are about to do so because this thing is mind-rattlingly LOUD. Using it gives you such a 'RAWR!' feeling that you know what Ripley must have felt when she climbed into that Cat Power Loader and battled the Alien Queen. I may have actually blown kisses at it when I do my Spring cleaning after Chickam is through and my house is a wreck. I love it.

When it works.

When it does NOT, it never fails that the thrice-accursed thing fails spectacularly, vomiting several gallons of filthy water all over my carpet or even more fun, haha, laying down scads of soapy water and then refusing to suck it back up.

And does it do this right at the outset, you ask?

Of course it bloody doesn't. It's sneaky. It waits until it's lulled you into a false sense of security and you're halfway through your whole-house cleaning job. When you've put in your earbuds and turned on your music player so you don't have to endure it's loud, throaty roar as it's foaming maw attacks your carpets. When you've fallen into the mindlessness of carpet cleaning.

Then you realize--I haven't had to empty the dirty water receptacle yet. And I should have had to empty it at least twice by now, shouldn't I...? Because that's the other fun thing about using the Big Beast--you use it so seldom that it's easy to forget the finer points.

I long ago learned the operate the Big Beast barefoot in order to make sure that 1. It's putting down soapy water and 2. That it's picking it back up again. I know by know that the carpet should have a certain degree of wetness after I've used the cleaner on it and no more.

I check with my feet. The carpet squelches, it's too wet.

Damn, damn, DAMN. I unload the two water containers--no fool I, I'm not gotta tip this thing upside down with them in place and spill them, I learn. I tip the thing over and no surprise, it's loaded to the gills with dirt and dog hair--some of it from our dog over the winter, but a lot of it still from the previous tenant's dogs, which are the gift that keeps on giving even 6 years later. Armed with several tools I pulls clots of gunk out of the machine, and the levels of nastiness they have attained are stunning.

It's clean again, huzzah. Now it should work.
Nope, the rollers won't turn. Huh. it must be that when the rollers don't turn it won't suck up water.

OK, I go in again and see that hair has lined the rollers where one of the belts goes and is obviously keeping the roller from turning. I spend another cheery half hour muttering bad language, throttling back my disgust and carefully cleaning out the hair...and try it again.

It should work.
Nope...the rollers still won't turn.

Wrestle it over on it's back again like the 600 pound Gallapagos turtle that it is and check. Oh joy, one of the belts is broken.
Who wants to bet if I can find a new belt in our small town! Anyone...?

Bingo, Amazon it is. Two days later I have my belts. Belts, I say, because I've lived with me long enough by now to know that if I only get ONE of the one that is broken either the OTHER belt will break or the new belt will snap going on. So I cut to the chase and buy two of each belt, thus ensuring that I will NEVER have to change a belt on the Big Beast again.

New belt goes on. Rollers turn. Huzzah again, this should fix the problem.
Nope. It still won't suck up that damned water.
It has more than one problem at once, I now know. Time to bust out the $2 cuss words.

By now I'm grimly stomping through the house armed with several screwdrivers, covered head to toe in disgusting dirty water and sick to death of wrestling the Big Beast. I've gone through the 6 stages of Carpet Cleaning: Shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I've seriously considering stabbing it to death with the screwdrivers I've used to take off the covers again and again, aiming for wherever the word 'easy' appears on the stupid labels. I've begged the Carpet Gods to just make it work for this last 6 foot square section so I can be done. I've threatened the thing with death by backing my '69 Plymouth over it. I've been mucking about with this hellbeast for almost 5 days now. Nothing has worked.

The Big Beast has spent most of it's time in this state:
It's taken to leaving nasty, dirty wet spots that I suspect may forever be a part of the carpet. And while we're on the subject, who the HELL lays beige carpet in a part of the country where it snows?

Husband and I stare at Big Beast wondering what it wants. I wouldn't put human sacrifice beyond it at this point. Then I see it.
"Wait--" I say. "What is that?! That wasn't there before was it?"

Husband says he has no idea. I suspect the thing is spontaneously generating weird new parts just to gaslight me. Nevertheless, since it claims to be a filter we fuss the thing open and clean it (it wasn't dirty but we do it anyway because we are firmly in the 'bargaining' stage). That'll fix it!

It doesn't.
Also, the rollers have stopped turning again.

"FIRE UP THE PLYMOUTH!" I roar at my husband. I'm backing over this SOB right now and I'll bet I can sell tickets to other homeowners at this point. I'm so exhausted and permanently filthy I'm feeling positively maniacal and I swear I'm foaming at the mouth. Don't get it on the carpet, I remind myself.

Instead I take a deep breath and turn to the Internet, making sure to use the proper search parameters..
It is absolutely NO surprise to me that 'Motherfucking' and 'Bissell' work together.

I watch several official Bissell videos for 'loss of suction'. All say the same thing and address Dumbshit 101 areas such as: make sure the tanks are seated properly, make sure it's plugged in, etc. Because by the time you resort to the Internet you haven't checked those things already 900 times, haha. All the videos offer to sell you new, expensive replacement parts. More really bad language is directed at the makers of the videos.

Finally, finally...I run across a little post in an out-of-the-way forum where someone mentions the little trap door in the uptake tank...it has a filter screen behind it that can become clogged.

Away I fly to the kitchen where I've got the Big Beast apart to check...

HALLELUJAH BROTHERS, THERE'S THE PROBLEM. I swear if the person who posted that was standing before me I'd kiss them square on the mouth. The thing is gunked up. I clean it and discover, printed on the inside of the flap door, a message to clean this area regularly--printed inside the flap so that you cannot see it when the flap is closed.

Imps and demons of Hell are loudly and vocally directed at whoever designed this particular aspect of Big Beast. More abuse is heaped upon the heads of the makers of Bissell videos that never mention this little hidden filter screen.

I take the thing out to the living room to show it to my husband, shaking the thing under his nose and griping loudly the entire time. "Look at this! Why would they print that where you can't see it?!"

He doesn't know, but he does know he doesn't want me to hold it over him and let it drip on him. One filthy human at a time, please. I run off cackling with glee at the prospect of someday NOT being entrapped in the eternal chore of carpet cleaning like Prometheus having his liver pecked out by eagles for all time.

I replace all the parts to the Big Beast, mutter a serious threat at the carpet cleaning gods and flip the switch.

WE HAVE ROLLERS TURNING AND SUCTION!

I'm past crying for joy, I'm up to growling, "Damn well BETTER, too!"

Now, of course, I have to start all over from the beginning because my carpets are laden with soap.





Wednesday, May 30, 2018

The Chicks Are Two Months Old!

This weekend will be the 8 week mark, in 3 days the chicks will go outside to live with the big chickens and Chickam will end for this year. All of this is weather permitting as we have had a REALLY wet, thunderstormy Spring this year. And putting baby chickens out in a thunderstorm just seems...well, mean.

After the chicks go out we will, of course, be putting the cam out on weekends (again, weather permitting) for Saturday or Sunday Chickams using the same YouTube channel that show the adult birds out in the chicken yard during the day, we'll announce these on our Chickam Twitter account. As we can get them we'll be giving the chickens things like watermelons and pumpkins to eat, plus the Wheel Of Food, which is always fun.

But anyway, here are updated chick pics of the two month old chicks! We hatched 5 bantam Cochin eggs I got off ebay and 3 eggs from our flock. We seem to have ended up with 4 boys and 4 girls this year.

In order of hatch, the first is Nora.

And yes, in full 'derp' mode. Because he's a rooster named Nora. Nora is a chick from our flock, I suspect that Sprinkles is mama and possibly Groot is daddy.


Next is Fireball, another rooboy, a bantam Cochin hatched from eggs I got off ebay. Fire wins the 'Gigantic Comb' award and is VERY talkative and friendly.


Bobo, another bantam Cochin, a hen. Bobo wins the 'Boneless Chicken' award this year and only wanted to melt into a puddle of chicken during picture time. The kid had to prop her up.

Sadly Bobo has molted out her superhero mask and white butt feathers, however she does had the odd white-tipped feather here and there.

Luna, another bantam Cochin hen--Luna was the chick who had pipped the wrong end of her egg and had to be assisted a bit. She's grown into a BIG ol' honkin chick.



Now Pongo, a rooboy chick from our flock. Pongo appears to have Milton, our bantam roo for a daddy and probably Tater Tot for mom.


Gumdrop (who I insist on calling 'Gumball' for some reason, probably because she's just so round), a bantam Cochin hen. Gumdrop LOVES to bite me. Probably because I am stupid and can't get her name right.


Pickle, a bantam Cochin hen. Pickle is a fearless girl who INSISTS on being petted, NOW.


Lastly is Zuul, a rooboy from our flock. Zuul probably has Milton for a daddy and Star the Red Star hen for mama.

Zuul also channeling the derp.

We had our first non-thunderstorming weekend since the hatch, so the chicks spent the day in the small run getting used to the great outdoors and letting the big chickens know that new chicks are incoming.

Meet & Greet time! As always, there was much staring.

Two hens outside the wire, Star the Red Star on the outside and half of Shake the MilleFleur Belgian d'Uccle.

Milton the  d'Uccle/bantam Cochin mix roo outside. He crowed, taking credit for ALL those babies.

Queen Elizabeak the white Light Brahma/Leghorn mix, Alice the Barred Rock, Shake on the far left POINTEDLY IGNORING the babies in disgust and the rear end of Beauty, our 12 year old Americaunas/bantam mix hen. 

Hens on the outside looking in. Sprinkles the Americanas/Kraeinkoppe mix and Bruce the black mottled Belgian d'Uccle

Groot, the Dark India Cornish Rock roo lookin' at his offspring, and old lady Beauty again.

Pong, the 15 year old white Frizzle cochin hen. Pong has done these Meet & Greets so many times it's all routine by now.

Just not impressed.

Getting Cam to come over to pose with the babies.
TRYING to get Cam to come over. The kid is an expert chicken wrangler by now.

He was afraid of them. This is the Head Roo, the chief protector of the flock, mind you.

Cam JUST GET OVER HERE FOR A SECOND SO I CAN TAKE YOUR PICTURE. For cry-yi...

This was as close as he'd get. After this he ran over to be with his hens. Probably figured that the mama hen was somewhere nearby and he was in for a broody mama-style butt whoopin'.