Your recent repair? 2013 - 2020

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 Ten bucks...Mole Chaser....Harbor Freight. Attachment 20639 Solar powered, too!

What about opossums

[NW-Bound]

Speaking of moles, I still remember my experience with one in a previous home more than 30 years ago.

My home front yard was terribly torn up by a mole digging under the Tiff lawn that I carefully planted. I tried a few things, and nothing worked. One time, I was gas bombing them, and my neighbor came out to watch.

After a few minutes, he cried out "OMG". We saw smoke coming out from his yard, actually under one of his yucca shrubs. This was about 50 feet from where I was gas bombing. So, he went back to his yard, and discovered that the mole already ate all of his yucca's roots, and the plant flopped over when he touched it.

So, I gave up on the mole. And then, one day all activities stopped. Either it moved on, or got caught by a neighborhood cat or an owl.

[bjorn2bwild]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Speaking of moles........the mole already ate all of his yucca's roots, and the plant flopped over when he touched it.

That little varmint was a gopher, far more destructive in my experience. Plus a tad easier to deal with. Moles are carnivorous.

[NW-Bound]

Thanks for the correction. You are indeed correct, as a Web site says that "A mole's diet primarily consists of earthworms and other small invertebrates found in the soil, and a variety of nuts.", and as we already established that this burrowing animal ate plant roots, it was definitely a gopher.

I am just glad that my above encounter with either one has not repeated.

[daylatedollarshort]

FYI - Not to try to out do anyone in terms of yard critter destruction, but our rats ate right through the outer walls of this Biostack compost bin:


We put wire on the bottom to keep out critters per the instructions and they said not a problem. We'll just gnaw right through the sides.

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud What about opossums

To control or bbq?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

[Ronstar]

Not much of a repair - DW's Garmin wasn't getting some states. Found out that the new map update demands more memory than her device has. Took one of my GoPro micro SD cards, formatted it, put it into the Garmin, re-uploaded the new maps and all is well

[imoldernu]

Worse than, and smarter than moles:

Pocket Gophers!
Almost impossible to get rid of. Look for the map of the underground system. They dig "safe" compartments... Images:

https://www.google.com/search?q=pock...w=1024&bih=681
Years ago, my neighbor in Florida... frustrated by huge mounds and continuous digging decided to drown the little guy. Ran his garden hose for three days straight, and got rid of the him.
... for three days... New mound on the fourth.

[zinger1457]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronstar Not much of a repair - DW's Garmin wasn't getting some states. Found out that the new map update demands more memory than her device has. Took one of my GoPro micro SD cards, formatted it, put it into the Garmin, re-uploaded the new maps and all is well

Lucky that you have a SD card option. I have a similar problem with my one year old TomTom. Unfortunately it doesn't have a memory card slot and since the full maps won't fit I'm forced to load partial maps (zones).

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zinger1457 Lucky that you have a SD card option. I have a similar problem with my one year old TomTom. Unfortunately it doesn't have a memory card slot and since the full maps won't fit I'm forced to load partial maps (zones).

I had a similar issue with nuvi. Of course it happened the day we wanted to leave. Just used cell phone for that trip. But what Garmin support told me was priceless.

The SD cards are slow so they download the map to your hard drive, then another asynchronous process writes the map data to the SD card. The tech I talked with suggested it might take several more hours for all the map data to be copied to the SD card. This was after the Garmin application said it was done.

He showed me in windows how to watch the I/O activity(process monitor->devices) to the SD card so I knew it was done. Sure enough about 2 hours after the interface said it was done, I/O to that drive stopped.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 If the pan is dry, try spraying that rubbery Flex Seal into the pan: As Seen on TV Flex Seal - Walmart.com

+1 idea.

I used something similar to this, automotive spray rubber type of undercoating to waterproof a fiberglass patch inside a car trunk. Got it at Menard's (auto stores would have it).

It did not smell after 1-2 days of drying.
I would not use roofing tar/patch as that stuff smells for a long time like months.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daylatedollarshort FYI - Not to try to out do anyone in terms of yard critter destruction, but our rats ate right through the outer walls of this Biostack compost bin: We put wire on the bottom to keep out critters per the instructions and they said not a problem. We'll just gnaw right through the sides.

We used to compost, as I like to not waste and it was a good addition to the vegetable garden. Howver, I noticed after a while we were just feeding the raccoons/possum/other creatures , so we stopped that.

Now we just dump coffee grounds on the garden, as a token effort.

[Sunset]

Today I replaced the spark plugs, and 2 of the 4 wires (they seemed to be cracked). All are deeply recessed, about 6 inches down from the top in a 2003 Hyundai sonata.

The weird thing was when I took out 1 of the old spark plugs, it had a bunch of oil on it, at the top of its threads, it was the only one like that. There was not a pool of oil at the bottom of the recess.

I am wondering if there is a small gasket leak nearby, as the top is sealed by the rubber top of the sparkplug connector and the recessed tube itself is shiny clean like stainless steel.

When I was done, the car started up and idled smoothly

[Nodak]

This may seem a little extreme but a friend of mne had to resort to this to get rid of gophers on his farmstead.

Gopher Control Rodent Blaster Hot Shot Propane Remote Pest Control for damaging ground squirrels, gophers, ground hogs and other problem rodents.

[RockyMtn]

Today I fix the @#&*! Xmas lights yet again. Half of a string goes out then a whole string. It's enough to turn me into scrooge. Darn things last about two weeks!

[M Paquette]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nodak This may seem a little extreme but a friend of mne had to resort to this to get rid of gophers on his farmstead.

Oh, heck. We don't even have gophers around here, and I bet I know a half-dozen people who would want to buy this anyway...

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RockyMtn Today I fix the @#&*! Xmas lights yet again. Half of a string goes out then a whole string. It's enough to turn me into scrooge. Darn things last about two weeks!

Might as well post it here as well:

Related to this, I updated an old thread on my success with LED Christmas lights:

http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ml#post1531671

-ERD50

[ls99]

Our 3 yo Xmas tree with LEDs has lost a short segment. I refuse to chase down the problem. When 1/2 the tree's lights stop emitting, the tree will be junked.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ls99 Our 3 yo Xmas tree with LEDs has lost a short segment. I refuse to chase down the problem. When 1/2 the tree's lights stop emitting, the tree will be junked.

I have one of those rope lights I wrap around a small tree outside for Christmas. After using for 8 yrs, I noticed a section about 2 feet long is dark in a 12 ft rope.
I just put it at the back for now

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ls99 Our 3 yo Xmas tree with LEDs has lost a short segment. I refuse to chase down the problem. When 1/2 the tree's lights stop emitting, the tree will be junked.

Blasphemy! This is the repair thread!

-ERD50