Ah machines...
Got the Husqvarna weedeater back from Pat yesterday, and it ran okay for about an hour... then it died mysteriously... Sigh... this was the longest that it has run since I got here. When we first met it was in about ten different pieces. Apparently Eddie had put a blade on it, (not meant for a blade) and it vibrated everything loose, stripped bolts out of their threads, busted off fuel lines and generally fucked things up. I replaced the gear head and retapped threads but couldn't get the recoil starter figured. Pat thought it was missing a Pawl, and I went to get a replacement part. At the store the guy told me that it only needed one Pawl, but ours was broken. I bought a replacement, their last in stock. I left it at Pat's as he had the thing in many different pieces, he took the carb apart and cleaned it out etc...
But he wasn't around when I delivered the parts, so I couldn't explain to him that we only need the one. He tried to install it as per his original diagnosis, and broke the only one on the island... After a week or so he managed to fabricate a new one. He reassembled the thing, tuned it up and I got it yesterday.
Not sure why it is still dying, but it might be that the clutch was damaged 2 years ago... I don't know... Thing is, if it gets bogged down at all, it sort of stutters, and then quits as though it has siezed up. It also seems to get really hot, but then these things do get pretty hot...
Anyway, I think it will do okay for a path trimmer, if it is mollycoddled along. It isn't the high powered brushwhacking fiend that we had... SOoner or later we will want another big one, but I don't see us being able to afford one in the near future.

So, I whacked the tracks in the gulch, and felt a lot better to have fulfilled that responsibility for the first time in a while...

I had hoped to whack down the grasses that had come up in the cacao field area but over lunch we talked about how with it so dry we should really go after as much mulch as we can. So, I got the tractor out and put it through its paces... Slashed a big swathe above the buses and the dollhouse... Realised what a whole lot of work it will be to rake it all up, and got to thinking about fabricating some sort of rake.
I think I can use a bunch of recycled stuff from around the place, in conjunction with the armature from the mower. It will be an awesome labour saver if I can get it to work. Kind of a pain to dismantle the mower every time we want to use the rake, but better to spend an hour doing that than 8 hours pulling on a rake.

I took the red devil up to the top paddock and picked up another load of mulch for the barn garden. There is maybe one more small load left up there, which with the one Bach and I got the idea makes about 3 loads we have taken from there...