Broken Things

 I've been busy fixing broken things.

I have lots of broken things.

Several of the runs out in the cat yard are falling apart, rotted from age.   I had to take some down as they weren't safe anymore.    Friday I made a new shelf of two quickly spray painted fence boards I had here and I had to also make new supports to hold them up, as those had rotted too.

But before I could do that I had to fix the electric hand saw.  How many decades have I had that?   Two at least.  And I got it used at the Habitat Store to begin with for $5.  The blade is stuck on.  No blade release on it and its so frozen in place I can't get it off.  So I try to sharpen it with a stone.  The cord got cut at some point too, so I had to cut it and put on a new plug.  

Well this time when I tried to use it to cut support pieces for the cat run replacement, I'd plug it into the extension cord and the circuit breaker would blow.  Great.  I finally figured out it had to be the plug.  So, I took it apart and sure enough, the positive had pulled (or burned) mostly off its connection.  I had to cut the wires down further and strip them, with just scissors, and reattach and put the plug back together and then I could cut the support boards to fit.  

So that run is now replaced but there are several others to replace.

This is my cat yard as of last week.  The cats do love it.

Today I tried to fix the kayak.   The seat straps had worn then broken and pieces were still attached by rivet to the kayak.  I needed to drill out the rivets first thing.  I'd gotten a new kayak seat and some hardware with an amazon gift card I got last Christmas.   I got a seat that clips in, so I can take it off for transport, which is what did in the original seat.

But the drill bit broke off after I drilled out the first rivet, then the drill battery went dead.   Oh well, charge it up.   I got the new hardware piece with a clip ring on it, in on both sides to hold the forward seat straps and also added a couple more hooks to the back, where a net had once attached before it tore and two of the hooks broke off.  I have a springy cord, with clips at each end, to back and forth across those hooks, to hold anything I carry in the back down.

I did not take a photo of the new seat in place yet, and I unclipped it and put it back in its storage bag, where it will stay unless I'm heading to the lake, to extend its longevity.

This is the new seat I got months ago.

One of the rivets that needs removed first

The new seat has a little storage pouch clipped to the back of it.  

One of the new hardware pieces that the forward seat straps will clip to.

I also trimmed the butterfly bush of more dead branches.  The ice storm and big freeze of this winter almost killed it.  At least half if not more is dead.  I don't know if any of it will survive.

Stevie, a neighbor street cat, was over bugging my cats from the top of the cat yard.   I made a video, with imovie again, using once again one of their audio clips.