Getting The Yard Ready (Spring Is Here !)

Spring is a beautiful time of year. The birds start singing, trees flower and the days are warmer. To help mother nature, we cleanup the yard, rake the leaves and twigs, till the garden and flower beds and rejuvenate the lawn. To help the flower beds requires cutting new edges and putting down fresh bark mulch. To help the lawn requires dethatching the dead grass and raking up the debris. Afterwards you fertilize with weed control and hope it rains enough to keep the grass healthy. Where I live in Wilmington, MA there are water restrictions with only hand held watering hoses before 9AM and after 5PM.

Before using the lawn tractor to dethatch the lawn, I took it out of the shed and put back the battery which I take out for winter storage. I then changed the oil, oil filter, gas filter and spark plug. This year, I also had to replace the spark plug wire clip that rusted and broke off. See photos at the link below……
http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/Lawnmower141609

I also changed the oil on two lawnmowers and a snow blower while I had the time. You can get rid of the old oil by returning it to a recycle center or wait for your town to have a recycling day. See the web link below to find places that are near you …… http://earth911.com/

Next, I hooked up the utility trailer to get some bark mulch at the garden center. After hooking it up with a trailer hitch, I noticed the tail lights didn’t work. Could it be just a new bulb or were there wiring problems. After replacing a bulb the lights still didn’t work. I then used a wire tester at different places to see if there was a break in the wiring. You can also use a multimeter. It turned out that the wire connector from the trailer to the car was defective. One of the connecting plugs rusted and broke off. I bought a 4-Wire replacement kit at Walmart but found the original trailer wiring had 5 wires going into a 4-wire plug. I looked up the wire diagram online and saw that the brown wire went to both the right and left running lights of the trailer. This is why 5 wires went into a 4-wire connector (1 yellow, 1 green, 1 white and 2 connected brown). See wire diagram at the link below …..
http://www.accessconnect.com/trailer_wiring_diagram.htm

You can also see photos of the trailer wire replacement at the link below ….
http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/TrailerLights42409

I’m glad that Spring only comes once a year !

Send comments to: markryan82@comcast.net

Libraries – The Last Treasure

Library of Alexandria (300BC)
One of the last places that provide free entertainment, services and materials to borrow is the local public library. This is certainly a treasure to take advantage of in today’s economy. Check it out – This is Library Week across America (April 12 -18, 2009).

Besides books, there are discount passes to area museums, speaker programs for all ages, film nights, how to seminars, and free internet access. You can borrow books, music CDs and movie DVDs. The research librarian will assist you with finding all kinds of information.

The online catalog allows you to locate materials available at the local library or at the area library consortium. Books and materials can be ordered from other libraries and shipped to the local library within days. When they arrive you will be notified by phone or email when to pick them up. I access my local library at the web link … http://www.wilmlibrary.org/ Here you can see what new programs are offered and find information from online catalogs. You can also subscribe to the library newsletter which is sent to you by email.

I visit the library at least once a week to pickup books that I have ordered or look for new ones. At the library you can browse the shelves to see what titles or authors may pique your interest. New books are displayed upfront dealing with a current public interest such as Heart Month, Black History Month, President’s Week or even Travelogues to other countries.

I recently picked up some books on piano music from the 1920’s. Another time I saw a book on signal flags used on ships and the how to recognize a ship from their silhouette. After reading an article in the local newspaper about pirates in Wilmington, I got some books about Captain Kid and his exploits along the New England coast which I shared with my grandson.

A few years ago I was doing genealogy research and trying to construct a family tree. I was able to get a few books at the library that provided information on available resources and online genealogy data bases only available at the library. In addition, I was able to attend a special Genealogy Night offered at the Andover Public Library. I have also borrowed audio books for my next door neighbor who is partially blind. Another time, I attended an evening lecture on gardening tips and how to deal with garden insects.

Next door to the Wilmington Public Library is a small house called The Bookstore Next Door. See the link …. http://friendsbookstorenextdoor.blogspot.com/
This bookstore is run by the Friends of the Library and has a large collection of used books, CDs, DVDs for adults and children. Paperbacks are fifty cents and hard cover books are two dollars. This is quite a bargain from the original cost. I usually browse the shelves every few weeks for new items. While I am there, local residents drop off their used books for others to buy. After a few minutes I have found a couple of suspense novels for me and also some children’s books for the grand kids.

If I am looking for special books not available at the library, I try Amazon.com at the link … http://www.amazon.com/ . At this web site you can look up books by title, author and genre with a synopsis or book review. You can select the book to purchase as new or used and have it shipped to your home for a shipping charge of about $3.00. The used books are like new and sometimes cost less than a dollar.

I find reading to be an active endeavor, instead of passive, like watching TV. When you read you have to formulate the words on the page into thoughts, ideas and pictures. You use your own experiences and imagination to construct the scene and the action.

Sometimes the books that you are reading become relevant to current events. I am now reading the book “The Edge of Battle”, By Dale Brown. See Ammazon.com for a review … http://www.amazon.com/Edge-Battle-Dale-Brown/dp/0060753080/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239072320&sr=8-1
The book is about smugglers of drugs and people on the Mexican Border. About immigration, border security and international terrorism. The book describes currents weapons used as well as the politics between local, state and national governments.

Recently I saw another book that piqued my interest while reading the Boston Globe book reviews. See the link … http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/03/31/pearl_returns_to_boston_with_dickens/
It is entitled “The Dante Club” By Matthew Pearl. The author lives in Cambridge and has written several Mystery Novels about the local area. The Dante Club is a murder mystery which takes place in Boston in 1865 and involves Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes. They discover the local pastor of the Old North Church murdered in an under ground church crypt. The Globe recently had an article about a local archeologist finding historical evidence in the crypt at the Old North Church. See the link … http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/06/resurrecting_a_storied_past/

I looked up some information about Libraries online and found that the three largest libraries are here in the US. The name of the libraries and the number of volumes they hold are: (Library Congress - 29,550,914), (Harvard University – 15,181,349) and the (Boston Public – 14,933,349).

In ancient times the largest library was the Royal Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt. This was built by King Ptolemy II about 300 BC. Carl Sagan in his TV Series “Cosmos” estimated that Alexandria had over a million volumes. The first books were papyrus scrolls. After the library burned during the rule of Julius Caesar, Marc Anthony supposedly gave to Cleopatra 200,000 scrolls taken from the Library of Pergamum for the Library in Alexandria, as a wedding gift. See the link …. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

To prevent future catastrophes from destroying great books, statues, buildings and works of art, a digital library has been established called the Perseus Digital Library. See the link …. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/

I recently saw a movie on TV, The Time Machine (2002). The time machine inventor is hurtled 800,000 years into the future where earth has been destroyed along with all books and technology and people must start over again as hunter gatherers. The only thing that survives from the past is a Hologram of a Man that has the entire knowledge of mankind in his digital memory http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1807432839/details

However, back in the year 2009 and I still have my tangible books that I can hold in my hand, which allow me to imagine the past, present and future from the comfort of my non-digital easy chair.

All comments appreciated. email to : markryan82@comcast.net