Day 246 Nubeena Saturday 1st October 2011

Hi All,
This mornings task was to change the pump over that supplies the rainwater to top up the pools. We use rain water to top up since the creek water has a tannin colouration.
The job went reasonably smoothly since there were about 500 different fittings on the old and new pumps. The only hiccup is the electricity supply was faulty so at his stage it will have to run off extension cords until the sparkys next visit.
After mopping up the mankiness from the myriad of children in the pool area yesterday while i filled the pools with the newly functioning supply i ventured down to fit the pulley tensioner spring to the Toro ride on mower. This turned out to be a fairly simple job which did not fix the rattley sound when the blade drive was engaged. It was off with the covers over the drive assembly. I couldn't get the grub screws out of the gearbox to check the oil since some leakage was evident. The coupling and universal joints had a bit of slack so i greased them not expecting to achieve much and i was right. I adjusted the cut height to maximum to avoid collisions of the blades with the ground and headed out into the tussocky paddocks much like the one shown in previous pictures. The mower cut surprisingly well until one of the drive wheels disappeared into a heavily overgrown drainage trench. After an hour or so of crowbaring, digging, sweating and getting covered in mud I decided to do what I should have done first up. I pulled it out with the Pajero with Susan at the wheel and me driving the mower which took all of 10 seconds. Such is life.
I managed to catch the last quarter of the AFL GF after dropping in to check on the scores in the afternoon.
We officially let Ilan know today that we will be departing on the 1st of November. Susan has some suitable helpers lined up to replace us. The place ran before we were here and I am sure it will do so after we leave. We do have the option to return as well.
Community dinner was somewhat late tonight. It was the official welcome of Doris our new helper from Hong Kong. Her English seems pretty reasonable. We are scheduled to have 2 new helpers early next week also.
Anyway that's today's news.
night Folks
Cheers Simon