What do a leafblower, a bonfire, and a carbeurator have in common?

It may seem like… nothing, but to answer that riddle, let me first pose a little theory. Farmers are the best problem solvers I know. They are incredibly creative with out of the box solutions and are super quick on their feet. I would attribute this lightning fast problem solving super power to the fact that farmers deal with life and death situations on a regular basis (both human and animal) and that they have a vast array of different experience, from helping with animal births to planting crops to fixing tractors to building barns. Most farmers I know know just a little bit about everything, true jacks of all trades, and it’s my theory that that is exactly why they are such great problem solvers- they might not always know the “right” way to solve a problem, and even if they do, the “right” way may be too time intensive or too expensive to do, so they improvise. I didn’t grow up on a farm, so that sort of problem solving doesn’t come naturally to me, as enviable a skill as it is. But I have realized that the longer I find myself in a farming environment, the more things have really started to “click” for me.

I’ve been obsessed with small vehicles ever since I was a kid. Having been bullied a lot, I was always on the lookout for ways I could relate with and, for lack of a better term, have an excuse to hang around with the other kids in my neighborhood. One of them had a go-kart. My family didn’t have the resources to have frivolous things like go karts, so I spent many a summer hour digging through trash piles and seeing if I could find something, anything that I could hobble together drive. At least 50 iterations of non-functioning go-karts came out of my “workshop” (a dusty corner of our garage with no real blue collar knowledge and very few real tools to speak of). My unfulfilled childhood dream of building my own go-kart has manifested itself as an obsession with procuring tools and knowledge to work on small vehicles… and digging through my neighbors’ trash.

The first thing I excavated from the neighbor’s trash pile was a power washer and a kid’s bike that I terrifyingly hobbled together into something that somewhat resembled a mini bike. It was my first welding project, and it showed.

A while later, I traded an old drill press for a go-kart, but that became victim to another trade shortly thereafter because I didn’t have anywhere I could ride it (dang it Seattle city codes!) and I needed the floor space for a table saw to satisfy my newly found woodworking hobby. The funniest thing about all these vehicle projects though is that I still really had NO idea how any of this stuff worked. I’d figure out whatever I needed to to solve whatever problem was immediately at hand, but had no clear mental picture what the whole working system looked like. And, ironically, I still don’t. I learned about fuel filters when my friend’s RV broke down on a road trip and I was the only one who had any (none) knowledge about mechanical things. I learned about centrifugal clutches when I was trying to figure out how to make my mini bike not rocket through the garage door the moment I pulled the start cord. I learned about starters and solenoids and alternators and charging systems when I started working on my Chevy 3100 project.

I was forced to learn a few meager things about how electricity and voltage and battery power works, and how to strip and re-wire electrical components when my electric golf cart, the single most important farm tool I have, exploded a battery while I was driving up one of the hills on our property.

Ok, I don’t think anyone is surprised that the golf cart has had some struggles, I’ve put it through some pretty ridiculous challenges.

BUT, the golf cart breaking down leads us to the beginning of this story.

This ATV sat broken in my neighbors barn for six years. He’s a mechanic and had given up on it, so I'm not sure why I (a total rookie with no small engine experience) thought I'd have better luck, but I’ve always been obsessed with figuring things out, so I asked him what he might be willing to trade me for it. One case of light beer and a handshake later, it was mine. I thought if I could take this ATV and figure out what’s wrong with it, I would finally have a farm vehicle that could handle my steep hills.

If I can’t fix it, I’m afraid my golf cart will bite the dust then I’ll back to walking water back and forth across the field doing my chores in the morning, and that’s not gonna be good for anyone, because as awesome as it is to have my dream farm, it takes a long time to carry a bucket of water up 15 acres of hills several times a day on foot.

Now, I actually don’t know anything about ATV's, I've only ever even ridden them a couple of times in my life, and certainly didn’t actually know what I was doing, but by golly, with a little help from the internet, some advice from friends, and believe it or not, a leaf blower, I’ve got the sucker running up and down these Tennessee hills like they are NOTHING!

So back to the leafblower…

Along with a myriad of electrical issues, the biggest problem this ATV faced had something to do with the carbeurator. The only hiccup is that I didn’t know anything about carbeurators or how to go about dealing with this issue. Even my friend Jason Thigpen, ALSO a mechanic, couldn’t help me solve the ATV’s woes. So, feeling pretty dejected and discouraged having gotten so stuck on this project, but also desperately needing a working vehicle for chore time, I let the project sit a while. But then, last week, while I was working on burning some of the rotten wood from my orchard building project, I was using my leaf blower to light the wet wood, and something REALLY clicked in my mind. To make fire, you need a fuel source and oxygen. Adding oxygen when there’s plenty of fuel, even less than ideal fuel, or visa versa, and voila, you have fire! The only thing I knew about carbeurators was that they had something to do with the air and fuel situation on vehicles, so, back to the ATV I went. Pushing the throttle both opened the air vents on the carbeurator and added fuel. So, it followed, that if the ATV was dying every time I pushed the throttle, which was opening the air vents, it must be a fuel problem. Sure enough, one of the fuel lines was kinked. A new line and a new fuel filter (would you believe that it was the EXACT SAME fuel filter I installed in that RV 8 years prior???) and boy howdy, IT WORKED.